if you leave “many people” in the breakdown lane fuming and you are “smiling and waving” you may be doing something wrong. your state ment that, “fully 2/3 of the people I ve seen lately never check their mirrors, turn their head to look nor stop their cell phone conversation”, seems to be a wild exaggeration. it almost sounds like you enjoy proving your point to merging traffic.
small roundabouts in moderate traffic work well. the multi lane, high traffic free for alls are not so hot
WE have two local communities around here that planned well. The entire one square block of downtown is a roundabout. Even if you enter at one corner, there is plenty of room to get in you needed lane to exet the roundabout.
They put in three that I know of, that had to torn up the next year, because semis could not make the sharp turn.
Poor engineering caused that. Don’t they have some minimun standard. Just because this roundabout is fivwe miles from the next one…the semi’s still need X number of feet to turn in.
Yosemite
small roundabouts in moderate traffic work well. the multi lane, high traffic free for alls are not so hot
The problem is they are built for moderate traffic…but then they grow rapidly and they are no longer work well or even safe. But by now it’s too late to do anything, unless you want 2-3 hour commutes for a couple of years…plus possibly taking land and businesses to fix the problem. Rt 2 rotary in Concord MA is one such rotary. I avoid it like the plague when I have to travel through Concord.
@wesw , sorry to disagree but I think Mustangman actually underestimating the people’s number who is busy on their phone, food etc.while"merging" on the highways. Same goes for the people who is busy checking their phones while the traffic light turns green and then they get upset if anybody dares to honk a horn at them…
no need to apologize, disagreement isn t a bad thing. you may be right. I avoid high traffic areas to avoid the madness, so I may not notice it as much.
I for one keep my eyes on the road. people often tell me they saw me driving but I don t see them, I m busy observing what all the cars are doing, not who s in them.
now that I think about it, I have to protect myself from crazy driving often. the other day a car in front of me went to pass about 6 cars at once on a curvy two lane rd because they had to go 5 under the limit and were impatient.
I saw the trouble coming and slowed way down and pulled off the road ready to go in the field.
they were not even close to making it. if the carscoming the other way had notpulled onto the shoulder there would have been a horrible head on collision.
but they would not have gotten me because I was gonna head out in the field
One of the worst examples of traffic engineering (IMO anyway) is in a small city near where I live. The city is intersected by 2 major 4-lane highways. The east/west route is posted 45 but the usual rate of speed, if it’s moving, is about 27 MPH.
Not many years ago officials announced a plan to add a center turn lane to alleviate some of the clogging and everyone was all in favor of it.
Right off the bat I saw a problem. Widening the east/west road meant shaving some residential and business properties on both sides. My prediction at the time was that they were not going to shave any off of a certain stretch because on one side an extremely wealthy family had a residence there (a.k.a. mansion) and on the opposite side was a long time retired state senator’s residence.
End result? An hourglass lane configuration where 6 lanes merge to 4 and then to 5. Approaching from the west towards the north/south road means the inside lane runs straight into a concrete median with a small sign advising drivers to veer to the right to avoid smacking the median.
That median also effectively cuts off a couple of residential streets so residents approaching from the west cannot turn and have to circle around to get home.
Not one inch of land was shaved from a roughly 2 block long area and being a cynic, I’d say that a boatload of money on one side and the fact that the highway is named after the ex-senator who lives on the other side may have had something to do with it… 
Traffic circles beat the hell out of those triangular intersections that became popular in the 70’s. You can never truly tell who has the ROW, and the only real benefit is that you can put up “yield” signs instead of stop signs…and this only helps if there is almost no traffic.
As this thread seems to be going into “mis-engineered roads” territory, let me nominate the Squirrel Hill Entry/Exit/Tunnel SNAFU. Anyone local to SW PA knows this already; I’ll recap.
You have I-376 going down from 3 lanes to 2 to go into a tunnel. About 0.5 mile from the tunnel, you have an entrance where traffic (without benefit of acceleration on-ramp) has to merge into heavy commuter traffic going ~65 MPH, AND get over one lane to get through the tunnel. NOW, about 0.3 miles from the tunnel, there’s a right exit, so you simultaneously have exiting traffic merging RIGHT to get off, mixing with the entering traffic merging left!
Oh, and then there’s a tunnel right after all this. Kind of anti-climactic, actually.
Why on earth they didn’t put the exit FIRST is anyone’s guess, especially seeing as how the entrance they do have is so bad.
[/rant]
@wesw, I guess you are driving the way I do. I am also very observant what is going on around me. I have learned to be extra cautious because I often ride my scooter and I trust the other drivers even less while on it compared to when I am in my car…
Speaking of nuts on the road, I was driving south in Minneapolis Thursday on I-35, 65 mph. I looked in my mirror and saw a guy coming up behind me with his arm out the drivers window, and his head, and his upper chest, hanging out the window, and waving his arm. It was one of the strangest things I ever saw. I thought maybe his windshield of fogged or something but no. Can’t imagine the wind in your face going that fast, not to mention bugs. He went by me and continued on down the road and I lost sight of him but I really expected to see him on the side of the road. What posesses people sometimes I’ll never know.
oh my @Bing, I have a confession to make. i used to do that. when i got off work in the summer, and was covered in sweat and the truck was hot, i would some times hang my head out the window for a bit in order to cool down. my truck was conducive to this and it wasn t hard, i just leaned my head out. my side vent would block the air around my mouth enough for me to breath and i always wore safety or sun glasses when i did this, but my better half was horrified and embarrassed, while my daughter was amused.
i learned this from my dog, so i sometimes barked too.
“What posesses people sometimes I’ll never know”
Well, perhaps he was…possessed.
There are certain people for whom an exorcism would be a good idea…
;-))
@wesw,
That is fine as long as you do not bite.
no biting… I was barking for joy!
In the city I lived in until I retired in 1997, there was a very unfortunate Interstate problem.
There was an important entrance/exit ramp for a busy local street.
There was no acceleration nor deceleration lane for either entering or exiting cars. And, they weren’t far apart. So, to exit, one had to be in the right lane as you passed the entering cars.
Who seemed to think you were supposed to move left, but then they made no effort to let you move back right to exit if you did move left.
So, I quickly learned I simply could not move left if I was exiting there. Even with my right turn signal on, they seemed to think they had the right of way when entering and I was supposed to move left. Gosh, did I get a lot of finger curses! And, a lot of close calls.
Though entering cars were not driving correctly, in the end I think it’s bad design.
There was no acceleration nor deceleration lane for either entering or exiting cars. And, they weren't far apart. So, to exit, one had to be in the right lane as you passed the entering cars.
The same design for the I-93 and I-95 clover-leaf intersection. Heading North in I-95 and then if you want to head North on I-93 you need to be all the way over to the right…and then merge with the traffic coming from I-93 South onto I-95. During rush hour it’s a nightmare. That cloverleaf will see over 80k cars a day.
Most people are inconsiderate, not out of ignorance but they are always in a hurry or otherwise involved. Inconsideration comes from one simple fact. Most people spend most if their time not thinking of others. They are thinking if themselves. Unfortunately, only fear is the consistent motivating incentive to display good driving habits.
There was no acceleration nor deceleration lane for either entering or exiting cars.
That describes 128 and Route 1 here in eastern MA. A hairpin turn and it dumps you out into traffic going 60-70 mph. No merge lane at all. The exits are the same. Decelerate from 60 down to 20 to make the hairpin turn and then dumps you onto the highway with boatloads of traffic that are unwilling to yield. If you are merge challenged, you will sit there for a long time waiting…
I had a business trip in the midwest with a couple of colleagues that grew up here and apparently never traveled very far from home. At one point, we were heading for the freeway when one guy commented how strange the road was; only one lane and no other traffic to be seen. It’s the entrance ramp for the freeway! It was about 1/2 mile long…a concept they could not fathom…
It is simple, the highway designs are bad. While driving in Europe on the highway you will notice, that the off ramps always positioned before the on ramps. There is at least 1/2 km distance in between them. The other design feature is that both on and off ramps are on the right side of the road. (except GB) So the left hand lanes are really for thru traffic.
A few years ago a traffic ordinance went into effect requiring drivers to slow and move as far as possible away from emergency vehicles including tow trucks parked on the side of the road. At the time I could not understand why the law was passed when any driver with the brains of a fruit fly knows to do this. Yesterday I discovered why. I was on the 55mph 4 lane 2 way highway at legal speed when I saw multiple blue and red flashing lights ahead in the breakdown lane. I was already in the left lane as I was approaching a left exit. I slowed to 40mph. As I almost reached the 2 cars and 4 police vehicles a large pick-up roared past me in the right lane! It was driven by a 20 something female with a big smirk on her face. WTH! I now understand why after 100+ years of motor vehicles we now need laws like this. As far as I know before the law it was still required to slow and move over if possible when passing parked emergency and assistance vehicles.
2014 Oregon Driver Manual:
Approaching an Emergency Vehicle or Tow Truck:
If you are on a road with two or more lanes of traffic and you approach
an emergency vehicle, tow truck or roadside assistance vehicle that is
stopped with warning lights on, you must change lanes so you do not
drive next to the stopped vehicle. If making a lane change is unsafe or you
are on a road with one lane in each direction, you must reduce your speed
by at least 5 miles per hour under the posted speed limit and give the
emergency vehicle as much room as safely possible.
When you approach emergency scenes, slow down and be prepared to
stop. Do not drive over unprotected fire hoses unless directed to do so by a
fire department official or police officer at the scene.