another semi-populist driving myth
now and then some supposedly stellar piece of driving practice makes the lunkhead rounds with near religious intensity. adam carolla recently touted the generally wrong but supposedly smart tactic of, when waiting in a left turn lane (or similar), always creeping into the intersection. this inane universal was also encouraged at LRC years ago. here's the correct method:when waiting for incoming traffic before turning left, one should creep into the intersection only near the likely end of the green cycle, for if the creep's avoided and isn't needed to nip the green, you can use that same length of pavement to accelerate. you still cross the oncoming lane at the same point and time, but in this case with far more speed. why? because you opted to traverse the same length of pavement in one step instead of two, also saving your brakes the extra hassle. yes, holding back in this instance normally puts you farther down the road in the long run.
a few years ago some redneck moron pulled around me at a U-turn cutout on a highway simply because i wasn't sticking my nose out the extra 25-ft that communicates to the dumbass class "i'm really on the ball". then what did he do? he sat there watching the same gapless oncoming traffic, probably cursing me for "not driving aggressively".
idiot. then he entered the opposite lane at the same time and place i would've, but from a crawl, not a running start.you can watch these knee-jerk fools at nearly every red light as they work their cars throughly countless iterations of creep 3 inches, stop, repeat (usually because of similar dumb motherfuckers in front of them). oh, they're intense shit! that red light isn't keeping them from whacking off!
two things to bear in mind if you switch to the true superior left/U turn method: don't hold back so long that you miss a chance to nip the red if it comes to that, and don't scare the living fuck out of the last oncoming guy by looking more like you're aiming for his windshield instead of the space he's in the act of vacating.
Labels: government dumb, hints from pigloise
posted by saltypig @ 17:44
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