Left turn short cuts?
 

This seems to be happening more and more to me.

Here is how it goes. Your at an intersection with a road or street to the right. Or worse, you are approaching the stop sign (less chance other driver can see you) Suddenly the bozo on the right (making a left onto your street) thinks wants to shave about .5 seconds off of his trip and cuts his turn by entering your lane first then crossing over to his right (your left).

This just happened to me again tonight. I have noticed it most in my car because I guess on my bike I am usually far to the right where it would be less noticeable.

It is really bad on the street near my home because the cross street is a busy road and people are moving at a pretty good speed when they make their left. What makes matters worse is because the way the intersection is laid out, the cross traffic really can't see you until they are well into their left turn.


Is this happening to anyone else?

Nope.

That happens all the time around here. It is especially bad if there are two left turn lanes for the people turning. I dont think the drivers are trying to save time, they are just bad drivers who can not actually control the vehicle properly.......that is another can of worms.

You mean they veer into your lane slightly to shorten the arc of their right turn? Yeah, I see it all the time -- but it's never been a real problem to me. I'm more likely to concentrate on opening car doors, road debris, and (at certain traffic lights) preventing getting "right-hooked".

I had some one do that while I was driving my truck in highschool (85 toyota Hilux, with a full roll cage and a set of bump bars)a woman on a cell phone ran right into me as I was coming to a stop. It totaled their car as they pushed underneath my truck. The cops came and wrote them a ticket because they were fully into my lane. I backed off of their car then helped the cops pull the car off the road and went home. No damage to my truck except for some scratches in the primer, but who really cares about the paint on an 85 hulux?

Because of the incident in High school I am very wary of people turning left when I am riding a bike. I have observed that almost every one when trying to beat a light or when there is a small window when they can turn left crosses the double yellow when turning . If I am turning left at an intersection and there is also a car on the cross street I give them and extra few feet of room around the double yellow. The moral of the story; Fear soccer moms on cell phones.

I see it numerous times on a daily basis , plus every other kind of "short cut" you can imagine and some you might not imagine involving right and left turns. Of course, I live in Taiwan, which, BTW, does not have near the worst traffic in Asia.
I've experienced it in the Houston are as well all too often. I always stop at the stop line, and have had people give me dirty looks as if I was sticking out into the intersection. Many people just don't know how to square a corner.

Wait. The apex of the turn isn't the left curb? ;)

At some intersections, they put the stop line for.... well, let's call it "the lane you're in".... farther back from the corner than usual.

This is part of why I always try to have a headlight.

What also irks me is when drivers try to take corners wide -- for a right turn, they'd veer a bit left, then turn right. I don't know who taught them to do this, but whoever it was needs to be punched in the mouth. It's like they're trying to copy race cars. The difference is that they're nowhere near the limits of adhesion on the street, and therefore don't need to work out the smoothest, roundest line through the turn.

This maneuver is why I wear a helmet light instead of a handlebar light. I can wave my light across the windshield of the turning car if I think they're going to cut into the opposing lane while completing the turn. It's super common around here. A good reason not to be at the very left/forward corner of the turn lane, while waiting on the light.

I see it all the time. A co-worker of mine is famous for straddling lanes at intersections, blocking the opposite lane to oncoming cars. I rode to lunch with her this week and she caused two "logjams" before we made it out of the parking lot.

As diplomatically as possible, I mentioned that she might want to pay attention to the lines on the road and she got aggravated, "why is everyone always criticizing my driving?" Uh, because I don't want to die on an empty stomach? :crash:

I see it all the time in Minneapolis, too. Then when I try to make people honest, all 20 cars around me get mad. Heh! Especially bad is a particular double-left turn lane that goes around a turn lane on the next street. Even with really nicely painted guidelines, people still do whatever the heck they want, then they get upset with me when I am the only car (again, only out of 20) that do it correctly.

"Because it sucks?"

The way to stop getting criticized is to fix the problem, not complain about the criticism.

Yes, we get lazy turning all the time. It's significant in our subdivision. If there's no other traffic on the road, people will always take the turn wide; if they're making a right onto the road, they'll pull into the turn lane, then cut through the gravel and wind up in the left lane, and it'll take them hundreds of feet to drift back to the right, some don't ever do it and drive down the middle of the road all the way down. The sub is totally open with no curbs and no cars parked on the road so there's no excuse for not being in the lane.

I live on the corner there, and so many people cut off the corner and go through the gravel that they churn gravel up onto the road pretty badly. I just went out this weekend with a snow shovel and pushed all the gravel off the pavement back into the shoulder, because when I took the corner and hit the gravel it was like driving on marbles; my car slid sideways probably a couple of feet. And I was not taking the corner fast at all, the gravel there just gets beat down into spheres.

As for cutting corners, I think it's the same syndrome that I see in general; people don't like to turn. If they're in a lane, they will stubbornly refuse to change lanes, a car turning right in front of them, even with a half mile clear sight line and no other traffic, they'll stay behind the car and slow down rather than changing lanes. When making corners, they try to turn the wheel as little as possible, cutting corners and overshooting the turn and then overcorrecting.

It's happen to me a few times on the bike. I see it happen a lot while I'm in the car, especially around campus where lots of the people can't drive.

If I'm on my commuter bike, I like to wait until they're closest to me and hit my Airzound horn.

I think the reason drivers take the corners that way is because their abs. are too weak to turn properly.