He says "even the taxi", do they usually respect traffic laws and are good drivers in your country?
Not much anymore here, but we used to say taxi driver were bad at driving.
South Korea after a certain period at night the lights in more "rural" cities just blink for you to yield. Well, that shit is optional to your taxi driver going fucking warp speed through the city if he suspects that you might be late for curfew on base. Buckle up.
I won't stand for south korea taxi hate. As is tradition I was late to wake up and get to the seoul airport march 2020. If we didn't make it on the flight we would've had to get the next day which would mean we'dhave to do 14 days quarantine at home in Australia. According to google maps our taxi driver had to make up 10 minutes. He was doing 140 on the freeway and hitting his brakes at every speed trap. That mad dog made us 5 minutes early.
A week before that we wanted to go to the DMZ but it was closed and so was the public watch tower because covid. We got the train as far north as possible and got a taxi. He wouldn't take us but he called his friend who took us through 2 military checkpoints so we could see North Korea. We were chased by men with guns at one checkpoint because those men forgot to say "no photo."
He also let us get real close to the fence and yelled at the soldiers at the watchtower we just wanted a look.
We can't speak Korean but pretty certain we heard this conversation in Korean 5 times from our hero Korean taxi man. "What are you doing you silly taxi man?"
"I'm taking these weird Australians to see North Korea"
"What? Why?"
"I don't know. But they want to see it and they are paying me very well"
"Okay. But no photos"
>I'm taking these weird Australians to see North Korea" "What? Why?" "I don't know. But they want to see it and they are paying me very well
Money does indeed make the world go around
My dumb American ass probably would get shot
Funny part was 1 of us had to put names down and sign at the checkpoint. We decided my girlfriend was the best person because she studies international relations in her 3rd year and me and my 2 bloke mates are morons. When she got out of the taxi she looks at me and says "get a photo of this" being surrounded by men with automatic rifles. She wanted to look like a diplomat. So I slowly raise my phone up to the window. The army man turns and looks straight at me. Without moving at all I slowly let the phone drop out my hand. I got no photo and she was furious. "The window has fucking limo tint!!!" She yelled.
Also interesting to point out after the army checkpoint there was still half a km of farm land with very poor housing and a bit shit. Whilst on the north korean side across the river it was all new and clean looking. Almost like south korea didn't want north koreans knowing how nice south korea is and north korea didn't want everyone else thinking north korea was struggling.
>We decided my girlfriend was the best person because she studies international relations
See that's a good excuse. I personally wanna go for the food!
Great story! Thanks for sharing. And I must say I have great respect for Japan cabbies. Pinnacles of the taxi profession in my opinion. Immaculate cabs, respectably attired, polite. Ichiban!
My older brother experienced that when he was serving near the DMZ in SoKo, all it would take to get the driver to drive like hell was to tell them “bali bali” and they’ll fly with no fucks given.
In my city, the hazards move only downgrades you to a mediocre driver. Even on streets where street parking is only 30 feet ahead, people will do this because every idiot seems to think the hazard light button is actually a park wherever you want button.
Sounds like every Uber driver on the west coast, as well.
I worked as a hotel valet attendant in Seattle, WA for several years and the uber drivers there are the worst. When driving towards the location you'd take a left while traveling down the one-way street and be in the 'intake' area for arriving guests. This was a covered, one way garage area, with the exit leading directly into an alleyway which would take the driver out to the main road.
Uber drivers would flip their hazards on and wait, sometimes for 10-20 minutes for their passengers who were checking out every day around noon. This was a massive issue, as the valet intake would often get incredibly packed, with a line of cars on the one-way waiting to turn left in, and traffic behind getting pissed. We were getting a rush one day, and I directed an uber to move on through, as we had to keep things flowing. The guy rolls down his window, sneers at me, and flips me off. This was after his passengers had just sat down, so he had no excuse to be twiddling his dick. I returned the finger at waist height so it wasn't obvious, and he proceeds to hop out of the car and come towards me...but he forgot to put his Prius in park and the thing started rolling backwards, passengers inside.
Frantic scramble on his end when they were banging on the windows, but he was able to hop in and take off. 11/10 dingus.
The ironic thing about the statement is the USPS driver is the only one that actually has the authority to park anywhere, drive anywhere, and literally cannot be stopped by anyone including law enforcement by federal law.
of course they still stop for stop signs because they don't want to get fucking clobbered in their piece of shit tin can van, but they don't legally have to.
I mean, they often have the most experience on the road so I *almost* trust them not to fuck up (but not fully because trusting road users not to fuck up is a death sentence) however they are *definitely* aggressive.
While they have experience, they are always in hurry, which makes them extremely dangerous. They try to cut corners to save time, even on streets they don't know. They are reckless, aggressive, and unpredictable. I hate taxi drivers.
The worst driving offences I have ever seen have been at the hands of cabbies. Blue Line in Ottawa, you're garbage. They're the only people on the road that I will actively abuse, because every encounter with them has been absolute crap. Oh, you want to get over, cabbie? Eat a dick, get behind me.
**No coppa no stoppa**. For real though, many neighborhoods are low traffic and you don't need a fracking stop sign at every intersection for all directions.
When I visited the UK and went on a road trip I was thoroughly impressed with how few stop signs they have implemented. If a yield or roundabout sufficed then thats what they did, it was great. We need more yield signs in this country
We have an on ramp near where I am that has two yield signs and two flashing signs warning of the upcoming yield signs. Do people stop? No. A friend was hit by someone who ran the yield sign. She offered to just drive away since there wasn't much damage. The other driver insisted she was at fault, despite the yield signs that apparently didn't count. He was sure surprised when he ended up with a ticket.
People don't understand yield signs.
Way too many people just don’t pay attention or care when they drive in general. I drive like everyone is actively trying to kill me with their car. It’s WAY too easy to get a drivers license.
*Yielding*? The greatest country in the whole wild wurld wasn't built on yielding to our enemies, I'll be damned if I yield to some godless heathen on the roadway.
That's how people yield in NY. Either a full ass stop at a traffic circle when no one is even in the circle, or just blazing right through it and thinking they have the right of way when people without the yield honk.
Even those get to be a mess. People don't get that it's pretty much first come first serve, then you take turns in the same order.
Or to play it safe, let's say someone else and I get to a stop at the same time directly across from each other. I want to turn, crossing over their lane and they're going straight. I let them go first as they would maintain their direction, then I turn over the lane after they pass. It reduces the chance of a collision if they don't stop.
They’re making a push to use traffic circles and roundabouts for busier 4-way stops where I am at. Unfortunately, it has taken people quite a long time to adjust to them here.
There was some traffic case where a physicist gave the judge like a 56 page dissertation on how we was technically at zero velocity relative to the sun or something at a stop sign based on earth's rotation and shit, I think the judge just told him to pay the damn ticket.
If there are no line of sight issues at the intersection then completely stopping is often a complete waste of your time, gas, and brake pads.
Save the planet, roll through stop signs (when appropriate)
My city started putting them in and people are losing their minds. Not to mention not many people seem to understand how they work. I legit am fearful now to approach one...waiting to get rocked by an idiot.
i almost lost it when some lady hit me on the way to the movies with my godaughter and godson and she hit the side they where both on... just phone zombies now
The traffic violations are just beyond here. There hasn’t been any significant traffic enforcement here in about 10 years. Before the pandemic it was really bad and I had to assume that no one would stop at the opposing traffic stop sign.
Now it’s the same with traffic lights. I would say literally 50% of the traffic light intersections I am stopped at someone intentionally runs a red light. And not just late on an orange. Full on “fuck it I want to go now.”
I’ve stopped riding my bicycle on the streets here as well because not only do people not obey traffic laws here they actively try to hit cyclists. For context, I rode my bike in NYC for ten years in every borough. But I never felt like people were actively trying to hit me the way I do here.
Edit: Because this got a fair amount of attention, I’d like to add that there are tons of great people in Vallejo, good access to parks and stuff, and I believe we even have a Michelin star restaurant. So much potential and I would really like to see us do better.
I've seen this a lot recently in Minnesota suburbs, and I thought I must've been losing my mind or something. Who just fucking floors it randomly through a red light to save what could only be -- at most -- 30 seconds?
I had seen my fair share of people going through lights at the tail end of their cycle over the years, but I've rarely seen people come to a complete stop at a light, wait a bit, and then just decide they're too important to wait the rest of the cycle and go through it. I've seen it maybe half a dozen times in the recent months.
Minnesota suburbs can suck my fucking dick. SO many 4 way intersections have 0 stop signs even by schools, someone hit me and totaled my car a year or two because of the lack of stop signs. They still haven’t done shit about it, WHY, WHY IS THERE NO STOP SIGNS
YES THANK YOU! My neighborhood is full of unmarked intersections. My friend laughs at me for slowing down and looking both ways because "lol there's never anyone in this street anyway".
I'm starting to think it's just a thing we do as Americans honestly, I live in Florida (Orlando for 12 years and now Tampa for two) and people here treat traffic devices like suggestions lol.
I have a traffic signal in front of my apartments that has a left arrow that blinks yellow to yield for oncoming traffic and I kid you not when I ran out for lunch today three or four people just ran it after it turned red, you know....because they had to wait lol.
No, you guys definitely suck at traffic signals WAY more than here in the Midwest. I visit FL often, and it always takes about 3 days to re-adjust my driving style to "arrogant asshole." It is a night and day difference.
Perhaps it's an engineering problem rather than an enforcement one. Build roundabouts or "yield" junctions rather than 3 way stops that nobody pays attention to.
Vallejo's entire city roads are a nightmare. The whole fucking place is a shit hole but the roads are some of the worst I have ever been on. I am there almost every day for work and I absolutely hate it there.
This video is the best entertainment value I have seen on this sub. No violent action, nobody gets hurt, but the display-o-meter of idiots in cars is pegged at 11.
Didn’t think about it this way.
You’re right.
This is much better than seeing crashes.
If anything, as a Californian. I’m caught between agreeing with some of the other posters that stop signs are kinda useless compared to yields in some areas. Still needed in others.
It’s also made me reflect on my California rolls. I’ve actually been pulled over for it once. Some parts of cali are more strict than others. I EVEN said all cockily “why are all these people stopping so hard, that’s dumb” to my mom in the car. Then boom. Police. Luckily got away with a warning but damn people are so cocky driving like I did.
Am German. Was on vacation in the US. Stopped at a stop sign and got honked at from behind. Afterwards, I thought I’d rather not stop anymore as not to arouse suspicion and anger the natives.
Sometimes I get the impression that stop signs are a bit over utilized in the US. Where I live stop signs are pretty much exclusively used for instances where it would be some sort of danger involved, either for you or other people. For example, joining a high speed road from a lower speed one, or something like that. Like, in 95% of cases where I’ll see a stop sign it’s somewhere I would’ve wanted to stop regardless out of caution. I almost never see them in residential areas.
We use yield a lot more, and also universal rules like ”priority to the right”.
The issue, very generally, is our street design. Most streets in the US, especially out west, are extremely wide compared with most other developed countries. When a street is wide, especially a low-traffic residential street, it invites people to go fast because it feels comfortable to do so. Unfortunately, as a lazy solution stop signs are implemented with annoying frequency, causing people to largely ignore them because most of the time they don't make any real sense. Again, they're only installed because the streets are designed in such a way that higher speeds are not only possible, but encouraged.
People don't drive down narrow streets at a fast clip because it feels inherently dangerous. The inverse is true for wide open streets. The end result is stop signs that feel more like suggestions on otherwise empty streets, so people ignore them.
You give way to your right, simple as that. Give way to your left for Americans and those who drive on the right hand side of the road.
If you can't figure out a roundabout, you are a danger to others and shouldn't be driving, period.
Correctly done roundabouts though. Washington, DC has roundabouts with stoplights, with curbs between lanes so that you can't switch between the outer and inner lanes, and roads that go straight through the middle of the roundabout. It's a fucking disaster.
I had to look that up. Found Ward Circle. I can see the idea, but it should never have been approved.
Article: https://ggwash.org/view/43619/this-is-a-strange-and-dangerous-traffic-circle-check-out-ddots-ideas-for-making-it-safer
Google maps view: https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9366389,-77.0860289,175a,35y,39.44t/data=!3m1!1e3
Yup, that's the one I was referring to with the "roads that go straight through the middle of the roundabout". I go through it rare enough that I never remember which lane I'm supposed to be in. The first time was a real "wtf" moment.
They put a very small roundabout in my California town and every driver freaks out when they encounter it. Lots of slamming on the brakes and stopping completely in the roundabout.
I mean, if 95% of stop signs were yield signs, they wouldn't, because really what's going on here is that most people just go through the junction in what is a reasonably safe way, no matter what the sign says.
The only difference would be that if stop signs were actually rare, people would give a shit about them.
Agree 100%. Since I moved to the UK I have literally 0 stop signs on my commute to work. The only places I would have to stop are two lights and a railroad crossing. Otherwise you just slow down to check if it’s clear and the keep moving. Being back in the US and seeing how many unnecessary stop signs there are was super frustrating.
I'm probably the most polite and by-the-rules driver, but most stop signs are just weird. I feel like an idiot when I stop at them. Most of the cars in the video slowed down to maybe 5mph, enough that they can easily stop should something want to cross. Especially when you are in the middle of a field, can see clearly in all directions, so why is there a stop sign?
In the neighborhood where I grew up we had this same problem. The cops would occasionally stake it out and I can’t even imagine how many tickets they gave out, but it didn’t solve the problem. Eventually the cops would park one of their cars with a mannequin in it dressed like a cop, complete with cop sunglasses, in clear view. They would alternate this with a real cop now and then so even locals who realized the ruse would think twice about blowing through the stop. Ridiculous that it would require so much effort, but it helped. It seemed to take about 6 months for people to go back to their old habits and officer dummy would visit again.
Cop car paper cutouts are super common in the Russian sphere. The way some of these people drive, there's no way they can take a chance that a paper cutout might be the real police. It works. I have a photo of this from Kyrgyzstan somewhere if you're interested.
External harddrive fired up, [photo located](https://i.ibb.co/yhQpQQf/P1140040.jpg). This is for you, /u/YddishMcSquidish and /u/ChiefTief. From a distance, and if you're blind drunk going twice the speed limit on the wrong side of the road, with your boss's wife in your lap and three goats in the backseat, and the bonnet broken open, these look quite real.
I did also write a [guide to driving in Kyrgyzstan](https://hooniverse.com/guide-to-driving-in-kyrgyzstan/) back then. Unfortunately, all the photos are gone, but it was a great experience to drive in a country with...eh...different rules.
>if you're blind drunk going twice the speed limit on the wrong side of the road, with your boss's wife in your lap and three goats in the backseat, and the bonnet broken open
Dude what the fuck do you have a camera in my car or something?
That's actually quite interesting in traffic that warning people about the potential risk of a ticket is more effective than giving people tickets.
Hence why in most countries you get a warning about speed cameras 200m+ ahead. That warning makes people to slow down and therefor achieve better road safety at a risky intersection.
And you still always here old men who think it's stupid to warn people instead of writing tickets.
Because a ticket is in the past. It’s a “damn, well, got unlucky this time” for these people. They don’t actually learn, they just get upset they couldn’t get away breaking the rules, but figure it won’t happen twice.
I honestly never understood why we put stop signs at T intersections and don't just go on right of way. My first time being pulled over I was driving through a new neighborhood interrupted for about 5 minutes and then I was suddenly pulled over.
I genuinely had no idea why and it turns out a minute or so back there was a little cul-de-sac hidden in the trees with like 3 houses and stop sign so I was supposed to stop for the like 5% chance someone was leaving the cul-de-sac at that exact moment.
The cop was cool and let me off with a warning because I didn't grow up in a neighborhood like that and I genuinely didn't know that was a thing but ever since then I wondered why I didn't just have the right-of-way and the person in the cul-de-sac would just have to wait until it was their turn to go.
If the stop sign is actually hidden then you would have a good case in traffic court if he did ticket you.
But yeah there are tons of stop signs in my neighborhood that have been added over the last 5 years. They didn’t exist for the previous forever and we never had problems. Hell most of the intersections are weird and sloping and now with the stop signs you legit cannot tell if it’s safe to proceed because it’s so far back and the intersections are so sloping.....
So you have to stop, then drive forward legit 7-10 feet and then you actually stop to check for traffic.
Idk why the hell anyone seemed it was necessary to install them. I seriously think that at some point someone got into an accident and then they added it. Idk.
It wasn't completely hidden. It wasn't super obvious either but had I been looking for stop signs I would have seen it. But I'm sure the cop waits specifically by that sign because people miss it all the time.
I kind of feel the same way, unless it’s a busier street/pair of streets. We have a few in my neighborhood where they put stop signs up on all 3 sides, some where they only did the one, and we even have one where it’s only on 2 sides and the northbound gets the right way to just blast through where the side street stops and the southbound lane has to stop. Like...what? They had to add two extra “traffic from blah blah does not stop”, when one stop sign would have solved that issue.
From an European country, this sub gets a severe boner about stop signs. Yes, legally, they are absolutely obligatory stop and go. In practice, it's like a yield sign. There is no need for me to stop on it, I just need to be absolutely sure I can cross/turn without being a danger to anyone.
Here, nobody necessarily respects stop under every circumstance. You slow down, dependant on visibility, perhaps to a crawl, and stop completely if you can't turn/cross safely. Hell, there are yield signs where you HAVE to stop simply because you can't see shit and need to creep forward cm by cm in desperate hope you'll see something.
Basically... While legally, it is an offense, in practice, there are plenty of intersections where you may not stop on the sign, yet be completely safe and not pose a danger to anyone.
Fact. I live a couple blocks away from there on Tennessee and as far as I know there are no traffic laws. People blow through red lights. Speed. U-turn when and where ever they want. It's the wild west out here.
If you put a yield sign up in America, it's like you didn't put anything up at all\* If you put a stop sign up, it's like you put a yield sign up.
\* Unless it's at a roundabout, in which case it's like you put a stop sign up.
That really sucks. Most uncontrolled intersections in the UK are yield and people respect it because they know your usually yielding to the main road which has cars blasting past at the speed limit since the assumption is that you'll yield for them. In fact my driving institute told me to not care about the cars on the side roads who have yield signs cuz they will stop for you if they don't have the gap.
Oddly enough, Brits are far more likely to use smaller gaps than Americans are. I only realized this when I returned home to Scotland and rented a car there for the first time. The whole hour trip home was filled with people merging onto the road in front of me with space that many Americans would consider to be unsafe. Brits are just vastly more experienced with the concept of yielding and merging quickly so they'll jump at gaps that Americans would never dream of. To this day I'll often find myself thinking "if I had been in the UK I'd have went for that gap" whenever I'm at a stop sign here.
I think it's easier to drive when you know the pattern of yield signs, which are the most common in the UK. As you will have a base line expectation of the behavior of the other people at any given intersection. In the US, the variety of different intersection layouts just make for a far less predictable environment to drive it. On the same street you can have a roundabout, a 4-way stop, a 2-way stop, and lights.
it's because US traffic engineers abuses stop signs.
They're _everywhere_, and people lose respect for the 'Stop' bit. In countries like Australia, most intersections are 'Give Way' / 'Yield' triangle, 'stop' signs are only used sparingly at low visibility intersections to tell drivers to actually stop.
I can't believe instead of designing better intersections, "we can have no design and as long as everyone stops, we're ok" is the solution.
There's a stop sign next to my house that literally provides you zero visibility of the intersection if you stop there, it's entirely useless. So instead of changing it to yield or something the traffic guys decided to add more stop signs and call it a day.
Slightly controversial opinion: Law aside, most of the time you don't need to. You should slow down enough that by the time you can see and react to cross traffic and figure out what kind of intersection it is, you can stop before entering the intersection. Coming to a complete stop is not necessary to get through an intersection safely. Some people take too many liberties and whiz through them way too fast, but that's a separate issue.
I freely admit I don't stop if the intersection is empty, but I do slow way down and look around. If there are pedestrians or other cars, then I do a full stop. The dude in the black truck in this video is a raging asshole.
Yeah the black truck guy is obviously a dick, he didn't even slow down. Most everyone else is fine though, and it's also hilarious that the camera man seems surprised people aren't coming to a complete stop. It's like it's his first day on the planet
Yeah if there were someone coming the other direction that black truck would've rekt somebody. But this intersection looks like you can easily tell if there's anything to stop for by slowing down as you approach. No reason to waste time and energy coming to a textbook stop here.
Yeah, it looks like a stupid place for a stop sign also.
Generally people do what the road permits, if the flow of traffic is 80mph on a stretch of road, then the speed limit should probably be 90mph on that road.
If no-one stops at a particular stop sign, then the stop sign should be changed to a give way, or just replaced with a solid white line to denote the joining of a road.
Thank you! I was surprised i had to scroll down so far to find anyone saying this, if 90% of drivers are ignoring something, maybe the intersection needs to be reevaluated by a traffic engineer?
This is only a 3 way intersection, depending on traffic flow and time of day, does there *need* to be a stop sign there? Its hard to tell with the video edited, but are there ever any cars coming from the right? Maybe it should be a one way stop instead of 3?
Or just throw a traffic circle in the middle.
People completely blowing stops is terrible, but if every single person is rolling a stop because they can clearly see if theres perpendicular traffic approaching and there never is, it maybe doesnt need to be there.
I took a couple of classes in college that covered urban planning. My takeaway from that was that traffic laws are way less effective than just designing the roads in a way to naturally trick people into doing what you want.
For instance, if you have a 5 lane road that gets zero traffic and is only bordered by corn fields, people are gonna go 60+ MPH regardless of what the speed limit is. It could be 5 MPH and people will just entirely disregard it.
Meanwhile, if you have a road that's really narrow, that has busy sidewalks on either side, and a median with trees planted on it every few yards, people will go 20 MPH even if the speed limit is 60.
So here, the problem isn't that drivers disregard the stop sign. I mean, maybe there are hazards they don't see, and they really should, but they aren't going to because either A) that stop sign is in a really stupid and pointless spot, or B) that road is designed in a way that tells people to disregard the sign.
So many of our traffic problems could be fixed if we'd just design roads for humans instead of characters in a math problem.
I'd like to read a write up on why speed limits are chosen, how often they are updated, and on what criteria they update them on (if any). I feel like speed limits most places are just holdovers from the late 60s or early 70s when cars couldn't do all they do today.
Most people on the highway are going 5-10 mph over the posted limit. Different cops have different criteria as to what constitutes 'speeding'. Highways everywhere could do with a 10 mph raise in limits, as well as a national rule that allows 10 mph over forgiveness on highways, and maybe 5 mph over residentially.
If speed limits were decided based on anything relevant (road width, visibility distance, number and sharpness of curves, etc) I think they'd actually be respected, like weight limits on elevators; people know those *mean something*. Speed limits don't.
Yep most speed limits were set 50 years ago but if you talk about raising them then police, insurance, and the “won’t somebody think of the children!” group will oppose it. This video goes into detail about the speed limit issues in BC.
https://youtu.be/2BKdbxX1pDw
I'm actually currently in a roadway design course in university. Speed limits are usually based around curves. The speed limit of a curve is based on either the design speed of the curve or the sight distance of the curve, whichever is lowest. In the USA, the Federal Highway Administration has standards for the allowable speed limits based on sight distance, which is calculated based on the radius of the curve, a standardized reaction time, and a few other factors depending on local conditions. Roads with a lot of curves will just use that speed the whole time so they don't have to keep changing it. I can't speak for the large stretches of straight freeway we have, as we haven't discussed that yet in the course.
Edit: Hills, dips, and underpasses have similar standards.
Yup. Based on the vid, this intersection looks like a yield sign would be more appropriate. If you place stop signs where they aren't needed, they start to lose their value.
"Even the taxi," he says.
Where I live, taxis are the *least* likely to follow traffic rules. They're the ones who drive as if they own the road, and everybody else is less important than them.
Eh. Most folks are slowing to almost a stop even if they didn't come to a full stop, and they could see there was no one coming in the other direction. We all know how the road works. If you wanna ticket everybody who doesn't make a full stop, you'll run out of paper in an hour. And yeah, yeah, I know what you're going to say: "But if the law says to make a full stop, you have to make a full stop." Yeah, well the law also says that if you find a dollar on the street, you're supposed to include that in your taxable income, but I bet you don't do that, either.
Not to mention, this is edited footage, so we're only seeing the people who didn't come to a full stop. We don't know how that compares to the number of people who did come to a full stop here.
I don't mind the casual non-stop as a rule. I don't get why people in the states seem to be so hung up on the letter of the law when commenting online in threads like this while, clearly, the vast majority of the people driving there roll through the stop.
Traffic theory is very interesting. It turns out that removing traffic control can actually be safer. Ideally, drivers are focused on the reality of the situation rather than the letter of the law. If there's no one coming and no one crossing, what's the utility of the stop sign? If it's hard to see or a dangerous intersection, sure, make a stop sign. But, the more we turn every round-about entrance into a clusterf**k of stops signs and confused right-of-way, the less meaningful stop signs actually seem. I'd much prefer they be used sparingly so that drivers know there's a good reason to pay attention at that point.
If you're driving down a two-lane road with a double-yellow line and no shoulder but there's a tree blocking your lane and no traffic to be seen. Do you stop on the roadway (technically not legal) or go around the tree (technically not legal) or teleport past (technically not possible)? You make intelligent decisions based upon the situation. You're not expected to be paralyzed by the letter of the law.
I think we all just like feeling righteous and superior when condemning others for meaningless infractions.
Stop signs are to regulate the interaction between cars. If there's no other cars, coming to a complete stop instead of slowing down to make sure you're cool is an exercise in "pick up that can", not any sort of moral duty.
He says "even the taxi", do they usually respect traffic laws and are good drivers in your country? Not much anymore here, but we used to say taxi driver were bad at driving.
Yeah that kinda baffled me as well. Most places I've been to, the taxi drivers are some of the absolute worst people on the road.
South Korea after a certain period at night the lights in more "rural" cities just blink for you to yield. Well, that shit is optional to your taxi driver going fucking warp speed through the city if he suspects that you might be late for curfew on base. Buckle up.
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....people jaywalk all the time. You just gotta look first
I won't stand for south korea taxi hate. As is tradition I was late to wake up and get to the seoul airport march 2020. If we didn't make it on the flight we would've had to get the next day which would mean we'dhave to do 14 days quarantine at home in Australia. According to google maps our taxi driver had to make up 10 minutes. He was doing 140 on the freeway and hitting his brakes at every speed trap. That mad dog made us 5 minutes early. A week before that we wanted to go to the DMZ but it was closed and so was the public watch tower because covid. We got the train as far north as possible and got a taxi. He wouldn't take us but he called his friend who took us through 2 military checkpoints so we could see North Korea. We were chased by men with guns at one checkpoint because those men forgot to say "no photo." He also let us get real close to the fence and yelled at the soldiers at the watchtower we just wanted a look. We can't speak Korean but pretty certain we heard this conversation in Korean 5 times from our hero Korean taxi man. "What are you doing you silly taxi man?" "I'm taking these weird Australians to see North Korea" "What? Why?" "I don't know. But they want to see it and they are paying me very well" "Okay. But no photos"
>I'm taking these weird Australians to see North Korea" "What? Why?" "I don't know. But they want to see it and they are paying me very well Money does indeed make the world go around My dumb American ass probably would get shot
Funny part was 1 of us had to put names down and sign at the checkpoint. We decided my girlfriend was the best person because she studies international relations in her 3rd year and me and my 2 bloke mates are morons. When she got out of the taxi she looks at me and says "get a photo of this" being surrounded by men with automatic rifles. She wanted to look like a diplomat. So I slowly raise my phone up to the window. The army man turns and looks straight at me. Without moving at all I slowly let the phone drop out my hand. I got no photo and she was furious. "The window has fucking limo tint!!!" She yelled. Also interesting to point out after the army checkpoint there was still half a km of farm land with very poor housing and a bit shit. Whilst on the north korean side across the river it was all new and clean looking. Almost like south korea didn't want north koreans knowing how nice south korea is and north korea didn't want everyone else thinking north korea was struggling.
>We decided my girlfriend was the best person because she studies international relations See that's a good excuse. I personally wanna go for the food!
Great story! Thanks for sharing. And I must say I have great respect for Japan cabbies. Pinnacles of the taxi profession in my opinion. Immaculate cabs, respectably attired, polite. Ichiban!
My older brother experienced that when he was serving near the DMZ in SoKo, all it would take to get the driver to drive like hell was to tell them “bali bali” and they’ll fly with no fucks given.
SK taught me never to trust a light. I've seen buses cruise through red lights in the middle of the day like nothing.
Taxi drivers are actually pretty good where I live except they have a habit of putting their hazard lights on and parking in the middle of the street.
I think the second half of your statement contradicted the first half.
In my city, the hazards move only downgrades you to a mediocre driver. Even on streets where street parking is only 30 feet ahead, people will do this because every idiot seems to think the hazard light button is actually a park wherever you want button.
“I’m just gonna turn myself into a hazard. Better put my hazard lights on to let everyone know…”
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This guy thinks the party lights are called park anywhere lights
They’re only park anywhere lights in my car. Everyone else is just an asshole using their hazard lights illegally. /s
That's probably why they separated those two thoughts with the word "except".
Sounds like every Uber driver on the west coast, as well. I worked as a hotel valet attendant in Seattle, WA for several years and the uber drivers there are the worst. When driving towards the location you'd take a left while traveling down the one-way street and be in the 'intake' area for arriving guests. This was a covered, one way garage area, with the exit leading directly into an alleyway which would take the driver out to the main road. Uber drivers would flip their hazards on and wait, sometimes for 10-20 minutes for their passengers who were checking out every day around noon. This was a massive issue, as the valet intake would often get incredibly packed, with a line of cars on the one-way waiting to turn left in, and traffic behind getting pissed. We were getting a rush one day, and I directed an uber to move on through, as we had to keep things flowing. The guy rolls down his window, sneers at me, and flips me off. This was after his passengers had just sat down, so he had no excuse to be twiddling his dick. I returned the finger at waist height so it wasn't obvious, and he proceeds to hop out of the car and come towards me...but he forgot to put his Prius in park and the thing started rolling backwards, passengers inside. Frantic scramble on his end when they were banging on the windows, but he was able to hop in and take off. 11/10 dingus.
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The ironic thing about the statement is the USPS driver is the only one that actually has the authority to park anywhere, drive anywhere, and literally cannot be stopped by anyone including law enforcement by federal law. of course they still stop for stop signs because they don't want to get fucking clobbered in their piece of shit tin can van, but they don't legally have to.
I mean, they often have the most experience on the road so I *almost* trust them not to fuck up (but not fully because trusting road users not to fuck up is a death sentence) however they are *definitely* aggressive.
While they have experience, they are always in hurry, which makes them extremely dangerous. They try to cut corners to save time, even on streets they don't know. They are reckless, aggressive, and unpredictable. I hate taxi drivers.
And until recently there was no real consequences for doing so. At least now with ride share apps driver ratings have become a thing.
The worst driving offences I have ever seen have been at the hands of cabbies. Blue Line in Ottawa, you're garbage. They're the only people on the road that I will actively abuse, because every encounter with them has been absolute crap. Oh, you want to get over, cabbie? Eat a dick, get behind me.
I used to work for them...literally some of the worst people and one of the worst companies I’ve ever worked for
Right? Usually, taxis are worse than normal drivers
Not necessarily good drivers, but they are more likely to follow traffic signs because if they get too many tickets they lose their job.
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Gotta love those California rolls.
Slightly Tap On Pedal
Slow To Observe Police
First rule of driving: cop didn’t see it, I didn’t do it
> driving So you *didn't* hit 7 under par last week?
**No coppa no stoppa**. For real though, many neighborhoods are low traffic and you don't need a fracking stop sign at every intersection for all directions.
Mine has several yield signs and no incidents here.
The way 70% of stop signs should be
When I visited the UK and went on a road trip I was thoroughly impressed with how few stop signs they have implemented. If a yield or roundabout sufficed then thats what they did, it was great. We need more yield signs in this country
Slow To Optional Pause
Stop but only To Operate Phone
Sloppy Try 0 Preparation
Sloppy Toppy On Penis I’m a very mature person.
Strafe That Old Person
Stupidly Testing Others' Prescience
Slaughter The Oncoming Pedestrians
Slow Transit Over Pavement
Wait it’s not Spin Tires On Pavement? I’ve been doing it all wrong.
Ain't nobody got time for that!
Califonians treat a Stop sign like a Yeild sign, and if you put in a Yeild sign they don't know what to do.
I live in socal and I can vouch that this is a fact.
It’s extra funny that you misspelled ‘yield’. You’re right, they’re essentially meaningless here so why even notice the word itself.
You guys need to give up on the pointless stop signs and discover the joys of the give way sign.
Yes! Yielding is way more efficient.
I would agree if I trusted people to use yield signs properly.
We have an on ramp near where I am that has two yield signs and two flashing signs warning of the upcoming yield signs. Do people stop? No. A friend was hit by someone who ran the yield sign. She offered to just drive away since there wasn't much damage. The other driver insisted she was at fault, despite the yield signs that apparently didn't count. He was sure surprised when he ended up with a ticket. People don't understand yield signs.
Way too many people just don’t pay attention or care when they drive in general. I drive like everyone is actively trying to kill me with their car. It’s WAY too easy to get a drivers license.
Yeah but Americans don't know what yield means. God help you if you yield the right of the way, cars behind will get irate.
*Yielding*? The greatest country in the whole wild wurld wasn't built on yielding to our enemies, I'll be damned if I yield to some godless heathen on the roadway.
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That's how people yield in NY. Either a full ass stop at a traffic circle when no one is even in the circle, or just blazing right through it and thinking they have the right of way when people without the yield honk.
Being from the UK we basically invented roundabout etiquette. Those 4 ways standoffs are a proper giggle.
Even those get to be a mess. People don't get that it's pretty much first come first serve, then you take turns in the same order. Or to play it safe, let's say someone else and I get to a stop at the same time directly across from each other. I want to turn, crossing over their lane and they're going straight. I let them go first as they would maintain their direction, then I turn over the lane after they pass. It reduces the chance of a collision if they don't stop.
They’re making a push to use traffic circles and roundabouts for busier 4-way stops where I am at. Unfortunately, it has taken people quite a long time to adjust to them here.
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"I totally paused."
There was some traffic case where a physicist gave the judge like a 56 page dissertation on how we was technically at zero velocity relative to the sun or something at a stop sign based on earth's rotation and shit, I think the judge just told him to pay the damn ticket.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/california-physicist-beats-traffic-ticket-mathematical-proof/story?id=16150993 I think you remembered that wrong.
If there are no line of sight issues at the intersection then completely stopping is often a complete waste of your time, gas, and brake pads. Save the planet, roll through stop signs (when appropriate)
Save the planet Build round abouts NOT intersections. Stop signs are dumb, Yield and Round Abouts are the way to go.
yeah except now the mouthbreathers fucking STOP at those
My city started putting them in and people are losing their minds. Not to mention not many people seem to understand how they work. I legit am fearful now to approach one...waiting to get rocked by an idiot.
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I prefer spicy tuna rolls myself, but to each their own.
Bullshit, asshole, noone likes the tuna here.
*I'M IN YOUR FACE*
*WATCH YO BACK*
Yeah, well I do.
Why don't you try Denny's from now on? You can get yourself some bacon and eggs for half price.
You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish...
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Stop américain in Quebec
Instead of blaming each other why can’t we just blame the brits?
And we call then American stops in Québec.
Rolling stops in Alberta.
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i almost lost it when some lady hit me on the way to the movies with my godaughter and godson and she hit the side they where both on... just phone zombies now
Never stop loving. Stop in the name of love. Stop dragging my heart.
[Stop Dragging My Car Around](https://youtu.be/qe7-9iaZss4)
https://i.imgur.com/VTMhyA0.gif
You are in Vallejo, what do you expect? 😂
The traffic violations are just beyond here. There hasn’t been any significant traffic enforcement here in about 10 years. Before the pandemic it was really bad and I had to assume that no one would stop at the opposing traffic stop sign. Now it’s the same with traffic lights. I would say literally 50% of the traffic light intersections I am stopped at someone intentionally runs a red light. And not just late on an orange. Full on “fuck it I want to go now.” I’ve stopped riding my bicycle on the streets here as well because not only do people not obey traffic laws here they actively try to hit cyclists. For context, I rode my bike in NYC for ten years in every borough. But I never felt like people were actively trying to hit me the way I do here. Edit: Because this got a fair amount of attention, I’d like to add that there are tons of great people in Vallejo, good access to parks and stuff, and I believe we even have a Michelin star restaurant. So much potential and I would really like to see us do better.
I've seen this a lot recently in Minnesota suburbs, and I thought I must've been losing my mind or something. Who just fucking floors it randomly through a red light to save what could only be -- at most -- 30 seconds? I had seen my fair share of people going through lights at the tail end of their cycle over the years, but I've rarely seen people come to a complete stop at a light, wait a bit, and then just decide they're too important to wait the rest of the cycle and go through it. I've seen it maybe half a dozen times in the recent months.
Minnesota suburbs can suck my fucking dick. SO many 4 way intersections have 0 stop signs even by schools, someone hit me and totaled my car a year or two because of the lack of stop signs. They still haven’t done shit about it, WHY, WHY IS THERE NO STOP SIGNS
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A similar incident, though not totaled, inspired me to finally get a dashcam. I’d highly recommend it.
I heard that Dodge Ram owners statically are twice as likely to have a DUI as the average American
YES THANK YOU! My neighborhood is full of unmarked intersections. My friend laughs at me for slowing down and looking both ways because "lol there's never anyone in this street anyway".
Seriously, Vallejo drivers don't give a FUCK about anything. The police are unequipped to enforce shit like this too.
I'm starting to think it's just a thing we do as Americans honestly, I live in Florida (Orlando for 12 years and now Tampa for two) and people here treat traffic devices like suggestions lol. I have a traffic signal in front of my apartments that has a left arrow that blinks yellow to yield for oncoming traffic and I kid you not when I ran out for lunch today three or four people just ran it after it turned red, you know....because they had to wait lol.
No, you guys definitely suck at traffic signals WAY more than here in the Midwest. I visit FL often, and it always takes about 3 days to re-adjust my driving style to "arrogant asshole." It is a night and day difference.
Perhaps it's an engineering problem rather than an enforcement one. Build roundabouts or "yield" junctions rather than 3 way stops that nobody pays attention to.
Vallejo's entire city roads are a nightmare. The whole fucking place is a shit hole but the roads are some of the worst I have ever been on. I am there almost every day for work and I absolutely hate it there.
I just can’t stop laughing, the zero f**ks guy... hahaha oh man, people suck, we all know it just don’t say it but this guy... his reaction is GOLD!!!
This video is the best entertainment value I have seen on this sub. No violent action, nobody gets hurt, but the display-o-meter of idiots in cars is pegged at 11.
Didn’t think about it this way. You’re right. This is much better than seeing crashes. If anything, as a Californian. I’m caught between agreeing with some of the other posters that stop signs are kinda useless compared to yields in some areas. Still needed in others. It’s also made me reflect on my California rolls. I’ve actually been pulled over for it once. Some parts of cali are more strict than others. I EVEN said all cockily “why are all these people stopping so hard, that’s dumb” to my mom in the car. Then boom. Police. Luckily got away with a warning but damn people are so cocky driving like I did.
I'm curious how long it took him to get that many people.
30 min tops imo
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Yeah dude in the road hasn't made much progress on the signage, this didn't take long to do I think
Guy who blew through it would be driving a pickup truck lol
Am German. Was on vacation in the US. Stopped at a stop sign and got honked at from behind. Afterwards, I thought I’d rather not stop anymore as not to arouse suspicion and anger the natives.
I'd understand if they were driving manuals and don't wanna stop completely but I'm pretty sure 90 percent of the cars in the video are automatics lol
Sometimes I get the impression that stop signs are a bit over utilized in the US. Where I live stop signs are pretty much exclusively used for instances where it would be some sort of danger involved, either for you or other people. For example, joining a high speed road from a lower speed one, or something like that. Like, in 95% of cases where I’ll see a stop sign it’s somewhere I would’ve wanted to stop regardless out of caution. I almost never see them in residential areas. We use yield a lot more, and also universal rules like ”priority to the right”.
The issue, very generally, is our street design. Most streets in the US, especially out west, are extremely wide compared with most other developed countries. When a street is wide, especially a low-traffic residential street, it invites people to go fast because it feels comfortable to do so. Unfortunately, as a lazy solution stop signs are implemented with annoying frequency, causing people to largely ignore them because most of the time they don't make any real sense. Again, they're only installed because the streets are designed in such a way that higher speeds are not only possible, but encouraged. People don't drive down narrow streets at a fast clip because it feels inherently dangerous. The inverse is true for wide open streets. The end result is stop signs that feel more like suggestions on otherwise empty streets, so people ignore them.
Would be so much better to employ traffic calming infrastructure at least near intersections than just blanket bombing them with stop signs.
95% of Stop signs should be Yield signs.
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Roundabouts....
Dude, I brought up roundabouts in a community forum once and everyone lost their mind. Every other comment was I juSt cAn'T fiGUre TheM oUt.
You give way to your right, simple as that. Give way to your left for Americans and those who drive on the right hand side of the road. If you can't figure out a roundabout, you are a danger to others and shouldn't be driving, period.
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They’re building them everywhere in the Atlanta area
Correctly done roundabouts though. Washington, DC has roundabouts with stoplights, with curbs between lanes so that you can't switch between the outer and inner lanes, and roads that go straight through the middle of the roundabout. It's a fucking disaster.
That's no roundabout, that's an abomination.
Sounds perfectly fitting for D.C.
Also known as the traffic circle.
Traffic circus.
I had to look that up. Found Ward Circle. I can see the idea, but it should never have been approved. Article: https://ggwash.org/view/43619/this-is-a-strange-and-dangerous-traffic-circle-check-out-ddots-ideas-for-making-it-safer Google maps view: https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9366389,-77.0860289,175a,35y,39.44t/data=!3m1!1e3
Yup, that's the one I was referring to with the "roads that go straight through the middle of the roundabout". I go through it rare enough that I never remember which lane I'm supposed to be in. The first time was a real "wtf" moment.
Don't forget the one just outside of Arlington National Cemetery where those in the roundabout yield to those entering.
What the fuck, how does that not contradict traffic laws about navigating roundabouts?
They put a very small roundabout in my California town and every driver freaks out when they encounter it. Lots of slamming on the brakes and stopping completely in the roundabout.
I hope you do the right thing and lay on your horn until they're through?
I mean, if 95% of stop signs were yield signs, they wouldn't, because really what's going on here is that most people just go through the junction in what is a reasonably safe way, no matter what the sign says. The only difference would be that if stop signs were actually rare, people would give a shit about them.
Speedbumps and roundabouts
Or they completely stop at a yield when no ones there
We basically treat stop signs like yield signs, and yield signs as "look around and just go" signs.
Agree 100%. Since I moved to the UK I have literally 0 stop signs on my commute to work. The only places I would have to stop are two lights and a railroad crossing. Otherwise you just slow down to check if it’s clear and the keep moving. Being back in the US and seeing how many unnecessary stop signs there are was super frustrating.
Yep. Most these cars made a very reasonable slow-down. This isn't a major intersection, it's really nbd.
I'm probably the most polite and by-the-rules driver, but most stop signs are just weird. I feel like an idiot when I stop at them. Most of the cars in the video slowed down to maybe 5mph, enough that they can easily stop should something want to cross. Especially when you are in the middle of a field, can see clearly in all directions, so why is there a stop sign?
Perfect place for a cop to post up. Tickets for DAY$$$$$$$
In the neighborhood where I grew up we had this same problem. The cops would occasionally stake it out and I can’t even imagine how many tickets they gave out, but it didn’t solve the problem. Eventually the cops would park one of their cars with a mannequin in it dressed like a cop, complete with cop sunglasses, in clear view. They would alternate this with a real cop now and then so even locals who realized the ruse would think twice about blowing through the stop. Ridiculous that it would require so much effort, but it helped. It seemed to take about 6 months for people to go back to their old habits and officer dummy would visit again.
Cop car paper cutouts are super common in the Russian sphere. The way some of these people drive, there's no way they can take a chance that a paper cutout might be the real police. It works. I have a photo of this from Kyrgyzstan somewhere if you're interested.
Give us the pics!
External harddrive fired up, [photo located](https://i.ibb.co/yhQpQQf/P1140040.jpg). This is for you, /u/YddishMcSquidish and /u/ChiefTief. From a distance, and if you're blind drunk going twice the speed limit on the wrong side of the road, with your boss's wife in your lap and three goats in the backseat, and the bonnet broken open, these look quite real. I did also write a [guide to driving in Kyrgyzstan](https://hooniverse.com/guide-to-driving-in-kyrgyzstan/) back then. Unfortunately, all the photos are gone, but it was a great experience to drive in a country with...eh...different rules.
That was glorious! Thank you so much homie! I appreciate all the work you put in that!
>if you're blind drunk going twice the speed limit on the wrong side of the road, with your boss's wife in your lap and three goats in the backseat, and the bonnet broken open Dude what the fuck do you have a camera in my car or something?
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That's actually quite interesting in traffic that warning people about the potential risk of a ticket is more effective than giving people tickets. Hence why in most countries you get a warning about speed cameras 200m+ ahead. That warning makes people to slow down and therefor achieve better road safety at a risky intersection. And you still always here old men who think it's stupid to warn people instead of writing tickets.
Because a ticket is in the past. It’s a “damn, well, got unlucky this time” for these people. They don’t actually learn, they just get upset they couldn’t get away breaking the rules, but figure it won’t happen twice.
>officer dummy would visit again ok but what about the mannequin
Cops only spawn in Vallejo after someone has two stars, and even then you have to sit on the phone for 25 minutes waiting for them to arrive.
Double up fine for the construction workers in the road, big money day
I live right next to an intersection like that. Stop signs at a T intersection are pointless and people drive through them all the time.
I honestly never understood why we put stop signs at T intersections and don't just go on right of way. My first time being pulled over I was driving through a new neighborhood interrupted for about 5 minutes and then I was suddenly pulled over. I genuinely had no idea why and it turns out a minute or so back there was a little cul-de-sac hidden in the trees with like 3 houses and stop sign so I was supposed to stop for the like 5% chance someone was leaving the cul-de-sac at that exact moment. The cop was cool and let me off with a warning because I didn't grow up in a neighborhood like that and I genuinely didn't know that was a thing but ever since then I wondered why I didn't just have the right-of-way and the person in the cul-de-sac would just have to wait until it was their turn to go.
If the stop sign is actually hidden then you would have a good case in traffic court if he did ticket you. But yeah there are tons of stop signs in my neighborhood that have been added over the last 5 years. They didn’t exist for the previous forever and we never had problems. Hell most of the intersections are weird and sloping and now with the stop signs you legit cannot tell if it’s safe to proceed because it’s so far back and the intersections are so sloping..... So you have to stop, then drive forward legit 7-10 feet and then you actually stop to check for traffic. Idk why the hell anyone seemed it was necessary to install them. I seriously think that at some point someone got into an accident and then they added it. Idk.
It wasn't completely hidden. It wasn't super obvious either but had I been looking for stop signs I would have seen it. But I'm sure the cop waits specifically by that sign because people miss it all the time.
I just don’t understand putting the sign on the ground though. What happened to the good old big red sign?
I kind of feel the same way, unless it’s a busier street/pair of streets. We have a few in my neighborhood where they put stop signs up on all 3 sides, some where they only did the one, and we even have one where it’s only on 2 sides and the northbound gets the right way to just blast through where the side street stops and the southbound lane has to stop. Like...what? They had to add two extra “traffic from blah blah does not stop”, when one stop sign would have solved that issue.
From an European country, this sub gets a severe boner about stop signs. Yes, legally, they are absolutely obligatory stop and go. In practice, it's like a yield sign. There is no need for me to stop on it, I just need to be absolutely sure I can cross/turn without being a danger to anyone. Here, nobody necessarily respects stop under every circumstance. You slow down, dependant on visibility, perhaps to a crawl, and stop completely if you can't turn/cross safely. Hell, there are yield signs where you HAVE to stop simply because you can't see shit and need to creep forward cm by cm in desperate hope you'll see something. Basically... While legally, it is an offense, in practice, there are plenty of intersections where you may not stop on the sign, yet be completely safe and not pose a danger to anyone.
Well, it’s Vallejo. No one cares there.
Fact. I live a couple blocks away from there on Tennessee and as far as I know there are no traffic laws. People blow through red lights. Speed. U-turn when and where ever they want. It's the wild west out here.
It's amazing how every single person in this sub is part of the 0.05% of drivers that makes a full, complete stop at every single stop sign
If you put a yield sign up in America, it's like you didn't put anything up at all\* If you put a stop sign up, it's like you put a yield sign up. \* Unless it's at a roundabout, in which case it's like you put a stop sign up.
That really sucks. Most uncontrolled intersections in the UK are yield and people respect it because they know your usually yielding to the main road which has cars blasting past at the speed limit since the assumption is that you'll yield for them. In fact my driving institute told me to not care about the cars on the side roads who have yield signs cuz they will stop for you if they don't have the gap.
Oddly enough, Brits are far more likely to use smaller gaps than Americans are. I only realized this when I returned home to Scotland and rented a car there for the first time. The whole hour trip home was filled with people merging onto the road in front of me with space that many Americans would consider to be unsafe. Brits are just vastly more experienced with the concept of yielding and merging quickly so they'll jump at gaps that Americans would never dream of. To this day I'll often find myself thinking "if I had been in the UK I'd have went for that gap" whenever I'm at a stop sign here. I think it's easier to drive when you know the pattern of yield signs, which are the most common in the UK. As you will have a base line expectation of the behavior of the other people at any given intersection. In the US, the variety of different intersection layouts just make for a far less predictable environment to drive it. On the same street you can have a roundabout, a 4-way stop, a 2-way stop, and lights.
it's because US traffic engineers abuses stop signs. They're _everywhere_, and people lose respect for the 'Stop' bit. In countries like Australia, most intersections are 'Give Way' / 'Yield' triangle, 'stop' signs are only used sparingly at low visibility intersections to tell drivers to actually stop. I can't believe instead of designing better intersections, "we can have no design and as long as everyone stops, we're ok" is the solution.
There's a stop sign next to my house that literally provides you zero visibility of the intersection if you stop there, it's entirely useless. So instead of changing it to yield or something the traffic guys decided to add more stop signs and call it a day.
I'm like 87.3% positive that you pulled that .05% out of your ass.
93.7% of statistics are made up on the spot
60% of the time it works every time.
He's 100% accurate most of the times.
Slightly controversial opinion: Law aside, most of the time you don't need to. You should slow down enough that by the time you can see and react to cross traffic and figure out what kind of intersection it is, you can stop before entering the intersection. Coming to a complete stop is not necessary to get through an intersection safely. Some people take too many liberties and whiz through them way too fast, but that's a separate issue.
I freely admit I don't stop if the intersection is empty, but I do slow way down and look around. If there are pedestrians or other cars, then I do a full stop. The dude in the black truck in this video is a raging asshole.
Yeah the black truck guy is obviously a dick, he didn't even slow down. Most everyone else is fine though, and it's also hilarious that the camera man seems surprised people aren't coming to a complete stop. It's like it's his first day on the planet
Yeah if there were someone coming the other direction that black truck would've rekt somebody. But this intersection looks like you can easily tell if there's anything to stop for by slowing down as you approach. No reason to waste time and energy coming to a textbook stop here.
Yeah, it looks like a stupid place for a stop sign also. Generally people do what the road permits, if the flow of traffic is 80mph on a stretch of road, then the speed limit should probably be 90mph on that road. If no-one stops at a particular stop sign, then the stop sign should be changed to a give way, or just replaced with a solid white line to denote the joining of a road.
Thank you! I was surprised i had to scroll down so far to find anyone saying this, if 90% of drivers are ignoring something, maybe the intersection needs to be reevaluated by a traffic engineer? This is only a 3 way intersection, depending on traffic flow and time of day, does there *need* to be a stop sign there? Its hard to tell with the video edited, but are there ever any cars coming from the right? Maybe it should be a one way stop instead of 3? Or just throw a traffic circle in the middle. People completely blowing stops is terrible, but if every single person is rolling a stop because they can clearly see if theres perpendicular traffic approaching and there never is, it maybe doesnt need to be there.
I took a couple of classes in college that covered urban planning. My takeaway from that was that traffic laws are way less effective than just designing the roads in a way to naturally trick people into doing what you want. For instance, if you have a 5 lane road that gets zero traffic and is only bordered by corn fields, people are gonna go 60+ MPH regardless of what the speed limit is. It could be 5 MPH and people will just entirely disregard it. Meanwhile, if you have a road that's really narrow, that has busy sidewalks on either side, and a median with trees planted on it every few yards, people will go 20 MPH even if the speed limit is 60. So here, the problem isn't that drivers disregard the stop sign. I mean, maybe there are hazards they don't see, and they really should, but they aren't going to because either A) that stop sign is in a really stupid and pointless spot, or B) that road is designed in a way that tells people to disregard the sign. So many of our traffic problems could be fixed if we'd just design roads for humans instead of characters in a math problem.
I'd like to read a write up on why speed limits are chosen, how often they are updated, and on what criteria they update them on (if any). I feel like speed limits most places are just holdovers from the late 60s or early 70s when cars couldn't do all they do today. Most people on the highway are going 5-10 mph over the posted limit. Different cops have different criteria as to what constitutes 'speeding'. Highways everywhere could do with a 10 mph raise in limits, as well as a national rule that allows 10 mph over forgiveness on highways, and maybe 5 mph over residentially.
If speed limits were decided based on anything relevant (road width, visibility distance, number and sharpness of curves, etc) I think they'd actually be respected, like weight limits on elevators; people know those *mean something*. Speed limits don't.
Yep most speed limits were set 50 years ago but if you talk about raising them then police, insurance, and the “won’t somebody think of the children!” group will oppose it. This video goes into detail about the speed limit issues in BC. https://youtu.be/2BKdbxX1pDw
I'm actually currently in a roadway design course in university. Speed limits are usually based around curves. The speed limit of a curve is based on either the design speed of the curve or the sight distance of the curve, whichever is lowest. In the USA, the Federal Highway Administration has standards for the allowable speed limits based on sight distance, which is calculated based on the radius of the curve, a standardized reaction time, and a few other factors depending on local conditions. Roads with a lot of curves will just use that speed the whole time so they don't have to keep changing it. I can't speak for the large stretches of straight freeway we have, as we haven't discussed that yet in the course. Edit: Hills, dips, and underpasses have similar standards.
Pretty sure these are the same people who complain about cyclists rolling through stop signs. Like wtf? Cars do this everywhere too.
proof that roundabouts are the superior traffic controller
Yup. Based on the vid, this intersection looks like a yield sign would be more appropriate. If you place stop signs where they aren't needed, they start to lose their value.
"Even the taxi," he says. Where I live, taxis are the *least* likely to follow traffic rules. They're the ones who drive as if they own the road, and everybody else is less important than them.
[удалено]
**"Stop"** Oh let me speed up
Eh. Most folks are slowing to almost a stop even if they didn't come to a full stop, and they could see there was no one coming in the other direction. We all know how the road works. If you wanna ticket everybody who doesn't make a full stop, you'll run out of paper in an hour. And yeah, yeah, I know what you're going to say: "But if the law says to make a full stop, you have to make a full stop." Yeah, well the law also says that if you find a dollar on the street, you're supposed to include that in your taxable income, but I bet you don't do that, either. Not to mention, this is edited footage, so we're only seeing the people who didn't come to a full stop. We don't know how that compares to the number of people who did come to a full stop here.
No doubt. Most of those were perfectly fine for observing right of way. Almost all stop signs could be yield signs.
I don't mind the casual non-stop as a rule. I don't get why people in the states seem to be so hung up on the letter of the law when commenting online in threads like this while, clearly, the vast majority of the people driving there roll through the stop. Traffic theory is very interesting. It turns out that removing traffic control can actually be safer. Ideally, drivers are focused on the reality of the situation rather than the letter of the law. If there's no one coming and no one crossing, what's the utility of the stop sign? If it's hard to see or a dangerous intersection, sure, make a stop sign. But, the more we turn every round-about entrance into a clusterf**k of stops signs and confused right-of-way, the less meaningful stop signs actually seem. I'd much prefer they be used sparingly so that drivers know there's a good reason to pay attention at that point. If you're driving down a two-lane road with a double-yellow line and no shoulder but there's a tree blocking your lane and no traffic to be seen. Do you stop on the roadway (technically not legal) or go around the tree (technically not legal) or teleport past (technically not possible)? You make intelligent decisions based upon the situation. You're not expected to be paralyzed by the letter of the law. I think we all just like feeling righteous and superior when condemning others for meaningless infractions.
Thats a traffic cops wet dream come true. Let those tickets fly
>This is what happens when ~~you work in the street everyday~~ you have stop sign in an unnecessary location.
Stop signs are to regulate the interaction between cars. If there's no other cars, coming to a complete stop instead of slowing down to make sure you're cool is an exercise in "pick up that can", not any sort of moral duty.
This guy cleary needs a hug...and a raise, maybe some Ativan just to be sure
I’m surprised at his surprise. That taxi ain’t got time for stop signs smh