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In Houston you can usually get someone faster on a congested freeway by staying in the right hand lanes rather then the far left because of a-holes who drive slow in the left lane.
Location: When you take flak it means you are on target
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I live in Arizona. Several things befuddle most out of state drivers.
First is blinkers. Most are apparently afraid of wearing them out.
Next is center turn lanes, evidently if you are over 80 they think you should STOP in the fast lane until oncoming traffic clears.
Finally is SNOW! Driving on a cloudy day is dangerous enough due to older drivers with cataracts, but let even a few flakes fall and DOT has to shut down every road for a thousand miles!
U-Turns. In Oregon U-Turns are for all practical purposes illegal, so there are no “No U_Turn” signs anywhere. And people generally just don’t make U-Turns, except for out-of-state drivers. For them, it’s a free for all to make U-Turns where ever they like.
When I first moved here I was driving through a small business district and had to stop for this big RV trying to make a U-Turn on the narrow street, in front of me. My first thought was, what is he doing? This is Oregon, you can’t do that, let alone in the middle of a business district. Then when he finally got turned around, it made sense. He had California license plates. For him, since there was no sign saying he couldn’t do it, he was going to U-Turn in the middle of the business district.
I really wish Oregon would just let people make U-Turns, and put up "No U-Turn" signs, like everywhere else.
As far as I know, there is only one road in my city with one of these, and i think it's a good idea for certain areas.
I've only seen one "jughandle" anywhere in California - it's in the tiny town of Coyote at the intersection of Monterey Road and Blanchard, to the south of San Jose. It's there so that the bait and tackle shop is easy to access from either side of the highway. They got their priorities straight there.
I haven't driven across a diamond interchange, but I understand Charlotte has a couple of these. It doesn't look too complicated if you get a chance to study a pic like down below, but I wouldn't want to be one of the unlucky who comes across this completely unaware.
The suicide lanes of two major north-south arterials in Phoenix are used as reversible lanes during rush hour. The lane that serves as the median, or suicide lane, becomes an extra travel lane headed southbound during the morning rush and northbound during the evening rush. Because of this setup, drivers are prohibited from making left hand turns at stoplights during reversible lane hours. Drivers can still make lefts at street that aren't signalized, however. Usually it's someone in a rental car who will be trying to make a left during reversible lane hours probably wonder why everyone beyond him is blaring their horns.
We also have HAWK signals, which are basically lights that are activated that stop cars to allow pedestrians to cross in a mid-block crosswalk. The technology started in Tucson and has spread here. Likely because of the number of jaywalker fatalities that have occur here, the city has attempted to make pedestrian cross the street in a safe manner. At these crossings, pedestrians push an activator and within 30 seconds drivers will have solid reds alerting them to stop. The pedestrian has so many seconds to cross before the solid red light starts blinking. At that point, if there are no pedestrians in the crosswalk, drivers are supposed to treat the flashing red like they would a stop sign. Usually after ten more seconds the flashing light stops and drivers can go without stopping. Many out of staters will just stare at a flashing red and remain stopped until it stops flashing. They will probably also wonder why they are possibly getting beeped at by someone behind them.
Other than that, I don't think we have any peculiarities. You can make unprotected lefts pretty much anywhere in the entire Phoenix area. Raised medians are occasionally present, but mostly absent. You can still make lefts on solid green lights here after the green arrow goes out unlike many cities in the LA area and I'm sure many others. You can also make u-turns on reds ts as long as your car doesn't enter the intersection.
Our new Diverging Diamond intersections over a couple of freeway intersections here in NC (Charlotte Area). Unfortunately it's not just out-of-towners who get confused, but they are mainly the ones that slow down when they get to it to try to figure out WTF to do...and then end up rolling into oncoming traffic. I blame it on the fact they put stoplights right before the switch happens.
Nothing went wrong in NJ. The state simply became too overpopulated and the rotaries can no longer handle the amount of cars that are on the road.
I applaud NC for putting in traffic circles.
And you don't think certain areas of NC are becoming overpopulated????
Even in lightly populated Pinehurst our one traffic circle becomes too crowded at peak traffic times. Many of the locals are still afraid to use it even though it is one of the better designed circles.
Like I said, good for rural but that's about it.
Keep making the same mistake over and over again is not going to make it right.
And you don't think certain areas of NC are becoming overpopulated????
Even in lightly populated Pinehurst our one traffic circle becomes too crowded at peak traffic times. Many of the locals are still afraid to use it even though it is one of the better designed circles.
Like I said, good for rural but that's about it.
Keep making the same mistake over and over again is not going to make it right.
I've never lived in NC, but I have family there and visited often when I lived in Atlanta. I'm not sure I'd call it dense. The population is getting high, but there's a lot of land and wide roads. Even your denser cities like Charlotte and Raleigh only have desnity of about 2700-3000/sqmi. Some of the denser cities in NJ include Union City (50,000/sqmi) and Hoboken (40,000/sqmi). Even if you cram the entire state of NC into Charlotte, you'll still only end up with a density of 33,400/sqmi. In general the Northeast is like a different world for people living in the rest of America. Our states are tiny, but we still have the same population as states that are 10x larger.
I've never lived in NC, but I have family there and visited often when I lived in Atlanta. I'm not sure I'd call it dense. The population is getting high, but there's a lot of land and wide roads. Even your denser cities like Charlotte and Raleigh only have desnity of about 2700-3000/sqmi. Some of the denser cities in NJ include Union City (50,000/sqmi) and Hoboken (40,000/sqmi). Even if you cram the entire state of NC into Charlotte, you'll still only end up with a density of 33,400/sqmi. In general the Northeast is like a different world for people living in the rest of America. Our states are tiny, but we still have the same population as states that are 10x larger.
I have lived in both NJ and now NC and those urban cities you mentioned in NJ either don't have traffic circles or they were eliminated because of population growth.
We lived in the NJ suburbs and almost all the original circles have been eliminated or highly modified at heavy costs. I just don't think states like NC with growing populations need to revert to traffic solution of the 1930's. If you don't learn from others mistake you will continue to make them.
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