@Twinturbo
"The entering driver isn’t doing anything illegal"
In the case of a driver in a right turn lane who stops everyone while he trys to cross over to another lane, he is guilty of a traffic violation. If you fail to procede as you are suppose to in a designated lane and obstruct other drivers who are, I believe that constitutes failure to yield right of way and/or obstructing traffic.
http://www.njlawman.com/new-jersey-traffic-laws/obstruction-of-traffic-39-4-67.htm
Just one state law but most are similar.
To those who say not let them in, tell that to the one in front of you. Those who can’t see over the dash, can’t estimate the front of their bumper, will likely back off instead of taking a chance.
Most states have have a law that would say, “improper lane changes”.
Most states have have a law that would say, “improper lane changes”.
Good comments. Thanks to everybody. Yes, cutting across 4 lanes of traffic is illegal. In Calif at least, you have a drive a certain distance – I think it is 100 feet – before you can change lanes.
Not let them in? I sort of would feel bad not to anybody in, as sometimes they’ll do the right thing, turn into the right hand lane and go through the intersection. If nobody ever let these side road sidlers in, they might in fact simply not be able to enter the road at all, during commute times. They’d be waiting for 20 or 30 minutes or more. And as other’s said above, sometimes it is a car in front of me that lets them in.
Instead of going through the intersection, then making a U-turn, and come back & turn right, the side road sidler should turn right at the cross street and make a U-turn? They’d have to go much further than 100 yards out of their way if they did that. There’s no place to make a U-turn on that road for quite a ways.
Alert the police to monitor the intersection during commute times for this? Ok, that I can do. It may work. However, last time I alerted the police about something like this, last year, at a different intersection, a business owner placed an advertising sign on the pedestrian island, which blocked the view of oncoming traffic. It’s illegal to place a private advertising sign in a public easement of course. Especially if it creates a safety problem. And the sign was there 7 days a week 24 hours a day. For months. So I showed this sign to a police officer one day who happened to be driving by, and he told me that I should go to the business myself and ask the owner to remove the sign. I did, and the owner refused.
There’s more to this story. One day the sign disappeared. My neighbor, he saw what happened. One day, earlier in the spring, a moving truck was slowly crossing the street, and this lady in a car was coming down the cross road, and there was a big “bang” collision. It was a glancing blow, but the lady who hit the truck was slightly injured. Apparently either the truck driver or the lady mentioned the sign to the police as contributing to the accident, as the sign was removed the next day.
So I don’t have a lot of confidence asking for police help will be of much use. But it is easy to do, so I’ll give it a try.
Where I live the police are pretty responsive to a ticket writing opportunity.
It’s the one thing Wash. DC guv’ment does like a well oiled machine.
Sorry bought that @TWINturbo. All these tubos around are confusing me in my old age along with my un willingness to read people accurately, draw unwarranted conclusions and generally make unfair statements. Will try to do better next time…but no promises !
Remember that you cannot control the actions of others, you can only control how you react. Accept that these things are part of driving. And, frankly, we all have to do the best we cabn with road and intersection designs that carry far, far more volume than they were ever designed to, and often in surrounding controls that weren’t there when they were designed. Like a stop light that didn;t exist when the intersection was created. And the problem is often exascerbated by other drivers who through the tendency to make things worse won;t show any consideration and let the other car in. More fights start that way…
Or, you could move to the country.
Many years ago, I saw something funny on the freeway.
Two guys kept cutting each other off.
Finally, one guy pulled in front and slammed on the brakes, forcing the other guy to stop.
They both jumped out of their cars and proceeded to duke it out.
I drove on by, but I saw that each of them had landed several solid punches.
It was an evenly matched fight . . . LOL
Good story @db4690! Reminds me of this crazy co-worker I had, what, 15 years ago or so. If he didn’t like how somebody was driving, like if they cut him off, or especially if they didn’t immediately take off when the light turned green, if it was in the afternoon commute, he’d follow them right to their home, right into their driveway, into their garage if need be. Then when they got out of the car he’d yell at them various obsensities, and stating all the driving offenses he thought they committed! lol
I had a boss who drove on the sidewalk when traffic was moving too slowly for him. He drove about 60mph on the sidewalk, in a 4 banger, 4 door VW sedan. I was the passenger. I only drove with him that one time.
@GeorgeSanJose did anybody report that coworker to the police? It sounds like he broke more than 1 law.
“Here’s the problem. Another driver is attempting to enter the street from a gas station driveway on the right, about 5 car lengths from the cross walk. So I let him in. Then, when the light turns green, instead of turning into the right hand lane and going through the intersection, with me following, he makes me and everybody else wait as he crosses all 4 lanes of traffic to enter the left hand turn lane so he can turn left.”
That’s almost how I enter traffic every time I get gas. Almost. I get gas at Shell or Exxon stations on a one way street going south. If I get gas at the Shell station, I can take the immediate left and get on the one way road north. I pull to the back of the station (farthest from the intersection) and wait for a break in traffic. Then I scoot across 3 lanes to the turn-around. If traffic is too heavy, I pull into the one-way east road from the gas station and head off to the northbound road. A little planning goes a long way to keeping your fellow travelers happy. I would also consider going around the block in your situation. It would probably be about as quick as impeding traffic and still waiting for another light cycle.
@db4690 … no, not that I know of. If somebody (I didn’t know) did that to me though, followed me into my driveway then yelled obscenities at me, I’d be tempted to let the police know about it. It is a form of stalking. Maybe one of his victims did, but he never said. He did come in with a black eye on time. You’d have to know this guy. He was sort of crazy from the get-go about things that might be annoying but most of us would just ignore because they wouldn’t be a recurring thing. “Like Water of a Duck’s Back” is a phrase he had never heard apparently.
Following someone home to yell at them is a good way to get arrested or shot these days. When did he have his fatal heart attack though?
Following someone home could get a person in big trouble; either legally or physically. Oklahoma, among others, has several laws permitting self protection and it’s possible for someone to get legally shot if they go on someone’s property and threaten them.
A brother in law who lives in Texas and recently retired as an independent contractor hauled fuel for a living and told me about some of the things motorists would do around him.
Some drivers tick me off to no end anyway, but the thought of having to put up with it while having 10,000 gallons of fireball in a trailer right behind at highway speeds would test my sanity…
About the only thing you can … ‘DO’ … about the traffic blocker is report their license number.
Probably nothing will be done that time, but enough of those reports will generate some interest in that intersection.
– and–
You just may find that it’s the same offender(s) repeatedly.
Then something will get done when they see the same license appear in multiple reports.
About the only thing you can .. 'DO' .. about the traffic blocker is report their license number. Probably nothing will be done that time, but enough of those reports will generate some interest in that intersection.
I guess if you live in an area where it doesn’t occur often…but here in New England…I see it at least 10 times a day…EVERY DAY. It’s so common…and I’ve seen police cars do it.
Mike , that’s probably the cold hard truth.
I’ve made some bone-head moves in the past that…only in 20/20 hind-sight and re-anilyzation do I come up with the logical answer as to what ‘‘should’’ have been done. THAT doesn’t occur in the heat of the moment and rarely comes to mind untill after an incident.
This is why I’m telling my 14 year old, soon-to-be driver , to continually run scenarios in her head so as to commit potential actions to habbit mostly because the mind doesn’t work as fast as the traffic and surrounding happenings…she’ll need to be prepared ahead of time for many of those.
( this is how we learn to fly a plane. Constantly re-re-re thinking the probabilities so it’s habbit if it happens. )