Intersections

Every day as I drive to pick The Preschooler up from camp, I go through what I thought was a rather simple intersection. It's one of those islanded Y's that branch off of a busy route. I come up the bottom of the Y and take a left turn onto the busy route, which can be challenging depending on the traffic level. On the way back, I come down the left-top Y branch, which is just a merge for me, super easy.

I often wonder why people don't slow down an inch and let me out (never mind I live near Boston, and we are the WORST, most aggressive drivers in the country). The people on that road know how difficult it can be to get out, as they're usually on that road ALOT. I happen to subscribe to the pay it forward theory of driving -- be nice to people so they'll be nice to someone else. It also makes me feel better in general and less like using my car as a weapon, but that's another post.

Very often when I'm coming through the return trip, someone is turning off the main road from the other direction and threatens to run me over (they have a yield). It's pretty irritating! I wonder what the heck is wrong with them that they can't see through the very open intersection and that their sole job is to YIELD.

It wasn't until one day I happened to be coming home from yet another Preschooler birthday party and came through that intersection from the opposite direction that I caught a glimpse of the problem. Now I was the one on the main road, turning left across traffic into the right-top Y part of the intersection. I poured my concentration into turning across the fast-moving traffic and found myself in the intersection almost missing the yield to someone merging off from the other direction.

Oh.

And I now had another answer for why people don't slow down to let others out: the intersection is at the crown of a hill, and the road curves up to meet the crown. You don't know the intersection is there, or that there's someone in it, until you are on top of it. To slow down there would not be a good idea.

Hm.

So now I am thinking about how all those platitudes that all mean basically: don't bitch about something until you've done it too.

Don't tell someone how to live their life.
Don't tell someone how to grieve for their loved one.
Don't tell someone how to parent their child.