Monday 6:54 PM. Waban, Mass
Perpetrator: Black Volvo

Locale:

 

To anyone not from Massachusetts, allow me to share this bit of information with you: Massachusetts has some weird-ass town names. After a lovely family lunch at my aunt and uncle's house, I began my trek home from Waban. Yes. That's an actual place. Go ahead, try and say it as if your tongue wasn't numb. I'll wait.

 

All set? Good. Now, I'm coming up to this intersection and I'm going right. I don't know much about the area, so I have my trusty Garmin leading the way. Fortunately for me, all the traffic was in the center lane. Unfortunately for me, the Volvo in front of me wasn't sure where to go.

 

This picture is actually perfect, as that curb right in front of you is the exact curb I almost hit trying to go around this clown. The line of traffic was backed up to just about where the car in the picture is. As the Volvo pulls up to this line, he starts to drift to the right, and then stops. If you drew a line all the way back from the right turn lane up ahead, he would be sitting on top of it. Now, it was later at night, but isn't it safe to assume that if there are at least two lanes up ahead, that the one on the left would be the straight lane? Surely there can't be that many people trying to take a left there. Not only that, but from this picture, it is clear that there is a left turn lane as well. Now, it may have been dark, but I feel like he must have been able to see tail lights to the right and left of the huge line of cars he got behind. You have  to realize at this point that the right lane is a right only. Maybe that's just me.

Casual Friday 9.14.12

I really wish I could have gotten a picture of today's winner. Now, viewing from the outside, I kind of get the whole "Biker Mentality." There's something about owning a motorcycle that demands a certain kind of respect. If you roll up to a place on a Harley Davidson and you're not wearing some form of leather on your person, you're probably going to get looked at funny. There's this whole "walk the walk" idea that you need to abide by when you have a motorcycle. I feel like this guy was trying a bit too hard though.

So I'm merging into a rotary and I see this motorcycle coming. Mounted right above the headlight on the front of the bike was a set of steer horns. Big ones. Like the kind you'd see at a Longhorn Steakhouse. I'm not sure how the bike was able to stay balanced with these big honkin horns (pun intended) but it was working. I certainly didn't want to cut that guy off.

Thursday 8:29 AM. Chelsea, Mass
Perpetrator: Silver Camry

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Highway merging. To this day, I still really hate highway merging. I hated it when I was learning to drive, I hate it now, and I'll probably always hate it. I feel like highways need those things that the Matchbox cars had to launch you foward onto the road. My biggest issues are:

1. Trying to line up with the cars that are already coming, especially when it's hard to see the road you're merging with.
2. People who don't f*cking yield.
3. When an entrance ramp and an exit ramp share the same lane. Whoever designed highway exits like that should be shot.

Rant aside, today's winner had a wonderful combination of moves. So as he merges on, he tries to slingshot around the person behind me. This lady is not having it. It's awesome to watch. I see her flailing her arms back and forth as if to say to the guy: "Hey asshole! You yield to me."

Then, as the road allows, he goes on to do something that I see just about every day. It blows. My. Mind.

People, shortly after this picture here, will drive into the breakdown lane and ride it to the next exit. Normally, not so bad. In this case however, the next exit is .8 miles away from where this picture is. As if that weren't enough, there is another exit further up that merges again. It's the absolute dumbest thing, and day in day out people do it. If that doesn't sound so bad, let me show you just how long .8 miles feels in this traffic. For your viewing pleasure:

  

Wednesday 5:17 PM. Brookline MA
Perpetrator: Fire Truck

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Let me start off by saying that I have a ton of respect for the people who put themselves in harms way to help the public good. I think that Firefighters, Police Officers, and Paramedics are all heroes in their own right. This entry is more a reflection on us normal folk rather than these people.

 

So as I'm making my way out of the city, I turn on to this street and there is a fire truck parked in the right lane with its lights flashing. Now, I'm not one of the aforementioned people who deserve respect and admiration, so I have no idea how these types of things proceed. I do know however that firetrucks, ambulances, and cops are all called to emergencies even when one party may not be necessary. So the fire truck is parked here, and there are a bunch of cars trying to go around it.

 

Now, it's reasonable to assume that we, as cognitive, licensed human beings, could efficiently maneuver around a parked truck. Sadly, this is not the case. This truck caused mass confusion as to who could go and when. I think that maybe it is not such a reach to think that after a situation has been assessed, that they could spare one member with authority to aid us useless lemmings in navigating a two way street.

Tuesday 12:26 PM. Brookline, Mass
Perpetrator: Black Honda Civic

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I always joke about how I have impeccable timing. Well, it's days like today that just reinforce my belief. Not only was I able to snag the only open spot in the parking lot behind my building after moving my car, but I walked by just in time to see today's winner. What a winner he was.

So this is the view from our winner's point of view. As you can all see, there is a clear "no left turn" arrow right in front of us. The reason for there is only room for incoming traffic on that little stretch of road coming across the train tracks.

I think you all know where this is going.

"Dan," you are probably saying to yourself, "is turning left on a no left turn really worthy of your blog entry for the day?" Oh no, dear readers, it is who was standing at that very intersection that made it worthy. You see, this particular stretch of road was under construction. Posted at every construction site in the area? A cop.

That's right. Our genius goes left at a no left directly in front of the cop. Well, our uniformed friend isn't letting that fly. He yells at him to stop, and orders him to back up, and continue straight down the road. It takes a special kind of stupid to break the law in front of a police officer. The kind that gets you an entry for the day.

Monday 8:34 AM. Boston, Mass
Perpetrator: Blue BMW

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Well I was asking for that alright. What was I thinking? Posting a joke about a BMW driver for last Friday. I should have known that the universe would, in a cruel act of irony, give me a douchey BMW driver to start my week.

 

Pictured above is the rather hellish intersection which is the bane of all who drive through it. Seriously. This was where an bus driver, I shit you not, tried to run over her boss for issuing her a ticket while she was parked in the left lane eating breakfast. I decided to give you all my own story rather than reporting that one when it happened, but now seemed like a good time to reference it.

 

Anyways, I'm in the lane currently occupied by the black car in the picture. The BMW was in front of me, and had just changed into the lane to the left. Now, you may not be able to tell, but at this intersection the leftmost lane turns left, the second lane in goes straight or left, next goes straight, and the last to the right. As we're coming up to the intersection, the BMW suddenly swings back in front of me and heads down the road to the right.

 

I understand realizing at the last minute where you need to go, but don't commit to a lane that has no chance of getting you where you want to be. Use a bit of foresight if you can. Unless you want to end up here.

Casual Friday 9.8.12

In case anyone has never been, www.cracked.com is one of the best websites in existence. I enjoy their articles so much, I often find myself going back and re-reading articles I enjoyed. In addition, the writers for the site have, without a doubt, influenced my writing style, especially when it comes to this blog. So imagine my joy when I saw this in one of the articles I read this week:

Thank you cracked.

Thursday 8:40 AM. Brookline, Mass
Perpetrator: White Construction Truck

Locale:

Well, this morning was a treat. For the first time since I've done these photo posts, I was actually able to take the picture of the winner myself.

So I parked here to go to Dunkin, which is just off camera. I wait in a line of two people, get my coffee, and come out to this. If you can't tell from the picture, I am parked at the end of the curb, and it is clearly stated that you can't park where this guy is parked. He's effectively parked in the right lane of a two lane road, and I'm stuck in between him and the car behind me.

I go up to ask him to move, and I see that there is no one in the car.

Awesome.

Thankfully, there was someone in the car behind me. I got in my car and put it in reverse, and she gave me enough room to do what had to be a 7 point turn just to pull out into the road. I understand that these guys need to move this stuff, but come on. Don't park your truck illegally and leave it there. Unless of course you want to win the blog entry for the day.

Wednesday 8:47 AM. Boston, Mass
Perpetrator: Black Volvo

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Traffic Quiz: Do stop signs and red lights have the same traffic rules?

If you said no, then you are correct. You are also someone who knows how to drive. You probably wonder why I would ask such a ridiculous question. Unfortunately for, well, mankind as a whole, our winner today thought the answer was yes.

So this view isn't ideal for the setup, but we'll make it work. Ahead of us are four lanes of incoming traffic. The one on the left is the one I take to go to work, and I am stopped in the left (from this view the right) lane behind our winner. Our light is currently red, and the cars from the two lanes from the right have a green one.

Now, at this intersection, you can go straight across heading directly at the camera, or you can turn left down this little road on the immediate right of the camera. Well, our winner didn't feel like waiting for our own green light. He decides to go through the intersection and turn down that road, as cars are about to slam into him from the other lane. I hope that wherever he was going, it was imperative that he get there immediately.

Tuesday 2:06 PM. Brookline, Mass
Perpetrator: Brookline City Development Committee

Locale:

 

 

Happy Tuesday Everyone! Since yesterday was a holiday, I took the day off from my vigilant patrol of traffic idiocy. I saw some things up in Burlington Vermont over the weekend that were certainly blog worthy, but I decided to give them a break. On to today's post.

 

Oh man. Am I glad that google cam caught this one. So, here I am heading to a doctor's appointment. I need to go down the street by the CVS straight ahead in this picture. I glance to the right and see that there is no left turn. So naturally, I assume that in order to go straight across by the CVS, I need to be in the left lane.

 

Now I understand when people get in the wrong lanes to go to places. It bugs me, but I get that it happens. That's why I always look when I'm coming up to intersections to see if the lanes are specified to only be for a certain direction. So as I came up to this intersection, I got into the left lane after seeing the No Left Turn sign.

 

I was quite surprised to see both cars in front of me with their left blinkers on. I thought: "oh, here we go. We got a pair of winners here." Then I looked again at the sign. In case you haven't noticed by now, underneath the arrow, and underneath the big bold words that say "NO LEFT TURN" is smaller print that says "4pm - 6pm."

 

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like when I'm driving, especially if the light is green, I'm only glancing quickly to see the picture showing no left turn, and assuming that it means all the time. If it is just me, then I guess that I'm my own winner for the day. Since it's my blog, I'm giving it to whoever set up these signs like this.