Our son turns sixteen this summer, and I’ll be sliding over to the passenger’s seat as he begins the lifelong process of learning how to drive. Over the past few months, he’s been asking a lot of questions whenever we get into the car, so I’ve been taking note of the amusing habits of other drivers even more than usual. I want to be able to explain the different situations and personalities he’s likely to encounter out there, and to help him make sense of it all. I’m not optimistic.
One example involves two cars that cross paths as they both try to make left turns. Now things may have changed since I first learned to drive with my father. Or maybe he was more considerate than most, and my expectations are too high. But I was taught that if I’m making a left turn and you’re also making a left turn out of the road I’m headed into, I should let you go first, if possible. The reason is simple: I’m holding up the traffic behind me, allowing you to make your turn. It’s going to take you just a couple of seconds to pull out, so nobody is inconvenienced. But if I go ahead with my turn, there may be a line of thirty cars behind me, and you’re stuck sitting there, waiting and waiting. All in all, the first option seems preferable. You’re happy and there’s one fewer frustrated driver on the road.
But I seem to be the only person who thinks this way, at least where I live. I’m always left sitting, and waiting. Worse, when I’m the one with the right of way and I try to let the other car make his turn, the driver goes into some kind of catatonic state. He can’t believe what’s happening and sometimes the shock is just too much for him. After a few seconds, he regains consciousness and the control of his extremities, and he begins to pull out. But by then, I’ve grown impatient and I start to make my turn. Then we both stop. Then we both go a little. The guy behind me is honking his brains out, and now there are at least three more frustrated drivers on the road.
I once believed I could change this situation around, just by winning over one driver at a time with the courtesy my father instilled in me. Surely they’d all come to see that my way was better.
Maybe my son will have more luck.
Here’s a series of diagrams to show you what I’m talking about.
Mostly Bright Ideas 
charlespaolino
June 7, 2010
A few miles from where I live, there is an old stone railroad overpass that is in the middle of an S turn, so that there is limited visibility for traffic coming in either direction. The road that goes under the railroad is busy because it’s a convenient shortcut between two highways, and because it is the locale of a large county park. Only one car at a time can fit through the hole in the wall, and there are often queues on both sides. Drivers here are conditioned to the etiquette there — one car at a time goes through in alternating directions. The overpass should be replaced, but railroads being what they are, that’s not likely to happen. That may be for the best, because the condition there forces us to be as considerate as we should be all the time.
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bronxboy55
June 7, 2010
I think for the most part, people are rude and inconsiderate while driving because they can be: they’re protected inside their vehicles and they feel some exaggerated sense of power. The same guy who holds the door for you at the post office will, five minutes later, cut you off in the parking lot if it means he’ll get through the traffic light sooner. But then there are those situations such as the one you described. I see the same thing at four-way stop signs. Is it the fear of chaos that motivates drivers to become human again?
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Margaret Reyes Dempsey
February 24, 2011
Look again, here comes car G. ROFL. You crack me up. Love your diagrams.
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bronxboy55
February 25, 2011
I had forgotten about this one, Margaret, although I continue to run into this situation every day.
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Wyrd Smythe
January 25, 2013
While your sense of courtesy is admirable, in the situation you diagrammed the rules of right of way are very clear. The car at the boulevard stop has no right of way, especially since they are making a left turn (which always puts you on the bottom of the pecking order).
The problem with not following the rules of the road is that you confuse drivers who know the rules. Driving should be like a ballet. The moves are prescribed, and given the life-and-death circumstances of piloting a ton of steel, it’s important we all dance in step.
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bronxboy55
January 26, 2013
Right-of-way wasn’t my point, though; courtesy was. I have no obligation to hold the door for someone coming into the bank behind me, but I always do. My frustration with the left-turn thing is that it only works if everyone is thinking the same way. Obviously, I’m in a very small minority, and it isn’t going to change.
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Wyrd Smythe
January 26, 2013
I understood, and the courtesy is truly admirable. I really wish more people had that mindset. But the rules of the road and the need to be in step with other drivers trumps that in this case. It’s not the same as holding the door; there’s no set protocol for those times when you shouldn’t hold the door.
The situation you describe, the rules are absolutely clear; you take the turn. Your courtesy is negatively affecting several people behind you while enabling that one person. It creates a situation where that other person needs to trust you, needs to check traffic coming the other way, needs to trust no one behind you will cut around you.
It’s actually creating a more dangerous traffic situation than proceeding normally. The guy at the boulevard stop just needs to wait for a gap in the traffic. I do that every work night off the freeway ramp coming home.
It’s weird, but courtesy isn’t always the right guideline when driving. Consider the extreme case of someone sitting at a four-way stop so courteously they never take their turn.
One important lesson for new drivers is that knowing and taking your right of way is a key to good driving.
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