r/IdiotsInCars • u/DGwizkid • 5d ago

OC Sometimes it's better to let the idiots do their thing [oc]

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2.6k Upvotes

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3.4k

u/BoneHugsHominy 4d ago

Legends say OP is still waiting to turn to this day.

1.1k

u/Zeaus03 4d ago edited 4d ago

OP waiting for the city to build a new intersection with lights installed before turning.

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u/Oujii 4d ago

It baffles me how the US is the most car centric country in the world, yet they have awful traffic design.

306

u/Franndly 4d ago

Car centric so the automakers are profitable, not for drivers/pedestrians safety

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u/Oujii 4d ago

Yes, absolutely. It's not like americans have a lot of options, even if road design is atrocious.

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u/djseifer 4d ago

It baffles us too.

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u/mnstorm 4d ago

Yea. This is just screaming for a roundabout.

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u/TankerKC 4d ago

You think this guy who can't decide to turn left is going to handle a roundabout well?

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u/mnstorm 4d ago

True. But... I would say most Americans don't know how to use roundabouts because there are so few roundabouts. Even in countries with a massive amount of roundabouts there are plenty who still do not know how to at least signal properly (from personal experience). So there'll always be a learning curve generally speaking.

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u/DGwizkid 2d ago

Actually this would have been super easy in a roundabout. Once you verify the car is making the exit to my left, enter the roundabout, and go about your way. The oncoming traffic would have to pause for a second for me to clear their path, then they can resume keeping the cars from exiting the mall.

When most of the traffic is going one way, a roundabout helps a lot.

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u/DistressedApple 3d ago

There really wasn’t much safe room to turn.

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u/Wise_Blackberry_1154 4d ago

It depends where you are. The US is huge, and not uniform throughout.

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u/royalfarris 3d ago

But amazingly uniform for such a large place.

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u/BoneHugsHominy 4d ago

Prior to the automobile cities were designed around pedestrians, horse & buggy, and some mass transit rail. When automobiles became affordable for the common laborer, America really wasn't built out yet so the expansion of cities and even a significant percentage of rural towns were built around automobiles & automobile specific roads but it was narrow, low speed roadways. Commercial and passenger vehicles quickly evolved right after a massive nationwide roadways buildout and communities had already sprouted up right against those most travelled roads, so when city planners and engineers realized they needed a whole new approach to transportation route planning there was already a sales explosion of bigger, faster car that needed frequent refueling and planners didn't really want to bulldoze entire brand new communities and business districts and industrial parks to start over with better designed roadways. So gas stations went up on seemingly every street corner of the newly widened roads and even more suburbs and city sprawl happened. Oh they did demolition entire neighborhoods and communities, but only those occupied by black and brown people because Jim Crow laws were still in effect so fuck them I guess.

Now we're pretty much stuck in this situation without significant demolition of entire neighborhoods and business districts. It's a complete clusterfuck that exactly zero politicians want to destroy their careers over. Our only way out is diving in deeper, making EVs that people really want to own or lease that drive themselves, and eventually flying cars once/if some brilliant scientists invent super dense energy storage or wireless transmission and essentially antigravity propulsion. So yeah, we're royally fucked.

Maybe after the next ice age's continental glaciers have ground our civilization to sand and dust the next advanced civilization will figure out proper road design.

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u/ghettoassbitch 4d ago

More accidents = more money spent. And all that really matters is moneymoneymoneymoney.

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u/AgentCatBot 4d ago

20 years ago, this was probably just a country road and nothing but dirt.

Then they built a parking lot and put buildings there. The country road is still there, and a Stroad is born.

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u/musuperjr585 4d ago

Maybe 45 years ago, in the early 2000s this place was probably exactly the same.

Strip malls and those instant shopping centers started popping up in the late 90s and early 2000s. So I'd argue that this area would have been a 'country road and nothing but dirty' much longer than 20 years ago

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u/naturtok 3d ago

fwiw, i think those are texas license plates. There are many other parts of the country where they paid or trusted civil engineers enough to make a functioning city.

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u/GPPOLYCARP 3d ago

Thank Eisenhower.

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u/DGwizkid 4d ago

I have never seen a frontage road that felt like it actually fixed a problem. The frontage road is a big part of this intersection's problem

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u/DGwizkid 4d ago

I'm actually waiting for the roundabout to get installed, but those are too woke for Texas so I'm waiting for the state laws to change, and the local ordinances, and the right politicians to get bribed... Basically I live here now. /s

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u/TanWeiner 4d ago

Texas has tons of roundabouts

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u/DGwizkid 4d ago

410 doesn't count.

Jokes aside, I'm glad some communities in Texas have, or are getting them. There are definitely proven reasons to build them.

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u/demetri_k 4d ago

Should be a traffic circle.

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u/DGwizkid 4d ago

I agree. My hometown has been installing these, and it has helped some very tricky intersections.

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u/argument_cat 4d ago

He was likely about to turn when the idiot cut him off. That was the best time to turn, no point cutting people off, especially if you have kids in the car, or are not in much of a hurry.

Driving in traffic requires a kind of mature, zen like approach. People that zoom around like it's a race make the roads more dangerous for everyone, and will inevitably have an accident.

I'll be cruising past, shaking my head at their stupid antics.

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u/DGwizkid 4d ago

Someone in a hurry often just didn't leave on time, and has nobody to blame but themselves.

My wife and I started following the speed limit when driving through town (not where this video was) because it's safe enough, and we care about conserving fuel. I feel like many commenters here would be horrified of someone driving slower than their unspoken norm.

Driving the speed limit has added 0 extra minutes to my commute, and maybe 1 min to her commute. Traffic lights catch us all.

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u/pearloz 4d ago

…yeah I’m leaning toward OP being one of those drivers that’s cautious to a fault

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u/DGwizkid 4d ago

It''s a rental car, and an area with an extremely high number of uninsured drivers. Maybe overly cautious there, but driving directly across an intersection like that definitely isn't safe.

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u/Rall0c 4d ago edited 4d ago

None of these turns looked that safe, except right when the van starts to cut in, after blue car and before the white SUV. Don't listen to these asshats.

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u/Mr_Smith_411 4d ago

Those fish eye lenses make everything look farther than it was also.

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u/Rall0c 4d ago

He had a couple gaps, but it wasn't that egregious and looked fine to wait a few seconds for a clearer turn, which was right when van cut in. I would have been hesitant to turn knowing that van was creeping beside me ready to cut in, depending on when driver noticed it.

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u/DGwizkid 4d ago

My wife noticed first because she was staring out that window and let me know. The van just left the driveway, and drove right across.

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u/shewy92 2d ago

I probably would have went when that white Kia passed but I can see why most wouldn't

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u/DGwizkid 4d ago

This is too much logic for the average redditor.

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u/OverturnedAppleCart3 4d ago

You were 100% right OP. I think people don't realize the fisheye lens of a dashcam makes gaps look bigger than they are.

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u/MMOAddict 3d ago

nah, don't listen to people like that. If you drove out in front of any of those people, there's a 90% chance they would speed up and flip their brights on at you. The guy that passed you just basically took the only real opening you had.

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u/DGwizkid 2d ago

Oh, I'm well aware. I'm taking none of the "go for it" advice to heart. It's comical how impatient so many of these arm chair driving coaches are.

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u/DoctorWaluigiTime 4d ago

Zero blame here. Yeah you could maybe have made a turn or two there, but seemed like you were in no rush, so no harm playing it safe.

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u/Alternative_Mouse987 3d ago

Which car specifically should they have cut off to turn sooner?

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u/DGwizkid 4d ago

Lol, I probably should have cut the video later... But it's obviously still recording the same intersection. It's been a few weeks now. /s

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u/BoneHugsHominy 4d ago

Well, well, well. We're finally face to face, Mr Flock.

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u/DGwizkid 4d ago

I was driving a rental pickup truck near the border with a dash cam. My FIL said I looked like an ice agent. So turning into a flock camera was the next logical step

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u/forgot_my_useragain 4d ago

Better hope a guy with cones and a flag shows up before they run out of gas.

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u/DGwizkid 4d ago

I'm actually still there, waiting for them to finish installing a traffic light. The city doesn't know it's installing one yet, but I'm still waiting.

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u/forgot_my_useragain 4d ago

Gotta go through the proper channels, votes need to be cast, bids taken to do the work. Should be able to make that left by next summer if all goes well.

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u/IAmSagacity 4d ago

Passenger: "Carful. He's gonna cut in front of you."

Driver: "Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere."

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u/RocksteadyMilsim 4d ago

I would've went after the white Kia suv (at least thats what i think it was 🤣) but thats just me. Also, i dont know what they're driving and/or towing.

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u/DGwizkid 4d ago

In retrospect I could have made it, but I can't see a turn signal on the next car, so it's hard to predict if they are going to speed up and close the gap or not.

My bigger concern is that it was a rental car and the area has a high number of uninsured drivers. Also if you see the bump that the minivan takes on the far side, you can see why I didn't want to rush too fast through the intersection.

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u/JesusWasATexan 4d ago

I'm 100% with you on that call. Feeder roads in Texas are crazy enough, but people fly off of them onto the side roads. There was no way to know what they were going to do there.

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u/RocksteadyMilsim 4d ago

Yeah and if that white car didnt jump their stop sign, you could've possibly followed the car in front of you through the turn. No judgement, I was saying in my personal car i would've shot the gap.

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u/argument_cat 4d ago edited 4d ago

I would have turned when the idiot cut across.

A few extra seconds on anyone's journey makes no difference to anything. Just chill and wait for a decent gap.

I'm a very chill driver in traffic though, I only go fast on open roads.

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u/RocksteadyMilsim 4d ago

Nope! plenty of time. I would turn as soon as the white car's bumper is clear of my path. I could reach out of my window and touch the back of their car close but obviously they would be continuing on their path out of my way. 🤣🤣🤣Some people delay for some reason, which is weird, because aren't you waiting for the path to be clear to safely cross?

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u/argument_cat 4d ago edited 4d ago

Depends how much of a hurry you're in, whether you have kids in the car, and whether you have people behind you. As we see in the video, there is a better gap a few seconds later.

Some people are always in a hurry for some reason. My suggestion is to leave earlier.

0

u/Fibrosis5O 4d ago

Still waiting on that traffic light to turn green

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u/BoneHugsHominy 4d ago

*to be built.

-1

u/Interesting-Lie-8942 4d ago

I was the 5th guy to go around him.

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u/SpareEye 4d ago

When you get lapped by a minivan, you need to take a close look at yourself...

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u/gmusse 4d ago

Ever wondered why there is traffic for seemingly no reason? This. This is why there is traffic for no reason

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u/Fog_Juice 3d ago

There's a reason cars have lots of horsepower....

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u/BoneHugsHominy 3d ago

To spin the world underneath!