nizo's Journal: RANT: To the guy honking at me on the way to work

No matter how many times you honk at me, I won't turn right on the green arrow because I am going forward to get to my workplace you nimrod. If I was turning, I not only would have simply turned at the first sight of the green arrow, but I would have had my turn signal on too. And it was not and never has been a right turn only lane, so get a clue.

p.s. I did look in my mirror to make sure your passenger wasn't in labor or bleeding or something; since you were alone I can only assume you are an idiot.

My new catchphrase

[Billosaur]

As I walk down the sidewalks of NYC, I never fail to come upon a snarl of traffic and some idiot who feels that honking will suddenly cause all the cars before him to simply part and let him through (notice I say 'him'; rarely is it ever a woman). So I utter this phrase under my breath... "Because honking always helps!" I want to put it on a sign and carry it, and flash it at the offender, just to let them know what a complete and total ass they are.

Re:

[nizo]

Hehe

Well for some reason I think he assumed I was turning. The thought that I might be going forward hadn't dawned on him for some reason. I could have moved over into the leftmost lane on the two lane street after turning onto it, but there were several cars/semi trucks and it didn't make much sense to go out of my way to avoid the empty lane. And since neither lane was a turn lane, it didn't matter. People are all insane.

Re:

[stoolpigeon]

There's a Simpsons where they are heading somewhere and the freeway is packed with bumper to bumper traffic. Homer says something to the effect of, "Don't worry, I've got a way to get through this." and starts laying on the horn. Awesome bit.

Re:

[nizo]

If I had to explain humanity to a bunch of aliens, the Simpsons would be a great place to start :-)

Who, me?

[Shadow Wrought]

That's where you pantomime whether the honking is intended for you or not. Only you have to be sure that whatever you do, you do NOT understand what he's trying to gesticulate back to you. That way you're turned around looking at him and completely miss the signal, forcing you to sit through another cycle;-)

WHile I did not do this, I watched a cabbie perform just this feat on a BMW. Beauty.

::ragged sigh::

[Pancho Pistolas]

Oh yeah...and there's two other ends to that dumb-$#!+ scenario:

1.) The idiots who plan street layouts with minor streets intersecting major streets with one (1) lane that's both a forward lane and a turning lane, with one green every once in a blue moon. I have one of those in front of my place of work, and there's ALWAYS some "honky" contributing to the general din by the laying on of horn. Gods forbid that anyone have to wait though a light-change

2.) The ones that _don't_ honk, but with the same impude

Oooh...

[Interrobang]

The ones that _don't_ honk, but with the same impudence will almost run over pedestrians (on the sidewalk no less!) by suddenly gunning and climbing the curb to pass someone who apparently isn't moving fast enough.

I saw a guy in a red SUV (surprise, surprise!) do this yesterday while trying to turn onto the back street that leads into my neighbourhood. Traffic was backed up quite badly at the light on the main artery he was on, and the poor dear was stuck three cars behind the intersection, and his hou

Hm must be different rules

[sillypixie]

Weird - up here, there is no such thing as a green arrow for a right hand turn. There are only green arrows for left hand turns, and any lane to which a green arrow applies, is a turning only lane, traffic always flows in those lanes.

It strikes me as very bad traffic management to have a whole intersection paused for a right hand turn that can be blocked by a single car going straight...

Uh, assuming that this is what happened. I'm kinda filling in the details with imagination, who needs reality when you c

Re:

[nizo]

Well first off right on red is legal here, so the arrow is pretty useless. The only time it is lit is when the perpendicular street traffic's left turn arrows are lit (so as long as no one makes any illegal U-turns, everyone can turn safely). But yeah at most intersections they are pretty much useless, except that they can remind people they can go ahead and turn without worrying about oncoming traffic). You raise a good point though; if the lane isn't just a turn lane, the arrow is stupidly confusing too.

In Seattle, honking is not done

[WillAffleckUW]

And those who do it get where they're going even SLOWER than before, because they're trying to jump the queue.

I wonder about the future

[Degrees]

I wonder about the future, when we will all have Instant Messenger capability: pedestrians, sane people, honkers, police. I can see you saying "But I'm not turning right" and the speech recognition system automatically popping that on the honker's screen. That, and ten other people blurting Billosaur's "Because honking always helps!" and flooding the honker's screen with that.

Hmmm... maybe I should start buying stock in pharmaceutical companies that develop and sell mood lifters. It's gotta be a gut-wrench

These days...

[Le Marteau]

These days, when things like that happen, I put on my 4 ways, and make way, as if an emergency vehicle were behind me.

I really, REALLY want to avoid having to draw my .357 on anyone, and if all it takes is making way to avoid that, I'm more than willing ;)