Driving PSA…
From XKCD, a public safety announcement about driving: random drivers can’t grant you the right of way as a gift.
Yes, yes, yes, yes to the moon and back. I thought no one else noticed this! Vermont drivers are unusually “nice” in this regard and it drives me bonkers.
I was just explaining this to my son, a new driver, a couple of months ago. There’s a left turn at a one-way stop onto a busy road near my house that I do several times a week that is partially blind to oncoming traffic and you’ve really gotta commit when you do pull out because everyone’s doing 5-7+ mph over the limit coming around the curve. So, you end up sitting there for a bit and drivers coming from your right who are going to turn left in next to you will often see this and try to wave you through before they turn.
But you can’t grant right of way like that! I can’t trust that they’ve checked if oncoming traffic is ok and that no one is trying to sneak around them on the right into the lane I’m supposed to be turning into (something that happens frequently at this intersection, and at speed). (There are also bikes and pedestrians to keep track of.) All this presumably nice gesture does is make the situation more dangerous for me because I now feel socially obligated to accept their favor and time pressure to be quick about it. But instead I decline and insistently wave them through, the other driver possibly now offended at having their good deed refused and thinking I’m the asshole.
Just take the right of way when it’s yours and cede it when it’s not. That’s it — keep it predictable. That’s like 95% of driving right there.
Discussion 18 comments
I sent that comic to all of my driving kids when it came out. It's basically how I got into my first accident as a teenager.
Oh man, nice drivers and this situation is even worse when you’re on a bike.
And even more worse when you are walking.
100 times yes. Thought it was just me.
Oh man I feel so seen! I hate when people do this. And they like get kind of mad when I don’t take them up on it. But brother I can’t see what’s coming and won’t take you up on it. Don’t make me feel bad about that so you can feel better about yourself.
I know, but an exception in Bangkok. There are probably lots of places like it, but a place I used a few times was a U-Turn in front of never ending three lanes of oncoming traffic. I don’t know how it exactly works, but every so often the oncoming traffic slows then stops to let a number of cars do the U-turn. Then after enough time it starts again
In traffic school I learned that this is called a “Good Samaritan accident”
This is irritating as hell even in situations where it isn't dangerous. At a 4-way stop, 25 MPH in a residential district, I get people waving me through all the time, even though I obviously stopped well after they did. They'll smile politely and wave me through and I WON'T MOVE. Follow the goddamn rules, it's quite simple.
And don't get me started on the failure to understand zipper merges...
I told my new-driver kids, “Don’t be polite, be predictable”.
I look at it as they're being nice to one person in front of them, but a jerk to everyone behind them.
It seems to make these nice people mad, but I wait out their gyrations with no reaction. It’s safest.
This also applies when as a pedestrian when you're crossing a busy street! I've confused so many "generous" drivers when I decline to cross the street when they slow down to let me cross these types of intersections.
I want to add to your note on folks driving 5 to 7+ over the posted limit. I recently learned, via Killed by a Traffic Engineer by Wes Marshall, that speed limits have historically been set by doing a traffic study and setting the limit based on how fast the traffic is going. Since everyone tends to drive 5 to 10 over the limit, we increase the limit every time we do a speed study. This practice has, for the most part, been changed, but we haven't necessarily lowered the limits.
This, this, this! I just watched this happen last week: I was in the right lane of a two-lane road and the car in front of me stopped dead in the middle of traffic to let someone out of a parking lot. That car pulled out of the lot to head northbound-- slowly, I might add-- and boom: a motorcyclist hit her front left quarterpanel, flipped through the air, and slammed into the concrete. Luckily everyone was okay, but there was absolutely no way the motorcyclist nor the driver pulling out from the lot could have seen each other, and of course the "Good Samaritan" immediately pulled around the accident and drove off without ever checking to see if anyone was hurt.
Comic appears to show a horrendously poorly designed intersection.
As a cyclist this happens to me regularly. I'm sure they think I'm a terrible person because I will wave them on in an annoyed fashion every time. (And, yes, it is annoying because usually we would have both already been through the intersection if they had just kept driving as they're supposed to.)
Sometimes it isn't "nice" drivers, but "I'm not sure who has right of way" drivers.
Yep — I totalled a car I love in a really similar scenario while being "car that they are waving you into the path of"
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