James Burleigh
Well-known member
It's the thick of rush-hour traffic, evening. Dark. People are frantic to get home. You're on a six-lane arterial with multiple signalized intersections. The three lanes in each direction are separated by a concrete median. You're heading in the commute direction, meaning your three lanes are chock-a-block with cars, and some are changing lanes abruptly and continually to gain a one-or-two-car advantage.
So you go the pace of traffic and constantly vary your speed and lane position to stay out of people's blind spots and to leave yourself an out in the event someone changes lanes abruptly. Approaching a red light, you see the cars ahead hitting their brakes and starting to stack up, forming three long lines. Four if you include the left-turn pocket.
This being California
, you move into the center lane to double your opportunities to get to the front of the signal, and begin scanning ahead to see how the cars line up and whether they'll leave you a lane wide enough to make it to the front. You wait till all the traffic settles down and stops. Bingo! You see you can get there in the left alley between the first and second lanes. So you thread your way to the front and wait, drumming your fingers and tapping your toe to It Came Out of the Sky by Creedence, while scanning ahead and to the left and right to search for threats. You're also noting whether either of the cars to your left and right rear might be giving any indication of aggression or intention to race you off the line.
When the opposing light turns yellow, you move your clutch into the friction zone and roll on some throttle, while looking left and right for potential red-light runners. The light turns green. A last quick look left and right, and you're off the line....
But WTF is this?! You hear a sudden, loud engine acceleration and then see on your left-rear quarter coming fast a BMW Z4, and it's heading right toward the same piece of real estate as you. As you realize what has happened, you also realize the driver has no idea you're even there!
This was not the car to your left in the first lane. Where the f**k did it come from? The driver had gunned it off the left-turn lane to go straight and get ahead of the car to its immediate right in the fast lane, while at the same time you had moved out from the right of the car it had jumped ahead of.
You throttle the goose and are thankful for the FJR's acceleration and get out of the way just as this car comes even with you and then passes. You watch the car go by, furious that the driver had jumped from the left-turn lane. But, knowing that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make angry, rather than follow the driver and execute him or her in the street like the dog they are, you take a deep breath and let it go. But it makes you think that you just learned an important lesson about a new kind of threat to be aware of at intersections, and about deciding which lane to favor when pulling legally ahead from the front of the line--the center lane.
JB
P.S. Speaking of cars jumping out from the left-turn pocket, this is a threat whenever you're entering an intersection with a green light with cars stacked up to your left in the left-turn lane. They jump out of there all the time, to go straight or--worse--make a sharp right across all lanes!
So you go the pace of traffic and constantly vary your speed and lane position to stay out of people's blind spots and to leave yourself an out in the event someone changes lanes abruptly. Approaching a red light, you see the cars ahead hitting their brakes and starting to stack up, forming three long lines. Four if you include the left-turn pocket.
This being California
, you move into the center lane to double your opportunities to get to the front of the signal, and begin scanning ahead to see how the cars line up and whether they'll leave you a lane wide enough to make it to the front. You wait till all the traffic settles down and stops. Bingo! You see you can get there in the left alley between the first and second lanes. So you thread your way to the front and wait, drumming your fingers and tapping your toe to It Came Out of the Sky by Creedence, while scanning ahead and to the left and right to search for threats. You're also noting whether either of the cars to your left and right rear might be giving any indication of aggression or intention to race you off the line.When the opposing light turns yellow, you move your clutch into the friction zone and roll on some throttle, while looking left and right for potential red-light runners. The light turns green. A last quick look left and right, and you're off the line....
But WTF is this?! You hear a sudden, loud engine acceleration and then see on your left-rear quarter coming fast a BMW Z4, and it's heading right toward the same piece of real estate as you. As you realize what has happened, you also realize the driver has no idea you're even there!
This was not the car to your left in the first lane. Where the f**k did it come from? The driver had gunned it off the left-turn lane to go straight and get ahead of the car to its immediate right in the fast lane, while at the same time you had moved out from the right of the car it had jumped ahead of.
You throttle the goose and are thankful for the FJR's acceleration and get out of the way just as this car comes even with you and then passes. You watch the car go by, furious that the driver had jumped from the left-turn lane. But, knowing that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make angry, rather than follow the driver and execute him or her in the street like the dog they are, you take a deep breath and let it go. But it makes you think that you just learned an important lesson about a new kind of threat to be aware of at intersections, and about deciding which lane to favor when pulling legally ahead from the front of the line--the center lane.
JB
P.S. Speaking of cars jumping out from the left-turn pocket, this is a threat whenever you're entering an intersection with a green light with cars stacked up to your left in the left-turn lane. They jump out of there all the time, to go straight or--worse--make a sharp right across all lanes!
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