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Our city is driving my stress levels through the roof this week by giving me its own special brand of the Twelve Days of Christmas, crappy driving style.
Yesterday, wherein someone tried to give me heart failure
I've been out and about doing errands for several days now, hence the surge in Roadkill posts from me, but yesterday was the marathon of errands. I was out for almost five hours straight running all over town, when I'm usually gone for no more than two. Part of the shopping marathon involved getting from I-95 North to I-91 to get to the next store.
91S to 95 (North or South) is a nightmare, but it's not too bad in the reverse. Usually. 95N at this point widens to four lanes across, with the right two lanes continuing as 95N and the left two lanes becoming the center two lanes of 91N. Shortly after the split, an on-ramp from Hwy 34 joins on the left as the leftmost lane, and a bit after that, an on-ramp from 95S becomes the rightmost lane, bringing the total to four lanes heading north.
I was in the left of the two 95N lanes. A white, windowless van came up parallel with me in the Hwy 34 lane, drifting towards me a bit. I thought it was because of his momentum on the sweeping curve, and slowed down a bit. Then I realized the van wasn't going to stop, and hit the brakes as he continued to blithely merge right into my space without signalling. It was only my quick reaction that kept him from taking a chunk out of my front bumper. I honked, but I don't think he even realized he had just about sideswiped me.
It took all the way to the next store to get the adrenaline and panic to go away.
Today. Just, Today.
I didn't want to get back in the car today after all the crazy this week, but we needed two things from just one more store, and that store wasn't anywhere close to the rest of the stops this week, so I'd saved it for today. One stop. It should've been short and simple. Short it was. Simple it was not.
There's a lot of scattered roadwork on the one street I usually take to get downtown, tightening already narrow roads down to a single lane in places. One such patch of construction was near one intersection I needed to turn at to take the convoluted but less constructiony detour. The traffic light was still on, and I was behind a school bus so I couldn't see if they even had a police officer directing things. The bus went ahead of me through the single lane, but the light turned red then and training kicked in. I hesitated. Then the bus moved out of the way, and I saw the police officer, with his hand up toward me. I moved forward again, when the officer suddenly motioned for me to stop. Halfway into the single lane. Luckily, the one car actually going my way had enough room to squeeze by, and then it was my turn again and I was able to go and turn down the side street I wanted.
A little ahead, I encountered a pickup truck stopped across my driving lane just beyond an intersection with a stop sign. The truck had traffic cones in its bed, but the driver was puttering around in his door with some sort of cannister, rather than doing anything related to the cones, so I have no clue what was going on. I stopped at the stop sign, the driver looked at me briefly, then continued to mess around with whatever. Fortunately, the one-way street branching off of that intersection was going the right way, so I was able to turn and go on an even longer detour rather than wait around for whatever Pickup Guy was doing. When I came through 45 minutes later, the pickup was gone.
Yet another intersection. Three cars ahead of me, three cars in the oncoming lanes. As I approached, the light turned green for both directions (no protected lefts at this intersection). Before the lead car in my lane can barely get into the intersection, the oncoming lead car roared through a left-hand turn, nearly getting hit as he cut off the lead car in my lane.
Driving down another street, a pickup truck roared backwards out of its driveway, forcing me to slam on my brakes. The pickup stopped in time as well, though I heard some honking that I thought was from the vehicles behind me due to my sudden stop.
Then at the next intersection, I stopped at the red light to wait to make a right-hand turn. As with most intersections in town, it was signed "No turn on red," plus I would be turning onto a busy five-lane road (two each way plus center turn lane), so I waited for the light to turn green. Suddenly I heard the same honking behind me, kind of like when annoying people jiggle your doorbell several times in a row, right before the pickup from the driveway pulled up on my left. Honking all the while, it began inching out into the intersection, with the light still red. Eventually the busy cross traffic had to stop as this huge pickup was in the way, at which point it ran the red to make a left turn.
Still waiting at that intersection, this creaky old guy waffled a bit at the edge of the sidewalk before finally crossing in front of me at a snail's pace, though the pedestrian signal still said "Don't Walk." Just as he reached the far end of the crosswalk, the pedestrian signal switched to "Walk." There were no other pedestrians, so all directions of traffic had to wait through a useless signal. I wish I could say this was a one-time occurrence in this town, but I'd be lying.
Right after I finally got to turn onto the busy street, I saw a woman standing in the middle of the two oncoming lanes of traffic, waiting to finish her jaywalk.
When I went to turn into the store parking lot (finally!), I had to stop for yet another Creaky Old Person who slowly inched across the lot entrance. My car and the car parked on the street next to me made it so the drivers behind me couldn't see the old lady at all, leading to some exasperated looks as I waited to finish my turn.
Then on the way home, a school bus nearly took off my sideview mirror because it was riding the center line and a car parked on my side of the street left me very little room to drive (the car on my side stuck out farther than it should have thanks to the heaps of snow).
Not to mention all the people who don't bother signalling when they change lanes or make turns, and the people who stop half a car-length in front of the stop line and wonder why cross traffic have to swerve around them.
So thanks to all this, I absolutely refuse to go anywhere tomorrow. You can't make me!
Yesterday, wherein someone tried to give me heart failure
I've been out and about doing errands for several days now, hence the surge in Roadkill posts from me, but yesterday was the marathon of errands. I was out for almost five hours straight running all over town, when I'm usually gone for no more than two. Part of the shopping marathon involved getting from I-95 North to I-91 to get to the next store.
91S to 95 (North or South) is a nightmare, but it's not too bad in the reverse. Usually. 95N at this point widens to four lanes across, with the right two lanes continuing as 95N and the left two lanes becoming the center two lanes of 91N. Shortly after the split, an on-ramp from Hwy 34 joins on the left as the leftmost lane, and a bit after that, an on-ramp from 95S becomes the rightmost lane, bringing the total to four lanes heading north.
I was in the left of the two 95N lanes. A white, windowless van came up parallel with me in the Hwy 34 lane, drifting towards me a bit. I thought it was because of his momentum on the sweeping curve, and slowed down a bit. Then I realized the van wasn't going to stop, and hit the brakes as he continued to blithely merge right into my space without signalling. It was only my quick reaction that kept him from taking a chunk out of my front bumper. I honked, but I don't think he even realized he had just about sideswiped me.
It took all the way to the next store to get the adrenaline and panic to go away.
Today. Just, Today.
I didn't want to get back in the car today after all the crazy this week, but we needed two things from just one more store, and that store wasn't anywhere close to the rest of the stops this week, so I'd saved it for today. One stop. It should've been short and simple. Short it was. Simple it was not.
There's a lot of scattered roadwork on the one street I usually take to get downtown, tightening already narrow roads down to a single lane in places. One such patch of construction was near one intersection I needed to turn at to take the convoluted but less constructiony detour. The traffic light was still on, and I was behind a school bus so I couldn't see if they even had a police officer directing things. The bus went ahead of me through the single lane, but the light turned red then and training kicked in. I hesitated. Then the bus moved out of the way, and I saw the police officer, with his hand up toward me. I moved forward again, when the officer suddenly motioned for me to stop. Halfway into the single lane. Luckily, the one car actually going my way had enough room to squeeze by, and then it was my turn again and I was able to go and turn down the side street I wanted.
A little ahead, I encountered a pickup truck stopped across my driving lane just beyond an intersection with a stop sign. The truck had traffic cones in its bed, but the driver was puttering around in his door with some sort of cannister, rather than doing anything related to the cones, so I have no clue what was going on. I stopped at the stop sign, the driver looked at me briefly, then continued to mess around with whatever. Fortunately, the one-way street branching off of that intersection was going the right way, so I was able to turn and go on an even longer detour rather than wait around for whatever Pickup Guy was doing. When I came through 45 minutes later, the pickup was gone.
Yet another intersection. Three cars ahead of me, three cars in the oncoming lanes. As I approached, the light turned green for both directions (no protected lefts at this intersection). Before the lead car in my lane can barely get into the intersection, the oncoming lead car roared through a left-hand turn, nearly getting hit as he cut off the lead car in my lane.
Driving down another street, a pickup truck roared backwards out of its driveway, forcing me to slam on my brakes. The pickup stopped in time as well, though I heard some honking that I thought was from the vehicles behind me due to my sudden stop.
Then at the next intersection, I stopped at the red light to wait to make a right-hand turn. As with most intersections in town, it was signed "No turn on red," plus I would be turning onto a busy five-lane road (two each way plus center turn lane), so I waited for the light to turn green. Suddenly I heard the same honking behind me, kind of like when annoying people jiggle your doorbell several times in a row, right before the pickup from the driveway pulled up on my left. Honking all the while, it began inching out into the intersection, with the light still red. Eventually the busy cross traffic had to stop as this huge pickup was in the way, at which point it ran the red to make a left turn.
Still waiting at that intersection, this creaky old guy waffled a bit at the edge of the sidewalk before finally crossing in front of me at a snail's pace, though the pedestrian signal still said "Don't Walk." Just as he reached the far end of the crosswalk, the pedestrian signal switched to "Walk." There were no other pedestrians, so all directions of traffic had to wait through a useless signal. I wish I could say this was a one-time occurrence in this town, but I'd be lying.
Right after I finally got to turn onto the busy street, I saw a woman standing in the middle of the two oncoming lanes of traffic, waiting to finish her jaywalk.
When I went to turn into the store parking lot (finally!), I had to stop for yet another Creaky Old Person who slowly inched across the lot entrance. My car and the car parked on the street next to me made it so the drivers behind me couldn't see the old lady at all, leading to some exasperated looks as I waited to finish my turn.
Then on the way home, a school bus nearly took off my sideview mirror because it was riding the center line and a car parked on my side of the street left me very little room to drive (the car on my side stuck out farther than it should have thanks to the heaps of snow).
Not to mention all the people who don't bother signalling when they change lanes or make turns, and the people who stop half a car-length in front of the stop line and wonder why cross traffic have to swerve around them.
So thanks to all this, I absolutely refuse to go anywhere tomorrow. You can't make me!
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