- cross-posted to:
- fuck_cars
- cross-posted to:
- fuck_cars
Alt text:
This PSA brought to you by several would-be assassins who tried to wave me in front of speeding cars in the last month and who will have to try harder next time.
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When driving: Don’t be nice, be predictable.
You can be nice, just make sure you think about what you’re actually doing before doing it.
Letting a car go in front in the situation above: you’re probably causing an accident.
Letting a car go in heavy traffic when there’s one lane each way and everyone’s stopped already anyway: won’t cost you much time and you’ve allowed that person to move on with their life instead of being permanently stuck at an intersection he’s never going to be able to get out of unless someone yields.
I live close to a few intersections where if no one is nice and yields, it’s impossible to join unless you barge your way in and hope people stop. But to be fair, these aren’t designed like death traps like the one above.
think about what you’re actually doing before doing it.
That’s too much thinking for most people.
That goes for the driver that’s being waived through, too.
I was gonna lose my mind reading some of these comments. Thank you for being sensible.
The majority of cases where one could politely let someone through are not going to be on highways like this.
It’s also ridiculous to assume that the driver that you’re letting through would just stop checking for oncoming traffic because you waved them through.
Driving is one of those things where we’re supposed to be human - make choices, act sensibly, think about what we’re doing and adapt to others around us. But often people assume it’s something entirely deterministic - “if the light is green I’m going to launch forward even if there’s still traffic moving past me and I’m going to get hit or hit someone, because green means I HAVE to go”.
Being polite to others, asides from the nicety of it, is often more positive to everyone on the road than going “I have the right of way so I won’t let anyone in” and allows traffic as a whole to move with less issues. But some people go way too hard on the mentality that every road user other than them is stupid and stop acting like humans because they assume others won’t be able to cope. Which usually complicates traffic for everyone.
There’s a roundabout in my daily commute in which at the end of the afternoon 80% of drivers are coming from and going to the same direction and there’s usually heavy traffic in that specific direction that blocks the roundabout. Often, drivers who are approaching the roundabout to go to a different direction will signal their intention, and users already inside the roundabout will give way - even if they technically have the right of way and don’t have to - because those users aren’t going their direction and will only increase the number of cars stuck if they’re not allowed through. Roundabout users being polite effectively makes traffic as a whole go more smoothly and everyone benefits. Sometimes someone inside the roundabout will be an ass and not let people through - and the result is always that everyone is stuck for more time because there are now cars inside the roundabout which could’ve already vacated it which are stuck behind someone who could easily let them through.
you dont have two lane roads in your town? i sure do and this is a real issue. the driver pulling into traffic cannot see the car coming along at higher speed.
you dont have two lane roads in your town? i sure do and this is a real issue. the driver pulling into traffic cannot see the car coming along at higher speed.
This is the way.
Yeah, this had fucking better be the top comment!
Not mutually exclusive
This happens to me every other day. Ffs please don’t be polite, just drive by the rules. I hate it when cars stop in the middle of the road and you have to wait for them to start driving again because you often can’t know i f they are being polite of if they are just adjusting google maps and continue to drive.
I especially hate when you’re waiting to cross and people slow down to a stop and then wave you across, but there was no-one behind them.
You could have just carried on at the same speed and we’d both have got on with our day sooner.
I face away or even walk away from crosswalks as needed. Entirely abates intentions to give pedestrians the right of way when there’s apparently no intention to cross in the first place.
Go so far as to time my approaches to intersections accordingly. Can’t say the strategy has ever failed - even the Mother Teresa of driving isn’t going to wave somebody who pretty much isn’t there. (YMMV, somewhat density & volume dependent.)
Sometimes though I am waiting to cross and then the last car in the train slows down, like noooo
This is every day of my life and I’m like “no, fucker, there’s a space behind you just GO”
When driving don’t be nice. Be predictable.
When driving, being predictable is being nice. Being nice is an accident waiting to happen.
… That sounded better in my head.
I’m taking a Smith system training and this is said constantly.
Another thing that enrages me is people who think driving slowly is safer for whatever reason.
Getting on the highway? Let’s SLOWLY merge at 60% the speed of oncoming traffic.
Changing lanes from stationary traffic into a full speed lane? I won’t wait for the lane to clear, I’ll just turn signal and move into the lane REAL SLOW because that’s safe.
Turning right? Let’s slow down to a complete stop and force traffic to a halt so I can turn right.
As a delivery truck driver I can’t tell you how many people think that everyone else can just stop on a dime for them and they’re being safe because they move over at a snail’s Pace.
fucking hate getting stuck behind some slow driver when trying to get on a highway. like fucker we are supposed to be reaching highway speed on this ramp not when we reach the highway🤬
There is an on-ramp for the highway near me that’s pretty long. It’s long because it’s a very straight fast-moving section of highway. In other words, the on-ramp is designed to give you adequate space to get up to highway speed. The number of people who immediately merge into the first lane without getting up to speed is too damn high.
I used to have a job where I drove a box truck. It was slow empty and painfully slow full. It was also speed limited to 75mph. So I would tend to hang out with the semis on the hwy. One time I was driving down the hwy and this guy in a pretty new Volvo( so the fast ones) was coming down the on ramp. I could see he was going to merge right in front of me so I slowed down to give him some space. I figured he would want to be in front of the slow box truck. As he got close to the merge he slowed down so he was even with me. I gave him a little more space to merge in front of me and slowed down again. He had plenty of room left in the on merge lane if just used the skinny pedal. Instead he waited until was almost out of room then started honking at me. I did my best to speed up my painfully slow box truck but I am sure he has to slow down to the point he was merging at 45mph as everyone was doing 75-80mph. I am sure he was cursing me too because he wasn’t willing to get up to hwy speed before merging.
I was taught it was the responsibility of the car getting on the highway to match the speed of the cars on the highway. If you’re already on the highway, keep a constant speed so the people getting on can match you. So he kept having to slow down because you were also slowing down. Just like the assassin pretending to be nice in the diagram, I think you were technically in the wrong here.
He never got up to hwy speed if he had he would have easily merged in front of me. I only slowed down by 5 to 10 mph.
Right, but its not your responsibility to slow down at all. Its kind of you to do so when the merging vehicle picks up on your intention, but when they don’t, it makes a miscommunication like you describe.
Basically, i’d just describe it as being predictable. And bending the rules (even to be kind) is not predictable, usually.
I have a question on this. Let’s assume everyone is a perfect driver and must have at least a 2 second following distance at all times. If there’s a free flowing queue of traffic on the highway with 2-4 second gaps between, merging in is impossible without someone slowing down and letting you in. Every time I merge this situation stresses me out.
At 100 km/h (low-end highway spreed), or 1,666 m/minute, or 27.7 m per second, a 2 second gap leaves approximately 56.6 m (185.6 feet) between cars. With the average car length being ~4.9 m (~16 feet), even the absolute worst driver can merge in a space ten times the size of the average car, assuming they’re matching highway speed.
Most people have no actual concept of how long 2 seconds actually is or how much space it would leave in reality.
Yeah, obviously you “can” merge, but in doing so you insert yourself into the middle of a 2 second gap creating 2 × less than 1 second gaps. Like I said, in this hypothetical everyone is a perfect driver that always follows the rules, so that’s not an option.
For that matter, the driver behind should see that you are about to merge into a gap that’s too small and slow down to leave a space that’s at least 4 seconds big.
I’d also like to point out that your attitude to driving is terrible, the size in meters of anything on a highway is irrelevant, 2 seconds is not a lot of time to react and slow down a car at 100, and that just because you “can” do something doesn’t mean you should.
Merge into the gap, then slow down slightly to extend the space in front of you, and let the guy behind you slow down to extend the space in front of him. It’s not complicated
Instead he waited until was almost out of room then started honking at me.
People who haven’t learned the physics of large trucks spend a surprising portion of their driving time competing for Darwin awards.
I want to will this not to be a problem anymore, but still see it all the time. I’m thankful that I’ve seen a lot of truckers react in surprisingly aware ways that save lives.
But every time I see it, I can’t help but think that driver’s luck isn’t too likely to hold through too many more times making that move.
Getting into the fast moving lane from slow traffic is difficult no matter how you do it. The best way I found is to actually go slightly slower than the person in front of you to get a gap, then use that gap to accelerate.
Yeah, that’s because you know how to drive. I can’t tell you how many people just turn in front of a truck and expect it to slow down for them. Playing with their lives.
This applies when you’re a pedestrian waiting to cross too. There are always those drivers who think they’re doing you a favor by stopping one of the lanes of traffic so you can walk out into the other. They smile and wave and look baffled when you don’t take the bait.
yesterday a guy tried to wave me to cross then started angrily raising his hands like “FUCKING GO!” completely oblivious to the car that flew past his left side in the opposite direction
Had guy asking me to turn like that and when I refused he gave me the finger as he finally drove on. How come they hold up traffic and then get mad at you for not driving into on coming traffic?
It reveals how they weren’t actually being polite. They were doing it for themselves, not you, and you denied them their “good deed” dopamine.
You’re right of course, but in a broader sense there is literally no action that anyone takes that is altruistic. We only do things that benefit us or, rarely, our group as a whole.
“Death waits for no one!”
But seriously, glad you’re safe…
In an uncontrolled crossing the pedestrian always has the right of way (North America and Europe at least). They should almost never ‘wait’ to cross
Doesn’t matter if I have the right of way, I’m not walking into the other lane (going 35 mph) and hoping they don’t kill me
I’m not saying you should be reckless, but too often I see people be either uninformed or unwilling to exercise their rights. To be fair, I do write with something of an urban bias, where thankfully those kinds of speeds are much less common.
lmao. That may be true in some places but in others it requires a crosswalk. Also, the rules aren’t going to pay your hospital or funeral home bills.
By crossing I mean a crosswalk, some sort of markings on the ground
Always where? There’s a bazillion different rules about this depending on where you live
North America and Europe, I made an edit for clarity.
If you trust every driver to follow the rules exactly and have their eyes open, you can risk your life by walking out. Otherwise you might wait anyway. And the rules about right of way depend on your country and state.
Feels like at least part of the issue is multi-lane pedestrian crossings. Most of the time that should either be single-lane, a traffic light or a tunnel/bridge.
Oh god, this reminds me of a cringe mistake just after I was getting my license. I was driving up to a crosswalk and there was a kid standing next to, maybe 8 or 9, holding their hand out. You know, just like they learn at school that they should do that to make it clear they want to cross even tho the car is supposed to stop anyway. I saw this and what did I do? I thought the kid waved at me and my new license, so I just drove past and waved back. What the fuck, brain?
Generally pedestrians have the right of way at crossings (unless it’s controlled with a light) in my state and neighboring states, most crosswalks even have signs that inform you to yield to pedestrians.
Nothing gets me closer to road rage than people waving me on when they have the right of way at a four way stop. Like yes thank you that’s very polite, but we both could’ve been through this intersection if you’d gone when you were supposed to.
I try to never use “the finger” when another driver is being an ass. In that case I always just give them a thumbs down and a sad face.
I save the middle finger for people who are being “nice”, especially when it is making things dangerous. I find it is the quickest way get them to just go.
I try to be coniderate while driving. Being predictable is safe. Deviating from the rules is dangerous. I think being safe more considerate than being “nice”.
I’ve never thought about giving drivers like this the finger, but I’m absolutely going to from now on.
It’s not being ‘nice’. It’s dangerous. That’s deserving of a middle finger.
And it gets them to stop doing it. There’s no “oh don’t worry I’m good” that they listen to.
In some towns, these yokels will stop in the middle of the street to wave you to jaywalk.
Like Jesus Christ, NOOO! Stop being polite!
The only two actual rules that apply to four way stops is everyone stops and the first person to start moving gets the right of way. All that crap about the first arrival or person to the right doesn’t get applied in real life. They’re noble ideas, but just fucking go if no one else is.
All that crap about the first arrival or person to the right doesn’t get applied in real life.
What the hell are you talking about? People obey the first to stop first pull out rule all the damn time.
Yes, but there are also a lot of times where they don’t in my personal experience. If there’s a question about who technically got there first - like two cars approach at roughly the same time - the rules aren’t always followed as written by other drivers.
Not in my experience. Of course, as long as people are actually stopping, someone already stopped has an advantage. But that’s a difference between East and West Coast US driving. In the East people come to a complete stop before moving again. In the West they’ll slow down a lot, nearly stop even. So there’s definitely regional characteristics. But the most common law is that of our childhood, possession is 9/10ths of the law.
First to stop is the safer option. I feel that most people around here follow that too.
It also has a rare benefit of seeing the interaction between a majority first-to-goers at a 4 way.
Growing up, there was a four-way stop near my house that one of my friends absolutely hated. It was a pretty busy intersection, and he hated that drivers didn’t seem to follow the rules that the person to the right goes first or whatever.
One time when I was driving, he was shocked like “what are you doing!? Its not your turn, you’re gonna cause an accident!” when I went. I was like “what are you talking about?” I had driven through that intersection hundreds of times and never really thought about it. When I payed attention to the way the intersection flowed, I figured out the unwritten understanding that I and everyone else approached it with. It was basically just “stop and wait for a car or two to go before proceeding”. There was no guaranteed order that I could come up with, it was just that everyone in the area seemed to understand.
Written rules are great if everyone is following the written rules. If you follow the written rules at that intersection you’ll be fine, but you’re likely to annoy someone for a moment. Nobody is going to be confused if you wait, just impatient.
I agree with you. More important than following rules is to pay attention and adapt as appropriate. If you’re the only one following the written rules, there’s a chance that you’re the one acting unpredictably.
Yeah the written rules seem logical. But they just don’t match with human behavior.
Yeah this comment should not be so far in the negatives. I much prefer calling someone a dickhead for going before their turn than screaming “YOU HAVE RIGHT OF WAY” at some dipshit who’s holding up traffic because they feel like being nice
Found the Cali driver
Nope, been all over the country. It’s always been that way.
Do what is expected of you, not what is polite.
Rules of the road:
- Be predictable
- Nobody else is predictable
- Everyone is indifferent to your existence; you are merely a car to them
- Your phone wants to kill you - leave it alone
- The faster you go, the less of a difference 5mph makes - be safe, not fast
- FFS maintain your damn car
- Drive sober
- If you’re even remotely tired, you’re attention and reaction time is impacted more than you realize
really good point. Sleep on your friend’s couch, get a motel room, sleep in your car in a Walmart parking lot… Just don’t drive when you’re tired
to expand on number 5, drive the flow speed! If traffic is moving at 55, yeah that sucks but you’re not going to make up more than a minute or so by speeding through them. And if traffic is doing 75, don’t do 55 unless you’re desperately low on gas. The savings from not maneuvering so much are huge. (Unless you’re driving EVs, they have constant power instead of gears and RPMs. Which is why they should be far more clearly marked.)
This goes especially for EVs. Wind resistance really chews up your power budget once you’re above 55mph or so. May as well run the heater with the windows down at that point.
2x this if you’re cycling and a driver waves you through
Ugh, I hate this. I don’t care about waiting. As a cyclist, all I want is for it to be really clear what people are doing. Anything that messes with the right of way is sketchy.
People try to wave me on all the time. They refuse to move until I go. I refuse to go until I can fucking see what might fucking kill me. Twice, the guy waving me on has been rear-ended by a vehicle three times their size.
That, to me, looks like an intersection I would never want to turn left on in the first place in anything but the most deserted area.
Which is the delusion that the US’s traffic engineers based all of their decisions on 60 years ago.
“This’ll be fine hardly anybody lives out here”
It’s compounded by the delusion that the US’s traffic engineers base all of their decisions on now.
“It’ll be fine, it’s been here for 60 years.”
It doesn’t work when nobody lives around either.
The only way this can work is if both all cars are from the 30s, only able to move at 50 km/h, and nobody lives around.
Yep, same. I’ll bust a right and flip around a street up the road.
Yeah this is the only legal way to turn left in a road with a median like this in michigan. You have to turn right to turn left.
Yup. Be predictable, not courteous. You’ll save lives.
I’m fine with moving forward and using his car as my new stop line until the lane is clear. He’s the asshole for assuming everyone waiting behind him wants to be as courteous and patient.
Nothing like getting to a 4-way stop and the cycle is going smoothly then some dipshit starts waving cars and throws everything out of whack and next thing you know everyone is inching forward at the same time.
Equally bad, the entry drives into shopping centers are often made to not stop when entering the lot, this way during busy shopping times traffic won’t back up out into the street. This is a normal, common thing, usually plastered with signs “INCOMING TRAFFIC DOES NOT STOP” and you still get people stopping and waving cars through, thinking they’re doing anyone a favor, when instead it’s confusing everyone as to what the rules are at the intersection. Then cars start driving around each other and you get to hear that sickening “scrrrunch-POP” as the other lane started moving without noticing the rules had changed.
I have a feeling these are the same people who push a full cart into the self-checkout having never used a self-checkout in their lives.
Thank you!
You’re not being kind by doing this! You’re being kind to the one person you see but being an asshole to everyone behind you! Follow the rules of the road and everyone will get on better.
People always complain about Altimas because they’re unpredictable, but the absolute worst offenders I see are Honda CRV drivers specifically because they’re trying to be polite on the road. I’d take some busted Altima weaving through traffic over a CRV who decides to be nice and stop at the end of the onramp so they don’t cut anyone off.
Watching a couple of Dashcam videos is the perfect way to explore this phenomenon in full HD colour and often colourful sound.
A selfish asshole that drives predictably is safer than a generous driver that yields the row.
As a pedestrian I had to turn my back to make a guy stop trying to “help” me get in a fatal accident. He was bound and determined to get me killed… By being a “nice guy”
If a time traveler takes the effort to travel back to 2024 and try to kill me then maybe I deserve to die
If any time traveler comes to 2024, it’s either great because there’s science in the future, or it’s terrible, because there’s something about to happen that’s worth seeing first-hand.
Or it’s great because something interesting is about to happen. If I had a time machine I would travel to 1989 to see the fall of the Berlin Wall.
I am still thankful our parents woke us up and put us in front of the TV to watch the live broadcast of that happening. That was a watershed moment in post-war politics.
This happened to me, I was the fast car. Here’s the dash cam video: https://streamable.com/q98ojg
I’ve got several years of experience riding motorcycles. It’s taught me to read traffic. I see a gap in a line of traffic like that, it’s either a driver who’s smart enough not to block an intersection (rare), or someone letting another someone out.
When I saw the gap I started watching it closely. I probably wouldn’t have been able react fast enough otherwise.
Dang, and they just zoom off after without a care
She had to slam on her brakes or she still would have hit me. When I looked back she made a clear “I fucked up” gesture that wasn’t caught on cam.
Damn, you have a store that specializes in maps, that’s cool
tbh there weren’t many options for them besides waiting for the entire line of cars to pass which could’ve taken forever
The guy leaving the gap tried to wave her through but I guess she didn’t see the “STOP” gesture he started throwing when I got too close.
To quote alice in wonderland:
“How long is forever?”
“Sometimes, just one second”
