6 ms·

Every time I end up on a five lane road with the center turning lane and tons of curb cuts and cross streets and abutting parking lots, I remind myself that it'

by wffurr 5y ago

Every time I end up on a five lane road with the center turning lane and tons of curb cuts and cross streets and abutting parking lots, I remind myself that it's one of the most dangerous places I am likely to be in.

kryogen1c 5y ago
> one of the most dangerous places I am likely to be in. i dont know how widely this turn of phrase is used, but where i grew up in the US, we called the middle turn lane in a 5 lane road the suicide lane.
- SantalBlush 5y ago
  I've also called it that for as long as I can remember, and it's probably helped me drive more defensively around that lane. Drivers misuse it all the time.
- eggsmediumrare 5y ago
  Likewise in Ontario. Strong term, but gets the point across. I also once saw a dump truck with stickers on either side of the tailgate. On the left, "passing side." On the right, "suicide." Had a big impact on my driving habits... I never, ever pass on the right.
  - cozzyd 5y ago
    Unfortunately the majority of people don't seem to understand they're not allowed to pass on the right (and they never get pulled over for it).
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      If slower traffic kept right, there’d be a lot less passing on the right. (If you’re getting passed on the right regularly, you might consider your own lane discipline as well as that of those passing you.)
      - cozzyd 5y ago
        Yes, this is also true, but I think the bigger problem is just speeding. People on the left are usually moving faster than people on the right or middle, on average, but some people want to go 20-30 mph over the speed limit. Normally I'd pull to the right so they can pass, but by the time I start doing that they're already starting to change lanes too!
        sokoloff 5y ago
        True. If you take a highway that people feel is reasonable and prudent to drive at 75-85 mph and post it as 55, people will drive 20-30 mph over. I think the problem is more likely the 55 signage in that case.
  - gruez 5y ago
    That might make sense for dump trucks because they're bulky and have poor visibility, but what's the increased risk of passing on the right? The only thing I can think of is marginally worse visibility because the right side is slightly further away from the driver's seat. However, I don't think that's enough risk to justify going out of your way to pass on the right. Having to change lanes to pass on the left carries its own risks.
    - cozzyd 5y ago
      On a 3+ lane road, it increases the risk of two people merging into each other as they both try to pass.
    - bee_rider 5y ago
      Some cars have a blind spot on their right. Also, the convention is passing on the left, so people are generally less aware of things going on on their right. Of course bad drivers are almost by definition unpredictable, but if some bad driver is going to absent mindedly merge into you, they will probably do it while you are on their right. In particular, distracted people whose texting has been interrupted by their GPS telling them to take the next exit...
      - mcv 5y ago
        In many countries, it's a hard rule that you need to pass on the left. Passing on the right is only allowed when it's a lane going in a different direction (like an exit), or traffic is moving very slowly (you don't want people changing lanes in a traffic jam to avoid passing on the right).
        ljm 5y ago
        Going onto the IdiotsInCars subreddit, it's kind of shocking how commonplace it is for people to undertake other road users by speeding past in the slow lane. It's already more difficult to merge back into a slower lane because you have a much bigger blind-spot (and have to twist your neck a lot more to get a good look), so it doesn't make it any easier if you have to expect that people will be speeding to undertake you.
- ehnto 5y ago
  I wonder how much that specific road design cause FedEx to discourage left hand turns in their routes?
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    I think you're thinking of UPS, and IIRC the decision is mostly to reduce waiting time/idle fuel burn. (Most jurisdictions in the US allow right-on-red and that makes this even easier to justify.)
  - p1mrx 5y ago
    If I go somewhere often, I like to find the "chill route" that minimizes complex left turns, even if it takes a bit longer.
    - ehnto 5y ago
      Same, I don't even mind if it takes a bit longer. I am more interested in stress free driving than getting there sooner.
- bckr 5y ago
  The only other time I have heard that was during my driving test on small town California
- masklinn 5y ago
  Sounds like a derivative from a road style which has (mostly, thankfully) been abandoned: originally, “suicide lanes” designated the center lane of a 3-lane. A 3-lane is a road design where you’ve got one lane in each direction, and a shared passing lane in the middle. These used to be quite popular as they were not much more expensive than a 2-lane but allowed better throughput, however as density and speeds increased they became more and more deadly as they’d encourage trying to pass and high-speed frontal collisions. They’re mostly gone now, replaced by either 2+2 or 2+1 (the latter is very popular in europe, it’s basically a 3-lane except there’s a hard barrier which regularly swaps the center lane’s direction to allow safe passing sections — or more rarely a 1+1 with a protected turn lane).
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    In Mexico there are still a good number of 3-lane roads where the middle lane is for passing in both directions. A close family friend died on one: head-on collision with a truck passing a truck on a curving mountain road. (He was an aggressive driver who got lucky for decades until one day he finally didn’t.) Truly horrible road design.
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    Middle shared turn lanes are quite safe though, though I don't have actual stats. It's very hard to hit someone in one because no one is driving more than 50 ft in one, and you're always coming to a stop to prepare for a turn. On busy streets they are usually a bit wider than a normal lane, and on 80 km/h highways, they are a full lane-and-a-half wide. On busier residential streets with lots of single family homes, they are a great alternative to two lanes in each direction, because they allow for separated bike lanes and left-turning cars don't block traffic flow. Many 50 km/h roads in my city have been converted like this. You would never put one in a newly designed road, but when a road needs to be upgraded, they are a great solution.
- jake_morrison 5y ago
  I spent a summer in India in the late 1980s (Tamil Nadu). Going between cities, the roads were only partially paved. There were two dirt lanes, with a blacktop middle lane. The trucks would play a continuous game of "chicken", driving at each other until someone lost their nerve. The newspaper had regular reports of truck "capsizings", where a truck would lose control and turn over. It was common for a truck to have laborers who would fill up the truck with some bulk product like dirt, then ride on the top to go to the destination, then unload it. When one of these trucks capsized, it was a major disaster.
chestervonwinch 5y ago
Here in Austin Texas, we have lovely signs to remind you of your imminent crash! http://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Sign%201.JPG http://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Sign%201.JP...
- onionisafruit 5y ago
  I don’t remember ever seeing that sign. Where is it posted?
  - chestervonwinch 5y ago
    I've seen them while cruising S Pleasant Valley, but there are a number of road sections where they're posted: http://austintexas.gov/page/high-injury-roadways http://austintexas.gov/page/high-injury-roadways
- gruez 5y ago
  I love the "zero excuses" at the bottom. "now that we informed you of the danger, anything bad happening is entirely your fault and the city can't be held liable for its bad decisions"
  - nemetroid 5y ago
    I guess it might come across that way, but I was happy to see the "Vision Zero" thing in the bottom left. Vision Zero has been a very successful road traffic policy in Sweden. > Vision Zero is based on an underlying ethical principle that "it can never be ethically acceptable that people are killed or seriously injured when moving within the road transport system." In most road transport systems, road users bear complete responsibility for safety. Vision Zero changes this relationship by emphasizing that responsibility is shared by transportation system designers and road users. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero
    - this15testing 5y ago
      I don't think any American city or police department knows what vision zero is. They frequently include the words "vision zero" in their plans or posts, but then car crash deaths continue as normal or even increase. Using Los Angeles as an example: https://ladotlivablestreets.org/programs/vision-zero https://ladotlivablestreets.org/programs/vision-zero https://laist.com/news/transportation/2020-traffic-deaths-los-angeles-pandemic https://laist.com/news/transportation/2020-traffic-deaths-lo... for the graphic "Traffic violence in Los Angeles" showing the increase since Vision Zero was adopted. Then you have enforcement issues like jaywalking laws, the wording and culture around collisions and referring to them as "accidents", etc. The entire country was REbuilt (US cities were not always like this) around the car. Until that changes, no city will reach Vision Zero.
timvdalen 5y ago
I had to look up a 'center turning lane'. Is this[1] it? That looks incredibly dangerous. [1]: https://www.wikihow.com/Use-the-Center-Turning-Lane https://www.wikihow.com/Use-the-Center-Turning-Lane
- sokoloff 5y ago
  It is, but they’re more common on one travel lane each way streets. When evaluating the danger of such a design, you have to consider the alternatives. You’re probably considering 3/4 head on collisions from drivers misjudging the turn. Those happen, but how many rear-end collisions are avoided?
  - wffurr 5y ago
    The center turning lane isn't there to avoid rear end collisions, which are only problematic due to too-high speeds in a commercial area. They are about improving throughput. What makes them dangerous, particularly in the five lane configuration, is the poor visibility for crossing uncontrolled intersections of multiple traffic lanes.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      Center turning with five lanes? wow, that's crazy...
      - wffurr 5y ago
        The examples in the article show anywhere from 5 to 7 lanes. The outermost lanes in one of the 7-lane examples are parking lanes. There's a stroad on Staten Island that scares the crap out of me - Hylan Blvd. I have family that live on it. It's six lanes with a median, but sometimes and in certain places parking is allowed in the outermost lanes. So you can suddenly come up on parked traffic but only at certain times of day in certain places. It's totally insane. To get in the driveway, you have to loop the block to the closest light, wait for the green, and then drive halfway down the block and back-in before the light changes and traffic starts up. It's quite stressful.

by wffurr 5y ago

kryogen1c 5y ago

> one of the most dangerous places I am likely to be in. i dont know how widely this turn of phrase is used, but where i grew up in the US, we called the middle turn lane in a 5 lane road the suicide lane.

SantalBlush 5y ago
I've also called it that for as long as I can remember, and it's probably helped me drive more defensively around that lane. Drivers misuse it all the time.
eggsmediumrare 5y ago
Likewise in Ontario. Strong term, but gets the point across. I also once saw a dump truck with stickers on either side of the tailgate. On the left, "passing side." On the right, "suicide." Had a big impact on my driving habits... I never, ever pass on the right.
- cozzyd 5y ago
  Unfortunately the majority of people don't seem to understand they're not allowed to pass on the right (and they never get pulled over for it).
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    If slower traffic kept right, there’d be a lot less passing on the right. (If you’re getting passed on the right regularly, you might consider your own lane discipline as well as that of those passing you.)
    - cozzyd 5y ago
      Yes, this is also true, but I think the bigger problem is just speeding. People on the left are usually moving faster than people on the right or middle, on average, but some people want to go 20-30 mph over the speed limit. Normally I'd pull to the right so they can pass, but by the time I start doing that they're already starting to change lanes too!
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        True. If you take a highway that people feel is reasonable and prudent to drive at 75-85 mph and post it as 55, people will drive 20-30 mph over. I think the problem is more likely the 55 signage in that case.
- gruez 5y ago
  That might make sense for dump trucks because they're bulky and have poor visibility, but what's the increased risk of passing on the right? The only thing I can think of is marginally worse visibility because the right side is slightly further away from the driver's seat. However, I don't think that's enough risk to justify going out of your way to pass on the right. Having to change lanes to pass on the left carries its own risks.
  - cozzyd 5y ago
    On a 3+ lane road, it increases the risk of two people merging into each other as they both try to pass.
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    Some cars have a blind spot on their right. Also, the convention is passing on the left, so people are generally less aware of things going on on their right. Of course bad drivers are almost by definition unpredictable, but if some bad driver is going to absent mindedly merge into you, they will probably do it while you are on their right. In particular, distracted people whose texting has been interrupted by their GPS telling them to take the next exit...
    - mcv 5y ago
      In many countries, it's a hard rule that you need to pass on the left. Passing on the right is only allowed when it's a lane going in a different direction (like an exit), or traffic is moving very slowly (you don't want people changing lanes in a traffic jam to avoid passing on the right).
      - ljm 5y ago
        Going onto the IdiotsInCars subreddit, it's kind of shocking how commonplace it is for people to undertake other road users by speeding past in the slow lane. It's already more difficult to merge back into a slower lane because you have a much bigger blind-spot (and have to twist your neck a lot more to get a good look), so it doesn't make it any easier if you have to expect that people will be speeding to undertake you.
ehnto 5y ago
I wonder how much that specific road design cause FedEx to discourage left hand turns in their routes?
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  I think you're thinking of UPS, and IIRC the decision is mostly to reduce waiting time/idle fuel burn. (Most jurisdictions in the US allow right-on-red and that makes this even easier to justify.)
- p1mrx 5y ago
  If I go somewhere often, I like to find the "chill route" that minimizes complex left turns, even if it takes a bit longer.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    Same, I don't even mind if it takes a bit longer. I am more interested in stress free driving than getting there sooner.
bckr 5y ago
The only other time I have heard that was during my driving test on small town California
masklinn 5y ago
Sounds like a derivative from a road style which has (mostly, thankfully) been abandoned: originally, “suicide lanes” designated the center lane of a 3-lane. A 3-lane is a road design where you’ve got one lane in each direction, and a shared passing lane in the middle. These used to be quite popular as they were not much more expensive than a 2-lane but allowed better throughput, however as density and speeds increased they became more and more deadly as they’d encourage trying to pass and high-speed frontal collisions. They’re mostly gone now, replaced by either 2+2 or 2+1 (the latter is very popular in europe, it’s basically a 3-lane except there’s a hard barrier which regularly swaps the center lane’s direction to allow safe passing sections — or more rarely a 1+1 with a protected turn lane).
- jacobolus 5y ago
  In Mexico there are still a good number of 3-lane roads where the middle lane is for passing in both directions. A close family friend died on one: head-on collision with a truck passing a truck on a curving mountain road. (He was an aggressive driver who got lucky for decades until one day he finally didn’t.) Truly horrible road design.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  Middle shared turn lanes are quite safe though, though I don't have actual stats. It's very hard to hit someone in one because no one is driving more than 50 ft in one, and you're always coming to a stop to prepare for a turn. On busy streets they are usually a bit wider than a normal lane, and on 80 km/h highways, they are a full lane-and-a-half wide. On busier residential streets with lots of single family homes, they are a great alternative to two lanes in each direction, because they allow for separated bike lanes and left-turning cars don't block traffic flow. Many 50 km/h roads in my city have been converted like this. You would never put one in a newly designed road, but when a road needs to be upgraded, they are a great solution.
jake_morrison 5y ago
I spent a summer in India in the late 1980s (Tamil Nadu). Going between cities, the roads were only partially paved. There were two dirt lanes, with a blacktop middle lane. The trucks would play a continuous game of "chicken", driving at each other until someone lost their nerve. The newspaper had regular reports of truck "capsizings", where a truck would lose control and turn over. It was common for a truck to have laborers who would fill up the truck with some bulk product like dirt, then ride on the top to go to the destination, then unload it. When one of these trucks capsized, it was a major disaster.

chestervonwinch 5y ago

Here in Austin Texas, we have lovely signs to remind you of your imminent crash! http://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Sign%201.JPG http://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Sign%201.JP...

onionisafruit 5y ago
I don’t remember ever seeing that sign. Where is it posted?
- chestervonwinch 5y ago
  I've seen them while cruising S Pleasant Valley, but there are a number of road sections where they're posted: http://austintexas.gov/page/high-injury-roadways http://austintexas.gov/page/high-injury-roadways
gruez 5y ago
I love the "zero excuses" at the bottom. "now that we informed you of the danger, anything bad happening is entirely your fault and the city can't be held liable for its bad decisions"
- nemetroid 5y ago
  I guess it might come across that way, but I was happy to see the "Vision Zero" thing in the bottom left. Vision Zero has been a very successful road traffic policy in Sweden. > Vision Zero is based on an underlying ethical principle that "it can never be ethically acceptable that people are killed or seriously injured when moving within the road transport system." In most road transport systems, road users bear complete responsibility for safety. Vision Zero changes this relationship by emphasizing that responsibility is shared by transportation system designers and road users. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero
  - this15testing 5y ago
    I don't think any American city or police department knows what vision zero is. They frequently include the words "vision zero" in their plans or posts, but then car crash deaths continue as normal or even increase. Using Los Angeles as an example: https://ladotlivablestreets.org/programs/vision-zero https://ladotlivablestreets.org/programs/vision-zero https://laist.com/news/transportation/2020-traffic-deaths-los-angeles-pandemic https://laist.com/news/transportation/2020-traffic-deaths-lo... for the graphic "Traffic violence in Los Angeles" showing the increase since Vision Zero was adopted. Then you have enforcement issues like jaywalking laws, the wording and culture around collisions and referring to them as "accidents", etc. The entire country was REbuilt (US cities were not always like this) around the car. Until that changes, no city will reach Vision Zero.

timvdalen 5y ago

I had to look up a 'center turning lane'. Is this[1] it? That looks incredibly dangerous. [1]: https://www.wikihow.com/Use-the-Center-Turning-Lane https://www.wikihow.com/Use-the-Center-Turning-Lane

sokoloff 5y ago
It is, but they’re more common on one travel lane each way streets. When evaluating the danger of such a design, you have to consider the alternatives. You’re probably considering 3/4 head on collisions from drivers misjudging the turn. Those happen, but how many rear-end collisions are avoided?
- wffurr 5y ago
  The center turning lane isn't there to avoid rear end collisions, which are only problematic due to too-high speeds in a commercial area. They are about improving throughput. What makes them dangerous, particularly in the five lane configuration, is the poor visibility for crossing uncontrolled intersections of multiple traffic lanes.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Center turning with five lanes? wow, that's crazy...
    - wffurr 5y ago
      The examples in the article show anywhere from 5 to 7 lanes. The outermost lanes in one of the 7-lane examples are parking lanes. There's a stroad on Staten Island that scares the crap out of me - Hylan Blvd. I have family that live on it. It's six lanes with a median, but sometimes and in certain places parking is allowed in the outermost lanes. So you can suddenly come up on parked traffic but only at certain times of day in certain places. It's totally insane. To get in the driveway, you have to loop the block to the closest light, wait for the green, and then drive halfway down the block and back-in before the light changes and traffic starts up. It's quite stressful.