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More West Seattle Driving Pet Peeves

Started 1 year ago by ToddinWestwood
Latest reply from datamuse

ToddinWestwood
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1. On a two lane street, if there is a bus, garbage truck or delivery vehicle blocking part of YOUR lane, you do NOT have the right just to pull out into oncoming traffic to get around said vehicle. You MUST wait until it is clear to pass.
I dont know how many times i am in my car or on my motorcycle and have someone pulling around the bus , IN MY LANE! forcing me to slow down or swerve.

2. Stopping at a red light, waiting for the red light to turn green THEN deciding to signal to turn left.
The only reason I pulled up behind you on 35th was I ASSUMED you were going straight thru the light. Then the last second, you changed your mind. Then you get mad at me for beeping the horn. Yes, the world does revolve around you and the little dog on your lap. We are all sooo sorry we are even on your roads.

Posted 1 year ago #
austin
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That second one is really popular.

Posted 1 year ago #
Smitty
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#2 REALLY drives me nuts. Your blinker is there for courtesy - for the people in front AND behind you.

Posted 1 year ago #
DOC
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On #2. At 35th and Barton, when people are heading west on Barton, they love to get into the right "lane" that is not really a lane, and pass the turning car on the right. It's illegal to pass on the right and hinders traffic.

I agree your blinker should be used before you reach the turn, but flying around me when the car ahead of me is turning, then cutting me off when you realize you are driving in a parking lane headed for a parked car pisses me off.

Posted 1 year ago #
HelperMonkey
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how about the idiots who pull out from say, oh, Lincoln Park without looking, cutting me off- then proceeding to go 10 miles an hour under the speed limit. There is no one behind me for blocks, but they just *HAD TO* pull out in front of me. Silver Ford Focus just did that this morning. Happens at least twice a week.

Posted 1 year ago #
coolie
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How about excessively early mergers who decide that nobody else behind them should be allowed to merge in ahead of them? On eastbound West Seattle Bridge heading towards the infamous closed lane late one Friday evening. At least 1000ft prior to the actual lane closure, before the 1st Ave off ramp, the guy in front of me changes into the left lane.

With nearly a quarter mile of wasted lane in front of us, I keep going. But the guy then decides he doesn't want anybody else to pass him, and so swerves halfway back into the right lane to block me, causing me to hit my brakes and move over to the right a bit, which then caused the guys in the 1st Ave exit lane to back up. He's riding the lane divider trying to stop me from passing him, the whole time with all this wasted road ahead of us. I eventually get around him and continue on, merging where most normal people would expect to merge.

There's a book called Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do, by Tom Vanderbilt that delves into a lot of research done on traffic flow, and people's attitudes when driving. He could've done a great case study on this yahoo on the bridge. The fact is that early merging is a wonderful way to make the backup from a lane closure worse than it needs to be. Think about it. If the lane is closed at the 4th Ave exit, but 95% of people think they should merge 1500 feet before the lane is closed, that last 1500 feet of the right lane is wasted space. They may as well have just closed the lane 1500 feet earlier, even though they didn't need to. The most efficient way to merge is to use as much of the available road that's there, merging as the lane actually closes down. This doesn't mean that you should drive onto the shoulder passing the lanes of traffic trying to merge, like what people do on 5 North exiting onto the bridge. It means staying in the closed lane as long as possible, using that available road, and then merging when it finally closes. This of course requires people in both lanes to be disciplined enough to do the "zipper" merge, alternating cars as they merge, and not get offended or take it as a personal attack if someone merges in front of you.

But I think that's probably too much to ask...

Posted 1 year ago #
CMP
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Coolie, I LOVE that book by Tom Vanderbilt! I think everyone in Seattle should be required to read it, they might learn a thing or two from it.

Posted 1 year ago #
Ali K
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As a Brit who is used to navigating round-a-bouts regularly ( in the UK) I would appreciate some guidance on how they operate here!!?? I understand that priority is given to the right but if you are already on the round-a-bout are you meant to stop for people entering? That seems to be how people do it here but is that right??? It seems weird to me!

Posted 1 year ago #
datamuse
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Ali K: I just came back from Ireland where I finally got to see people navigate a roundabout properly (and learn how to do it myself). They just aren't that common in the U.S. and people don't really know how they work.

Posted 1 year ago #
pigeonmom
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Just went to Gig Harbor the other day. Lots of roundabouts there and they confuse the heck out of the GPS lady.

Posted 1 year ago #
mightymo
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Ali K: I think the trouble is that traffic islands like we have here are not the same thing as a roundabout. The curbs were never modified to make it a true circle. So most drivers here treat them as a regular uncontrolled intersection with an obstacle in the middle. And because of that, we don't really know what to do if another car tries to enter the intersection at the same time.

From what I understand, no traffic law on the books requires people to go counter-clockwise, either, so you get people turning left without going all the way around if no one else is at the intersection.

Posted 1 year ago #
GoGo
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When did (almost) everyone stop using their turn signals? Thank god I don't have to drive very much or I think my head would explode. And HelperMonkey, I am TOTALLY with you on that one!!

Posted 1 year ago #
charlabob
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My biggest annoyance is the damned tentativeness/passive agression -- masquerading as "Seattle Nice." For example, since people have no clue what to do at a rotary, we persist in the "After you -- no, after you" act until finally someone (often me) just goes. Not very safe and, frankly, not very useful.

AND on residential streets where folks parked on both sides have turned a stretch of the street into one lane, there is mass confusion about whose "turn" it is. Hint: if someone is driving toward you, and they have no where to go because cars are parked on both sides of the street, pull over by the curb and let them go by. It's really not the place for a quick game of chicken.

AND, most inexplicable to me, when I signal to pull in my driveway, more than one car behind me decides to whip by me on the left. The bob solves this by moving over into the middle of the road -- somehow that just doesn't seem right. I solve it (grrrr) by not signaling.

Posted 1 year ago #
KBear
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Actually the rules for right of way at uncontrolled intersections are the same, whether there's a circle or not. WHOEVER IS THERE FIRST has the right of way. So if there's a circle, you must yield to traffic that's already in the circle. ONLY if two cars arrive at the same time does it matter who's on the left or right, and then the car on the right has the right of way.

Posted 1 year ago #
WSJ
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At DOC: Actually, there are certain situations where passing on the right is permitted, and the intersection of 35th and Barton is one of them:

RCW 46.61.115
When overtaking on the right is permitted.

(1) The driver of a vehicle may overtake and pass upon the right of another vehicle only under the following conditions:

(a) When the vehicle overtaken is making or about to make a left turn;

(b) Upon a roadway with unobstructed pavement of sufficient width for two or more lines of vehicles moving lawfully in the direction being traveled by the overtaking vehicle.

(2) The driver of a vehicle may overtake and pass another vehicle upon the right only under conditions permitting such movement in safety. Such movement shall not be made by driving off the roadway.

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
Member Profile

charlabob..

i am NOT being nice when i defer to other drivers...
i don't trust them to do what they are supposed to do
so i wait for them to get out of my way.

every accident i have been involved in has been because some idiot didn't know or observe the basic rules of the road :(

ok... so when i was 18 there was that straightaway i couldn't resist and the plunge down the side of the hill when i didn't make the corner..
but that one only involved me and i wasn't even cited...

and i did back into my fiance's car before we married.. but he married me anyway...

other than a couple of youthful indiscretions....

;->

Posted 1 year ago #
KBear
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"i am NOT being nice when i defer to other drivers...
i don't trust them to do what they are supposed to do
so i wait for them to get out of my way."

Sorry, but charlabob is absolutely right. PLEASE GO when it is your turn. Timid drivers who stop when they aren't supposed to are creating a hazard. If you need to stop and wait for someone else to pass, you should pull over to the side of the road. Otherwise, you are just causing confusion, and that's dangerous.

Posted 1 year ago #
dtown
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Situation: You're in the center turn lane, waiting to make a left turn. Someone decides to be 'nice', stops and starting waving at you to GO....while not paying attention that people in the other lanes are still going...or people are walking across the street I'm trying to turn on to. Yes, I know you're trying to be nice, but you have plenty of room to just keep going! I can wait another 4 seconds and make a safe turn, kthxbye. You're only going to cause an accident!

Posted 1 year ago #
yieldtotheright
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K Bear - you are incorrect. The law is that you must yield to the right - it is not whoever is there first. ALWAY YIELD TO THE RIGHT!

Posted 1 year ago #
Kimberley
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Ali K: Back in the UK, I regularly drove in the city of roundabouts (Milton Keynes). There really aren't that many over here (there are some on the east coast) and the other day had a police officer stop in the middle of a bloody round about to let me proceed around one - eejit. I treat roundabouts the same as I would in the UK, those in them have the right of way and I yield to the right. I often see people go the wrong away around them, especially the one on 42nd near the library.

Posted 1 year ago #
Sue
Member Profile

Regarding going the "wrong way" in the circles, we had discussed this a while back in another thread. I contacted SDOT at the time to find out the rules about it, and this was the emailed reply I received at the time:

"Thank you for your inquiry regarding the rules pertaining to left turns at neighborhood traffic circles. You are correct that the Washington Driver Guide (and the state law that the guide implements), does not distinguish between
neighborhood traffic circles and roundabouts.

Practically speaking, a left turn can be performed safely in front of a neighborhood traffic circle since they are typically located on low traffic volume and low speed residential streets, unlike roundabouts, which control traffic flow on higher volume arterials.

However, under a strict interpretation of the Driver Guide and state laws, this is not a legal left turn, and similarly to roundabouts, a driver turning left at a neighborhood traffic circle should proceed counterclockwise around the traffic circle, rather than turning left in front of the circle.

We recognize that this issue causes confusion, and the City will be working this year toward clarifying the distinction between neighborhood traffic circles and roundabouts in state law, addressing the issue in the Seattle Municipal
Code, or both."

So I read this as yeah, you'll probably get away with it because we usually ignore it, but it's technically not legal to make the short left and you COULD get a ticket for it if somebody is bored and wants to write a ticket.

Posted 1 year ago #
KBear
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I'm sorry, yieldtotheright, but it is you who are wrong. You've been wrong about this before, and you're still wrong. The "yield to the right" rule ONLY applies when two vehicles arrive at an uncontrolled intersection at the same time. Otherwise, the one that was there first has the right of way.

Posted 1 year ago #
DP
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yieldtotheright: Please help me with something, because I want to understand.

Did you really choose your screen name based on some deeply held belief that West Seattle drivers need to be more aware of yield-to-the-right laws?

Or did the stars just happen to align for you on this? Right here, in the middle of this discussion on traffic circles.

Posted 1 year ago #
Carson
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I hope YTTR doesn't ever try and drive in New England, he/she might get run right out of the first Rotary he/she tries to navigate!

Posted 1 year ago #
Kimberley
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Oh wouldn't that be a sight Carson - YTTR wouldn't make it to their Cape vacation due to an unforeseen car accident.

Sue, it's not even drivers making a short left, it's drivers going straight through to the left instead of anti-clockwise or to the right, e.g. a driver going along (whatever street that is that goes from California, past blockbuster, to the backside of the library) pauses at the rotary, then proceeds to go straight across 42nd to the left of the rotary instead of the right, so that the person on 42nd, turning right onto the straight that driver approached from would be hit by the car going straight through the rotary to the left.

Posted 1 year ago #
KBear
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Wow, I don't think I've ever seen anyone go straight through to the left of a circle, but given the rampant ignorance among Seattle drivers, I guess it's bound to happen! I think all the circles have caution markers in the middle of them. How hard would it have been to put an arrow pointing to the right on each of those signs?

Posted 1 year ago #
datamuse
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Kimberley: my recent experience was in Ireland, where our (remote, rural) cottage was situated such that we had to drive through Galway on our way to most anywhere. My husband was navigating while I drove and would tell me how many more roundabouts I had to drive through (some of them three lanes wide).

They're surprisingly easy to get used to and the only time I really had a problem was when traffic backed up into one.

Somebody told me once that traffic enforcement sorta winks at going left at a traffic circle because that's the only way emergency vehicles can do it--a hook-and-ladder, for instance, just isn't going to be able to go around a neighborhood traffic circle to the right. I remember a traffic circle on Capitol Hill that I couldn't get my (not that big, really) pickup around if a car was parked too close to where I entered it. But that pickup's turning radius was ridiculously wide.

The one that peeves me is drivers who act like they don't have a stop sign because you don't, or like you should have a stop sign because they do. I've nearly been t-boned turning left from 9th onto Holden any number of times because of this.

Posted 1 year ago #