Name your weird local traffic "customs"

[kranky]

The interstate here has one particular exit that becomes two lanes as soon as the very long deceleration lane starts to veer away from the main road. The two exit lanes eventually connect to two different streets, and 90% of the cars are going to the larger road which is the LEFT lane of the exit. During the evening rush hour, the exit lane backs up all the way to the beginning of the deceleration lane (not stopped, but crawling at 10-15 mph.)

It has now become accepted that, if you want to go to the RIGHT exit lane (which few people do), you can zoom past all the quarter-mile of backed up cars in the deceleration lane and cut someone off at the last possible second while moving into the right exit lane, since once you've cut them off you aren't really getting in front of them. After all, why sit in all the deceleration lane traffic when you aren't going where all those people are going?

Someday, someone who is unfamiliar with this little "local quirk" is going to go postal on the person who just cut in front of them at the last possible second of an interstate exit.

Pittsburgh also has a little tradition called the "Pittsburgh Left". That's when, if you are the first car at a red light and want to turn left, you can gun it the instant the light turns green and turn in front of the oncoming traffic before they get started. People here expect it, and nobody gets ticked. It's viewed as a strange type of courtesy, since you are zooming through so the traffic behind you can keep moving.

What weird traffic things are standard procedure where you live?

 

[loup garou]

hmm...most people here do the same two things.

 

[notfred]

Here in California, we have these odd little things called "left turn lanes", that no one on the East Coast seems to have heard of.

 

[kranky]

That's surprising. Most people who move here from other places are completely stunned by the "Pittsburgh Left" the first time someone does it in front of them. And the interstate exit wasn't always that way - only in the last 6 months or so has that little maneuver become popular.

 

[freakflag]

I love our posted "Left turn on red after full stop".

I haven't seen that anywhere else.

 

[Jzero]

LMFAO!
I read:

It has now become accepted that, if you want to go to the RIGHT exit lane (which few people do), you can zoom past all the quarter-mile of backed up cars in the deceleration lane and cut someone off at the last possible second while moving into the right exit lane, since once you've cut them off you aren't really getting in front of them. After all, why sit in all the deceleration lane traffic when you aren't going where all those people are going?

And all I could think of was "This dude must be from freaking PENNSYLVANIA!"
And then I checked your profile!
HAHA!

Near me in S. Jersey, there is an odd intersection where there is an exit lane off of a highway with a cross street. Coming off of the exit, you have a yield to traffic on the cross street coming across the highway. Just beyond this yield, traffic going towards the cross street is supposed to yield to YOU.
You can see the light on the highway as you go down the exit lane. If the light is green, there will be no traffic coming from the cross-street--they have a red light one way and a yield to you the other way.
It is customary to zip around people who are yielding to nothing when the light above is green.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: freakflag
I love our posted "Left turn on red after full stop".

I haven't seen that anywhere else.

In the Philly area there are signs that say "WAIT FOR GREEN"
Honestly, if people don't know this, we don't need a sign to remind them, they should have their license immediately and permanently revoked.

 

[Ime]

Where I live in Alabama, it's known that the left hand lane is the "Slow Lane" and the right hand lane is the passing lane.

Actually, now that I think about it, only all the really old people drive slow in the left lane, forcing you to pass them on the right.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

The funniest thing happens here. People get right up on your tail even when you're doing over the speed limit and just sit there. Bugs the hell outta me, but I guess this is the custom here.

 

[iamwiz82]

michigan lefts are left turns made by doing a u turn on a blvd after the street in which you wanted to turn left onto and then making a right turn once turned around. Most blvds here do not allow left turns except in rate situations.

 

[Alphazero]

There are a few roundabouts here with two or three lanes. Nothing too special, but nobody knows how to navigate them properly. People are always weaving between the lanes and cutting people off, or driving through the roundabout across all three lanes as if it were a regular roundabout. They can get rather confusing, too. A friend of mine saw a driver (female, if it's not obvious enough) going around the wrong way to make a left turn.

 

[bmacd]

it irks me to hell when the road is going to merge and there are plenty of signs to warn you, but people still ride it to the last second and try and merge. I never let those bastards merge in...i didn't wait 15 minutes to go a mile for nothing to only have somebody who waited less than a minute get in front of me.

-=bmacd=-