Sunday, March 27, 2011

Right of way

So every weekend the traffic is really bad coming south because there is such confusion about how to navigate the left (East Bay) or right (San Francisco) split. I'm assuming that most people have a pretty good idea of their destination on this level, long before they get to this point. The East Bay side has to also decide pretty soon afterwards wether to go East or South. This apparently is all terribly difficult because traffic slows to a crawl every time.

And the reason is because a lot of California drivers have a really hard time changing lanes and merging. It's intolerable to me because I've been in plenty of places where people know how to do it. And now, users of the road, I will reveal the secret.

To change lanes, what you need to do is find a spot in the lane that you want to be in that's a good size – say at least three car lengths, synchronize your speed to be next to it, hit your blinker and do it. The best way to get to that spot it to accelerate just a tiny bit up to it. Then ease on the gas and keep up the speed that was happening in that lane.

The classic loser California thing to do is slow down and hope such a spot appears. This is a sucker technique for two reasons. First of all, it's really hard to see out of the back of your head. Second, other drivers will recognize that this is your plan when they see your brake lights and will hit the gas to prevent you from having the gap to squeeze into. I think this is because they fear that you might be an even worse driver than they are, and will continue to lose speed, even after you make the lane change. And they suspect it from past experience because the classic loser lane changer keeps slowing down after they make the lane change because they are so rattled by the frightening experience.

So what happens is, people who want to change lanes actually come to a complete stop, hoping for that break in traffic that rarely happens. And once this happens even a few times, guess what, all traffic slows to a crawl. I see it every weekend. It's pathetic.

We all know that highway police will just stop you for speeding. You can drive 45 in the fast lane and they won't bother you. You can leave your blinker on for hours. You can come to a complete stop in a lane that is supposed to be doing 55 because you didn't plan ahead and also don’t know how to change lanes. You can do any number of dangerous things on the road, as long as you don't exceed the often arbitrary maximum posted speed.

The corresponding California driver failing is not knowing how to merge. So here is the skinny: it's like a zipper. One person goes from your lane, then someone from the other lane, then it's your turn. This is not something that means a lot of eye contact an negotiation and waving. When it's your turn, do it, and it often doesn't mean slowing down more than just a mile or two per hour to synchronize speed. Once you are in the lane, ease on the gas and get out of the way.

But that's not how it goes in California. Some jerks think they don’t have to wait for their turn. Some are cowed by the confrontation and slow way, way down, perhaps even to a stop. Whatever, most merges that in any decent city like Boston or Bonn would mean just a tad of synchronization followed by a return to normal sped become stop and go affairs here. Every single merge onto the 80 west in San Francisco to the Bay bridge becomes an ordeal.

The cost to society is enormous. Everyone's time is worth something. Yes, even the crappy drivers time. I'm guessing that if people knew how to drive properly in the Bay area on the highway then traffic would be about 50% less. That is probably millions of person hours every year. That's got to be worth something, right?

OK, so lets get to it. What I'm really saying is that a whole lot of people should never have gotten their drivers licenses in the first place. It realy should be significantly harder to get a driver's license. And the highway police need to completely reexamine their approach. It’s not just that “Speed Kills” (which originally was an anti Methamphetamine slogan, by the way) but the real goal should be to keep traffic moving smoothly. Yes, they can keep writing speeding tickets but they also need to be writing tickets for people who are driving too slow – especially the ones that come to a crawl because they are incapable of negotiating basic maneuvers at speed. Hopefully, such idiot drivers can lose their licenses just like habitual drunk drivers.


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