Quote:
Originally Posted by stevej37
The next big question is....Do you look both ways when turning right??
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Always. I'm looking for other road users, not just car drivers. People on foot may be coming from either direction on the sidewalk.
I also never change road position (including moving within a lane) without checking my rear quarter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MBAtarga
Protocol 4 with stopping 15' short of pedestrian crosswalks and/or leaving 15' of distance behind the car in front of you is asking to be rear ended. I'm pretty certain that in city driving - NO ONE - expects the car in front of them to stop with such a distance when in traffic.
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If a driver rear-ends someone stopping 15' short of a crosswalk or stop line, then they are paying too much attention to what is in front of you and not enough attention to what is in front of them. Regardless of what may be further ahead - green light, whatever - the limits of possibility for you are determined first by who is in front of you and what they are doing. This was why the one commenter with the TT Supra hit the old guy getting on the freeway. You have to wait for them first.
My mom got in the first at-fault collision of her driving career, which at that point had spanned about 1962 to 2016, when she was behind another driver turning right in front of her from an off-ramp onto a busy commercial road; he started to pull out and then stopped, she didn't and hit him. Aside from the embarrassment she was bummed because despite the damage appearing minor, it totalled her late mom's Lexus, which she really liked.
Piggybacking your judgment on that of other drivers will always get you in trouble eventually. I see this most chronically at an intersection a block from my office - usually littered with crash debris - where drivers in the opposing direction will almost dare you to hit them as they turn left in front of you, one driver going because the driver in front of them is, and the third behind him doing the same.
When I was a teenager I somehow learned about the British book Road Craft, the British police drivers' training manual (more or less). I bought a copy and read it and learned a lot from it.
That driver passing on the rural highway with the other driver waiting to pull out of a driveway should have noticed the car waiting to pull out and delayed the pass until past the driveway.