Let's stop and talk about Seattle's transportation insanity
The real transportation problem around here is cultural. Drivers hate bikers. Pedestrians are getting squashed. Jaywalkers proliferate. And many drivers are simply insane. But there is a solution.
In Seattle, we passed a roads and bridges levy that will pour $365 million into fixing streets, building bike paths, and making the world safe for pedestrians. Multibillion-dollar decisions loom for the Highway 520 floating bridge, the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and regional transportation. Washington is even redesigning its driver's licenses for "security" purposes.
But no one seems to be addressing the real transportation problem around here, which is the culture of transportation. People, it's a ground war out there.
Cyclists hate drivers. Drivers hate bikers. Pedestrians are getting squashed. Jaywalkers proliferate. And many drivers are simply insane.
There are a number of factors at play. Gas is more than $3 a gallon, so drivers leave the pump pissed. Commutes are lengthening and shortcuts are disappearing. Cyclists are more numerous and often more aggressive – messengers and swarming cycling clubs were not encountered in the past. Pedestrians are breaking the rules: Once, Seattleites waited their turn on the curb for the light to change; today, many feel free to saunter in front of your car without looking. Some even seem intent on throwing themselves under your wheels.
Believe it or not, what we have in Seattle is a lack of consensus. This time it's about how to treat each other as we move around.
It gets worse. Transportation is not only expensive and problematic, it is now morally charged.
Pedestrians don't just walk to work. They are foot soldiers in the war against obesity and suburbia.
Cyclists don't just whiz on by, they are the Chosen People to save us from Global Warming and Planetary Annihilation.
Auto drivers think they own the roads and are often righteous about their wheels. Cars are mobile mirrors on which we project our sense of power and identity, not to mention a kind of plumage that sends signals in breeding season.
A bike isn't a bike, a crosswalk isn't a crosswalk, a car isn't a car. We're zipping around town in political statements. Movement itself has become protest, but much less fun than in 1999 at WTO.
On top of it all, we have a clash of cultures.
In olden times, Seattleites didn't jaywalk and drove with a passive-aggressive politeness and a kind of cluelessness that was sometimes charming, often annoying, but rarely posed a danger. During my long years of commuting on the 520 bridge, I once saw two drivers, headed in opposite directions, stop and chat with each other while traffic backed up behind them. It was a Mayberry moment.
But stress, crowding, and lots of new drivers from California and back East have changed the mix. Maybe it's also generational. Now you get a Darwinian selfishness on the road that is undoubtedly exacerbated by the Grand Theft Auto generation.
You certainly see that among many cyclists, whose drive for fitness causes them to push themselves to the limit, and whose lust for speed lets them break all rules. Walking around Seward Park, many bikers are too busy pumping away to give you any "on your left" warnings as they come up behind you. I fear they'll snag one of my kidneys as they go by, like a train hooking a mail sack.
So it's aggressive meets clueless. It's righteous meets desperate. Those are fatal combinations.
You can learn to survive and do well in a hyper-aggressive driving culture, like New York or California; and you can live with clueless if you've got time and patience. I once knew a man from Eastern Washington who slowed down for every green light to be sure he would never run a red one. Driving across town was a slooow process, but heck, no one was in a hurry.
But mix them together and you have anarchy.
Some of that shows up in selfish dog-eat-dogism. But it also generates fear, which in turn produces tentativeness and an ill-placed "please don't hurt me" kind of courtesy that makes things worse.
One manifestation is what my wife calls "aggressive politeness." That's the gal with the right of way who waves you to turn in front of her. Or the driver who is too nice – or scared – to pass a cyclist. Or the pedestrian who stops in the middle of the street to let your car by. Ever get stuck at a four-way stop where everyone is trying to let the other guy go first? It often resolves itself when everyone finally lurches into the intersection at once. It's as if the very idea of "right of way" is too classist for Seattle sensibilities.
There are two ways out, as I see it. And these big transportation projects offer an opportunity.
One is a kind of metro-wide driving summit to reach agreement on what our transportation culture will be.
No, I'm not talking about a meeting of electeds and policy wonks. If we could get drivers, bikers, and pedestrians into one room – maybe they could arrive by bus to avoid a riot – we could work out some important cultural details.
A question might be: Do we jaywalk or not? Jaywalking can work if everyone agrees on the rules. In New York, jaywalkers are smart. Here, many are stupid – they wouldn't last a day in Manhattan before being flattened. So is dense, urban Seattle a jaywalking city, and if so, will someone please teach us how? Or do we try and hold the tide against jaywalking, to stick to the old standard that gained us our reputation of niceness? Let's reach agreement.
The summit would work out stuff that isn't in the manuals. For example, what's our attitude toward the police? In some driving cultures, Italy for example, drivers warn each other about speed traps and roadblocks. Such understandings build a sense of libertarian community, if that isn't a contradiction. In other driving cultures, motorists are eager tattletales, squealing on scofflaws at every opportunity. Which are we?
Second, I think it would be wise policy to shave off a few hundred million dollars in transportation spending for bike trails, crosswalks, and freeways, and send everyone to a remedial class on rules of the road. I don't remember everything from driver's ed in 1970. I know I am not alone.
But that refresher class shouldn't just be about driving. It should cover the whole gamut of transportation modes. How do you cross a street and survive? How many cyclists can ride abreast on Lake Washington Boulevard? Is a Segway a pedestrian, car, or bike? Why do so many skateboarders look so old? Why is it that boomers keep killing themselves on Harleys? Or, like a question posed by Borat, how fast do you have to go to kill a (fill in the blank)?
We need answers, and we shouldn't spend a dime more on transportation until we get them.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 9:53 a.m. inappropriate
Road War: Impulsive midblock U-turns are common now, signaled turns rare. I asked a friend in New Jersey about drivers there. He reported the same dangerously reckless driving we see here. I asked him why no one uses turn signals anymore. You don't give information to the enemy, he said. The "enemy," of course, is everyone else on the road.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 10:07 a.m. inappropriate
Great point about signalling: Maybe I missed the word "optional" next to signalling in driver's ed. Also, I should have mentioned that aggressive politeness often seems downright hostile. If you don't take up someone's offer to violate the right-of-way rules, they wave at you wildly and angrily until you do. They can't seem to imagine that you might see a hazard in doing so that they're not aware of (like another oncoming car). They take your reluctance to accept charity as arrogant definance of their good will. The point is, if we always make it up as we go along, we won't go along very well.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 10:35 a.m. inappropriate
We need less "courtesy": (Knute, I miss ReWind.)
This is an interesting topic, and I hope it catches on. I'm going to comment about driving only, since I rarely have any issues with cyclists or pedestrians. I'm a transplant from elsewhere (grew up in NJ), and what follows is my take on the whole NW driving experience.
I have far, far more road rage here than I've had anywhere else, and I've spent some time in the famously bad traffic around New York, DC and Boston (and Hartford, CT, which is an underrated horrible traffic spot). The chief problem here is exactly the northwest passive-aggressive, yet self-absorbed, approach to driving. Here are some issues that make me crazy:
-People drive slowly in the left lane.
-Drivers merge onto a highway at whatever speed they happen to be going, rarely making any discernible effort to accelerate to match the speed of traffic.
AND
-People will let them in, causing a slowdown that then spills across all the lanes in the highway.
-No Northwest native seems to have any understanding of how to behave at a 4-way stop. (How often have I watched drivers waving to each other at an intersection? There's a rule, follow the rule!)
I could go on at length, but these things are pretty common in my experience. Now these are all acceptable blips in a community with a lower population density but there are far too many of us now and this lackadaisical approach to a fairly important--and potentially dangerous--task is unacceptable. Why? They all cause hangups in traffic for no good reason.
Exacerbating the problem is the exaggerated courtesy that we often see. You can drive all week here and never once hear a car horn. That's bad. I don't like car horns either, but I do think that people driving badly, or otherwise doing stupid things, need to be called out. In any Right Coast metropolis, if you don't take your turn at a four-way stop, you can expect a heck of a lot of honking. That's as it should be. You are stealing time from everyone around you. You have failed in your responsibility as a driver. Here, people just sit in their cars, silently glaring or rolling their eyes, but drivers who drive irresponsibly are allowed to continue on their way, perhaps unaware that they're annoying everyone around them.
My solution: drivers should begin expressing their irritation directly, rather than quietly accepting things. Sure, a certain amount of inconvenience is the price we all must face when living in a high-population area, and we should accept some of these things as gracefully as possible. People have no business honking at an ambulance, for example. But a jackass talking on his cell phone while his car sits, idle, at a green light deserves a good honk. Let's call it the judicious application of rudeness. If people are made more aware of the world around them, they might "scale" a little better when it comes to driving.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 10:43 a.m. inappropriate
jaywalking: Jaywalking in its basic form, when no cars are coming, is a sign of a healthy city. It should only be illegal when safety or right of way is compromised.
Also, do you really understand right of way? When you say jaywalkers "ask to be hit", are you including pedestrians simply crossing legally at unmarked intersections? If so, it's your job to stop. Why would a pedestrian allow a driver to steal their right of way? I slap an awful lot of fenders for this.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 10:45 a.m. inappropriate
honking: Honking is rude. Maybe the other driver "needs" it, but what about the people living 50 feet away?
Few things get me angrier than some idiot who sets his car alarm to honk every time he parks.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 10:45 a.m. inappropriate
If no traffic is coming at a stoplight, why not just continue through?: In the Bay Area, here's a growing phenomenon: Slow down at stop sign or light, look both ways, then drive on through. Why not? You're a busy person, you're more important than a pedestrian or cyclist, and let's face it, laws are for criminals...
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 10:59 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Jaywalking: No, I am talking about people who cross mid-block into traffic or at corners against red lights. I've seen it regularly downtown, on Capitol Hill and in the Central District. The bus stop at 1st and University is a good spot to watch bad jaywalking, near Harbor Steps. Sometimes it's street people who seem to be making a statement--maybe reclaiming some power by stopping a big hunk of metal. Sometimes its young people doing the same thing. Sometimes, it's just a random idiot who is wandering out there with some kind of blind faith that he or she can walk through cars like Casper the Friendly Roadkill.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 11:18 a.m. inappropriate
- Cops driving while distracted by their computer screens.
- Cops who don't use their turn signals.
- Cops driving while on cell phones.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 11:37 a.m. inappropriate
shortcut expert: Love the column, Skip. Totally unpredictable take on a subject I thought I'd read quite enough about. I commute to work by foot from Lower Queen Anne, but find it absolutely impossible to get off the Hill and across the Ship Canal much before 7 on any given weekday night. The Ballard Bridge, once an ace westside shortcut, is no longer a shortcut. In fact, it's typically congested during rush hour. Sigh.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 11:56 a.m. inappropriate
Ah for the Old Days...: Thanks for your typically concise summary of the situation, Knute! Ironically, it was exactly 10 years ago when I drove across the country from Florida with my son and daughter in a 27-foot truck to start our lives over again in Seattle. One of the first comments I made on my infrequent website posts during that time (pre-blog days, remember?) was that it took a week before I actually heard someone honk their horn in traffic. Coming from Naples, Florida where the constant din of car horns in traffic had become a daily way of life, Seattle traffic was a breath of fresh air. Old people driving Cadillacs with Ohio license plates, rich high school kids driving their BMWs to school and a growing base of arriving workers to serve them all made a dangerous combination in a city that also didn't believe in public transportation for the peons (to their credit, Naples now finally has a bus system).
As we settled in to life on the Eastside, driving and traffic started to nastier. People stopped letting people in, drivers would cut you off in a heartbeat, people honked a lot more and it became less and less enjoyable driving in daily traffic here. I've also become an occasional honker, aggravated more frequently by what seems to be an escalation in the stupidity and rudeness of the overall population in general and in the driving public in particular. The continuous influx of new arrivals from near and far -- California to China -- have changed the dynamics of our driving populace.
At one point, I used to pose an observation about how things evolved the way they have here in Seattle. In the sixties, Seattle had one huge central industry that made it what it was: Boeing. And if any of you have ever been close to a Boeing plant in the old days when a shift changed, you would have been able to see the incredible dance of assembly workers carry over to the on ramps to the highway. Most people seemed to understand that if everyone cooperated and took their turn getting on to the highway, you actually got home sooner and more relaxed. But then you added Microsoft in the 80's along with all those other tech companies that followed. With that fortunate diversification came a new attitude of entitlement. What rules? We ain't got no stinkin' rules! We were taught to think outside the box so I'll drive that way too! $50,000 vehicles equipped with every high-tech feature in the world except turn signals.
I've often compared the mixing of the two cultures -- old school cooperative á la Boeing vs. new school outside-the-box-take-no-prisoners á la Microsoft et al -- as akin to mixing oil and water and dropping it all on our roads. I'm not sure how we can make all these clashing cultures merge better (pun intended). Unfortunately, you can't simply legislate good manners or punish stupidity.
Of course, you had to bring up that magic defining term for Seattle, Knute: passive/aggressive. After 10 years of living here, I've discovered that the one term that seems to pop us every time something stupid happens that locks all of us in gridlock, I curse Seattle's passive/aggressive persona. Even as Mayor Nickels tries to fix Seattle, he can't seem to get past that underlying Seattle persona: Let's vote FOR the monorail before we vote AGAINST it. Let's vote FOR that viaduct before we vote AGAINST it. This attitude cripples everyone and everything from moving ahead and cripples any leaders who happen to rise to the occasion. These past 10+ years of traffic problems have finally come to roost and unless we address them today, they'll only serve to make things worse over the next 10 years and beyond. Seattle may never become the city that we struggle to define. And that's unfortunate for all of us who love this place. I can only hope that pieces like yours can open a dialog to look at who we are as a city and people so we can step up and work together to make things better for each and every one of us.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 12:13 p.m. inappropriate
Slow down, people: Good conversation. When I moved here from San Francisco I was startled by how polite and quiet drivers are here. The sitting-at-a-green-light to time-to-honk delay is probably tripple what it is in any other city. Pedestrians and cars are friends here - not enemies. There isn't the constant annoying din of car horns.
I vote that we don't change this. Unless there's a safety issue, it shouldn't be a big deal if it takes you an extra 10 seconds to get home. If it's that big of an issue to you why aren't you working closer to your house? There are too many dangers involved in the high-speed driving style that other cities have that I don't really want here. I feel safe walking, biking, or riding a scooter here - much more safe than I ever felt in SF.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 1:04 p.m. inappropriate
Green-light-to-honk-time: Matt commented about the long "sitting-at-a-green-light to time-to-honk delay" around here. Part of that is civility, but I'd attribute part to growing awareness of just how many people will run a very stale red light at full speed.
It's just not *safe* to proceed when your light turns green, you need to wait and make sure cross traffic is obeying its red lights first.
When *three* cars turn left in front of me after my light has turned green, you know at least the last two entered the intersection after their light was fully red. But they knew they could get away with it. (Except last year one didn't get away with it -- I was broadsided in an intersection by a 19-year old uninsured driver without a license.)
I vote for more automated enforcement of basic safety rules. There aren't enough police on the road to enforce every red light -- if people won't police themselves, we need machines to do it.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 1:23 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Green-light-to-honk-time: I'm not sure we have more red light runners than anywhere else - I would claim that we have less. Plus, looking around before you drive on a green light doesn't take long - the honking comes in when someone is daydreaming, on a cell phone, touching up makeup, reading, looking for something on floorboard...
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 1:36 p.m. inappropriate
Mixing Driving Cultures: Part of the problem definitely is the mix of driving cultures with all the people moving to the Seattle area from around the country.
If you drive like a New Yorker in New York, everyone expects it. If you drive like a Californian in Los Angeles, everyone expects it. But if you're on a street that's a mix of three or four different driving cultures, you don't know what to expect, and neither to the pedestrians.
There are parts of the country where everyone knows that cars don't yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, and the pedestrians know to get out of the way. Those drivers get very angry when a pedestrian just walks across the road instead of scurrying for the gutter, and they cause accidents when they don't slow down because they expect the pedestrian to yield.
There are parts of the country where bicyclists are not allowed to ride two-abreast in a lane; where they're not allowed on the road at all if there is a bike trail nearby, no matter how unsafe the bike trail is; or where they're required to ride on the far right edge of the lane whether it's safe or not. Motorists coming from those places don't know that cyclists are allowed to ride two-abreast here, or that cyclists can take the whole lane if the lane is too narrow for a car to pass safely within the lane. These motorists get mad when cyclists don't cower in the gutter.
None of this means these motorists are bad people, they just have unreasonable expectations of how traffic is supposed to behave here.
I know it's not a very open-arms welcoming approach, but I'd like to see a rigorous written and driving test for people moving to Washington before they could get a Washington license. (Actually, I'd like to see a rigorous test for getting a license here period. And, as much as I'd hate to waste time on it myself, I'd like to see at least a written exam for renewals every 10 years or so.)
As silly as it sounds, there should probably be a "driving culture" brochure for out-of-state drivers coming here, highlighting a few of the state's significant rules, like yielding for pedestrians in crosswalks, marked or unmarked; allowing bicycles on roads and freeways except where specifically prohibited; and the presence of left-lane on- and off-ramps on freeways that tend to put slow-moving drivers into the fast lane.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 2:11 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Mixing Driving Cultures: "reach agreement on what our transportation culture will be."
You hit the nail on the head - the problem is that we're not all on the same page. Seems to be general characteristic of Seattle.
Ever been to Athens, Greece? During my first few days there, I was amazed by the apparent chaos on the streets. Cars, bikes, pedestrians, vespas, busses cutting each other off, running lights, ignoring speed limits, honking, and generally running amok.
Eventually I realized that Athenian traffic was tightly governed by a system of rules, just not the ones in the books, and that pretty much everyone understood and followed them. And it worked.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 2:16 p.m. inappropriate
More cars and drivers is the answer: "There are parts of the country where everyone knows that cars don't yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, and the pedestrians know to get out of the way."
Where is that legal?
"As silly as it sounds, there should probably be a "driving culture" brochure for out-of-state drivers coming here"
http://www.dol.wa.gov/driverslicense/driverguide.pdf
I think all the cyclists and pedestrians need to start driving cars everywhere so we can get really clogged up and angry.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 5:08 p.m. inappropriate
RE: More cars and drivers is the answer: I'm not sure where it's legal, but it certainly happens here.
I walk a lot, mostly on Capitol Hill, and rarely does anyone stop when I'm at a crosswalk with my son in his stroller. Unless of course, it's the last person in a line of cars. Then they wave me forward and get angry if I don't walk. They don't generally notice if the oncoming traffic is stopped, but they want me out there in the middle of it all. quickly. I don't get it.
I've also noticed on the streets where there's a stop sign going one way (east/west), and the other side (north/south) doesn't have one, that the drivers with no stop sign are more likely to stop for a pedestrian. Just FYI drivers, I'm not going to cross in front of a car who has no business stopping. Have you even looked behind you to see the confused driver slamming on their brakes? I know the rules of the road, even if I'm on the sidewalk. You're not following them. Wave madly all you want, but you're in a big heavy metal death machine (seriously. look at the stats), and I'm pushing an infant wearing nothing but cotton and nylon. I'll wait thanks. If you're on the stop side, and I'm about to walk, you can bet I'm going to walk. But I'm getting eye contact first.
Cars get to honk, bikes get to slap fenders. I keep thinking pedestrians need some sort of recourse, but I haven't been able to think of anything that didn't involve a brick.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 5:27 p.m. inappropriate
RE: More cars and drivers is the answer: You need a modified version of the yellow magnet mentioned here. Here's the original text, and here's a company that can make them for you. It looks like they're about $18 for 25 of them.
Posted Wed, Apr 11, 5:45 p.m. inappropriate
RE: We need less "courtesy": goody: for the record, I miss Rewind too. Though Bill Radke's new show--Weekend America--is a kind of stealth reunion of sorts for some of the old Rewind crew: John Moe is on staff and in recent weeks I've run into Cathy Sorbo and Sherman Alexie at the KUOW studios taping segments for the show.
Posted Thu, Apr 12, 9:13 a.m. inappropriate
Let's Get Flexible: Memories from rush hour in New York City - Signs urging "Prevent Gridlock, Keep Moving". Pedestrians crossing streets as opportunities arise. The shortcomings of automatic signals accepted, acknowledged. Nothing like that here. As more people struggle to share our streets, we hold to our faith in stop lights. Add another and another; replace stop-and-go intersections with the stop-and-wait variety. As if drivers and pedestrians can't think for themselves. Use those longer, suburban light cycles despite the city's more tightly spaced street grid. As if long lines of waiting cars and trucks connote efficiency.
Lets think differently. At some point more signals impede rather than help traffic flow - signal coordination becomes impossibly complex. At some point drivers and pedestrians can do a better job on their own.
Posted Thu, Apr 12, 12:23 p.m. inappropriate
RE: More cars and drivers is the answer: Excellent article Mr. Mossback, which is pertinent in many places.
Time to start working on what the comedian Gallagher conceived of years ago: a car brake remote control. Just point, click, and STOP 'em!
Seriously though, part of the 'not-in-this-world'-ness of drivers stems from car (particularly "luxury") manufacturers making vehicles that, more and more, cut people off from the outside world. Rolling studios that so insulate drivers they can't even be bothered to conceive of anything beyond their little cocoon. Which in turn perpetuates even more, the self-entitlement syndrome.
There is also the fact that a goodly proportion of drivers don't look far enough ahead when driving, which contributes to panic stops and other non-awareness issues. Twenty feet doesn't cut it, people.
Posted Thu, Apr 12, 12:56 p.m. inappropriate
RE: More cars and drivers is the answer: I think you make a great point. It used to be when you drove a car you were essentially outdoors: the car was noisy, you wore a coat, maybe the heater didn't work, or you went without air conditioning (who in the Northwest wanted to pay extra for that?) and rolled the windows down. Now people drive hermetically sealed home entertainment centers: cell phones, computer navigation systems, CD players, even TVs. Give these cars big enough bumpers and it doesn't really matter what's happening outside!
Posted Thu, Apr 12, 1:05 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Let's Get Flexible: And I know traffic circles are supposed to "calm" traffic, but in some intersections they seem to add to the chaos: plantings block visibility, people take short cuts around them. There was one installed in Kirkland that was slightly too big the intersection, so drivers were forced to steer into a crosswalk to get around it. I predict the day we need to evacuate Seattle (earthquake, eruption, tsunami, avian flu) we will rue the day we clogged our arteries with these things.
Posted Thu, Apr 12, 1:30 p.m. inappropriate
I like the Seattle Way: As a young boy in 1970s NJ my family would often drive to Long Beach Island. Our placid drive was always interrupted by aggressive thoughless drivers that my Dad called "those damn Penny drivers." It was popular lore that drivers from Pennslyvania were more aggressive than those from Jersey. I only write this as it seems that there are quite a few posters from NJ and that most drivers claim that every one is a bad driver but themselves. I like the Seattle way and if it causes some problems with overly nice drivers so be it.
Posted Thu, Apr 12, 2:04 p.m. inappropriate
Drivers don't pay enough attention: In all fairness, I think the major problem here isn't a collision of cultures but a low skill set among Washington drivers. I've lived and driven in more than half a dozen other states and regions of our amazing country, from north to south, from east to west, from midwest to southest, and I have to state -- in all objectivity -- that Washingtonians are the worst drivers, by far, that I have seen anywhere. They simply don't pay much attention to their vehicles or the vehicles around them, and they are constantly surprised by the actions of other drivers who are more focused. Many natives blame "drivers from out of state," but this argument defies logic. If that were the case, then the aggregate of drivers here would be no worse than the aggregate of drivers in other states, and the reality is that Washington motorists are dramatically (and dangerously) less competent. They drive and react much more slowly than motorists outside the state, and I can only conclude that Washingtonians simply do not take driving seriously or give it the attention it demands. Easily 40 percent of Washington drivers lack the skills that most drivers in other states master quickly and easily. For instance:
* merging
* navigating a four-way stop
* understanding the heirarchy of lanes -- to wit, keep right EXCEPT to pass. This last one is surely the most severe and dangerous breakdown, as it throws all lanes into chaos and reduces safety for all drivers.
I have also been told that these problems stem from native Washington courtesy, a claim that always makes me laugh. There is nothing less courteous than stubbornly driving slower in a left lane than vehicles in a right lane -- backing up traffic and reducing the safety space between cars as what should be free-flowing traffic turns into hazardous congestion -- and the drivers of this state do this to a degree unheard of in other states.
Posted Thu, Apr 12, 3:32 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Let's Get Flexible: Easy now. Traffic circles are wonderful things that you can only appreciate if you've lived without them. They don't exist in California, and most residential intersections have 4-way stop signs. You don't realize how nice it is not to have to stop every block. In the end, everyone there practices rolling stops - termed "California stops" - and just accepts that every few years they'll have to pay for a ticket.
Posted Thu, Apr 12, 8:19 p.m. inappropriate
RE: Drivers don't pay enough attention: As a Seattle native and a very fine driver, I won't take your flamebait... but I will repeat a comment made by various out-of-state friends, when they first drove here: our highway architecture does not lend itself to obeying the keep-right-except-to-pass convention (which, yes, is law here). A friend from Indiana drove in on I-90 and had a fine time until he got to Issaquah, and then the right lane kept turning into an exit-only lane, which he hadn't encountered anywhere on the way.
Okay, I'll raise to your flamebait once: how do you tell the bad drivers around you are Washington natives? By their license plates?
Posted Thu, Apr 12, 10:48 p.m. inappropriate
One more thing: After thinking about this more what is a "bad" or "good" driver? These are highly subjective terms. Based on the spirit of the posts I would say most of what seem to be declared as "good" habits would be bad to me. Probably I am one of those folks that sometimes, albeit rarely, drives slow in the fast lane to teach the aggressive drivers a thing or two of who's the boss.
At any rate a perhaps more objective measure of good and bad drivers would be comparing insurance rates. Insurance companies are much better of ascertaining safe and dangerous drivers or should I say good and bad ones than popular wisdom. With this in mind I would say that insurance rates for Seattle drivers would tend to be lower than those of drivers in similar cities and weather and situations.
Posted Fri, Apr 13, 10:09 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Let's Get Flexible: But before Seattle added traffic circles, it didn't have 4-way stops everywhere, either.
It had, believe it or not, "uncontrolled intersections" where drivers had to actually look out for cross traffic before entering the intersection. You only had to stop of someone was close enough that stopping was the only way to yield to them. Otherwise, neither direction had to stop.
There were stop signs where minor roads met arterials, or at particularly difficult intersections, but for the most part, residential traffic was like a dance, you had to coordinate your driving with those around you to avoid stepping on toes.
Posted Fri, Apr 13, 10:12 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Drivers don't pay enough attention: Not to mention our absurd left-lane exits and on-ramps.
Tell me how the left lane is supposed to be the fast lane on I-5 when it's full of merging traffic and people backed up for the next exit?