I’m pretty sure I have written before about the problems drivers cause when they are (a) impatient and (b) don’t know (or care about) the rules of the road.
I saw a perfect example of that as I was driving east on Fifth Avenue near Spruceland Shopping Centre around 5 p.m. one day last week.
A driver who had apparently been sitting in the parking lot entrance for way too long (probably 30 seconds) decided they were going to make their right-hand turn no matter what.
Oh, and they weren’t turning into the closest lane. That would have been the intelligent (and legal) thing to do. No, they were going all the way across to the left-turn lane to get onto Highway 97. Of course with the traffic on Fifth Avenue at that time of day, they couldn’t get all the way across.
So they ended up with the nose of their vehicle in the left-turn lane (blocking it) and the rest of their vehicle in one of the through lanes (blocking it). I was lucky. I was actually turning onto Ahbau and going behind the mall, so I was able to avoid the problem area.
I suspect before this person got frustrated and made their totally illegal manoeuver, they had probably managed to completely block the exit from the mall. I’ve said it before (and I’ll probably have to say it again), if you’re trying to turn out of Spruceland and get across to make the left-hand turn onto Highway 97, go out the other end of the mall, onto Eighth Avenue. From there, you go up a block and make a right-hand turn onto Ahbau, then make another right-hand turn onto Fifth Avenue.
Congratulations, you now have about a block and a half to get into the lane you want, you haven’t blocked any other drivers, AND you’ve actually done it legally.
What do you think about this story?