Wow, that is a really strange layout.
Psh, darn kids and their motor carriages. A good old horse & buggy would have no problem navigating that perfectly sensible route.
A few places around here have gone to flashing yellow for turn lanes, which are great, but the entrance to where I live is on a road that is way to busy for the average citizen to judge and navigate the turn safely, with two lanes of oncoming traffic are traveling well over 50 MPH. That is also one of the intersections with different timing/pattern programs depending on the time of day, which can be super frustrating.
The one good thing our a-hole of a former mayor did for San Diego was to get rid of all the red light cameras. Some of the suburbs still have them but none in SD proper.
Try being on a small motorcycle at 5AM and not being heavy enough to trip the light at all. We have some cool cops in my town. I once had a police car pull in behind me when I was in a left turn lane, then pull out to go straight after the light turned. Heâd pulled in behind me just to trip the light.
Our lights tend to use radar to tell them that something is there, and the piezo-electric/induction (I forget which) strips to gauge the volume of traffic. So if one car pulls up at a red light while the other road has plenty of traffic moving on it, the light will wait until a gap in the traffic before changing.
This is especially useful for people on mopeds, bikes, et al, since it means that they still register as they approach.
They also use radar on modern pedestrian crossings to make sure that everyone has finished crossing before changing the lights back to green for road traffic.
edit hereâs a pic from the net of the radar guns at a pedestrian lightâŚ
Pedestrians have right of way on the footpath - including driveways. So you can take your aggressive-passive-aggressive âdrive as close as you can, slam on your brakes and give me a dirty lookâ routine and shove it where it hurts the most.
Most car parks are on private land in the UK (things like supermarket lots, etc) which means that theyâre exempt from the rules of the Highway Code. What a lot of drivers donât realise is that this means they have zero right of way. I could, if I wanted, take a table and chairs and have a lovely picnic in the middle of the carpark exit, and the only people who have the legal right to remove me are the land owners
Donât just blindly start slowing down because you come around a curve and the traffic message board is lit up. Itâs over a half mile down the road from that point and you canât even read what it says right then. But all of you should know what it says. Itâs the same message that has been up there for over three weeks, telling you once again about the exit they had to shift, which is about two miles further down the highway.
Oh, for crying out loud. We get a little bit of rain and that causes a two-mile backup that coincidentally just happens to end at that same point where the same message board is displaying that same message?
Â
(on different day than the above:)
You might be skilled enough that you can ride your motorcycle on the highway at the 90-110 mph you were doing when you passed me, but passing me by driving in between the two lanes of cars going in our direction is just stupid and dangerous.
All it will take is one person deciding to suddenly change lanes without signaling, and you know that at some point someone will, and there will be no way youâll be able to slow down or stop in time. The sight of you flying over the vehicle you hit will look pretty spectacular for about five seconds, but will be replaced by people slamming on their brakes to try and avoid running over you as you land on the road in front of them. If you somehow survive, you better pray no one else dies because youâre in a hurry.
If you have to swerve back into your lane, you might want to put the phone down and stop texting. Especially when youâre on the freeway going 75 mph.
People who do that here get slapped with a hefty fine, even if the car isnât moving at the time.
Motorbike cops have even been known to ride between lanes while cars are banked up at lights and peer through windows. I got pinged early on because it was dark and he saw my face lit up by my phone screen.
People here are supposed to get hit with a hefty fine too. Unfortunately, the police arenât always on the spot to catch the idiots. Last month they specifically patrolled an area and caught over 40 violators in two hours.
