Besides Red-Light Crawlers (see previous rant), Turn-Lane Avoiders are my next big peeve when it comes to driving. These drivers, like the Red-Light Crawlers, are totally oblivious to anyone else on the road. I’m not even sure that they even get the concept of what a turn-lane is for.
If done correctly, most turn-lanes are designed to allow a driver to pull into it and still have enough time to slow down to a stop if the light ahead is red or if there’s on-coming traffic. Unfortunately, 90% of the driving public do not enter a turn-lane correctly. This leaves 100% of the drivers that happen to be behind them aggravated and down-right peeved!
You know what I’m talking about. Haven’t you missed getting through an intersection because you were stuck behind a TLA who slowed down in front of you and didn’t move into the turn-lane until the last few yards? Or worse yet, haven’t you come close to rear-ending one as they suddenly dropped in speed. And what about those times when you also needed to use the turn-lane but you had one of those TLAs in front of you. What an ugly test of wills that can be: The TLAs are slowing down and you are afraid of moving into the lane first for fear that they might cut you off at the last minute; there’s not enough time to go around them in the outside lane; and if you don’t start your turn soon, then the guy behind you who is also planning to turn, might very well cut<em><strong> ‘you’</strong></em> off instead. What a mess!!!
I must not be the only one who feels aggravated by this dilema. In fact, I would wager to say that there is a whole army of us out there. I have come to this conclusion because how often do you ever see the government respond to the peoples’ peeves? Not very often. But in this case they have. As of a year ago I noticed that turn lanes have been outlined in a very decisive way. Up until then most turn-lanes were simply marked with arrows and had no line work to delineate them. Now they are marked with a solid line defining their entire length with only a <em><strong>’short’</strong></em> length of dashes at the beginning part of the turn-lane to denote where you’re <em><strong>’suppose’ </strong></em>to enter. Do you think the government is trying to tell you something? Hell yes they are!!! They’re saying get with the program and stop slowing down in the traffic lane. Use the turn-lane to do your slowing…the lane that God and the government intended you to use!
