Pickles & Dimes

Faithful followers of Traffic Elimination Center® tutorials may recognize this intersection, as it was previously spotlighted in Volume 1. I have since moved away from this intersection (moved away = three blocks), yet it still plagues me and therefore deserves multiple tutorials.

Illustration 1 (drawn to scale): Same setup as before - three lanes enter, two lanes leave!

Car A must turn left, Car B can either turn left or continue on straight, and Car C can continue on straight or turn right onto a dead-end street, but (spoiler alert!) if they continue on straight, their lane ends as abruptly as Taylor Hicks’ career (handily demonstrated by this prominent street sign):

Illustration 2: Sign of Doom. Notice to Merge or American Idol Winner’s Journey Back Into the Mainstream Workforce?

As before, assume I am Car B because I know what I’m doing. I will be continuing on straight. And then shortly thereafter I will executing the universal signal for “What are you doing, you brainless asshelmet?!?”

Good times. I sometimes wish my commute were longer so I could have more time to practice my sign language.

Anyway, what happens every.single.damn.time is that Car C goes straight instead of turning right, and therefore tries to beat me off the line. That would normally be easily accomplished, because I drive a harmless looking, dying 4-cylinder 1996 Chevy Cavalier with 154,000 miles on it. However, I keep my eyes on the stoplight and when that sucker turns green, I. Gun. It.

No one beats me off the line. NO ONE.

However, sometimes I am in a genial mood and will allow a person to merge in front of me, such as in the following (rare) circumstances:

a. when the light is already green and they are going faster than I am because I had to wait for the person in front of me to turn (occurrence rate: 37%)
b. when the person signals immediately to get over (occurrence rate: 0.8%)
c. when the person can be let over without having to stomp on the brakes (occurrence rate: 0.23%)
d. when the person actually beats me off the line (occurrence rate: never)

Illustration 4: What happens over 90% of the time is that Car C will immediately merge into my lane even though they are: 1) dead-even with my vehicle, 2) not signaling, and 3) not paying attention because their phone/girlfriend/buddies/147 kids are distracting them.

You cannot imagine my hatred when this happens, but let me try to explain: the hatred, it is Deep. Deep enough to consider printing window-display placards that say: “YOU ARE A F#CKING TOOL - IN FACT, YOU ARE THE TOOLINGEST TOOL THAT EVER TOOLED. ALSO, YOU ARE AN ASSHELMET AND I HATE YOUR BUMPER STICKER COLLECTION - WHICH IS NEITHER FUNNY NOR CLEVER - WITH THE INTENSITY OF A THOUSAND GEORGE HAMILTON-BAKING SUNS.”

Or something like that. I may have to tweak the wording a bit.

Luckily, I only have to face this occurrence five times a week. Usually it’s just a jerk in a crappy, rusted-out Toyota Corolla, but sometimes on extra special days when God’s love is everywhere, the Toyota is replaced by a Bus. Not just any old bus, but one of those double buses. No, not a double-decker bus, but a bus that is pulling another bus. Two buses! A Bus-Bus. With twice the length and half the speed of a regular bus.

Yes. Bus-Bus sometimes drives my route and always, always picks the right lane that ends, and then without signaling or performing any semblance of general roadway safety behavior whatsoever, barrels on over into my lane as though my car consists entirely of magnetic materials.

There is a very special kind of hate for this. The hand gesture that accompanies this double hatred (HATE-HATE) is complicated, so I won’t go into detail here. (See diagram below.)

In conclusion, the lesson of the day is this: if you find yourself in a lane that is ending and you haven’t planned ahead, or you’re going to be a jerk and cut in front of everyone, for the love of all that is holy, signal before you merge. Even if you end up cutting someone off (which you totally WILL because the scientific occurrence rate = 100%), maybe they’ll save their placard for another day.

Maybe.