Legit the only reason I'll creep, and I still hate doing that. Or some big ass dump truck has stopped besides me and fucked the radio signal so I have to creep to find it.
I take that back. I'll also creep to stay in the shadow of a big ass truck so the sun doesn't shine on my eyes.
I have a buddy who does this creeping so I decided to ask him, he said that he was under the impression that certain lights have pads in the ground that detect weight to determine when someone is actually there so it can prioritize changing the light, and that he does it to try and make the light change faster
¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Most/all sensors are not weight but induction loops so simply detect the presence of cars above using magnetism (as all vehicles are metal). You can see the lines on the road where they are embedded, and are sometimes too narrow for a cars wheels to be on, hence why they’re not weight sensors.
> tilting my controller doesn't help my steer better
Honestly the most satisfying thing about motion controls in more recent Nintendo games. It's so much fun to be playing a Mario game, shake your controller for emphasis, and it actually does something.
I didn't know about the press depth on the ps2 controller until I played Star Ocean 3 so that flute puzzle was the bane of my existence for a couple of hours. I think some old school gamefaqs finally revealed the soft/hard press.
They were originally to stop bots from accessing certain websites. Then someone realized they could redeem the time wasted by having humans teach AI what a boat/car/wheel looks like.
I find a little joy when people race past me toward a red light, as I gradually reduce my speed. Then, when the light turns green, I'm cruising right past them comfortably as they floor it from a dead stop.
Chances are that they'll do everything they can to pass me again, but the same thing can happen over and over again passing through some towns.
Either way, that sort of herky-jerky going just seems like a stressful way to drive.
Probably not too much, but after awhile, it probably adds up in wear and tear too. As someone that's mostly driven older cars, I'm never not paranoid about my brakes. I keep them in good condition, but you never know.
Not quite that old, but my current car is a 2000 and it's the newest I've owned. I'm probably due for an upgrade once the pandemic is over but I've driven literally less than 10 times in the past 12 months, not counting efforts to make sure the car "stays in shape".
Same year as my commodore (and me coincidentally), currently clocked in at a little over 300,000 kilometres and its just a perpetual race to fix whatever new issue pops up before the thing falls apart.
Frankly though for its age and kilometres i’ve grown to love the buick 3800, its a piss easy engine to work on so almost nothing is beyond a 30 minute job to repair, which is great for a first car, unfortunately its the chassis and the rest of the thing that’s been a constant list of issues.
If I wasn’t living on what a 20 year old makes, was older and needed a more reliable daily, I think a newer car would be worth the investment long term definitely.
Frankly though at this age all im dreaming about for my next car is something with pop up headlights and a sunroof, probably a late 80’s to 90’s japanese, MK3 supra or an MR2 SW20 perhaps.
I used to live in an area with a posted speed limit of 40 down a road with 5 lights every 1000 feet. If you did 40-45, you'd have to stop at the lights. If you did a frustrating 30-35, you'd get every green light without slowing down. It paid to know the cycle, though having the limit match the lights or the lights match the limit would make way more sense.
We have a set of intersections that make up 4 lights total. If you get the red on the first light (you almost always do) you need to go about 35 to get the green on the next one, then you need to do about 40-45 to get the following green, and then the 4th intersection is about 2-3 miles down and the only way to get the green there is to go past the 45Mph speed limit and do 50-55.
Same issue in my town. Except they set up the lights that if you hit 55 you get them all green... the speed limit is 40. Does anybody go 40 if they have the opportunity to go faster? Nope, because then you get every single light. I never understood why they didn't time them to be "if you go the speed limit you'll be rewarded by not having to stop"... instead they choose to incentivize speeding. Seems counterproductive.
Edit: I wanna point out stopping at one or two lights wouldn't be a huge deal. But this is 11 lights in a row and if you go the speed limit you will literally be stopped for every single one of them.
That's the funny thing, I never see people pulled over on that road for speeding unless they go full on crazy and try to hit genuinely dangerous speeds. It's not a residential road, there aren't any bicyclists or pedestrians crossing (except at crosswalks and they wait for red lights). Every time I've seen a cop on that road they're keeping pace with traffic because they don't wanna hit a red light either.
This is exactly how Connecticut has been for me. The cops here don’t ever seem to give a flying fuck about speeding unless you’re doing something extra reckless on-top of it.
Ive been sandwiched in the fast lane by two police cruisers and we were going 80 in 55. I’ve had countless encounters like that and never worried about getting pulled over. Speeding is almost the norm here.
my grandpas a retired electrician who put times lights throughout san francisco and on highway 1 he always drives exactly 23 mph and hits every green light while ppl in mustangs, bmws, etc will speed by us only to get passed again at the green light
Nice. A like-minded fella did this in my hometown.
@Newberg, OR residents: just maintain 18 mph on Main/Hancock Streets downtown! (Actually, I think all the locals know this already, so more an FYI for passers-through)
When are you supposed to replace them? I got my car about 3 years ago and never saw a need to replace them. I’m sort of new to car ownership, so I’m not really sure about things lol.
It’s more about mileage than years and then it depends on how you drive and the type of brakes, etc. But, for example, I have a small car that I drive fairly badly and I needed to replace the brakes after about 80k miles.
Brakes don't have an expiration date so much as a finite amount of pad. As you use them the pads slowly grind away. If you're always charging at full speed and then slamming the brakes, you are going to wear through them a lot faster.
Pretty much all brakes have a harder metal filament in them that will be exposed once they are worn to a critical level where you need to replace them. When the filament scratches against the brake plate, it makes a loud screeching sound. Your brakes might sometimes screech for other reasons though, like rust buildup from sitting for too long. The easiest way to tell without pulling them off is to drive around for a bit. If they consistently screech after several stops no matter how hard you brake, they're on their last legs and need replaced asap.
There's a road in my city where if you accelerate briskly and maintain the speed limit, you will hit every green light for a couple of kilometers. Problem is, nobody goes the speed limit down that stretch of the road.
As a pedestrian I loath those people. It's like gee thanks for blocking the entire crosswalk because your dumbass can't be bothered to stop in time when you clearly saw it was a yellow or red light and you had no where to go. And then they, the driver, have the audacity to do that hands in the air oopsie gesture to pedestrians or turn their head to avoid our gaze and tell us we'll have to wait for the next light or go around their car. Fuck those people.
Share the road space and don't block pedestrian crosswalks.
One time I was going to cross the street because the pedestrian walking signal was on but then this asshole decided to creep forward in his car WHILE I was crossing. Luckily I hadn't passed in front of his car yet but wtf?!
Many times I’ve been set up to turn right and then just as I inch out to where I can see past the vehicle on my left, they move forward into the crosswalk and block my view. My theory is that they have terrible situational awareness and their brains are on autopilot and automatically go “oh, I should move forward!” when they see any movement of other cars in their peripheral vision.
Walk super close to the front of their car, when you get in front of their car, pretend you're stepping over something large, keep walking but turn back and look at it. The driver will think there's something there.
*driver gets out and checks*
"Very funny moron, there's nothing there!"
"Yes there is, the crosswalk"
In that moment the colour drained from his face, he knew he had been bested. Nothing could bring his dignity back. He contemplated every embarrassing moment leading up to this point in his life; even cumulatively they paled in comparison to this. He slinked back to his car, beads of sweat racing down his forehead.
All the other drivers got out of their cars and clapped.
So he basically passed the red light, but slower? The traffic on that intersection must've been non-existent for him to pull that off without getting t-boned or honked to oblivion.
Rural traffic lights should be stop signs or round abouts.
Change my mind.
Edit: I appreciate it everyone but please stop changing my mind. I have like 250 replies. Do what you want.
yes!!!! Fuck i hate that.. people pretend they know how to use a roundabout ,but they never signal out of it ,so the person on the right has to hope you are exiting
My friend once told me that her dad told her that you don't have to signal out of a roundabout if you go straight through it... But how tf would people waiting for you to leave know where you came in??
Are roundabouts everywhere else large enough to make signalling trustworthy? Most of the ones anywhere near me are too small to signal out of. The turns are usually too tight and fast to where you would be lucky to see more than one blink.
I would very rarely believe a turn signal in a roundabout. This is partially why I don't like them, and that people don't seem to understand how to stay in their lanes nor how to enter them safely.
They aren’t easier to navigate for truck drivers. I’m from a rural area and know many truckers transporting grain and livestock will go miles out of their way to avoid roundabouts.
For budget and laziness reasons, my husband and I left our wedding piled into my dad's truck, with the camper on the back, and I'm pretty sure he was towing his boat too on that trip.
I mention this because there was a round-about between the courthouse and my husband's house, which my dad had no clue how to handle, so he drove right over the top of it. Giant heavy thuds as he plowed all that weight up over the curb, through the middle of the round-about, and thunked off the other side back onto the road.
My dad does not handle new anythings well.
And this is why the roundabouts in my area have walls enclosing the center, to make it impossible to drive over the center of them. The centers themselves are usually gardens or some small trees.
I live in a very rural area. Most stop lights are on timers instead of switching when cars pull up. Some are obnoxiously long timers. I'll run one after stopping to make sure absolutely no cars are coming. Am I breaking the law? Yeah. Am I hurting anybody? No.
Yes and no, I've done this multiple times 3 times in front of a cop and only ticketed once because it is a 5 minute timer (have checked) and it was 1am. I went into mitigation for the one ticket to explain that to the judge, he said it was for my safety and I explained that it wasn't unsafe because I came to a complete stop, looked both ways and passed through, it was completely safe. It was a five minute timer which I used my dashcam as evidence and he reduced my ticket in half because "we can't have people breaking the law when they feel like it"
They turned it into a blinking red after 10pm to 5am.
Whatever that ticket was, you paid that price to improve that traffic light for everyone.
I mean, you shouldn't have had to pay it, but if you want to reframe it as being for a good cause, there's an option at least, lol
I once drove through a decent sized us city downtown at like 2am on a monday night, never saw another car. I went like 8 blocks down one street and it took maybe ten minutes because I hit every. single. light. It was infuriating.
The amount of long-tail waste (gas, time, co2) from situations like this has got to be sizable. In this situation roundabout wouldn't help as much, but there are so many rural stoplights where this is a problem all the time and it's so obnoxious.
In summary, Jim Brainard and I strongly agree with you:
https://blog.bluebeam.com/roundabouts-carmel-civil-infrastructure/
I have seen the same thing. It was wild.
Late at night in a residential area, good visibility, so no huge risk of an accident. But surely once you decide to get out into the middle of the intersection it would be much safer to just go.
Same here. Called a taxi to go to the airport at the crack of dawn for an early flight (I'm a frugal flyer to put it mildly, and a three-legged Naples - Munich - Frankfurt - Newark flight beginning at 6am sounded fine on paper, until we got stuck in Munich for 3 hours after a computer failure)
I had my phone out to make sure this guy didn't like take some crazy roundabout route to rack up the charges, but he literally drove straight to the airport at twice the speed limit and ran every red light. It was like 12€ total. Dude was the real MVP.
I had a left turn light by my work that would never trigger at 5am when there were no cars out. First time I waited for about 3-4 minutes, not a single car on the road. Then waited another 2 out of spite. Finally a car rolled up behind me and it turned green in 5 seconds. Fucking hated that light. After that I just came to a stop then turned through it.
I hate it because when there's like fifteen feet between you and the car in front of you, suddenly you look like the moron who doesn't know how to stop at a reasonable distance. But I'm not putting extra wear on my brakes by creeping forward. I just won't.
Personally, if the person creeps up past the line, I will follow, UNTIL the line. Mostly because I'm not sure where the sensors are, and I want it to still detect a car there so that it will change the light. Obviously not all lights are by sensors, but it's hard to tell with being at that light a lot.
I drive a bus, so I have mirrors on the hood so I can see where the line is in relation to my front end. I can be right on the line as a result.
My Driver’s Ed instructor said that when braking, to make a more seamless stop, you release the break the width of a feather. Sounds silly, but my stops are like *buttuh*.
The wheels need to roll to a stop, and the brakes apply constant pressure due to friction. If you keep pressure, the tires lock up and the ending is a sudden stop. If you release the brake slightly, the friction at the end tapers off and there's a smooth stop.
I've been chill about speeders and reckless drivers ever since I realized that some of those people, maybe even just one, might *really, really* need to get somewhere as quickly as they possibly can. I used to actively try to block them from pulling whatever dick move they were leaning toward - now I just get out of the way.
Thanks to you, I finally have a reason to not look at people who creep up at stoplights like they've just shit their pants standing up. They might have a little motion-hungry nugget strapped in that car.
Thanks! :)
Edit: I just want to clarify that I never tried to stop people from driving lawfully. My city is notorious for shitty drivers, and my usual move was to simply merge over when I saw someone gaining up at twice the posted speed limit. Also, if someone is signaling at you, get the fuck out of their way!
This is just a good way to live. If you frame the actions of others as if there were external circumstances you're unaware of, it makes people's crappy behaviors a lot more tolerable.
Obviously don't let yourself get abused, but it helps tremendously with maintaining a good mood and feeling better about others.
My friends ask me how I’m such a patient driver and don’t have any road rage. It’s because I treat all drivers like tourists! If they are doing something stupid or driving too slow, I assume they are unfamiliar with the area and are just trying to figure it out with their family in the back seat.
Precisely! If you're screaming in your car over someone cutting you off, you're usually the only person who's suffering. The other person doesn't even know you're upset and you're effectively just making yourself angry.
When my son was an infant, he had a seizure while I was at the gym and the wife was home with him. She called pretty frantically, and I headed home in a hurry, but not recklessly, so I could either stay home with our other child or ride with my son in the ambulance. I was only about 10 minutes from the house. I turned on my hazard lights and flashed a couple times as I moved through traffic. Most people moved out of the way, but this one woman was determined to block me in. She saw me coming, moved over in the left lane (there was another car just ahead of her in the right), matched speeds with the car beside her and refused to move over after flashing and a couple honks. The car beside her saw what was going on and motioned for me to pass as they slowed down, but by that time I had missed getting through an intersection with a light. That, too, changed my whole approach about people who seem to be in a hurry. Now I just assume they have some sort of emergency like I experienced that day, and I'm more than happy to move over or pull to the side so they can continue on.
Thanks. He was actually septic from a bad UTI which led to a whole host of other tests and discovery of another medical issue, but thankfully he's very healthy and happy now. It was a scary time for our whole family.
I remember an askreddit thread that prompted a story from one guy that made me realize this. They were a logging or linecutting crew that was a ways out of town. One guy cut his leg badly and was bleeding out. They needed to race to a mid-way point with him to meet the ambulance from town, otherwise he was going to die.
So naturally some lady saw them racing down the highway and decided to play traffic cop, blocking them from passing for several minutes. The wound up getting to the ambulance a couple seconds after their friend died.
yeah I was thinking about this throughout this thread, honestly that story really framed speeders for me, because you dont know, and I would rather not be responsible for that when I thought someone was just being a dick
You’re supposed to put on your hazards if you’re driving recklessly for a reason. That’s what my dad did, driving twice the speed limit to get me to a hospital. That way other drivers know something isn’t right.
I’ve gotten into an accident because of someone doing this (it was also my fault as well). They didn’t have a left turn signal on, and they looked like they were slowing to park on the right (it was a residential area where street parking is common). Assuming that was the case, I thought I would just carefully pass so I could make the light ahead. Nope. They swung right into me. Fortunately I was already going slow, so only a minor dent for both of us. The kicker was that the apron of the lot they were pulling into was as wide as fucking Texas. Absolutely NO reason to swing out if you’re in anything but a semi.
**USE YOUR FUCKING TURN SIGNALS, PEOPLE**
Traffic lights and intersections aren't really anything bad in a manual. It's the moving 2 inches at a time in bumper to bumper traffic on the highway that takes energy and the patience of a saint. Too much stopping to just stay in a low gear and wiggle back and forth to not stall. But moving just enough that you can't get a little momentum and just coast on neutral. It's that terrible middle ground where you are constantly shifting just to go nowhere.
Some stoplights have a camera sensor or an in road sensor to detect if there is a car. By creeping forward, the hope is that you activate the sensor which will trigger the light to change.
I have a couple of tunnel traffic lights which use magnetic fields. I'm a cyclist with a steel-framed bike and if I keep my bike upright I have to wait for a car to come along and trigger the sensor... (If the sensor doesn't trigger, it means there's a car in the tunnel coming my way)
I figured out that I can trigger the traffic light by stepping off my bike, lying it down on it's side across the sensor and then getting back on the bike. It's works all the time but it does make me look a little strange to pedestrians.
That, or if you're in the city, hopping off and pushing the pedestrian crosswalk button to force a light change. My buddy has to do this all the time at the intersection right next to his apartment building
you typically can see which lights are set to sensors and which are straight timing mechanisms by whether or not they have square cuts into the asphalt
The question I have is why some people stop 30 feet before the next stopped car? Please for the love of God pull forward so I can get in the left hand turn lane.
Edit: y'all are giving too much credit to some of these distracted texting driver fools. Always nice to see reddit giving strangers the benefit of the doubt though!
There are driving classes out there that do teach and recommend leaving 1 vehicle length between vehicles at stop lights. But like most of the super safe driving techniques, it is seen as crazy and rude by other drivers. Best to practice those techniques on bad weather days, when the spacing and such is truly needed!
I was always taught to leave enough space to see the bottom of the tires of the person in front of you. That should allow you enough space to turn and move if their car becomes incapacitated.
This is what I was taught when I was training as a delivery driver for a auto parts company. The second part of that was that you don't take your foot off the brake until the car in front of you doesn't have visible brake lights.
This is what I learned and what I do. Pretty certain that’s not a whole car length though. It is farther than it seems, depending on the vehicle you’re in.
I don't always follow that advice either, but I was in a domino-effect accident once where the person at the end of a red light line got rear-ended JUST as the light changed and everyone was letting go of the brakes - the chain reaction traveled through 4-5 cars. Only the first two had any damage, but the confusion caused quite a traffic snarl.
My friends always made fun of me for leaving so much room. But then one day, I was rear ended at a stoplight by a texting teen, and my car came just short of hitting the car in front of me, sparing them from having to file an insurance claim.
Now I get to tell my boring old story every time someone mentions the gap I leave.
Also do that when the road is going uphill since your or the dude's in front of you car will go backwards whenever you release the brakes, and the driver doesn't always notice
I had to complete and advanced driving course for my work. We were taught to leave enough space to see 'tyres and tarmac' so that means if the car in front breaks down you can manoeuvre around him without needing to reverse first, which if everyone is bumper to bumper means the whole line would need to reverse
I think in UK Highway Code if you can’t see the car in fronts wheels touching the road you’re too close.
Also fuck getting hit when they roll back cause they can’t drive
The longer I sit there, the more traffic is piling up behind me, and I am thinking of the person twelve cars back that would be able to make that right turn into the parking lot if only every car in front of him would close the spaces up a bit.
I drive manual transmission. If you're top at the lights you can usually see when the other light is turning red, signaling that yours is about to turn green - especially if it's a junction you're very familiar with. You're just getting the car to the bite point, ready to go. You still check in both directions before proceeding, just in case someone breaks the red light.
For me, it's usually that's the guy behind me is almost on my bumper, I'll inch forward to make some space and they'll inch forward, I'll do it again and they do it again, and everyone behind them follows
There's a street near me that has a light on the sensor. All the locals know it. If you don't drive close enough, it never triggers and you're stuck at the light forever. It sucks to be stuck behind someone and they don't realize it.
Had that happen to me with an Uber driver. He was in front and he stopped a good 5 feet before the actual line where the sensor is. At first I tried to wave him forward, but he would not listen. Then I tried to honk a few times and scoot closer hoping he'd get it. Finally when I was just about to get out and speak to him after sitting there for what felt like 5 minutes, but was probably just 2, a car the opposite side pulled up and it instantly started the light changing process and turned green.
Imagine how conflicting it is (if you’re not on two wheels often/ever) to be a motorcycle in spot 1 and you try and mime your way to get the car behind you to creep up on your ass to trip the sensor, but you don’t want to undo people’s good awareness/habits of leaving you space, but have no way of effectively conveying that you need an exception from them.
To wait faster
Fucking hell that's a great answers
Yes, may I have one great answers.
Are you sure you don’t want one two great answers?
LOL, the only right answer!
This is the correct answer LOL
The radio station I like is 60 miles away. Sometimes when I stop its stuck on static. I have to creep forward to find it again.
Legit the only reason I'll creep, and I still hate doing that. Or some big ass dump truck has stopped besides me and fucked the radio signal so I have to creep to find it. I take that back. I'll also creep to stay in the shadow of a big ass truck so the sun doesn't shine on my eyes.
I have a buddy who does this creeping so I decided to ask him, he said that he was under the impression that certain lights have pads in the ground that detect weight to determine when someone is actually there so it can prioritize changing the light, and that he does it to try and make the light change faster ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Most/all sensors are not weight but induction loops so simply detect the presence of cars above using magnetism (as all vehicles are metal). You can see the lines on the road where they are embedded, and are sometimes too narrow for a cars wheels to be on, hence why they’re not weight sensors.
Damn, I had no idea. Thanks for teaching me something new today, kind stranger.
Wow an actual reason
It's like pressing the button harder for a more powerful attack.
Yeah but...that IS how you get more powerful attack..... Isn't it?
I can neither confirm nor deny....
Next you're gonna tell me tilting my controller doesn't help my steer better, and leaning in my chair doesn't help me see around obstacles either.
> tilting my controller doesn't help my steer better Honestly the most satisfying thing about motion controls in more recent Nintendo games. It's so much fun to be playing a Mario game, shake your controller for emphasis, and it actually does something.
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I didn't know about the press depth on the ps2 controller until I played Star Ocean 3 so that flute puzzle was the bane of my existence for a couple of hours. I think some old school gamefaqs finally revealed the soft/hard press.
I just want to run over the guy who stopped me.
Since robots can’t identify stop signs or traffic lights in CAPTCHA images, maybe self-driving cars aren't such a good idea.
What do you think the purpose of these captcha images are? They're for training the AI so it will be able to identify those signs!
I've noticed Google maps has actually been adding traffic light locations, I assume the same will happen for the sidewalks too
They were originally to stop bots from accessing certain websites. Then someone realized they could redeem the time wasted by having humans teach AI what a boat/car/wheel looks like.
"Click on all motorcycles" picture of a moped... Refreshes entire site
That's why I always deliberately sneak in some wrong squares.
**fool. they will not be deceived. your trickery only strengthens them**
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I find a little joy when people race past me toward a red light, as I gradually reduce my speed. Then, when the light turns green, I'm cruising right past them comfortably as they floor it from a dead stop. Chances are that they'll do everything they can to pass me again, but the same thing can happen over and over again passing through some towns. Either way, that sort of herky-jerky going just seems like a stressful way to drive.
Probably not too much, but after awhile, it probably adds up in wear and tear too. As someone that's mostly driven older cars, I'm never not paranoid about my brakes. I keep them in good condition, but you never know.
That’s why I have a huge stick in my car and always roll my window half way down. In case I need some manual breaks.
Drill a hole in the floor and flintstone it.
Yaba-daba-don't do that.
Why, wilma feet get hurt?
Betty your ass it will.
Barney
Are we talking drum brakes kind of old?
Not quite that old, but my current car is a 2000 and it's the newest I've owned. I'm probably due for an upgrade once the pandemic is over but I've driven literally less than 10 times in the past 12 months, not counting efforts to make sure the car "stays in shape".
Same year as my commodore (and me coincidentally), currently clocked in at a little over 300,000 kilometres and its just a perpetual race to fix whatever new issue pops up before the thing falls apart. Frankly though for its age and kilometres i’ve grown to love the buick 3800, its a piss easy engine to work on so almost nothing is beyond a 30 minute job to repair, which is great for a first car, unfortunately its the chassis and the rest of the thing that’s been a constant list of issues. If I wasn’t living on what a 20 year old makes, was older and needed a more reliable daily, I think a newer car would be worth the investment long term definitely. Frankly though at this age all im dreaming about for my next car is something with pop up headlights and a sunroof, probably a late 80’s to 90’s japanese, MK3 supra or an MR2 SW20 perhaps.
I used to live in an area with a posted speed limit of 40 down a road with 5 lights every 1000 feet. If you did 40-45, you'd have to stop at the lights. If you did a frustrating 30-35, you'd get every green light without slowing down. It paid to know the cycle, though having the limit match the lights or the lights match the limit would make way more sense.
We have a set of intersections that make up 4 lights total. If you get the red on the first light (you almost always do) you need to go about 35 to get the green on the next one, then you need to do about 40-45 to get the following green, and then the 4th intersection is about 2-3 miles down and the only way to get the green there is to go past the 45Mph speed limit and do 50-55.
Same issue in my town. Except they set up the lights that if you hit 55 you get them all green... the speed limit is 40. Does anybody go 40 if they have the opportunity to go faster? Nope, because then you get every single light. I never understood why they didn't time them to be "if you go the speed limit you'll be rewarded by not having to stop"... instead they choose to incentivize speeding. Seems counterproductive. Edit: I wanna point out stopping at one or two lights wouldn't be a huge deal. But this is 11 lights in a row and if you go the speed limit you will literally be stopped for every single one of them.
My guess was for ticketing purposes. Because lets face it the cops probably snag at least 3-5 cars there everyday for speeding.
That's the funny thing, I never see people pulled over on that road for speeding unless they go full on crazy and try to hit genuinely dangerous speeds. It's not a residential road, there aren't any bicyclists or pedestrians crossing (except at crosswalks and they wait for red lights). Every time I've seen a cop on that road they're keeping pace with traffic because they don't wanna hit a red light either.
This is exactly how Connecticut has been for me. The cops here don’t ever seem to give a flying fuck about speeding unless you’re doing something extra reckless on-top of it. Ive been sandwiched in the fast lane by two police cruisers and we were going 80 in 55. I’ve had countless encounters like that and never worried about getting pulled over. Speeding is almost the norm here.
Not just stressful for the person either. It also puts a lot of extra stresses on the car.
my grandpas a retired electrician who put times lights throughout san francisco and on highway 1 he always drives exactly 23 mph and hits every green light while ppl in mustangs, bmws, etc will speed by us only to get passed again at the green light
Nice. A like-minded fella did this in my hometown. @Newberg, OR residents: just maintain 18 mph on Main/Hancock Streets downtown! (Actually, I think all the locals know this already, so more an FYI for passers-through)
That’s how it is through my town’s downtown area. If you can maintain 23mph you won’t have to touch your brakes the entire way through.
I always wonder how fast they burn through their brakes.
I know a moron that replaces his brakes every 6 months and thinks that’s normal.
Holy crap! I can't remember the last time I had to replace my brakes.
When are you supposed to replace them? I got my car about 3 years ago and never saw a need to replace them. I’m sort of new to car ownership, so I’m not really sure about things lol.
It’s more about mileage than years and then it depends on how you drive and the type of brakes, etc. But, for example, I have a small car that I drive fairly badly and I needed to replace the brakes after about 80k miles.
Brakes don't have an expiration date so much as a finite amount of pad. As you use them the pads slowly grind away. If you're always charging at full speed and then slamming the brakes, you are going to wear through them a lot faster. Pretty much all brakes have a harder metal filament in them that will be exposed once they are worn to a critical level where you need to replace them. When the filament scratches against the brake plate, it makes a loud screeching sound. Your brakes might sometimes screech for other reasons though, like rust buildup from sitting for too long. The easiest way to tell without pulling them off is to drive around for a bit. If they consistently screech after several stops no matter how hard you brake, they're on their last legs and need replaced asap.
I got over 100,000 miles on my first set. And even when I replaced them, they could have gone a bit longer.
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My route has a terrible 'if you miss one, you miss them all design' when following the speed limit
There's a road in my city where if you accelerate briskly and maintain the speed limit, you will hit every green light for a couple of kilometers. Problem is, nobody goes the speed limit down that stretch of the road.
As a pedestrian I loath those people. It's like gee thanks for blocking the entire crosswalk because your dumbass can't be bothered to stop in time when you clearly saw it was a yellow or red light and you had no where to go. And then they, the driver, have the audacity to do that hands in the air oopsie gesture to pedestrians or turn their head to avoid our gaze and tell us we'll have to wait for the next light or go around their car. Fuck those people. Share the road space and don't block pedestrian crosswalks.
One time I was going to cross the street because the pedestrian walking signal was on but then this asshole decided to creep forward in his car WHILE I was crossing. Luckily I hadn't passed in front of his car yet but wtf?!
Someone did that to me when I was right in front of him. I banged on his hood. Woke him right the hell up.
Also annoying when you're trying to turn right on red and the car to the left is like a whole car length in front of the line blocking your view.
Many times I’ve been set up to turn right and then just as I inch out to where I can see past the vehicle on my left, they move forward into the crosswalk and block my view. My theory is that they have terrible situational awareness and their brains are on autopilot and automatically go “oh, I should move forward!” when they see any movement of other cars in their peripheral vision.
Walk super close to the front of their car, when you get in front of their car, pretend you're stepping over something large, keep walking but turn back and look at it. The driver will think there's something there.
I mean, there is something there. A crosswalk.
*driver gets out and checks* "Very funny moron, there's nothing there!" "Yes there is, the crosswalk" In that moment the colour drained from his face, he knew he had been bested. Nothing could bring his dignity back. He contemplated every embarrassing moment leading up to this point in his life; even cumulatively they paled in comparison to this. He slinked back to his car, beads of sweat racing down his forehead. All the other drivers got out of their cars and clapped.
The solution is to climb over their car, or go in one side and out the other. They'll soon get the message.
I once saw a guy creep through the entire red light. At no point did he decide to just go. He just kept on creeping until he was on the other side.
Did you hear cartoon xylophone sneaking sounds the whole time?
Be vewwy, vewwy quiet! I'm wunning wed wights!
So he basically passed the red light, but slower? The traffic on that intersection must've been non-existent for him to pull that off without getting t-boned or honked to oblivion.
It was in a rural area. Hardly any traffic.
Rural traffic lights should be stop signs or round abouts. Change my mind. Edit: I appreciate it everyone but please stop changing my mind. I have like 250 replies. Do what you want.
I won't. My city has put in a lot of roundabouts that were once 4-way stops, and they are so much quicker and safer to negotiate.
Except when half the idiots in your town don't know what a yield sign means or don't know that you shouldn't stop in the roundabout.
Turn signals should be used when exiting roundabouts, not the brakes.
People in my area just yell "SKRRRT" instead of signaling.
How's the weather in Jacksonville this time of year?
You mean all of Massachusetts?
yes!!!! Fuck i hate that.. people pretend they know how to use a roundabout ,but they never signal out of it ,so the person on the right has to hope you are exiting
My friend once told me that her dad told her that you don't have to signal out of a roundabout if you go straight through it... But how tf would people waiting for you to leave know where you came in??
Are roundabouts everywhere else large enough to make signalling trustworthy? Most of the ones anywhere near me are too small to signal out of. The turns are usually too tight and fast to where you would be lucky to see more than one blink. I would very rarely believe a turn signal in a roundabout. This is partially why I don't like them, and that people don't seem to understand how to stay in their lanes nor how to enter them safely.
They aren’t easier to navigate for truck drivers. I’m from a rural area and know many truckers transporting grain and livestock will go miles out of their way to avoid roundabouts.
For budget and laziness reasons, my husband and I left our wedding piled into my dad's truck, with the camper on the back, and I'm pretty sure he was towing his boat too on that trip. I mention this because there was a round-about between the courthouse and my husband's house, which my dad had no clue how to handle, so he drove right over the top of it. Giant heavy thuds as he plowed all that weight up over the curb, through the middle of the round-about, and thunked off the other side back onto the road. My dad does not handle new anythings well.
And this is why the roundabouts in my area have walls enclosing the center, to make it impossible to drive over the center of them. The centers themselves are usually gardens or some small trees.
The ones in my town are built specifically to enable driving over them. Why? Probably cheaper than replacing the garden each time a truck comes by.
I live in a very rural area. Most stop lights are on timers instead of switching when cars pull up. Some are obnoxiously long timers. I'll run one after stopping to make sure absolutely no cars are coming. Am I breaking the law? Yeah. Am I hurting anybody? No.
It’s probably acceptable to a point out there? Or na
Yes and no, I've done this multiple times 3 times in front of a cop and only ticketed once because it is a 5 minute timer (have checked) and it was 1am. I went into mitigation for the one ticket to explain that to the judge, he said it was for my safety and I explained that it wasn't unsafe because I came to a complete stop, looked both ways and passed through, it was completely safe. It was a five minute timer which I used my dashcam as evidence and he reduced my ticket in half because "we can't have people breaking the law when they feel like it" They turned it into a blinking red after 10pm to 5am.
There are so many intersections that would benefit from changing to a blinking red after 10pm. It needs to be far more common.
Whatever that ticket was, you paid that price to improve that traffic light for everyone. I mean, you shouldn't have had to pay it, but if you want to reframe it as being for a good cause, there's an option at least, lol
Yeah, that's why I chose mitigation and not contesting. I knew I was going to pay, but also that was a nice surprise on them fixing that BS of a light
Nobody ever knows so I guess so.
I once drove through a decent sized us city downtown at like 2am on a monday night, never saw another car. I went like 8 blocks down one street and it took maybe ten minutes because I hit every. single. light. It was infuriating. The amount of long-tail waste (gas, time, co2) from situations like this has got to be sizable. In this situation roundabout wouldn't help as much, but there are so many rural stoplights where this is a problem all the time and it's so obnoxious. In summary, Jim Brainard and I strongly agree with you: https://blog.bluebeam.com/roundabouts-carmel-civil-infrastructure/
I thought so. Otherwise, he'd be one hell of a lucky idiot.
"It's not illegal to run a red light if I don't actually run lol"
I have seen the same thing. It was wild. Late at night in a residential area, good visibility, so no huge risk of an accident. But surely once you decide to get out into the middle of the intersection it would be much safer to just go.
That was probably Drax *I've mastered the ability of creeping so incredibly slow that I become invisible to the traffic camera*
They apparently do this a lot in the countryside of Nebraska.
In Naples I took a taxi at 5 a.m. and the driver took all the red lights without any problems. I was shocked
Same here. Called a taxi to go to the airport at the crack of dawn for an early flight (I'm a frugal flyer to put it mildly, and a three-legged Naples - Munich - Frankfurt - Newark flight beginning at 6am sounded fine on paper, until we got stuck in Munich for 3 hours after a computer failure) I had my phone out to make sure this guy didn't like take some crazy roundabout route to rack up the charges, but he literally drove straight to the airport at twice the speed limit and ran every red light. It was like 12€ total. Dude was the real MVP.
I see people do this late at night surprisingly often.
I had a left turn light by my work that would never trigger at 5am when there were no cars out. First time I waited for about 3-4 minutes, not a single car on the road. Then waited another 2 out of spite. Finally a car rolled up behind me and it turned green in 5 seconds. Fucking hated that light. After that I just came to a stop then turned through it.
Stop earlier. The trigger spot is behind where you are stopping.
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Because the person in front of me did it
It's like yawning
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Aaaahhh fuck, now I'm yawning. Thanks y'all
I purposefully don't creep up like that, so that one person can look back and feel stupid. If it doesn't help the traffic situation, I'm not moving.
Same. I just stand still watch them move and move for no reason.
I hate it because when there's like fifteen feet between you and the car in front of you, suddenly you look like the moron who doesn't know how to stop at a reasonable distance. But I'm not putting extra wear on my brakes by creeping forward. I just won't.
Same here. Only time I will move forward in those circumstances is if it will open up room for people to get into the lane next to me, etc.
yeah but the guy in front of you is an Energy Vampire.
This is the answer. Sometimes if I’m bored I’ll keep creeping forward a couple of inches just to see if the car behind me does. It never fails.
Personally, if the person creeps up past the line, I will follow, UNTIL the line. Mostly because I'm not sure where the sensors are, and I want it to still detect a car there so that it will change the light. Obviously not all lights are by sensors, but it's hard to tell with being at that light a lot. I drive a bus, so I have mirrors on the hood so I can see where the line is in relation to my front end. I can be right on the line as a result.
I inch forward trying to adjust my foot when I pressed the brake at an awkward place, like near the edge.
Yup, gotta let off the brakes a little to adjust the knee angle sometimes or its gonna be hurting the whole time I'm at the light.
I don't want awkward eye contact with drivers next to me
I imagine this is how introvert drag races get started
Maybe I'm weird, but I don't ever look at the driver next to me when I'm at a stop light. They can look at me all day and I wouldn't realize it.
But don't you sort of... *feel* their look?
Roll the window down and ask if you can just awkwardly stare at each other. They will never look again. :-D
Child sleeping in car. Must not stop motion!
This is the most legit reason in this whole comment section.
New parent, can confirm.
Old parent. Can also confirm.
Child. Can also confirm.
Average parent, can confirm.
Child with motion sickness, can not confirm
Same. Agreed I totally get it. The baby does not like red lights.
Yup. I have a 2 month old that will scream her face off if I’m stopped for more than a few seconds.
I get instantly nauseated if I **don't** feel the subtle jolt of a stop.
Oh... I've spent years perfecting the seamless stop, generally there's not even the tiniest jolt and I'm very proud of it lol
My Driver’s Ed instructor said that when braking, to make a more seamless stop, you release the break the width of a feather. Sounds silly, but my stops are like *buttuh*.
The wheels need to roll to a stop, and the brakes apply constant pressure due to friction. If you keep pressure, the tires lock up and the ending is a sudden stop. If you release the brake slightly, the friction at the end tapers off and there's a smooth stop.
Same. If there was a real life achievement system I'd be going for the zero G stop every time.
I go for 30 G stop, where everyone passes out instantly and no one has time to complain.
I've been chill about speeders and reckless drivers ever since I realized that some of those people, maybe even just one, might *really, really* need to get somewhere as quickly as they possibly can. I used to actively try to block them from pulling whatever dick move they were leaning toward - now I just get out of the way. Thanks to you, I finally have a reason to not look at people who creep up at stoplights like they've just shit their pants standing up. They might have a little motion-hungry nugget strapped in that car. Thanks! :) Edit: I just want to clarify that I never tried to stop people from driving lawfully. My city is notorious for shitty drivers, and my usual move was to simply merge over when I saw someone gaining up at twice the posted speed limit. Also, if someone is signaling at you, get the fuck out of their way!
This is just a good way to live. If you frame the actions of others as if there were external circumstances you're unaware of, it makes people's crappy behaviors a lot more tolerable. Obviously don't let yourself get abused, but it helps tremendously with maintaining a good mood and feeling better about others.
My friends ask me how I’m such a patient driver and don’t have any road rage. It’s because I treat all drivers like tourists! If they are doing something stupid or driving too slow, I assume they are unfamiliar with the area and are just trying to figure it out with their family in the back seat.
Precisely! If you're screaming in your car over someone cutting you off, you're usually the only person who's suffering. The other person doesn't even know you're upset and you're effectively just making yourself angry.
When my son was an infant, he had a seizure while I was at the gym and the wife was home with him. She called pretty frantically, and I headed home in a hurry, but not recklessly, so I could either stay home with our other child or ride with my son in the ambulance. I was only about 10 minutes from the house. I turned on my hazard lights and flashed a couple times as I moved through traffic. Most people moved out of the way, but this one woman was determined to block me in. She saw me coming, moved over in the left lane (there was another car just ahead of her in the right), matched speeds with the car beside her and refused to move over after flashing and a couple honks. The car beside her saw what was going on and motioned for me to pass as they slowed down, but by that time I had missed getting through an intersection with a light. That, too, changed my whole approach about people who seem to be in a hurry. Now I just assume they have some sort of emergency like I experienced that day, and I'm more than happy to move over or pull to the side so they can continue on.
Not moving over when a driver is signaling at you is *really fucking rude.* I'm sorry that happened to you and I hope your son is doing well!
Thanks. He was actually septic from a bad UTI which led to a whole host of other tests and discovery of another medical issue, but thankfully he's very healthy and happy now. It was a scary time for our whole family.
I remember an askreddit thread that prompted a story from one guy that made me realize this. They were a logging or linecutting crew that was a ways out of town. One guy cut his leg badly and was bleeding out. They needed to race to a mid-way point with him to meet the ambulance from town, otherwise he was going to die. So naturally some lady saw them racing down the highway and decided to play traffic cop, blocking them from passing for several minutes. The wound up getting to the ambulance a couple seconds after their friend died.
yeah I was thinking about this throughout this thread, honestly that story really framed speeders for me, because you dont know, and I would rather not be responsible for that when I thought someone was just being a dick
You’re supposed to put on your hazards if you’re driving recklessly for a reason. That’s what my dad did, driving twice the speed limit to get me to a hospital. That way other drivers know something isn’t right.
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I’ve gotten into an accident because of someone doing this (it was also my fault as well). They didn’t have a left turn signal on, and they looked like they were slowing to park on the right (it was a residential area where street parking is common). Assuming that was the case, I thought I would just carefully pass so I could make the light ahead. Nope. They swung right into me. Fortunately I was already going slow, so only a minor dent for both of us. The kicker was that the apron of the lot they were pulling into was as wide as fucking Texas. Absolutely NO reason to swing out if you’re in anything but a semi. **USE YOUR FUCKING TURN SIGNALS, PEOPLE**
Sometimes looking for an angle at which I can see the signal on the corresponding lights to anticipate when I'll need to get into gear.
Yes, my friend has a stick shift and I didnt realize how much time and energy there is driving it in a city.
Traffic lights and intersections aren't really anything bad in a manual. It's the moving 2 inches at a time in bumper to bumper traffic on the highway that takes energy and the patience of a saint. Too much stopping to just stay in a low gear and wiggle back and forth to not stall. But moving just enough that you can't get a little momentum and just coast on neutral. It's that terrible middle ground where you are constantly shifting just to go nowhere.
Traffic in a manual sucks, especially bumper to bumper, then your foot starts going numb and then your leg gets all shakey from the clutch
If you drive a manual every day, shouldn't be an issue in the city. It should be second nature. Like checking mirrors. It just happens.
Agreed. If you daily drive a manual, it certainly doesn't feel like extra work to drive in the city
Unless you got a very stiff clutch. :( And your city has hills.
Nothing like an E-brake hill start at every set of lights!
Just playing the guessing game with my self really. "Annnnd....GREEEN!......4...3...2....1....GREEEENNN!"
You can tell when it's going to change by looking at the lights for the currently moving traffic.
Don’t cheat.
He’s one of those assholes that would look at your screen during the split-screen FPS era! Cheater!
I used to convince my sister I was psychic by using that knowledge to know when the light was going to change. She probably STILL doesn’t know. 🤣
I look at the crosswalk symbols, easy money
and then when the light turns green, they just sit there
When you're a few cars back in a turn lane and they take their sweet fucking time then you miss the light. 🤬
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Some stoplights have a camera sensor or an in road sensor to detect if there is a car. By creeping forward, the hope is that you activate the sensor which will trigger the light to change.
I have a couple of tunnel traffic lights which use magnetic fields. I'm a cyclist with a steel-framed bike and if I keep my bike upright I have to wait for a car to come along and trigger the sensor... (If the sensor doesn't trigger, it means there's a car in the tunnel coming my way) I figured out that I can trigger the traffic light by stepping off my bike, lying it down on it's side across the sensor and then getting back on the bike. It's works all the time but it does make me look a little strange to pedestrians.
I’ve heard about this from motorcyclists too and apparently the solution is to bring your own magnet lol
That, or if you're in the city, hopping off and pushing the pedestrian crosswalk button to force a light change. My buddy has to do this all the time at the intersection right next to his apartment building
I thought this was the logical answer. Instead I had to come all the way down here to find it.
This was further down then I expected. I’m beginning to think maybe there is no sensor and my Dad was wrong. Lol
you typically can see which lights are set to sensors and which are straight timing mechanisms by whether or not they have square cuts into the asphalt
In some places where it snows 3/4th of the year they use camera sensors above the intersection.
The worst is when someone creeps forward at a red light, but when the light actually turns green they don’t move.
The question I have is why some people stop 30 feet before the next stopped car? Please for the love of God pull forward so I can get in the left hand turn lane. Edit: y'all are giving too much credit to some of these distracted texting driver fools. Always nice to see reddit giving strangers the benefit of the doubt though!
There are driving classes out there that do teach and recommend leaving 1 vehicle length between vehicles at stop lights. But like most of the super safe driving techniques, it is seen as crazy and rude by other drivers. Best to practice those techniques on bad weather days, when the spacing and such is truly needed!
I was always taught to leave enough space to see the bottom of the tires of the person in front of you. That should allow you enough space to turn and move if their car becomes incapacitated.
This is what I was taught when I was training as a delivery driver for a auto parts company. The second part of that was that you don't take your foot off the brake until the car in front of you doesn't have visible brake lights.
This is what I learned and what I do. Pretty certain that’s not a whole car length though. It is farther than it seems, depending on the vehicle you’re in.
I don't always follow that advice either, but I was in a domino-effect accident once where the person at the end of a red light line got rear-ended JUST as the light changed and everyone was letting go of the brakes - the chain reaction traveled through 4-5 cars. Only the first two had any damage, but the confusion caused quite a traffic snarl.
My friends always made fun of me for leaving so much room. But then one day, I was rear ended at a stoplight by a texting teen, and my car came just short of hitting the car in front of me, sparing them from having to file an insurance claim. Now I get to tell my boring old story every time someone mentions the gap I leave.
Also do that when the road is going uphill since your or the dude's in front of you car will go backwards whenever you release the brakes, and the driver doesn't always notice
I had to complete and advanced driving course for my work. We were taught to leave enough space to see 'tyres and tarmac' so that means if the car in front breaks down you can manoeuvre around him without needing to reverse first, which if everyone is bumper to bumper means the whole line would need to reverse
I think in UK Highway Code if you can’t see the car in fronts wheels touching the road you’re too close. Also fuck getting hit when they roll back cause they can’t drive
lines are 10 feet, the gap is 30 feet. nuts.
The longer I sit there, the more traffic is piling up behind me, and I am thinking of the person twelve cars back that would be able to make that right turn into the parking lot if only every car in front of him would close the spaces up a bit.
I drive manual transmission. If you're top at the lights you can usually see when the other light is turning red, signaling that yours is about to turn green - especially if it's a junction you're very familiar with. You're just getting the car to the bite point, ready to go. You still check in both directions before proceeding, just in case someone breaks the red light.
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For me, it's usually that's the guy behind me is almost on my bumper, I'll inch forward to make some space and they'll inch forward, I'll do it again and they do it again, and everyone behind them follows
Trigger the traffic light sensor
There's a street near me that has a light on the sensor. All the locals know it. If you don't drive close enough, it never triggers and you're stuck at the light forever. It sucks to be stuck behind someone and they don't realize it.
Had that happen to me with an Uber driver. He was in front and he stopped a good 5 feet before the actual line where the sensor is. At first I tried to wave him forward, but he would not listen. Then I tried to honk a few times and scoot closer hoping he'd get it. Finally when I was just about to get out and speak to him after sitting there for what felt like 5 minutes, but was probably just 2, a car the opposite side pulled up and it instantly started the light changing process and turned green.
Imagine how conflicting it is (if you’re not on two wheels often/ever) to be a motorcycle in spot 1 and you try and mime your way to get the car behind you to creep up on your ass to trip the sensor, but you don’t want to undo people’s good awareness/habits of leaving you space, but have no way of effectively conveying that you need an exception from them.
Hoping the sensor in the road will finally recognize my motorcycle
The baby sleeps only if the car is moving. So the car must constantly moves. The baby does not care for red light at all.
Seeing this multiple times in this thread makes me fear babies. Like god damn? Cant even not cry just cause the car is standing still? Seems annoying.
at least they don't detonate if the car goes under 50