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The “Hillary Hook”
I saw Hillary Clinton driving yesterday. Not literally, but you will get what I mean.
Here’s the scene: An intersection with stoplights with turning signals. Four lanes on each side of the road — left turning lane, two through lanes, right turning lane. No vehicles in the left turning lane going my direction. Vehicles in the left turning lane from the opposite direction. Vehicles in through lanes from both directions but none in the right turning lane going my direction.
I pull on to the roadway from the shopping center a few hundred feet from the intersection and stop behind a black Dodge Charger that, in turn, is stopped behind a white vehicle. The three of us are in the rightmost through-lane with vehicles on our left and in through lanes in the opposite direction. The light is red.
At that particular intersection if there is traffic in the left turn lane the ground sensor tells the stop light to switch the green turning light signals on while holding the through traffic. This is true on both sides of the intersection.
The light is red and there is no cross traffic at that moment. The Black Charger whips into the right turn lane and then into the intersection turning left in front of the waiting cars on both my direction and the opposite direction. My wife and I are astonished as no doubt were the other ten or so vehicles at the intersection.
I pondered how the driver of the Black Dodge processed this situation. He/she (yes, we all think it was probably “he” and young) had avoided any vehicle coming from behind in the right turn lane, and crossed a total of seven lanes of waiting vehicles not to mention potential cross-traffic to perform what I call the “Hillary Hook”: extremely careless but not somehow grossly negligent. The success of the Hillary Hook depends on everyone else obeying the law while your conduct is so outrageous that people are frozen into inaction.
No doubt if the act had actually been observed by law enforcement a stop would have been made and a citation issued. Of course, that is, unless the driver actually was Hillary.
Published in General
I saw a maneuver last month that I thought about writing about here, but never did. It demonstrated to me that some aggressive drivers will be that way regardless if they need to be. We were driving from L.A. to Albuquerque on I-10 and taking Loop 303 around Phoenix. It was later at night and we were enjoying three lanes of beautiful road almost by ourselves, so we’re in the far right lane. A car comes up in the far left lane and gets a few car lengths ahead of us. Then we get close to an exit and he whips across three lanes at the last minute to make the exit. Of course he didn’t disrupt anything, we were the only other car around, but if you can’t get lane changes right with no cars on the road it’s not going to happen in traffic.
I’m (still) always astonished by the people that will squeeze into a small space between me and the car in front of me immediately before they exit, rather than falling behind into the larger space immediately behind me
I try to consciously drive with the goal to keep traffic moving. Like your example in the comment, that person is causing you to slow where falling into the large space behind you would be keeping with the flow of traffic. I can rant for a long time on traffic peeves. Another is people not knowing how to use turning lanes. If there’s a turning lane, fully move into it and then slow down. Do not start braking in traffic and slowly drift into the turning lane. Clear traffic and then make your turn.
I used to listen to Adam Carolla and he frequently ranted on traffic and drivers. It helps his availability of material that he lives in L.A. One key insight was telling people to take responsibility for their mistakes. If you miss an exit or turn, man up and take the next exit or street. Don’t cut off people because you made a mistake.
A thoroughly apt analogy.
A few years ago we were on the Baltimore beltway in very slow traffic, 3 lanes bumper to bumper. The pickup behind me finally pulled out and roared down the shoulder. But just behind him was an unmarked cop, who flashed the light an pulled out right behind him. We passed him about 3 minutes later.
Mmm. Dodge Charger. Mmmm
And in case I wasn’t clear, I’m talking about people who come up from behind me in the left lane, and pass me immediately before diving into the off-ramp to the right.
It seems to have gotten a bit better lately, but it used to happen about once a week on my way to work.
The red-light running has gotten worse though, especially on the left turn lanes. It’s now rare that I don’t see at least two or three cars turn left that didn’t even come close to entering the intersection before the light turned red.
That maneuver is what is known as the ‘Baltimore Dive Bomb.’
It helps to explain the behavior if you realize that the people who drive like this are not “driving in traffic”, they are “winning the race”.
It’s not enough for them to get to their destination, they have to beat you there.