dwilbur3

This is my most recent example of my favorite pet peeve: people who are polite to you while being rude to everyone else at the intersection.

[Rant}
This morning I came to the roundabout on my commute. I could see there were cars in the roundabout so I came to a stop. But the first driver (with two cars behind him) came to a complete stop in the roundabout and waited for me to go! So now the cars behind him have to wait for me to get out of the roundabout. If he'd just kept going, I might not have even had to come to a complete stop. So by "being polite" this idiot inconvenienced everyone else in the intersection.

Yes, I know Americans just don't get roundabouts, but they do this at normal intersections too. I've had people stop for me when I was at a stop sign and they didn't have stop sign. What is up with that?

(And these are probably the same California drivers who won't let you merge onto the freeway when they have 3 empty lanes to their left.)
[/Rant]

rhm

Trying to cede your right of way to someone else is a very dangerous thing to do. It totally messes up traffic flow. If you have right of way, go.

I know, I know, preaching to the choir.

cycle_maven

Yeah, stupidly polite-

I've seen people who stop (moving traffic) to politely let somebody cross the traffic while they inconvenience the 100+ cars behind them. That's stupidly polite- polite to one person who waves and smiles while the hoards behind are fuming.

It's even worse when I'm the boob on the bike that has been let through the stream of cars.

Plutonix

ack! dbl post

Plutonix

While I like that they are trying to be polite, I find it dangerously stupid because they are making up new rules as they go along. The problem is that not all the other drivers are on the same page.

Four way stops are the worst, it seems.

Stray8

Over here in NYC that's not called being "stupidly polite".


It's simply called being "stupid"...




.

Artkansas 

I get irked at what I call "Nanny Drivers". They treat you on your bicycle like a child.

You come up to a stop sign well after they do and they stop and try to wave you through first. Or come to a stop in an intersection where you have a stop and they don't and you are stopped and they try to wave you through. I often have to just get off the bike to communicate my intent to obey the law. Nothing less seems to get through to them.

CyclingFuzion

That happens all the time to me at 4 way intersections! I'll be the last person in the right-of-way rotation, yet the other 3 drivers won't move an inch, probably expecting me to be a 'rude bicyclist' and either run the stop sign or ignore traffic laws. I hate that other cyclists have caused vehicle drivers to become so stupidly polite.

CyclingFuzion

Well said, Artkansas.. I get those 'nanny drivers' constantly. Very annoying indeed.

xiyangshen

Don't make eye contact, put tour foot down, and pretend to pick your nose. If they wait long enough you can pretend to flick it at them.

Sorry, I had a snarkey ride in this AM.

nwmtnbkr

dwilbur3,

Roundabouts, or traffic circles, were adopted in many US communities simply as a means of slowing down traffic and discouraging through traffic (often perceived as being commuters from outside the immediate neighborhood). Traffic circles and speed bumps popped up all over communities in suburban DC while I was living there. Sometimes, it made no sense where they were placed, but a community with clout (i.e., higher incomes) tends to get what it wants. Maybe people are used to them now, but many didn't quit know how to react to them once they were installed, even residents of communities that requested them. Personally, I think it's a stupid design for traffic control that doesn't necessarily work well in Europe either, from what I saw during my trips there. Truthfully when I see or hear about traffic circles, all I see in my head is the clip from the old National Lampoon movie where Chevy Chase and his film family went to Europe and got stuck in a "roundabout" in London for the better part of a day.

In your case, the best thing you could have done was to have quickly taken up the motorist's offer to let you merge.

dwilbur3

And that, of course is what I did (not much choice at that point).

thdave

There are do gooders that do me wrong, but I forgive. The classic is when I'm waiting at a light to turn left and the bozo cager coming the other way--with a green light-- decides to stop and wave me through. XIY offers great advise--put the foot down and pick thine nose!

That's the only way to avoid the "wave of generosity," which, in truth, is a wave of the right of way, which isn't their's to give.

knobster

I bet a lot of this comes from them not being polite, but they've encountered idiot bike riders who blow through stop signs or other general idiotic behaviour and it's causing them to be overly cautious around bike riders.

Chris L

Well, I'll get flamed for saying this, but when someone does this to me, I just go anyway. I don't have time to play some silly game of "you go first/no you go first". If the driver in question has that sort of free time, they'll just find someone else to play with anyway. The simple fact is that the majority of motorists in this city have demonstrated time and time again that they just do not understand traffic laws anyway, and this is simply an extension of that -- nothing more. I don't think these alleged "rude bicyclists" that supposedly terrorise drivers have anything to do with it.

mikeybikes

They work quite well if designed properly and used in the right places.

City of Golden, CO did a study regarding their installation of roundabouts along a major road through their city:
https://www.ci.golden.co.us/files/roundaboutpaper.pdf

Conclusion? The roundabouts increased traffic flow, decreased collisions, and improved business access.

truman

That's certainly your prerogative - and it makes some sense. Do be careful about any other cars in the area who may not be aware of you and your exchange with the nanny. Once the rotation has changed at the intersection, it's really anybody's guess who'll decide it's their own turn to go next - and if they never noticed you, you could get whacked.

dwilbur3

Actually I like the roundabout. It makes the people who think any 4 lane street is a freeway slow down for a second or two.

neil

I've been trying to figure out what causes this. Okay, sometimes people are just overly polite, and simultaneously unable to process how to deal with cyclists, but I've noticed that there's some intersections where I regularly encounter this behaviour (and some intersections that have an overabundance of the opposite...people stealing my right of way). What is it about some intersections that causes more people to forget the rules of the road than at others?

One thing I have noticed, though, is that trackstanding confuses the hell out of drivers. If I don't put my foot down, there's a 50/50 chance that traffic flow will become screwed up.

CACycling

I have a roundabout on my homeward commute and have never really had an issue with drivers doing stupid stuff because of me. And I can handle the polite drivers at intersections by just outwating them.

My problem is "polite" drivers when I'm crossing multiple lanes of traffic either while making a left turn or getting over to a left turn lane. I've had a couple slow way down as I'm timing my path to cross behind them. They end up stranding me in a traffic lane with their car blocking my path and oncoming traffic bearing down on me. In one case, I had to come almost to a complete stop and turn toward oncoming traffic to get around a car that had all but stopped right in my path for no reason other than she saw me on a bicycle. As I turned to cross behind her, I was facing 3 lanes of 50+ MPH traffic that were coming straight at me.

alr

+1

Nanny drivers are the norm in Seattle-- some car drivers will be overly polite to other cars as well as to bikes. When I first started commuting and this would happen, I would wait them out since I had already come to a stop, my momentum was lost, and darn it, I like people to take their turn when appropriate. Then, I realized that this makes they delay for everyone even longer, so now I give a quick nod of my head and go on my way. I am just helping to keep the traffic flowing, and I acknowledge that this behavior is not ever going to change on account of me.

On the subject of traffic circles-- I like them, since I am not required to stop. They also do more to slow down cross traffic that might hit you than an unmarked 4 way intersection will (yes, we have a lot of these in Seattle). The downside is that some drivers will go the wrong way in a neighborhood traffic circle in order to turn left, and this has nearly caused me to run head on into a car on several occasions-- not cool.

crazyed27

HaHa some people are just stupid....simply put!

Chris L

Oh that's alright, I've learned to keep an eye out for the vast majority of drivers who simply try to blast through when they don't have the right of way, or those who get half way through the intersection or roundabout and simply stop dead for no readily apparent reason, or any number of other idiots out there.

gear

My theory is that these people don't use their mirrors. So they can't see the people they are screwing.

Every once in a while when driving behind another driver, I will glance into their rear view mirror to see if I can see their face in the mirror, if I can't that usually means the mirror is not adjusted and is useless to the driver. You wouldn't believe how often this is the case.

exile

Mine is trying to cross intersections where a driver in one lane stops but not the drivers in the other. I was fooled once and started to cross when I guess one of the drivers behind the person who stopped went zooming past on the left and almost clipped me after I was clearing the car that stopped.

Part of it is not knowing why the guy in front stopped and going around. Part of it is not stopping unless you have to. Or perhaps it was some master plan thought out well in advance by these two drivers to take me out. A well devised insidious plot and the "I didn't see him excuse" to use in court. Cagers, you've been thwarted yet again.