Florida Driving Pet Peeves
The situations I encountered this week, that seem to be common in Florida. If they were encountered in my travels up and down the East coast, it was so infrequent as to not spark any memories.
Scenario One: I am exiting a shopping center from an access road. It is a T intersection, I am at a stop sign(at the top of the T), oncoming traffic does not have one, traffic on the road to my right does have a stop sign.
Without fail, every time I exit this shopping center, despite oncoming traffic having NO stop sign, a driver will come to a dead stop and wave me out. Um, no, you have the right of way, because it is safer than having someone whip around the corner, turn into the shopping center behind you and rear end you. Keep moving.
Scenario Two: Same shopping center, another entrance. Incoming traffic has no stop sign, comes to another T intersection where both directions (the top of the T) have a stop sign. It seems like any time I use that entrance (because I want to visit Panera or Game Stop, rather than Target), I get some person who blows through the stop sign and gets MAD at me for exercising my right of way. The red octagonal sign means STOP, people. I don't have one, you do.
Scenario Three: I come to an intersection that has traffic light and left-turn lanes on both sides. The other day, I come to it late in the red and thus, do not get a green arrow. I pull into the intersection slightly, but the woman in the oncoming car refuses to move, WAVING me to make my turn. She's darn lucky that the usual suspects didn't see the green from 1/4 mile up the road behind her and decide to floor it to make the light in time. She, of course, refuses to budge until I make my left turn in front of her, against traffic.
Mind you, the young gentleman in the left turn lane on her side did the same thing I did, pulled up a little and waited for cars from my side to continue before he made his turn, so it wasn't a case that she was seeing a red light when it should have been green.
Which brings up another annoyance that Donna pointed out and is absolutely true: No one in the state of Florida wants to move over the stop line into the intersection at a green light when making a left turn. They only move when there's an arrow or absolutely NO oncoming cars. As a result, three cars cannot make a left per green cycle, even though there is plenty of time between oncoming cars, like 5 to 10 seconds apart, when only 2 is needed. If people would pull up and do these things, at least three cars could go through
There. I feel better now. (I may just make a big sign to hold up in my car that says "YOU have the right of way-GO!!!!", because that happens far more than the other scenarios.
Scenario One: I am exiting a shopping center from an access road. It is a T intersection, I am at a stop sign(at the top of the T), oncoming traffic does not have one, traffic on the road to my right does have a stop sign.
Without fail, every time I exit this shopping center, despite oncoming traffic having NO stop sign, a driver will come to a dead stop and wave me out. Um, no, you have the right of way, because it is safer than having someone whip around the corner, turn into the shopping center behind you and rear end you. Keep moving.
Scenario Two: Same shopping center, another entrance. Incoming traffic has no stop sign, comes to another T intersection where both directions (the top of the T) have a stop sign. It seems like any time I use that entrance (because I want to visit Panera or Game Stop, rather than Target), I get some person who blows through the stop sign and gets MAD at me for exercising my right of way. The red octagonal sign means STOP, people. I don't have one, you do.
Scenario Three: I come to an intersection that has traffic light and left-turn lanes on both sides. The other day, I come to it late in the red and thus, do not get a green arrow. I pull into the intersection slightly, but the woman in the oncoming car refuses to move, WAVING me to make my turn. She's darn lucky that the usual suspects didn't see the green from 1/4 mile up the road behind her and decide to floor it to make the light in time. She, of course, refuses to budge until I make my left turn in front of her, against traffic.
Mind you, the young gentleman in the left turn lane on her side did the same thing I did, pulled up a little and waited for cars from my side to continue before he made his turn, so it wasn't a case that she was seeing a red light when it should have been green.
Which brings up another annoyance that Donna pointed out and is absolutely true: No one in the state of Florida wants to move over the stop line into the intersection at a green light when making a left turn. They only move when there's an arrow or absolutely NO oncoming cars. As a result, three cars cannot make a left per green cycle, even though there is plenty of time between oncoming cars, like 5 to 10 seconds apart, when only 2 is needed. If people would pull up and do these things, at least three cars could go through
There. I feel better now. (I may just make a big sign to hold up in my car that says "YOU have the right of way-GO!!!!", because that happens far more than the other scenarios.
Comments
I have also noticed that the turn signal doesn't mean much on the open road. How often have you noticed when you want to turn to another lane and there is a car or 2 behind you. Instead of them slowing down to let you in you find they immediately speed up or gradually speed up. You find yourself either having to wait until they pass you to switch of you have to take it upon yourself to speed up to get into another lane. THAT is ANNOYING!!!!
JW
Though Songbird brings up the lack of turn signals. I think that in NY, that's a defense mechanism to avoid scenario two that JW brings up-people speed up when they see one!