Saturday, August 04, 2007
COMPLIMENTARY DRIVER-EDUCATION LESSON: If you're turning right, unless signs or markings direct otherwise, you do so from the right lane.
This is easily understandable (if not always followed) advice if you're on a road with more than one traffic lane in the direction in which you're driving, but sometimes it's more subtle. Sometimes you are morally obligated to create a right lane where there is no right lane.
Take a look, for example, at Figure 1. The red car is turning right from a road in which there is only one travel lane but there is a lane devoted to parallel parking. The parking stops well before the intersection, and therefore the driver of the red car, by ignoring this de facto right-turn lane, is turning right from the left lane. The green car is forced to wait for no reason.
Figure 2 illustrates the proper positioning. It's the correct solution not because the law requires it, but rather because the driver of the red car is not the only freaking person in the world.
Thanks for listening.
Figure 1: Inconsiderate Dumb-Ass Driver Waiting to Make a Right Turn
Figure 2: Upstanding Citizen Waiting to Make a Right Turn
This is easily understandable (if not always followed) advice if you're on a road with more than one traffic lane in the direction in which you're driving, but sometimes it's more subtle. Sometimes you are morally obligated to create a right lane where there is no right lane.
Take a look, for example, at Figure 1. The red car is turning right from a road in which there is only one travel lane but there is a lane devoted to parallel parking. The parking stops well before the intersection, and therefore the driver of the red car, by ignoring this de facto right-turn lane, is turning right from the left lane. The green car is forced to wait for no reason.
Figure 2 illustrates the proper positioning. It's the correct solution not because the law requires it, but rather because the driver of the red car is not the only freaking person in the world.
Thanks for listening.
Figure 1: Inconsiderate Dumb-Ass Driver Waiting to Make a Right Turn
Figure 2: Upstanding Citizen Waiting to Make a Right Turn
Friday, August 03, 2007
