Pothole Prairie by Tim Engstrom

It’s good to be patient when driving a motor vehicle. When driving in a hurry, there will be drivers who no doubt don’t realize your situation, and they will make you steamed. So don’t drive in a hurry, even if you are late.

The mindset for automobile traffic can be compared to the kind needed to go through security at an airport. Just go with the flow and everything will work itself out just fine.

That said, even if we aren’t in a hurry, we motorists still have a right to our opinions. We still notice people who gum up the system. After all, as a good civil engineer will tell you, the roads are meant to get people places, not deter travel.

So it is bothersome when drivers speed and break laws, but it also is bothersome when patient drivers nevertheless make annoying choices.

Here are five mostly-legal-but-annoying driving traits:

 

Not scooting over when turning

Perhaps this one bothers me because I grew up in a rural place. Out in the country — the real country, the kinds of places so rural that everyone waves at each other and even seat belt violations are listed in the weekly newspaper — on the blacktops, we would pull into the oncoming lane to slow down and turn left so that the car behind us wouldn’t have to slow down. Of course it was flat out there in northwestern Iowa, and we could see for miles that no one was in the oncoming lane.

The same went for turning right. We would edge toward the right as an indication for the car behind to go around.

So in the city, it seems courteous to edge to one side of the lane or the other, depending on whether turning left or right, to allow the other traffic to go past. It seems rude to hog the dead-center of the lane when waiting to turn. Minnesotan drivers, more than anywhere else I’ve been, especially like to sneak to the right of a left-turning driver.

 

Not driving 45 in a 45 mph zone

The speed limit on Bridge Avenue north of Oak Park Place picks up from 30 to 45 mph, yet some drivers continue at the 30 or 35 mph pace they use throughout the rest of the city. That means a convoy of drivers forms behind the slow driver who fails to read speed limit signs. Dude, it’s legal to go 45 here. Let’s pick up the pace.

The same happens on East Main Street, where the limit increases from 30 to 45 at New Life Christian Church. At least on this route there are four lanes, two in each direction, so it is easier to pass the slowpokes who don’t read.

I’m not being mean. It’s a fact. There are basically two kinds of visualization mindsets people possess: Words or images. When looking at the front page of a newspaper, word people look at a headline, image people look at a photo. The word people notice the speed limit signs. Image people notice pictures on billboards.

 

Impossibly slow turns

I’ve heard it been said slowness can cause accidents as easily as speediness. I don’t know about the “as easily” part, but I can agree that drivers anticipate the intentions of other drivers. It can be frustrating when someone turns — whether left or right — ridiculously slow. Are they waiting for someone to hit them?

When this happens, my guess is the driver has eyesight problems. I know that in the winter, if the windows inadvertently fog up again, it becomes really difficult to turn. It’s not so hard to guess straight ahead, but steering the car onto a new street without hitting parked cars or oncoming cars is trouble. Bad eyes are like a fogged-up window, I imagine.

 

Failure to use the bike lane as a turn lane

The question is on versions of the driving test the state administers. State law requires motorists to use bike lanes as right-turn lanes when there are no bicyclists present. There will be a line of cars on Front Street, with some going straight and some with blinkers indicating right turn. No bikes to be seen. The right-turners are breaking the law — and slowing traffic momentum — by not getting in the bike lane.

I just get in the bike lane, stop and turn right when it is clear. I wonder what the right-turners waiting in the long lines of cars think when I do this. Do they go: What a jerk! Or do they go: Why didn’t I do that?

 

Parking at a four-way stop

Four-way stops are pretty easy. Determine which cars came to a full stop before you came to a full stop, then proceed after those cars. If there is a tie, defer to the driver on the right.

On the coasts, the problem is motorists who want to push their way through and not follow turns. Here in the Midwest, we have a problem with people who wave everyone through.

Now, that said, I don’t mind people waving others through when, say, there was a tie or just to clarify which order the cars were in, especially after a lunatic did the California thing and budged through the intersection.

But what bothers me is when a driver more or less parks their car at the junction and waits about two or three rotations of the other drivers.

C’mon, go already! It’s your turn. Are you waiting for an act of Congress?

Patience, Engstrom. You’ve got to remember to have patience.

 

Albert Lea Tribune Editor Tim Engstrom’s column appears every Tuesday.