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Pat Hartman

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I'm not standing up for her. I agree. There is a 4-way stop near my house that I go through regularly and no one understands the rules. It's not just the woman. So instead of going clockwise, they go randomly, apparently in the order they think they arrived at the intersection.

Also, even worse, I live near a large manufacturer and that property abuts a highway exit. People coming out of the plant persist in blocking the "box" which at rush hour backs up traffic on the highway causing extreme danger to those people.
 

pbaldy

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So instead of going clockwise, they go randomly, apparently in the order they think they arrived at the intersection.

I've never heard of a clockwise rule. How would you determine who is where on the clock to know who goes first? The rule I learned is that the first to arrive has the right of way, so in my view those people are correct.
 

Isaac

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I've never heard of a clockwise rule. How would you determine who is where on the clock to know who goes first? The rule I learned is that the first to arrive has the right of way, so in my view those people are correct.
That was my reaction too but I was timid to say so :)

I do know at least in my state there are some additional more nuanced rules about who is turning right vs. left, as well as a sort of "catch all" regarding who can do what with the least impact to traffic - which kinds of leaves the whole thing a bit useless and subjective - but I still was left with the general impression that FIFO is the most common, near-universal (all states) rule (but do not claim to be certain of it).
 

NauticalGent

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I've never heard of a clockwise rule. How would you determine who is where on the clock to know who goes first? The rule I learned is that the first to arrive has the right of way, so in my view those people are correct.
Virginia is replacing a lot of 4-ways with round-abouts. These US driers (except for Maryland) are a little intimidated at first but learn to love them real quick!
 

pbaldy

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Virginia is replacing a lot of 4-ways with round-abouts. These US driers (except for Maryland) are a little intimidated at first but learn to love them real quick!

We're getting more and more of them around here too. They do seem to let traffic flow better.
 

pbaldy

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I do know at least in my state there are some additional more nuanced rules

Same here. I think the second rule of thumb is that if 2 arrive at the intersection at the same time, the one to the right has the right of way.
 

Pat Hartman

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pbaldy beat me to it. After multiple people are there, they fall into a clockwise rotation since there is no way to determine who is in what position when there are multiple people at each entrance to the intersection.
 

Isaac

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well now i'm really confused. the "directional" rule makes sense to me in roudabouts (although I didn't kinow we were talking about roundabouts), except it's backwards - it's enter and go to the right , which would be counterclockwise. unless you're in the UK.

or @Pat Hartman are you talking about multiple, in the sense of multiple lanes in any one direction? that I guess makes sense, but otherwise, I have no trouble knowing what my FIFO place is even at a fully busy, 4-way stop sign
 

Pat Hartman

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I may have my left and my right confused. But at a 4-way stop, cars move through the intersection clockwise (maybe it's counter clockwise. The car to your right goes first. But since everyone has a car to their right, someone just turns). I guess if four cars pull up at the same time, someone goes first, then the others proceed clockwise. They don't proceed in the order in which they pulled up. Usually it all moves smoothly unless one of the legs empties while the others still have cars and then a new driver enters that path and they don't work out the rotation and turn when it isn't their turn. That confuses everyone since they can't figure out whether to pick up after the new car that made the mistake or where they left off:)
 

Isaac

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Interesting. Well, I may have to humbly admit I was wrong, I always thought that First In First Out was the top priority as long as there were no other issues (like people arriving at the same time).

But we have to concede that technically speaking, each state has their own laws, so there may be some parts of the country where the laws and customs are more one way than the other.

This inspires me to look up AZ rule on 4 way stops, I will post back with what I find. Now that I joked about posting the "Dear Women of Mountain Park Ranch" sign, I can't be thought a fool ! 🤣🤣
 

Dick7Access

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Women often err on the side of politeness. Your neighbor would never make it through a traffic circle in Boston. Especially the one where you get off at the end of i-90. The theory there is if you make eye contact, you've lost. You just close your eyes and bull your way through. Let the others avoid you. I find driving in Boston to be terrifying in general. I'd rather drive in Manhattan. At least in Manhattan, the streets are a grid. Last time I was in Boston, my partner was driving and we came to an inter section with 6 roads and three traffic lights. We sat through four light cycles before we figured out which one controlled the path we wanted to take. Luckily traffic was light or someone would have shot us.

In general, the discussions here are g rated although sometimes we escalate to pg-13 as this one did. The "b" word has lost much of its former oomph and is usually treated as a minor swear word.
I have lived worked and driven in Boston and driven in many other big cities. My worst nightmares were driving an RV in Philly.
 

Isaac

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I almost always let the other guy go first, they always seem to be in a bigger hurry than myself :D
About 3 or 4 years ago something switched in my brain and emotions in regard to the traffic issue. I realized that virtually 100% of my frustration (and I would submit most people's frustration), in traffic is totally caused by themselves. I realized that the only reason I was frustrated with the people in front of me was because I was constantly trying to get around them and drive fast. Once I decided to just slow down and start leaving at the right time instead of leaving borderline late, all of my problems magically disappeared. I drive generally in the right lane (like a good boy because I'm driving slower than most people). If someone chooses to go over in the right lane and get behind me that's on them.. everyone knows what the right lane is for. I no longer am trying to get around everyone therefore all of the frustrations are gone. I am at peace and I get to my destination in approximately the same time as everyone else does. Any few moments difference is virtually imperceptible and covered by the fact that I leave at a good time .

There are of course some exceptions to this, but it virtually eliminated the problem of frustration in traffic. I stopped driving like a maniac and realized that that was the thing that had actually been causing most of the problem.

I think it happened because after my wife had surgery I had to drive really slow to avoid jostling her. After a few weeks of this I noticed all the people driving slower were at complete peace. All of the people driving faster were frustrated as hell and having a terrible time of it. I realized I could just decide to be the slower and more peaceful people anytime I chose!

I bring this up because it fascinates me, it's one of a SMALL handful of things in my life that completely switched from day to night in my behavior and was quite the epiphany when it did. I am now safer and don't endanger other people's lives as much either. I'm happier also.. now if I could just transfer this approach to about a dozen other areas! Lol
 

Mike Krailo

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For years I have had a sort of petty fantasy - in this dream, I creep up to their side of the intersection in the middle of the night and plant a sign that simply says: Dear Women of Mountain Ranch Park: If YOU stopped first, YOU GO FIRST!
Where I live, that mentality isn't displayed just by women. This is one of my pet peeves too. I have no idea what compels them to do it either. I've seen some people get to the stop sign 3 or 4 seconds before me and still do the hand wave. If I'm not in a hurry, I'll just ignore them and wait for them to go simply to make a point. Not using turn signals is another one but not as bad as the hand wave at the stop sign. It's like the kid at the playground who climbs up the ladder to go down the slide but instead of going down the side like everyone else, decides they are going to camp out at the top and refuse to go down the slide just waving you through.

And Isaac, I try to slow it down nowadays as well but if my wife is riding shotgun, she always feels the need to tell me every opportunity there is to get around the cars in front of me. I have to reminder her that we are not in a race, but it doesn't matter, she does it anyways. If she drives, it's like a maniac on the roads but she completely falls apart in the parking lots and cannot park to save her life.
 

The_Doc_Man

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Talking about people who just follow traffic rules and let others watch out for themselves, I remembered a guy at Univ. of New Orleans back in the early '70s who took the attitude of, "I'm coming through, obeying traffic laws, but if you try to cut me off, it's at your own risk." Somehow, he had obtained a war surplus German Army Staff Command Car, which was armored but street-legal. No tank treads, had proper headlights and taillights, horn & windshield wipers worked, ... passed state inspection so the state approved it. It went fast enough for his needs since he didn't take it out on Interstate highways.

One day a VW "Beetle" ran a stop sign at the main intersection in-campus. Took the traffic maintenance folks two days to clear all of the debris from the side of the road. The Command Car? Needed a little bit of gray paint. There are times these days when I wish I had one of those cars.
 

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