Four-way stops must be outlawed in Minnesota

Ha! Minnesota nice has nothing on the passive-aggressive stuff that the English come up with. We invented that shit.

Ever heard of roundabouts? They work just fine.

You betcha.

We have the same problem near me where there is a mini round about, basically a circle of paint in the middle of a cross roads. I must admit I'm usually first to go.
Z

Damn. I find it annoying enough on foot!

I'd be driven mad if I had to do it in car. (Actually I'd most likely be driven dead considering how bad I am at just riding a bike.)

oh yeah, I just got stuck in that situation yesterday. unfortunately I was on a bicycle (which throws in an extra layer of confusion), so I didn't dare go first with 3 SUV's standing there

Ah, so you're one of those evil Washington elitist insiders? I woulda figgered.

And then, once someone finally does manage to get through the intersection, remaining drivers can't seem to grasp the "yield to the right" concept.

Ooh, god I hate that! The only accident I ever had on a bicycle was when I was merging from a narrow side into a busy, and *fast* moving thouroughfare on the *left*hand side of traffic. A concerned car (thousands of pounds and capable of speeds up to 45 mph on surface streets) was trying to be *nice* and kept slowing down to let me and my bicycle (200 pounds, 195 of it human flesh, capible of going 20 mph with great effort and extreme discomfort-- I've never been in particularly good shape) in. I slowed down to indicate I really didn't want to cut in front and have a massive car on my bumber going a speed I can't maintain and have no right to impede. The car slowed down further to be *nice*. I slowed down further and toppled to the ground and bruised my hip and elbow and ankle. "Oh, are you alright?" said the motorist all concerned and doe-eyed.

Hee. In California it's the other way around - half the time they don't even bother slowing down.

I'd say you likely have the better end of the deal there. At least if they're stopped they won't get in an accident.

Canadian readers are going to scoff at PZ and Mike the Englishman, that is, if it's not going to bother anyone.

My Tassie roommate realised she'd been Edmontonianised when she stood too close to the curb on a four-lane road and passing drivers, anticipating that she was going to illegally jaywalk, stopped to let her do so. Of course, she had no intention of crossing but did so anyway out of guilt because she'd made them stop. Once she'd crossed and they'd passed, she crossed back across the street and continued on her way.

Now, that's passive-aggressive.

We're morons with the four-way stops, too.

We have the same problem where my parents live. What sucks though is that the 4-way stop doesn't work because the people are being too polite, it's because they don't understand how the damn thing works!

Cue John Prine:
Last night I saw an accident
on the corner of Third and Green
two cars collided and I got excited
just being part of that scene

It was Mrs. Tom Walker and her beautiful daughter
Pamela, was driving the car
they got hit by a man in a lite blue sedan
who had obviously been to a bar.

It was a four way stop dilemma
we all arrived the same time
I yielded to the man to the right of me
and he yielded it right back to mine
well, the yield went around and around and around
till Pamela finally tried
just then the man in the light blue sedan
hit Pamela's passenger side.

I've never heard of a four-way-stop before, but they can't be worse than the Magic Roundabout.

Aaaaaand all together on the:
Chorus:
They don't know how lucky they are
they could have run into that tree
got struck by a bolt of lightning
and raped by a minority.

I challenge the assertion that roundabouts work.

You know what Vegas drivers do?

They either (1) drive straight through the roundabout (lots o' 4x4s in Vegas) or (2) the drivers who are supposed to yield (those entering), and the drivers exiting will do so from the inside lane, not bothering to move over to the outside lane, and certainly not bothering to signal.

Oh, and (3) they drive as fast as their tires will allow around the r-a-b. In Vegas, the posted speed limit is not even a suggestion, it's a hint.

Heh. Brought to mind the collision scene from L.A. Story:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va3A69zF1Zw&feature=related

We don't have that problem here in Boston.

Sounds daft to me. this is how it's done.

@Robert,

Regarding roundabouts, are you kidding?

Ever been to Qatar? They barely have traffic lights because of the infernal things! I suppose they'd be okay in moderation but we Americans, instant-gratificationists that we are, would overdo it and use it as a device to end stopping your car for a light ever.

Besides, it would hinder all of those high speed police chases I enjoy watching.

@11:

Now, that's passive-aggressive.

You win the passive-aggressive award.

You know, if what you really want is to hurt us and feel good about it, that's fine.

I said, it's fine.

It's. Fine.

We have a different "too-nice" problem in the mid-Atlantic states, or whatever it's called from DC to Boston (fivethirtyeight.com calls them the "Acela" states; maybe I'll start using that).

Anyway. It happens whenever a lane is closed for construction, and the traffic is dense enough that it has become a "slow merge" (maybe 5 mph). The right thing to do is to alternate at the merge, but some people feel bad about waiting until the last moment to move over, so they merge well before the end of the lane, sometimes by forcibly squeezing in. Which just lets everyone else in that lane move forward.

The result is the disappearing lane becomes the fastest lane on the road, and the adjacent one slows to a near stop. Just stay in the lane and merge at the end, people!

Note that this does not apply when the flow is low enough to allow a high-speed merge. Nor does it apply in the midwest, where everyone moves into the left lane when warned that the right lane is closed 4 miles ahead, even if the left lane is slow. And if more than two assholes start passing everyone in the empty lane, a truck will move over to block them. I'm fine with that, too.

You should try one of these. For smaller intersections, a "mini" version can be used with just a small round depression or traffic bollard in the center.

The rule is that you yield to traffic coming from the left (or right if using the UK system where we drive on the left hand side of the road) so traffic that has entered the roundabout always has priority over traffic that has not. For reasonable traffic volumes these are very efficient and remarkably reliable.

And for anybody who thinks they don't work, please look at the UK crash statistics. I think you'll be impressed, given the degree of road congestion on our tiny island.

Tony Sidaway @ #23, see me @ #16.

There're 2 prerequisites.

(1) People have to know what the rules are.

(2) People have to give enough of a shit to follow the rules.

They don't, generally.

My Tassie roommate realised she'd been Edmontonianised when she stood too close to the curb on a four-lane road and passing drivers, anticipating that she was going to illegally jaywalk, stopped to let her do so. Of course, she had no intention of crossing but did so anyway out of guilt because she'd made them stop. Once she'd crossed and they'd passed, she crossed back across the street and continued on her way.

Actually, this happens to me on almost a daily basis. Must be a woman thing. Of course, the difference is that I am generally planning to illegally jaywalk, and this makes doing so slightly more dangerous since the drivers coming from the opposite direction might not be paying attention. But then I feel like I have to run across - carefully - so the people who've stopped for me don't get hit from behind. It's all very complicated...

It was good that my cousin's wife warned me about the New England habit (strong in Rhode Island and Massachusetts at least) of being overly polite at the 4 way stops. This politeness apparently lead to New England drivers thinking they can make left turns when the light turns green, because they are so used to people politely waving them through. So I'd always proceed very slowly off a green light because so many drivers took that "courtesy left" for granted.

(I'm going to have to disagree with the above commenter who said they don't have that problem in Boston. Because they certainly do. My nerves were fraying at all the close encounters until it was explained to me. Here I was legally proceeding along, and somebody would make a turn right in front of me, obviously expecting that I would go with some unknown courtesy known to the locals and not by the letter of the law.)

The problem is, the rules are ambiguous. They say, the person who gets there first goes first, but if both cars get there at the same time, yield to the right. But how do you define "at the same time"? There is a significant period where it is ambiguous.

Anyone who has done multithreaded programming and has to avoid race conditions knows that there is a fundamental flaw here. I'm neither particularly aggressive nor passive at 4 way stops, but here and there I've gotten into a "go ahead...ok i'll go...ok you are going, go ahead....ok fine I'll go...oops, go ahead" situation that seems to go on forever. I imagine it would be most likely to occur if the person driving the other car was my identical twin, because he would be likely to be using the exact same algorithm as me, which is what causes the problem.

pixelfish -

Ha ha ha ha!

I saw that in Connecticut all the time! Freaked me out at first, but eventually I figured it out.

#2, Roundabouts are cool when people know how to use them, but I live in the Twin Cities and there are a lot of people who can't grasp them making them rather dangerous. I agree with the 4-way stops, though. They were awful when I lived in North Dakota and they just as awful here. And it bothers me to no end that people often time it so they stop the same exact time as you do. It's gotten to the point that I'll stop 20 feet from the sign just to avoid the confusion of who stopped first and dealing with the waving.

As Brit here in Fargo, the newly-opened roundabout makes me feel quite homesick. I fantasize about sneaking out there one night and planting a Union Jack in the middle.

I have got used to these strange four-way stops finally, though. In the UK it's simpler because at any four-way junction (intersection) one of the roads is always marked out as the "minor" road by white lines painted across the lane. Traffic on the minor road always has to give way to traffic on the major road so there is no confusion. It's the same a traffic lights. You are not allowed to cross a red light under any circumstances. There's no question of being allowed to turn right across a red if the road is clear.

That said, my (Minnesotan) wife points out that part of the problem now is that so many drivers are approaching these intersections while chatting on cellphones that they simply don't notice who got there first.

This isn't just a problem in the more laid-back rural areas. You can sometimes see examples of that around Minneapolis. People try to be polite and end up disrupting the flow of traffic.

My pet-peeve occurs when you try to merge into traffic and people decided to break to let you in. They are only trying to be polite, but it can be annoying. You will trying to merge in behind a car and suddenly disappears into your blind-spot.

I personally like roundabouts, but midwesterns haven't figured them out yet. If you encounter a roundabout in Minnesota, you should approach with caution. People may come from the wrong direction. At the very least, they tend to ignore the yield signs.

We don't have traffic lights here yet, but we do have the colours picked out. Seriously though, people do not understand "right of way".. it's the rules of the road for a reason. Even driving on a street with no stop signs or traffic light here, you have to be careful of the driver in front of you, as they are likely to slam on the brakes to let a person through a side street stop sign proceed before them. They mostly do not understand the difference in the words "yield" and "merge" also. I'd hope that my surgeon passed his exams and retained his knowledge more than 95 percent of the public do with their driver's exam.

We're just silly with 4-way stops around here, and all the nice canucks suffer from the same malady. It gets worse when I arrive because everybody expects a guy on a bike to just run it.

Note, the behavior changes when it's icy - then nobody stops.

"Ever heard of roundabouts? They work just fine."

Well.. in Indiana, where there's a similar passive-aggressive niceness, nobody knows what the heck a roundabout is for or how to use it, and you end up with people stopping for the "yield" sign.

Of course, it could be worse... a roundabout a few blocks from my place in Mass has stop signs, stop lights at the inlets and at two separate places in the middle, crosswalks cutting through it.... more near-misses and honking there than at any other intersection I've seen.

It was good that my cousin's wife warned me about the New England habit (strong in Rhode Island and Massachusetts at least) of being overly polite at the 4 way stops. This politeness apparently lead to New England drivers thinking they can make left turns when the light turns green, because they are so used to people politely waving them through. So I'd always proceed very slowly off a green light because so many drivers took that "courtesy left" for granted.

I thought people did that everywhere! Haven't driven much outside New England - had no idea it was a regional thing. You'll also often notice (or be among) up to five cars that have pulled into the middle of an intersection during a green light knowing they're not going to be able to turn left before the light changes but that the perpendicular drivers will wait for them, which they do. But I haven't noticed an excess of politeness at 4-way stopsigns here like is described for other places.

I don't know what city planners in this country have against roundabouts. In a new 4-lane highway they're building near where I live, where it crosses one road, instead of making normal exits, they're going to make people on the road merge on the highway, cross two lanes, do a U-turn, cross two more lanes, and then merge off just to stay on the road they were on. The worst part is, it's right near a school and the school buses will have to go through these machinations as well.

At the meeting, I asked the planners why not just make it a roundabout (you would avoid the expense of both a stop light and an overpass with not much difference in paving), and they all acted like I was crazy...even though every Joe Citizen I talked to thought it was a great idea. Neighboring counties are starting to build roundabouts, and they're working great!

We have 4-way stops around here and we refer to that condition as a Polish Standoff. Don't know the origin of it but it fits.

Then of course I love this one. If I'm walking about I'll be at an intersection with both traffic and pedestrian signals. If my signal is the orange hand I wait. Cars stop, I wave them through. I note this more in MA than RI.

At least they stop.

Around here people seem to think that if you stop behind someone at a stop sign, that counts as a stop. So one car will go through and so will the guy behind him.

MRW: Do you live near Worcestor? I've heard about a legendary roundabout there... Anyway, near my place in Watertown, we had a five way stop-light with two more roads merging onto the five that actually met. My friends all called it The Fuck, and I got so used to calling it that, that when my very Mormon non-swearing parents showed up for a visit, I forgot and told my boyfriend to drive through The Fuck....and man, that was a deafening silence.

This happens to me sometimes, too.

I refuse to go first. I just sit there and blankly stare until they move.

Same if I'm jaywalking. Sometimes people stop in the middle of the road to let you pass, and I have to be mean just to make sure they don't do it again.

we don't have that problem in this part of Canada - but we Vancouverites think that drivers from Alberta and the Maritimes are just whacked.

Roundabouts are cool, but they've long stopped working for busier intersections in the UK, which is why many of them have traffic lights as well... a double whammy, of sorts.

One of the cruelest places I've seen a roundabout is right outside the Hertz car rental lot at Heathrow airport. Not the first thing an American wants to see behind the wheel of a car when they've just stepped off an overnight flight. I've actually seen someone almost drive over it because they just couldn't figure out what to do.

There's one of those down the road from where I live and its known locally as "the shitful intersection". Trouble is in Australia you find a societal mix of passive-aggresive ( courtesy of our Brit heritage) and just plain agressive so frankly you take you life into your own hands using it. I personally love it- its a real microcosm of society going on down there and wacthing the antics can be truly hilarious. There's a PhD in Sociology in it for someone who is willing to park themselves down there with a deckchair and an esky and spend a few weeks watching.

I used to live on Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. Off base, there is no such thing as a 4-way stop. Stop signs are always on the secondary road, and the primary road does not stop. If the traffic is too heavy on the primary for cross traffic, then eventually a stop light is installed. In some cases overpasses are installed.

But there are 4-way stops everywhere on the air base, and the local civilians often don't know what to do about it. I saw one driver stuck at the stop, looking at all the stop signs with a clear "WTF?" expression. I waved him on.

Now, learning to drive on the wrong side of the road is interesting. The gas, brake and clutch pedals are all in the correct places. The stick shift is moved to the opposite side but the shift pattern is the same. But for some weird reason, the turn signal indicator is swapped in position with the windshield wiper.

You could always tell a new person in Okinawa, when they would signal a turn, their windshield wipers would come on.

You have to experience the Philippines for driving if you don't like 'nice' drivers. In Cebu City (pop 1 million) there are a total of about 4 traffic lights. The lane markers are considered suggestions and intersections are there to determine who is the most macho driver. The traffic cops are on foot so you don't see a lot of high speed chases.

Anyway, I'm from Washington. I gave them 15 or 20 seconds, then said screw it, and went ahead.

You're from western Washington.

They're just as bad in eastern Washington as in Minnesota, the two places I've lived the longest. I'm so sick of the fucking idiots who wait until you stop, and then they'll go. Why do they think the first person to stop is the first to go? It's so they'll be at least partly through by the time you've stopped, expediting traffic.

Some of these appalling idiots hate you when you go because they're still wondering what to do, too.

Then again, if the cops weren't so lazy, politically-motivated, and eager to catch a worthy prize (rather than some slow doofus), they'd enforce more than the speeding law. Then people might signal, learn how to drive, and become more than meandering road morons.

Colorado has far better drivers than does eastern Washington.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

In English cities, half the drivers think that there is one rule for all situations. This could be summed up as, 'might is right'.

In the Dorset/Somerset/Wiltshire countryside where I ride my bike, most drivers are actually very considerate, especially after the GB cyclists brought all those golds back from the Olympics.

Unfortunately, the might-is-right brigade make occasional forays into the countryside. One idiot in a large van came out of a drive at high speed, without looking, into a lane in our village, right in front of me, a couple of days ago. I had my grandson in the car too. I was too shocked to honk at him.

I think that the driviers' test should include an intelligence test & an attitude test.

I gave them 15 or 20 seconds, then said screw it, and went ahead.

This went on for that long? Pathetic.

Ever heard of roundabouts?

Yeah, great idea: let's take all the people who can't manage to traverse an intersection form a stand-still, and instead, force them to navigate merging and crossing traffic among several concentric lanes of perpetually circling morons.

El Herring, that's pretty typical of India from I've seen. No lanes, no traffic control devices... just go when you can. It's even more fun in the more rural areas, where you're sharing the road with ox carts, camels, elephants, and the occasional stray herd of livestock.

pixelfish, that's a rather charitable description of the early left turn... having lived in CT for a few years, I've never once seen anyone waved on in that situation, but I've seen dozens of such lefts made to avoid having to wait for oncoming traffic to clear (sometimes in front of as few as 1 or 2 cars). Seen a few lefts on red as well, presumably for the same reason. Some people are just that important, you see.

I did 2 years driving in the Boston area--including a daily one-way commute of 45 minutes on 128 followed by a tour of beautiful Lynn--and although Mass drivers have many many problems, excessive politeness is not among them. (I lived on the Watertown/Belmont border and I know exactly what you mean by The Fuck. Another classic spot is the weirdness around the Old Powderhouse in Somerville. Man, I got wicked lost in Somerville more than once.)

Shane @ 36

We have those here... we call them Michigan lefts. Almost all of the larger roads are thing onto which you cannot turn left, but must turn right, cross the lanes, u-turn, cross the lanes, and turn right. To continue moving forward. Crazy.
The one thing I have noticed since moving here, however, is that the back-ups to get onto an on-ramp onto one of the actual freeways (expressways) don't happen like they did in Seattle, because you don't have the left turn lane onto the on-ramps. So, the Michigan lefts seems to help the potential traffic back-ups in that way. But still... stoopid. I lived here for almost a year before I consistently went the right way on the major eastern through-way. Do I go right and continue in my direction of travel? Do I take the u-turn? Where the hell is the stupid Meijer?! Fuck!
We most definitely do not have super-politeness where bicyclists are concerned. It got bad enough this summer with bikes getting hit that it made the front page.

Roundabouts are the solution.

OT driving experience

Driving to work yesterday I noticed a Shaden Fraude Hurricane Ike Carrumba upside.

No steeples.

I pass at least 40 churches on the way to work, every one of them was de-steepled. They had undergone steeplectomies.

god took all his steeples back
_________________________________________
Hockeymom and scooter take phone calls: http://acksisofevil.org/audio/inner195.mp3

Where I live a "4-way stop" is really a 4-way-hit-horn-and-gas-simultaneously-while-extending-middle-finger-out-drivers-side-window.

The rule here is that the first person to come to a complete stop gets to go, and if there is doubt, the person on the right gets to go.

Well, we have lots and lots of roundabouts in Switzerland and they mostly work perfectly well (only sometimes the police crash in to them when they're new and not well known 0_0).

Also they're always used to put some piece of art inside, which makes the streets often look a bit better.

I especially like this one with a fountain inside.

But seriously, roundabouts are the solution and very easy to traverse, since you only have two rules. Anything coming from the left has right of way and if you're inside the roundabout you have right of way.

How that should be hard to understand eludes me. ;)

When I lived in ND, the thing that drove me nuts was what people did when there was a 2-way stop or yield:

If a person had a stop sign, they glanced briefly to either side of the intersection and then roll through as though it was a yield. If they had a yield sign, they'd blow through the intersection without even looking. But if they didn't have a sign at all -- in other words, if they unambiguously had the right of way -- they'd stop.

As another Canadian, I can confirm the phenomenon described by Brownian in #11. If I'm jaywalking, it's because I don't want people to stop for me -- I'm quick enough to find an opening on my own. If I wanted to stop traffic, I'd find a crosswalk. And show more leg.

The courtesy thing can quickly disappear, here, though, I've noticed. I still see a lot of "merge police" who seem to thrive on the righteous indignation generated by a perception of people "trying to get ahead of them" and consequently take perverse pleasure in preventing anyone from getting into their lane. Of course, what these morons fail to realize is that they screw everyone (themselves included) by bringing the whole process to a grinding halt.

A related phenomenon is when people here cruise along slowly in the passing lane on a highway, and refuse to give it up for anyone. That's illegal in many places, but here, some folks seem to think it's an inalienable right.

pixelfish, that's a rather charitable description of the early left turn... having lived in CT for a few years, I've never once seen anyone waved on in that situation, but I've seen dozens of such lefts made to avoid having to wait for oncoming traffic to clear (sometimes in front of as few as 1 or 2 cars). Seen a few lefts on red as well, presumably for the same reason. Some people are just that important, you see.

I don't think it stems from either politeness or a sense of entitlement. It's simply the norm - pretty much everyone does it and permits others to - and may have emerged because at lights where there's no left turn arrow people would often be waiting eons just to turn.

Sven: Maybe I should revise that from "excessive politeness" to "inconsistent politeness completely out of character with normal driving habits". Because you are right that at other times, the Massachusetts driver is not inclined towards politeness.

bah, compared to Californians, even Western Washingtoners are insanely polite. a friend discovered on a business trip to LA that driving like a Seattleite is a sure-fire way to cause an accident, because they don't know what polite and passive driving means.

My personal experience in California lasted long enough to explain the mystery of why no one ever uses their turn indicators there:you need to catch the other drivers by surprise in order to switch into their lane, and using the indicator gives them enough warning time to speed up and block you from entering their lane.

I am trained in Boston. I give the Minnesotans two seconds then I take matters into my own hands.

I dunno PZ. I've lived in Seattle now for about 4 months, and I've gotta say - these are the most idiotic drivers I've seen.

They insist on driving 10 mph below the speed limit in the left lane on I-5.
And four way stops? They're about as confused as anyone, here.
Oh, and don't forget that ANY (and I mean any) blinking, flashing, or shiny object will cause them to slow to a near stop, even on a major highway. It's amazing. Upstate new york was a totally different world... everyone was always in a race to get where they were going. It could be a pain in the ass sometimes, but I spent a lot less time driving, and my blood pressure was a lot lower.

BMS | October 5, 2008 3:54 PM #24

Yes, it's a cultural thing.

Obviously the problem PZ Myers describes is cultural--Minnesotans do care a lot but here it's a problem. This is because the one to go last gets more prestige but the rules have been rigged so that the first to stop is the first to go.

The roundabout system provides rigid rules that are easy to negotiate and they'll reward Minnesotans by enabling them to roll to a stop at a time that maximizes their self esteem but gives them a clear idea of when they are expected to enter the intersection.

In the UK we solved it with roundabouts - but then we had to go overboard and design the Magic Roundabout -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/images/2007/10/22/msn_magic_roun…

and coming from Germany and California, the disturbing habit of people in Washington and North Dakota to actually drive at or below the speedlimit always sets of paranoia (the only reason not to break the speedlimit is the presence of a cop)

CanadianChick, it's only like that in Alberta because the influx of Maritimers and Newfoundlanders has forced it upon them.

(We aim to civilize the creationism outta that province, one way or another, if it takes the last livin' kissable codfish to do it.)

I give the Minnesotans two seconds then I take matters into my own hands.

I do the same. If I'm the last one at a four-way I'll give the others three seconds before I go through. Funny thing is that one person taking decisive action seems to snap the others out of their stupor.

My state is full of stupid, indecisive drivers who, even when they know where they're going drive there as hesitantly as possible. It makes me batty but at least they aren't actively trying to kill people, like Idaho drivers.

Funny that no matter how bad drivers from one's own region are, one can always say that drivers from a neighboring region are worse.

The thing that ticks me off the most is this.

You know what is really nice, when driving? Like truly, honestly, actually nice?

Following the rules.

Following the rules means you will behave in a predictable and sane manner. That means I won't have to worry about my safety or my deductible.

So, truly, the nice thing to do at a four-way stop is to GO WHEN IT'S YOUR TURN.

I lived in Tokyo between 1969-1971 (Army brat), and they had a similar phenomenon there. Only a rude person would go first, so there was a kind of competition any time two drivers were stopped, where each driver in turn would bow to the other one, back and forth before one of them finally broke down and proceeded. Being "rude" Americans, my parents would only participate in this ritual exchange of bowing for a few rounds before giving in.

I lived in the outskirts of NW Las Vegas for a short time, where the development is by far outpacing the infrastructure. If you think regular 4-way stops are fun, try 4-way stops on roads with five lanes apiece.

I never understood why Americans have never adopted the roundabout. It would solve the four-way problem straight away

One more thing to note is that, in this situation, the best possible thing to do is to wait until it is actually your turn.

Just take your hands off the wheel, sit there, and stare straight forward.

Just wait to see how nice someone really is when the police show up and you've been T-boned by a soccer mom driving an SUV and you didn't really have the right of way.

"Waving? I wasn't waving. I had the right of way, doncha know!"

Nope. Screw that. I wait them out.

I live in Boise and haven't personally encountered drivers trying to kill me. The main driving quirk that annoys me is the incredibly slow turn, usually seen with SUVs. Perhaps they're worried that they'll topple over if they turn faster than 5 MPH, or else they're worried that the suspension won't be able to handle that little curb ramp into a parking lot. I sit there cursing them, knowing that I'm the one who has the low-clearance Honda Civic and therefore actually run a risk of scraping the bottom in deep enough dips.

Y'all haven't seen anything until you have ridden in Korea. Drive? I wouldn't drive there on a bet. There are special rules there which, I suspect, one must learn from childhood. For example, forming six lanes at a three lane intersection and then turning left from the far right line. I was in that car and we made it! So did the other three cars behind us. Some people in the leftmost lanes turned left, too. Lots of horn blowing and screeching tires as everyone, for the most part, ignored the policeman directing traffic.

@CanadianChick #41: Come to Victoria. It happens in this area all the time.

This is sooooo true. When I loved from Minnesota to Dallas, all that changed. Here you've got about .5 seconds to go (if that).

Rey @ #72: I absolutely hate that! Particularly when traffic is coming up the street that you find you're stuck in the middle of.

About the ID drivers, it seems they're allright inside of Idaho, and just turn horrible when they cross the border into Utah. The only time I've _ever_ seen someone drive into opposing traffic on a four lane road (complete w/ separate left-turn lane) was an ID driver around BYU campus. Who knows if it wasn't the BYU making them dumb, though... CA drivers seem to want to drive 10 MPH under the limit in the passing lane here also, so maybe my state has a bad effect on everybody.

I never understood why Americans have never adopted the roundabout. It would solve the four-way problem straight away

We'll adopt roundabouts, accents, parliamentary democracy, Tesco, and cricket long before we finally adopt the metric system, dammitall. And to think, when I went to elementary school one of my teachers was warning that we had better learn metric...

Seattle has roundabouts in the more residential parts. taxi cabs usually shoot straight across those, usually in the opposite direction they're supposed to (especially on left turns). I one nearly had a head-on collision with one.

Trevor - since you've only been in Seattle a few months you have not yet experienced the "best" of Seattle traffic. Wait until it snows. People will be abandoning their cars on the streets, and including on the lanes of I-5. Even the bus drivers do this. A mere quarter inch of snow in Seattle causes traffic mayhem. You can probably drive in the stuff, but most Seattle residents cannot handle it. Heck, most of them have trouble with rain, and we get plenty of that. Good luck with your blood pressure.

Similar things happen in Wisconsin... except I usually wave people through not to be nice, but because they're already rolling through the intersection and it usually isn't certain they're actually going to follow rules of right-away.

right-away? Yes, my brain is toast. Make that right-of-way. *smacks self

15-20 seconds? Been a while since you moved, eh? Now if you wait at a stop sign for more than about 15-20 milliseconds longer than you should you lose your turn. Unless you are on the East Side and drive a BMW, then traffic laws don't apply and you just blow through it without stopping at all.

After driving in the UK I'd have to say I much prefer the roundabout to the four-way fail.

They've started putting in roundabouts here, too, but they've apparently learned from the rest of you: they put flower beds in the middle of them. It might not stop a Hummer, but I suspect your average Kia Sorento is not up to a showdown with a bed of tulips.

It's a similar situation here in the South. Courtesy is taken to the painful extreme, and I am as guilty as the next guy because I am just as steeped in the Southern politeness thing. It's fairly widespread down here as long as you don't go down to Miami. Down there traffic is a vicious third world free for all, and they're all armed.

P.S. My grad advisor was an aggressive California-born driver who frequently complained about southern drivers. He also couldn't handle the formality and it drove him nuts trying to get his students to call him by his first name.

By the way, you all might be ahead on dangerous politeness, but we still "win" in the stupidity category:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/05/26/gmac_test_rankings/index.html

Wait until it snows. People will be abandoning their cars on the streets, and including on the lanes of I-5. Even the bus drivers do this.

*groan* oh yess, I remember getting stuck on a 405 onramp during the "snowstorm" two years ago, because some idiot truck driver stopped in the middle of it and started putting his chains on. on the bright side, school was canceled for 2 days, and I didn't have to go to work because the mall was temporarily out of business :-p

PZ,
Actually the rule of a 4-way stop is whoever gets there first goes first, then go counter-clockwise from there.
So, whoever is there first goes and then you wait for the person your left to go. And if the idiots are stopped and waiving each other through, just go. Don't look back, don't collect $200, and try not to think about it (the stupid burns).

I prefer Chicago's two-part approach to four-way stops:

1. Since it's safe to assume that everyone else will stop at the intersection, just ride on through.
2. If the assumption fails and somebody else attempts to do the same, lay on the horn for at least 10 seconds while leaning out the window shouting at them about how they're supposed to stop for stop signs.

(Extra points for cutting off pedestrians; triple word score if said pedestrian is pushing a stroller.)

@ #34 Well.. in Indiana, where there's a similar passive-aggressive niceness, nobody knows what the heck a roundabout is for or how to use it

What!? What about Monument Circle in Indianapolis? It's just one enormous roundabout that connects Indy to Cincinnati, Dayton, Detroit, Chicago, Peoria, and Louisville.

That's why they call Indiana "Crossroads of America," fer crying out loud. Look at the state flag! It's a symbolic representation of "routes for getting the hell out of Indiana."

The first time I came across a four-way stop - on a holiday to California a few years ago - I was completely flumuxed.

Obviously as a Brit I favour roundabouts, although they can be taken to extremes. When I lived in Corby, Northamptonshire, there was just one set of traffic lights in the entire town, and dozens of roundabouts.

France can be a bit problematic. The rules for roundabouts used to be that priority was given to traffic entering the roundabout. Then they changed to the more sensible system used by everybody else. Except on some of them, so for a while there was a bastard mix of types and nobody knew what to do.

I think they've all been changed now - I can't recall seeing any in my last few trips - but occasionally you'll come across some old gimmer who doesn't realise it's changed and blithely pulls out in front of you.

Actually, my only worry about adopting roundabouts in the US is that since most of my experience with them comes from driving in the UK, I'm afraid I might go around one in the wrong direction...

AAARRRRGGHHHH! I feel your pain! I have to go through two four-way stops on my to work (and my way back home) and I give the idiots 2 SECONDS. If they don't go, I go and flip the bird at 'em while I do it. Even if I'm on my motorcycle.

They take the most beautiful and simple traffic law and crap all over it. "Minnesota Nice"? "Minnesota stupid."

I can beat you all, I've driven in Cairo.

They don't call the horn the Egyptian Brake Pedal for nothing. I can tell you stories of driving, with no discernable lanes, at 140 kph on the Motorway and coming across a donkey pulling a cart full of china pots, I can tell you of the mini buses that are so full that passengers are sitting on the roof at those speeds ( burkhas streaming in the wind)...oh Lord I could tell you some horror stories. Having said that they rarely have a crash but when they do its absolute carnage.

I've also driven in Rome and Beijing so apparently the story to be told here is that I have never learnt my lesson.

A certain relative of mine has been writing on this topic lately; I was unable to quickly locate his recent article in The Atlantic, but this version seems to cover the relevant points: Why stop signs and speed limits make America less safe

We have one three-way intersection around here which was recently converted to a traffic circle. Recently our morning routine changed and I have found myself driving through it every morning at rush hour -- and I can only say I wish there were more like it. It's always busy, but I never have to wait more than a few seconds to get in and out.

Ah yes, the French system. I remember well standing under the Arc de Triomphe and watching the traffic in awe, how there were not multitudinous accidents all the time is beyond me. I had heard about it from friends, including one, a motorsport journalist who had actually driven through it at rush hour. Priority to traffic entering the roundabout is just bizarre. If they have changed it might have been pressure from Europe for 'harmonisation'.

Best driving over the roundabout I ever saw was back home in Auckland, New Zealand. There was this T-junction in the village and they put a pancake roundabout in, one of those that is just a very, very shallow dome of concrete. They put in islands on the approach with signs too. Barely a week after this was put in I was up there early doing my paper round and a house was being moved through on the back of a truck (wooden houses in NZ, see it all the time). Well they took one look at the narrow road and drove straight down the middle with the occasional 'snap!' as a sign post went. The whole thing went West not long after...

Yes, demonstration of the inherent grumpiness of atheists.

Have you told anyone to get off your lawn this week?

I haven't but damn I wanted to.

Speaking of roundabouts (which I think work fine for lots of places) I remember going to the Muscat airport just days before Ramadan one afternoon back in the 80's. Everyone who could was leaving the country, so traffic to the airport was bumper to bumper traveling at about 0.1 km/hr. We were just coming up to one of the huge roundabouts they have there when I noticed a mercedes coupe approaching from the left at about 150 km/hr. He didn't even slow down, I suppose he assumed his life was in the hands of god.

The carnage was spectacular, and I missed my flight.

Well, it's obvious what happened here. They believe in God, you don't, so you think you're god and went first. This is why atheists eat babies, and four-way stops prove evolution is a Stalinist conspiracy.

(P.S. _Religulous_ was actually really good. Of course we hypercritical skeptics are going to find problems with whatever's out there, but I'm glad this movie is getting a good per screen average.)

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/465

But seriously, roundabouts are the solution and very easy to traverse, since you only have two rules. Anything coming from the left has right of way and if you're inside the roundabout you have right of way.

How that should be hard to understand eludes me. ;)

And 4-way stops have only 1 rule: first car there leaves first. People can fuck up anything.

SC,

I don't think it stems from either politeness or a sense of entitlement. It's simply the norm - pretty much everyone does it and permits others to - and may have emerged because at lights where there's no left turn arrow people would often be waiting eons just to turn.

Not very many people do it, and no one has the right to expect it--it's illegal, dangerous, and it usually doesn't go over well when I witness it (honking, middle fingers, near accidents, etc). Though having to wait a while to turn left is inconvenient at times, it is not a factor when there are only a few oncoming cars, nor when the light is actually red, and I see enough other instances of incomprehensible self-importance on my commute that I am fairly confident this mindset plays a part in most of these I-go-first,you-fuck-off left turns.

Glen D: I grew up (and learned to drive) in Colorado, and spent the last 8 years in Eastern Washington State. Both places have their bollocks drivers, of course, but I'm not sure that those in E. Washington are worse than the Coloradans. At least in Southern Colorado, the bad drivers (maybe with influence from New Mexico?) are very, VERY bad.
Could it be that both E. Washington and Colorado have (except for Spokane) a preponderance of farmers and college students, a mix which is sure to cause confusion?

Roundabouts are very nice indeed (I'm in NJ).

My main gripe I have here is that we have jughandles for making left turns from the right-hand lane. While they are okay in and of themselves, it gets frustrating driving in a new area and trying to figure out if I should be in the left or right lane to make the upcoming left turn (especially when I am following the flow of fast and crowded traffic on all lanes). Those "All Turns From Right Lane" sometimes appear much too late for me.

For cars that stop for me when I'm on foot, if I want the car to go first, I preempt their stop attempt by pretending to keep walking along parallel to the street. The car passes by and I cross the street right behind the car.

We don't have roundabouts in NJ. We have circles.

We do have four-way stops, rare though they are, and you have about 0.1124 seconds to take your turn before someone else will think you're asleep and start moving.

Yeah, I see that all the time, and regrettably have participated in the waving ritual. If they wave me through I just put my hand up and go, though. Hanging at an intersection for 20 seconds would drive me nuts, though, so I don't give them more than one chance.

I live in Columbia Heights (just north of Minneapolis) and they've added a roundabout (between two 4-way stops, amusingly enough). It's an interesting experiment watching people get used to it. I've nearly been hit a couple of times by people who, in the context of something new and different, forget what the giant 'Yield' signs mean.

4-way stops should be eliminated. Get a roundabout.

In Minnesota, what's the difference between a family reunion and a four-way stop sign?

Potato salad.

(If you're listening to our show from our affiliate in Minneapolis, "GET OUT OF THE LEFT LANE!")

Not very many people do it, and no one has the right to expect it--it's illegal, dangerous, and it usually doesn't go over well when I witness it (honking, middle fingers, near accidents, etc). Though having to wait a while to turn left is inconvenient at times, it is not a factor when there are only a few oncoming cars, nor when the light is actually red, and I see enough other instances of incomprehensible self-importance on my commute that I am fairly confident this mindset plays a part in most of these I-go-first,you-fuck-off left turns.

Well, we've evidently driven in different parts of New England, because in my experience in CT people do it, it goes over well, and frankly I don't recall hearing (or doing) any honking over it, as it's expected by all involved. Nor have I seen the aggression or near-accidents you describe - again, it's expected - or the attitude that you suggest is behind it expressed.

The main reason I think it arose because of the nature of certain intersections is that it seems to happen more at intersections that lack a turning lane or arrow or provide one that's too short. I'll note that I've contacted town officials about problematic signage or intersections in the past and they've fixed things promptly. I just don't think intersections where norms have developed that allow people to navigate traffic necessarily need an overhaul. I believe a workable norm which provides predictability can be equally safe. Yankees aren't traditionally overly concerned with abiding by laws they find arbitrary or inefficient, and I as a Yankee anarchist most definitely am not. :)

But, like I said, our experiences even in the same region may differ considerably.

I don't drive anymore, but when I did, I never had a problem with four-way stops. Roundabouts frighten the shit out of me. Why? Nobody here uses their turn signals and I've seen people do things like make right turns from the left lane through crowds of pedestrians, and everyone seems to figure that the way to make a right-hand turn if you really want to be in the left lane is just to turn directly into the left lane instead of turning into the correct lane and then moving over.

In other words, I don't trust the local yokels to be able to use roundabouts. Hell, I'm brighter than most of them, and I can't figure the fucking things out. They're like someone decided to take a four-way stop and make it more complicated, just for fun!

For what it's worth, I'm Canadian too, but I live in a city with the worst Canadian drivers, bar none. Even Toronto drivers, while more aggressive than the drivers in my hometown, hew to the rules moreso than the locals do.

I can vouch for the truth of jaywalking story; stuff like that has happened to me, too. Contrariwise, in Cambridge, Ontario, I was hit by a woman in a minivan who' stopped at a four-way stop when I was on foot. I made eye contact with her, had the right of way on two or three counts (pedestrian, arrived at the intersection prior to her, coming from the right), and I walked out into the middle of the intersection, whereupon she stepped on the gas and drove into me.

Anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature can figure out a roundabout. Seriously people, come on! Traffic in the roundabout moves counterclockwise. Traffic in the roundabout has right of way. It's actually much simpler than the four-way stop, because encounters with other traffic are completely one-dimensional. There's no need to worry about who got there first, whether right-of-way proceeds to the right or to the left around the intersection, and most of all, no stupid waving people through. Not being able to figure it out is a result of not taking the time and effort to think it through, not a result of complication. They're an incredibly simple interchange.

There's a lot of 4 way stops where I live, and the local suburban city folks are terrible at figuring out who should go first. It would make me tear my hair out if I had any left. Go 2-3 suburbs to the south, and they understand the protocol at 4 way stops. A pleasant area to drive in. I think the only difference is education. The locals tend to be blue collar, and the other suburbs are heavily college educated (rather ritzy/old money)

Is a "roundabout" anything like the infamous New Jersey traffic circle?

When I was growing up in Haddon Twp. NJ, the Ellisburg Circle lay between where we lived an my Uncle Tony's house in Cherry Hill. My mom was a rather timid driver and sometimes we would wind up going around that @#$% circle three times before she finally summoned the gumption to break out of it.

The local paper here had a letter to the editor today, blaming a similar excess of "courtesy" for a collision that killed a bicyclist. Someone was stopped at a green light to let a bicyclist coming the other way turn left, which prevented him from seeing the oncoming car in the lane next to the paused car.
http://www.azstarnet.com/opinion/260679 see "Courteous driver at root of accident"

As for roundabouts, I'm strongly of the opinion that they're a great idea, but only work in practice if you have some certain minimum critical mass of them in the area, so that most motorists encountering one will have dealt with many before, learned their rules, and can behave appropriately. When they're a rare bird, nobody coming across one knows what to do, and accidents result in the ensuing confusion. I used to live in a city with a few new ones in a residential area, and it was a small source of entertainment to count the fresh tire marks & knocked-down reflectors after each weekend, and the occasional wreck being towed off of one altogether.

Maybe you've heard of "Minnesota nice", this strange passive-aggressive attitude around here that compels everyone to compete at being the most polite and deferential

What's nice or polite about backing up traffic just so you can show off how "considerate" you are?

While there are more pressing targets, the idiotic idea that "polite" is best conceptualized as the antonym of "assertive" is one of the memetic plagues of our society that, long-term, we should be lining up beside racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Ha! What a bunch of pansies!! Just do away with road rules altogether - it can be done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Doy_7sOoM

*shudder*

Or if you're feeling really brave, you could come to Melbourne and attempt a "hook turn". It's where you turn right from the left-hand lane (remembering that we drive on the left.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VC110TeusA

Good luck; you won't be worrying about courtesy now...

Thanny wrote:

We don't have roundabouts in NJ. We have circles.

Actually, NJ does have roundabouts, just not that many. Circles are more abundant (or more obvious?), though.

There's a circle near my place with a straight road cutting right across it, which necessitates traffic lights and makes making a left turn out of certain nearby stores almost impossible (but somehow people manage this feat).

Old joke we used to tell.

What's the definition of eternity?

Four Canadians arriving at an All-Way simultaneously.

Heh.

I'd always thought that was just a joke ("Why were you late to class? I got caught at a 4-way stop with 3 Minnesotans.")

Also, I live in CT and there's definitely one intersection here that commonly allows the left-turn first on green (in fact I've done it myself) and nobody seems to mind. There are also very few left turn lanes, so it's expected that you'll drive on the right hand shoulder to go around someone turning left. First place I've lived where that's considered normal (and even polite) and not just assholish.

@74: I remember before I went to Melbourne thinking that right-turns from the left lane would be absolute insanity. After witnessing it, it makes much more sense - especially after witnessing a car vs tram accident where the car tried to turn right from the right lane......

wait until you drive with theese loonies in the winter... it's so awful that i move away for the snowed road months... ugg.. i have a headache just thinking about how people who live in near-canada can't drive in the snow, and add on ultra passive agressiveness... i don't envy you

Why does that scene remind me of the Urban Grand Challenge ;)

Anyway, at least here in Davis CA, you won't pass your driving test if you are too deferential. "Obstructing the normal flow of traffic" is a cardinal offense. Seriously, my SO got serious points deducted for *not speeding* when the traffic was.

Roundabouts are the answer in almost all cases. Usually (note the qualifier, it's important) they are delightfully self-regulating. Except in case of those stupid road-nipples, they are great fun for motorcyclists (and that's the only valid reason for any road related design decision since cars are so pointlessly tedious why would anyone care?) and they also provide a good excuse for some urban greenery in cases of large roundabouts.

The issue that can ruin them is what I can only explain as the transistor effect. You see, if you have a major road with a feed off a minor road then you can get a nasty case where there is just enough traffic from the minor feed (think 'base' on a transistor, except flip the voltage) to stop any vehicle from the 'emitter' getting on to the circle. This can totally gum up a major city road. For those of you that know the area, think Soutgate St/Romsey Rd out of Winchester in Hants, and the roundabout with Chilbolton Ave. For the rest of you, take a look at http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=winchester+romsey… .
The answer is part-time traffic lights on the base leg.

@#50:

New to Michigan, eh? Wait until you learn the thrills of a "Michigan Stop."

"Hey look! A stop sign! I better press on the brae pedal... but coming to a complete stop takes too much of my time so I'll just cruise on by, knthnxbai."

It makes four-ways stops EXCITING! There's nothing like that moment of sheer terror when you are unsure whether or not the other driver decides to stop.

PZ,

Check out the blog of auther Tom Vanderbilt - howwedrive.com. He just released an excellent book called "Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do (And What It Says About Us)"

But, like I said, our experiences even in the same region may differ considerably.

It would seem so. I should perhaps add that I'm often the one honking and flipping people off. But the tacit support... I can feel it.

I'll note that I've contacted town officials about problematic signage or intersections in the past.... I as a Yankee anarchist ...

Is that sort of engagement of public officials typical for an anarchist?

miz_geek,

Also, I live in CT and there's definitely one intersection here that commonly allows the left-turn first on green...There are also very few left turn lanes, so it's expected that you'll drive on the right hand shoulder to go around someone turning left.

I'm sure the left-turn is fairly common in certain places (I'd guess at those bizarrely-shaped intersections where a wide left turn can be made easily before the oncoming car crosses), but I'd think that's more a function of topology than geography. If it's common at any normal intersections, you have to appreciate the danger this poses for non-local drivers (and locals who find themselves at such intersections with non-locals). As for the right lane thing, I've always thought that was standard everywhere (though also illegal, it at least doesn't interfere with traffic patterns and pose the same risk of collision as out-of-turn lefts).

I hear ya. The people who annoy me the most, after the ones who go when they don't have the right of way, are the ones who don't go when they do.

Why the hard-on for roundabouts? They're bigger, uglier, and not much more simple than a simple 4-way stop. If people mess up a 4-way stop, I can guarantee they're going to be stupid enough to mess up a roundabout.

My nephew's grandparents where killed at a rural 4 way stop somewhere in the country southeast Minneapolis not too long ago.

I never had much of an issue with the 4-way stops when I lived in South Florida. Everyone seemed to know what to do (first person there goes, yield to the right, any significant hesitation loses their go, etc). Now, stopping at lights or not blocking the crosswalk was another story.

Say what you will about crazy NYC drivers, but since I've been here (over 4 years now) I have only ever seen a handful of drivers run through a traffic light or block the crosswalk (the rules generaly do not apply in bridge/tunnel traffic and are not expected to...you cross at your own risk there). I learned early on that I could confidently walk across the street as soon as the light turned yellow because the oncoming cars would stop. It was amazing to me at first and I was scared shitless (not only because I have been hit by a car before, but because being a pedestrian in S.FL is not recommended under any circumstances), but I don't even have to think about it anymore. Pedestrians are part of the flow of traffic.

And say what you will about cabs in NYC, but they have the best brakes in the city...possibly anywhere.

In Virginia, the protocol is to yield to whoever got there first, or to the right if you arrive at the same time. I don't remember it ever being a problem when I lived back east.

-jcr

I can beat you all, I've driven in Cairo.

I leave it to the professionals in places like that. Our driver in India had some incredible skills. I lost count of the times I thought to myself "Oh, that's guy's a goner", only to see our van miss him by an inch or less.

-jcr

There's a PhD in Sociology in it for someone who is willing to park themselves down there with a deckchair and an esky and spend a few weeks watching.

Ok, I have to use the word "esky" and weave it into American English. You don't mind, do you, BoS? I promise to leave all of the other Aussie colloquialisms alone. :)

If a person had a stop sign, they glanced briefly to either side of the intersection and then roll through as though it was a yield. If they had a yield sign, they'd blow through the intersection without even looking. But if they didn't have a sign at all -- in other words, if they unambiguously had the right of way -- they'd stop.

I had a girlfriend when I was 17 who lived in a quiet residential area and there was a stop right before her house, but there were two stop signs - one on top of the other. She always blew through it and explained to me that they canceled each other out. Luckily, no one was ever around and the speed limit was 20mph. Scared the crap out of me every time, tho...she also used to smack my forehead before the stop sign because a sign a few meters back said "Stop Ahead." She was a silly girl :)

Yeah, these are absolutely ridiculous. I encountered them on a trip to the USA years ago, and my first thought was that it must've been some sort of joke - surely noone in whatever department's responsible for road planning would be THAT stupid? But they were, apparently.

Last year a correspondence in the Guardian regarding who had right of way at roundabouts concluded that it's "whoever stops laughing first after the taxi, the white van and the sales executive all crash into each other." HTH.

Ooooh! A challenge.

Well.

I drive in Naples, Italy. Even non-local Italians are afraid to drive there.

Driving in Naples Video

Note: This is NOT me driving.

We have our own version of the Magic Roundabout in Hertfordshire:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempstead)

I haven't owned a car in some six years, but here's one that repeatedly irritates me. Somebody sees me wanting to cross the street, and slows down -- but creeps forward with hesitation rather than stopping.

Dude, I'm not going to cross in front of you, you're still moving. And by creeping rather than moving at a normal pace, you keep yourself in my way and a threat to life and limb that much longer. If you want to let me cross in front of you, STOP! If not, then get a move on and let me cross behind you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfI9e4BX0lU

I call it the "great minnesota standoff." You go...no, you go...no, please, after you...okay, let's all go at the same time!

We have a "one car at a time under-pass" here in VT. People try to take turns when there are cars on both sides. That way it takes twice as long even without the dreaded hand gestures and start/stops. When the car in front of me goes, I go. People on the other side give me the "look" and and I shake my head and look up.

Katrina @#134, I've driven all over Italy, I LIKED it!

Total agreement, PZ: people here are the worst at 4-ways. Give me traffic circles any day. Oops, that would be an idea from godless EUROPE! Can't have that.

The other thing they are the worst at in the Twin Cities is RUNNING RED LIGHTS. Worse than Cairo, Bangkok, Kathmandu, Nairobi, Suva, Johor Bahru, Delhi, LA, San Francisco, or Seattle. When the light turns green, you don't need to bother counting the seconds before proceeding, just count the cars running the red light the other way: 1, 2, 3, ... 4 (AFTER your light turns green, which is AFTER a significant delay following their red light.) I was nearly killed by a supremely blatant runner. If I hadn't hesitated slightly, I wouldn't be writing this now. (I'm not a conservative or slow driver.)

OK, off my soap box now.

It's this idotic niceness that leads to unexpected behaviour and deviation from the rules of the road, which, of course, leads to accidents.

Is that sort of engagement of public officials typical for an anarchist?

Historically, at the local level, often yes. In my case, they now include several members of my immediate family, so the engagement is unavoidable. By the way, if you haven't attended a town meeting in CT related to zoning/water/conservation/roads/etc., you definitely should. Even Newhart couldn't do them justice.

And I do appreciate that the left-turn-first norm might be a problem for nonlocals who are unfamiliar with it, but just don't think people generally gun it (or should gun it) when the light turns green such that there's no time to avoid accidents.

This thread reminds me of:

"If there were any justice in the world, parking would be free, and not using your turn signal would cost $500." - attributed to Johnny Carson

(so I've heard)

No kings,

Robert

They do the same thing here in Arkansas...at least western Arkansas. Unfortunately, we have a really hard time figuring out what to do at stop lights, too. I have noticed though that our visitors from the North tend come to a red stop light, stop, and if they feel the light is taking too long to turn green, go when the coast is clear. Southerners don't even go when it turns green; we're content to wait for Rapture in the comfort of our SUVs.

This has always made me made with 4-way stops, too. So simple, yet so misunderstood. It seems people think that the tie-breaker rule (person to your right goes first) is the rule, instead of the exception.

The rules of the road are pretty clear. I don't see any reason for having to wave your hands around, but I don't think Minnesotans could drive at all without doing it.

This isn't generally true in the Twin Cities. People here must be slightly less nice.

There are even stranger regional micro-climates in Minnesota for handling four-way stops.

In Northfield, for instance, the drivers all appear to think that those going straight must yield to an oncoming vehicle making a left-hand turn. They've mostly got the idea of taking turns at the stop sign, but completely fail to understand existing law and common conventions when it comes to yielding turns to straight.

It's not just that those making left-hand turns seize the moment and leap in front of you, though they sometimes do. Often if you're signaling to turn left, the one in front of you going straight will first wait, then WAVE you through in annoyance.

Traffic circles are great, but every time I've seen an American 4-way stop converted to a traffic circle, it goes horrifically wrong.

My uncle's from DC, and he says the same thing when he visits Oregon. "In that state, they're not called 4-way stops; they're called No, You go's.
I think 15-20 seconds was a rather generous allotment. Being from MA, our window is 3 seconds.

Chief @148:

You think 4-way stops are bad in Oregon, you should see some of the small towns there that have 4-way yields.

That's what's great about New Orleans--admittedly, I don't drive here, I ride my bike--but instead of studiously following the laws, like back home in Wisconsin, with occasional excessive yielding (like back home in Wisconsin), everybody plays chicken--we all want to go first, but we don't want to kill anybody--so pedestrians (and occasionally bikers) break the law a little bit, but cars end up following it at least most of the time.

I was driving around (lost) in a new residential section near Des Moines on Saturday and found that the road designers had decided to use roundabouts with stop signs. So basically, a four-way stop, but more complicated. Yay.

Doesn't anyone remember the rules of the road? First one at a four way stop goes first, if both get there at the same time, then the one on the right goes first. What got me on Cape Cod were those that insisted on stopping on the main road to either let someone out from a side street or to let someone make a left turn and I would be the only car behind the car that stopped. If they would continue moving the other car would have been able to go after I went by, but no this person had to be polite to someone in front of them and ignore those behind them.

Straight out of the Alberta Driver's Handbook:

"Four-way stops

Intersections where stop signs are located at all four corners (four-way stops) are often referred to as "courtesy corners." Vehicles approaching from all directions are required to come to a full stop. All drivers must exercise courtesy and care. Normal courtesy is to allow the vehicle that arrived first to proceed first. If two vehicles arrive at the same time, courtesy again allows the vehicle on the right to proceed first. You must not proceed unless you can do so safely."

New improved 4-way stops. Now with extra courtesy.

Shouldn't it be aggressively-passive rather than passive-aggressive?