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Would you accept "humans violate the rules in a safe and principled way, plus lots of other ways"? I mean, you're obviously correct, human drivers do idiotic a

Would you accept "humans violate the rules in a safe and principled way, plus lots of other ways"? I mean, you're obviously correct, human drivers do idiotic and deadly things all the time. But I think we can distinguish that from the behavior in the article. Gently rolling a stop sign at a high-visibility intersection sounds like a safe and principled violation. Driving around a car waiting to turn left is a bit less safe, but still a principled or predictable violation. The Pittsburgh left is a (fairly) safe and principled violation. None of those things are comparable to texting and driving, or ignoring a red light. They're informal adjustments to the traffic code that other drivers really do anticipate, and which aren't nearly as dangerous as general "bad driving".

mikeash 9y ago
No, that still goes to far. I'd accept "humans violate the rules in ways which are very occasionally, inadvertently safe."
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Oh, come on. Coming to a rolling stop at an empty, clearly visible intersection is not some sort of insane suicidal behavior.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    I'm not saying it is. A rolling stop at a busy intersection where you barely miss other cars and/or pedestrians is insane behavior, though, and that's what I'm talking about. Yes, there are people who carefully evaluate the situation and only roll their stops when it's safe. They make up a minuscule percentage of the population, though. Most people just do it out of laziness or selfishness, and when they do it safely, it's a happy accident, not a deliberate policy.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      I disagree.
  - naasking 9y ago
    > Coming to a rolling stop at an empty, clearly visible intersection is not some sort of insane suicidal behavior. The problem is that humans easily misjudge what they believe to be an empty, clearly visible intersection.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      If you're the first person to the line you have the right of way anyway.
      - devrelm 9y ago
        As my driving instructor used to say, "Stop signs and red lights do not actually reach out and stop the other driver." The lesson: just because it's your turn to go does not mean that others will not enter the intersection when it's not their turn. I agree that rolling stops at a 4-way stop are generally safe when you can clearly see that no other cars are at or approaching the intersection. But in my experience, the fact that the other person is at fault has been little consolation for having to deal with a totaled car and a permanent backache.
        joejerryronnie 9y ago
        The laws of physics always trump the laws of the road.
        emodendroket 9y ago
        OK, obviously that's true. But if it's empty, you have good visibility, and you plainly have the right of way, well, I'm just going to take it on faith that nobody is hurtling down the road at 80 mph. You can't possibly account for everything; that's the risk of driving.
        shkkmo 9y ago
        Or you could, stop, check the intersection and proceed safely like you are legally required to do.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    It's a matter of perspective. It looks a lot more insane when you're paid well enough to outsource those behaviors (and liability) to whoever's driving your Uber. It's like when a company makes a statement about supporting a living wage and contracts out its janitorial services who pay anything but.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      I don't understand what you're driving at.
      - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
        It's easy to bitch about people not following the letter of the law when you're not spending 45min in a rush hour commute every day and the benefit of not following the letter of the law is not tangible to you.
        emodendroket 9y ago
        Oh, I see. Yeah, I don't miss driving to work.
        mikeash 9y ago
        On the contrary, I'm a lot more uptight about it when I drive frequently, because I eventually get tired of people nearly killing me or breaking my stuff because they can't be bothered to put the least bit of effort into their driving.
- jerf 9y ago
  You notice the big violations. You do not even notice the small ones, which happen all the time. How many people cross solid lines? How many people sometimes drift a bit out of their lane? How many people scrupulously follow the speed limit like a computer does, not even accidentally drifting above it? How many people simply screw up the order of operations at a busy stop sign? How many people always scrupulously use their turn signals in accordance with the local laws? (You may use them frequently, even scrupulously, but I bet you often turn them on what is legally too late.) I've been driving through a construction zone all summer. People definitely don't drive "45 when workers are around". They don't slow down when the workers are behind the concrete barriers and a dozen feet from the road, and may drive 25 when they're sitting right next to the road with just a barrel a bit between you and them. Even a cop tailing you and desperately hunting for reasons to pull you over still probably lets through plenty of violations. There's too many laws for the cop to keep in their head.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Crossing solid lines is not illegal in my state. Drifting a bit out of your lane is pretty dangerous. Usually you get away with it, but if two people do it at the same time while adjacent, you're going to bump. Do it when there's oncoming traffic in the next lane (which I see all the damned time) then you could easily get people killed. Mildly exceeding the speed limit is fine, but people don't do it in a carefully considered way because they know it's still safe, they do it because they're in a hurry and know they probably won't get pulled over.
    - Bartweiss 9y ago
      Crossing solid lines (or crossing a gore, at least) is illegal in my state. Meanwhile, a lot of highway on-ramps are painted with single-lane-width, high-angle merges that are dangerous to adhere to - they leave you making a ~30 degree turn while accelerating into traffic. As a result, everyone starts their merge early in the gore area, matches speed, and merges at a gentle angle. (The road designers presumably know this, and keep the marked path narrow regardless so that drivers won't attempt to form multiple lanes.) This is a pretty great example of what I'm describing - I don't think people make great decisions about violating driving rules, but I also don't think it's fair to call safe decisions "inadvertent". Not breaking that law is genuinely dangerous, and people violate it specifically to be safer.
emodendroket 9y ago
Also consider how many roads there are where nobody obeys the speed limit but they all more or less adhere to the same speed.
- deleted 9y ago
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- smileysteve 9y ago
  Speed limits are designed and enforced poorly.. For the most part; outliers create more danger than many cars going the same speed. The CBC had some nice coverage of this.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    You're essentially getting at the point of the article. Driving laws reflect neither actual behavior nor what we'd consider ideal behavior.
    - smileysteve 9y ago
      Great point. I wasn't thinking how that news piece related. Great point.
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nejenendn 9y ago
Driving to the right of a car turning left isn’t even illegal in all cases.
- TylerH 9y ago
  Why would it ever be?
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    I think it's only contextually illegal - on narrow streets, you might have to enter a bike lane, drive in a parking zone, or otherwise break a rule to have room to pass.
lttlrck 9y ago
It's called a Pittsburgh Left?! When I first came to the US to Boston it drove me crazy, to me it was the epitome of uncivilized American driving "how dare you cut in front of me without my permission!" But it makes sense at the right kind of intersection, and of course I adopted it because otherwise I'd be the odd one holding up the traffic making people frustrated.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  >how dare you cut in front of me without my permission Allow me to fill in between the lines: "What is this, some sort of (mostly still) free country where people are not given harsh punishments for all behavior that prioritizes the individual over the group?" (sarcasm implied)
  - mikeash 9y ago
    People are harshly punished for the Pittsburgh Left, it's just that the punishment is somewhat random and handed out by physics rather than lawmen.
  - sampo 9y ago
    Wikipedia doesn't present it as quite so selfish: "By accepting a modest delay in going straight, the opposing traffic has saved the left-turning traffic waiting an entire light cycle to turn left, as well as saved an equivalent amount of time for all the cars that otherwise would have been stuck behind the left-turning car. In situations where there is so much oncoming, straight traffic that a left turn would not be otherwise possible during any part of the light cycle, the Pittsburgh left can allow a line of left turning traffic to proceed incrementally." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left
    - Bartweiss 9y ago
      It's not the safest bit of driving, but it's enormously pro-social. As that quote suggests, the problem isn't "I want to turn left" but rather "there are 30 cars behind me going straight, with no room to pass me on the right". If people just wanted to turn left, this would happen everywhere. Instead, I see it almost exclusively in cities with narrow streets lacking left turn lanes. In extreme cases, it's even personally beneficial for the yielding driver - the alternative is sometimes gridlock that circles back around to them. None of which makes it safe, but it's pretty obviously common for reasons other than selfishness.
arthurdenture 9y ago
> Gently rolling a stop sign at a high-visibility intersection sounds like a safe and principled violation. If you do this yourself, please reconsider. My experience is that drivers who do this (especially at 2-way stops) are watching carefully for perpendicular traffic while blithely ignoring pedestrians approaching the crosswalk that they are rolling through. As a pedestrian, I consider this the second highest threat to my personal life+limb, after left turners who (again) watch for cars and not pedestrians.
- dantillberg 9y ago
  Yes! Drivers often seem to only care about the possibility of colliding with another vehicle. So by default they pull right through the crosswalk and/or stop line in order to maximize their visibility of cross traffic and maximize their speed of making the turn without hitting another vehicle. Their actions are both selfish and passive aggressive toward pedestrians, yet at the same time their actions are also completely _rational_ when the driver is ignorant of (or lacks empathy for) pedestrians. They get away with it because it's such a small violation of the law and because pedestrians take on the responsibility of not getting hit.
  - jasonmp85 9y ago
    Yup. If you want to make roads safer for non-drivers, make design choices that make drivers feel more threatened. Turn one-way avenues into two-way streets with street parking, etc.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - olyjohn 9y ago
    I see so many entitled, selfish pedestrians downtown, every day it's not even funny. People keep acting like drivers are the only people causing problems, but if pedestrians would quit crossing after the DO NOT WALK, a ton of collisions would be avoided there too. Pedestrians forget to check for, or blatantly ignore cars all the time. I can't count the amount of times I've avoided hitting some pedestrian, because I had to take the responsibility to look out for them.
mikepurvis 9y ago
The Pittsburgh/Boston left is extremely dangerous if you're not prepared for it to happen. I can't find a citation at the moment, but I believe in Ontario it constitutes stunt driving, and carries fines comparable to street racing.
- rpeden 9y ago
  A bit more info here: http://www.wheels.ca/news/auto-know-jumping-light-for-a-left-turn-is-now-treated-as-stunt-driving/ http://www.wheels.ca/news/auto-know-jumping-light-for-a-left... Although I'm in favour of the law in general, I really dislike the 'stunt driving' name. I'm not sure that many (or any) of the offences covered under the law really qualify as stunts. Dumb and dangerous, yes, but not stunts. Call this law something else, and save 'stunt drving' for people who drive their cars on two wheels and other related craziness. :)
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Despite living in the Boston area I don't really do this, even though I see others doing it, because, well, I don't really trust the other guy to stop.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    Are you sure you live in Boston? Usually, the goal seems to be to dare the other driver, sometimes coupled with taunting. Yes, people do drive differently in different regions. Boston is the only place where I have had two cars totaled. It was parked both times. The second time the driver of the other car seemingly backed up and smashed into it again. I love that dirty water.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      I live in the South Shore but I'm not sure if that's better or worse.
      - KGIII 9y ago
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reaperducer 9y ago
> Gently rolling a stop sign at a high-visibility intersection I've always heard this called a "California stop." Are you in California? Looking for a point of data.
- KGIII 9y ago
  There are many variations. It depends on your region, more or less. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/10/was-california-stop-really-invented-california/ http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/10/was-california... Google will find more results.
- bmm6o 9y ago
  In California, it's frequently called a "California Roll", which makes it a pun for the sushi.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Maybe it should be called a "anywhere in the United States stop."
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  Eh? I'm not in CA, and like the other answers I see this everywhere in the country. I suppose it's rarer in places where intersections are almost never quiet and empty, but I've seen it all over New York (not NYC), Ohio, Wisconsin, and a half-dozen other states. It's standard practice anywhere rural, and in a lot of suburbs.

mikeash 9y ago

No, that still goes to far. I'd accept "humans violate the rules in ways which are very occasionally, inadvertently safe."

emodendroket 9y ago
Oh, come on. Coming to a rolling stop at an empty, clearly visible intersection is not some sort of insane suicidal behavior.
- mikeash 9y ago
  I'm not saying it is. A rolling stop at a busy intersection where you barely miss other cars and/or pedestrians is insane behavior, though, and that's what I'm talking about. Yes, there are people who carefully evaluate the situation and only roll their stops when it's safe. They make up a minuscule percentage of the population, though. Most people just do it out of laziness or selfishness, and when they do it safely, it's a happy accident, not a deliberate policy.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I disagree.
- naasking 9y ago
  > Coming to a rolling stop at an empty, clearly visible intersection is not some sort of insane suicidal behavior. The problem is that humans easily misjudge what they believe to be an empty, clearly visible intersection.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    If you're the first person to the line you have the right of way anyway.
    - devrelm 9y ago
      As my driving instructor used to say, "Stop signs and red lights do not actually reach out and stop the other driver." The lesson: just because it's your turn to go does not mean that others will not enter the intersection when it's not their turn. I agree that rolling stops at a 4-way stop are generally safe when you can clearly see that no other cars are at or approaching the intersection. But in my experience, the fact that the other person is at fault has been little consolation for having to deal with a totaled car and a permanent backache.
      - joejerryronnie 9y ago
        The laws of physics always trump the laws of the road.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        OK, obviously that's true. But if it's empty, you have good visibility, and you plainly have the right of way, well, I'm just going to take it on faith that nobody is hurtling down the road at 80 mph. You can't possibly account for everything; that's the risk of driving.
        shkkmo 9y ago
        Or you could, stop, check the intersection and proceed safely like you are legally required to do.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  It's a matter of perspective. It looks a lot more insane when you're paid well enough to outsource those behaviors (and liability) to whoever's driving your Uber. It's like when a company makes a statement about supporting a living wage and contracts out its janitorial services who pay anything but.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I don't understand what you're driving at.
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      It's easy to bitch about people not following the letter of the law when you're not spending 45min in a rush hour commute every day and the benefit of not following the letter of the law is not tangible to you.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        Oh, I see. Yeah, I don't miss driving to work.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        On the contrary, I'm a lot more uptight about it when I drive frequently, because I eventually get tired of people nearly killing me or breaking my stuff because they can't be bothered to put the least bit of effort into their driving.
jerf 9y ago
You notice the big violations. You do not even notice the small ones, which happen all the time. How many people cross solid lines? How many people sometimes drift a bit out of their lane? How many people scrupulously follow the speed limit like a computer does, not even accidentally drifting above it? How many people simply screw up the order of operations at a busy stop sign? How many people always scrupulously use their turn signals in accordance with the local laws? (You may use them frequently, even scrupulously, but I bet you often turn them on what is legally too late.) I've been driving through a construction zone all summer. People definitely don't drive "45 when workers are around". They don't slow down when the workers are behind the concrete barriers and a dozen feet from the road, and may drive 25 when they're sitting right next to the road with just a barrel a bit between you and them. Even a cop tailing you and desperately hunting for reasons to pull you over still probably lets through plenty of violations. There's too many laws for the cop to keep in their head.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Crossing solid lines is not illegal in my state. Drifting a bit out of your lane is pretty dangerous. Usually you get away with it, but if two people do it at the same time while adjacent, you're going to bump. Do it when there's oncoming traffic in the next lane (which I see all the damned time) then you could easily get people killed. Mildly exceeding the speed limit is fine, but people don't do it in a carefully considered way because they know it's still safe, they do it because they're in a hurry and know they probably won't get pulled over.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    Crossing solid lines (or crossing a gore, at least) is illegal in my state. Meanwhile, a lot of highway on-ramps are painted with single-lane-width, high-angle merges that are dangerous to adhere to - they leave you making a ~30 degree turn while accelerating into traffic. As a result, everyone starts their merge early in the gore area, matches speed, and merges at a gentle angle. (The road designers presumably know this, and keep the marked path narrow regardless so that drivers won't attempt to form multiple lanes.) This is a pretty great example of what I'm describing - I don't think people make great decisions about violating driving rules, but I also don't think it's fair to call safe decisions "inadvertent". Not breaking that law is genuinely dangerous, and people violate it specifically to be safer.

emodendroket 9y ago

Also consider how many roads there are where nobody obeys the speed limit but they all more or less adhere to the same speed.

deleted 9y ago
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smileysteve 9y ago
Speed limits are designed and enforced poorly.. For the most part; outliers create more danger than many cars going the same speed. The CBC had some nice coverage of this.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  You're essentially getting at the point of the article. Driving laws reflect neither actual behavior nor what we'd consider ideal behavior.
  - smileysteve 9y ago
    Great point. I wasn't thinking how that news piece related. Great point.

deleted 9y ago

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nejenendn 9y ago

Driving to the right of a car turning left isn’t even illegal in all cases.

TylerH 9y ago
Why would it ever be?
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  I think it's only contextually illegal - on narrow streets, you might have to enter a bike lane, drive in a parking zone, or otherwise break a rule to have room to pass.

lttlrck 9y ago

It's called a Pittsburgh Left?! When I first came to the US to Boston it drove me crazy, to me it was the epitome of uncivilized American driving "how dare you cut in front of me without my permission!" But it makes sense at the right kind of intersection, and of course I adopted it because otherwise I'd be the odd one holding up the traffic making people frustrated.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
>how dare you cut in front of me without my permission Allow me to fill in between the lines: "What is this, some sort of (mostly still) free country where people are not given harsh punishments for all behavior that prioritizes the individual over the group?" (sarcasm implied)
- mikeash 9y ago
  People are harshly punished for the Pittsburgh Left, it's just that the punishment is somewhat random and handed out by physics rather than lawmen.
- sampo 9y ago
  Wikipedia doesn't present it as quite so selfish: "By accepting a modest delay in going straight, the opposing traffic has saved the left-turning traffic waiting an entire light cycle to turn left, as well as saved an equivalent amount of time for all the cars that otherwise would have been stuck behind the left-turning car. In situations where there is so much oncoming, straight traffic that a left turn would not be otherwise possible during any part of the light cycle, the Pittsburgh left can allow a line of left turning traffic to proceed incrementally." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    It's not the safest bit of driving, but it's enormously pro-social. As that quote suggests, the problem isn't "I want to turn left" but rather "there are 30 cars behind me going straight, with no room to pass me on the right". If people just wanted to turn left, this would happen everywhere. Instead, I see it almost exclusively in cities with narrow streets lacking left turn lanes. In extreme cases, it's even personally beneficial for the yielding driver - the alternative is sometimes gridlock that circles back around to them. None of which makes it safe, but it's pretty obviously common for reasons other than selfishness.

arthurdenture 9y ago

> Gently rolling a stop sign at a high-visibility intersection sounds like a safe and principled violation. If you do this yourself, please reconsider. My experience is that drivers who do this (especially at 2-way stops) are watching carefully for perpendicular traffic while blithely ignoring pedestrians approaching the crosswalk that they are rolling through. As a pedestrian, I consider this the second highest threat to my personal life+limb, after left turners who (again) watch for cars and not pedestrians.

dantillberg 9y ago
Yes! Drivers often seem to only care about the possibility of colliding with another vehicle. So by default they pull right through the crosswalk and/or stop line in order to maximize their visibility of cross traffic and maximize their speed of making the turn without hitting another vehicle. Their actions are both selfish and passive aggressive toward pedestrians, yet at the same time their actions are also completely _rational_ when the driver is ignorant of (or lacks empathy for) pedestrians. They get away with it because it's such a small violation of the law and because pedestrians take on the responsibility of not getting hit.
- jasonmp85 9y ago
  Yup. If you want to make roads safer for non-drivers, make design choices that make drivers feel more threatened. Turn one-way avenues into two-way streets with street parking, etc.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- olyjohn 9y ago
  I see so many entitled, selfish pedestrians downtown, every day it's not even funny. People keep acting like drivers are the only people causing problems, but if pedestrians would quit crossing after the DO NOT WALK, a ton of collisions would be avoided there too. Pedestrians forget to check for, or blatantly ignore cars all the time. I can't count the amount of times I've avoided hitting some pedestrian, because I had to take the responsibility to look out for them.

mikepurvis 9y ago

The Pittsburgh/Boston left is extremely dangerous if you're not prepared for it to happen. I can't find a citation at the moment, but I believe in Ontario it constitutes stunt driving, and carries fines comparable to street racing.

rpeden 9y ago
A bit more info here: http://www.wheels.ca/news/auto-know-jumping-light-for-a-left-turn-is-now-treated-as-stunt-driving/ http://www.wheels.ca/news/auto-know-jumping-light-for-a-left... Although I'm in favour of the law in general, I really dislike the 'stunt driving' name. I'm not sure that many (or any) of the offences covered under the law really qualify as stunts. Dumb and dangerous, yes, but not stunts. Call this law something else, and save 'stunt drving' for people who drive their cars on two wheels and other related craziness. :)
emodendroket 9y ago
Despite living in the Boston area I don't really do this, even though I see others doing it, because, well, I don't really trust the other guy to stop.
- KGIII 9y ago
  Are you sure you live in Boston? Usually, the goal seems to be to dare the other driver, sometimes coupled with taunting. Yes, people do drive differently in different regions. Boston is the only place where I have had two cars totaled. It was parked both times. The second time the driver of the other car seemingly backed up and smashed into it again. I love that dirty water.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I live in the South Shore but I'm not sure if that's better or worse.
    - KGIII 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

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reaperducer 9y ago

> Gently rolling a stop sign at a high-visibility intersection I've always heard this called a "California stop." Are you in California? Looking for a point of data.

KGIII 9y ago
There are many variations. It depends on your region, more or less. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/10/was-california-stop-really-invented-california/ http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/10/was-california... Google will find more results.
bmm6o 9y ago
In California, it's frequently called a "California Roll", which makes it a pun for the sushi.
emodendroket 9y ago
Maybe it should be called a "anywhere in the United States stop."
Bartweiss 9y ago
Eh? I'm not in CA, and like the other answers I see this everywhere in the country. I suppose it's rarer in places where intersections are almost never quiet and empty, but I've seen it all over New York (not NYC), Ohio, Wisconsin, and a half-dozen other states. It's standard practice anywhere rural, and in a lot of suburbs.