Here’s the latest reader question, along with my reply!
Garth asks: I expected you would mention how “drivers,” while waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so they may make a left turn (in a non-left turn lane/ non-green arrow intersection) refuse to move straight ahead of the stop line into the intersection during a green light so they will be able to turn efficiently/quickly when an opportunity arises. It is madness how zero left-turners will get through a green light cycle when the lead car does this! I always enjoy your articles!
My reply: I should have!
What you describe is another of many examples of the serial incompetence one encounters regularly on the road. No effort made to anticipate the opportunity to clear the intersection or to avoid blocking it. Argle bargle!
I deal with this almost every day myself when I try to make the left turn across traffic into the parking lot of my gym. The traffic is often heavy and the signaled green infrequent. I pull forward – assuming I’m the lead car – and position myself to make use of the first opening that comes. And if none comes before the brief green arrow comes, I am positioned to get through and out of the way very quickly, enabling any cars behind me to follow before the light turns red again.
But most drones just sit there, their turn signal blinking impotently – as their “driver” makes no attempt at all to be prepared to move. When the light eventually does go green, there is always a excruciating pause before the dude-on-ludes finally notices and creeps forward. Usually, maybe one car behind him makes it through before the light changes.
It makes my teeth ache…
. . .
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Steve Lehto(an attorney)just had a video about this very thing. His brother brought up the subject of having to sit through light after light. They both realized it was Millenials that didn’t know how to drive.
Remember Driver’s Ed in high school? That no longer exists. Most of the kids now have 0 experience so they don’t know what to do. I’m sure people my age all knew how to drive well before getting a license. I’d been driving like I was an old hand 2 years before getting my license at 14. It was common back then. There was work to be done and you were deemed a man if you could haul and stack hay all day. So rightly, you were tasked with hauling everything you could think of. One of my first driving experiences was hilarious. My grandaddy put me behind the wheel on a really muddy road…..hauling a load of cattle. I nearly got stuck in a huge puddle and he said “double clutch it into second”. I had no idea what he was talking about and he started laughing his butt off. After getting through the mess he taught me, verbally, how to double clutch. Luckily for me when I graduated to diesels I no longer had to double clutch or even clutch except to start and stop.