Monday, June 21, 2004
Stupid Traffic Patterns
I like Minnesota, but some of the traffic patterns used all over the state (at least all over the Twin Cities area) are kind of dangerous.
There are a lot of entrance/exit ramps on the Highway that use the same lane and the entrance ramp comes before the exit ramp. So you have a lot of people trying to merge onto the highway, while at the same time a lot of people are trying to get into the exit lane, but they have to merge in with all the people entering the highway first. So you have a bunch of slow cars coming on who are trying to get up to highway speed and a lot of fast cars trying to slow down to exit ramp speed and they're all trying to do this in the same lane. It seems very unsafe to me.
On smaller highways (4 or more lanes, but with lights and stuff), there are a lot of intersections where you'll have two lanes going one way and both can go straight at the intersection, but then, after you get through the light, they immediately merge into a single lane. If someone's not paying attention, it's easy to assume that the lane will continue for a while - otherwise, why have both lanes go straight. It's stupid, and if there are more than about 2 cars on the road, it's a pain to merge after the intersection even if you do know about it.
But it's still better than driving in Ohio or New York.
There are a lot of entrance/exit ramps on the Highway that use the same lane and the entrance ramp comes before the exit ramp. So you have a lot of people trying to merge onto the highway, while at the same time a lot of people are trying to get into the exit lane, but they have to merge in with all the people entering the highway first. So you have a bunch of slow cars coming on who are trying to get up to highway speed and a lot of fast cars trying to slow down to exit ramp speed and they're all trying to do this in the same lane. It seems very unsafe to me.
On smaller highways (4 or more lanes, but with lights and stuff), there are a lot of intersections where you'll have two lanes going one way and both can go straight at the intersection, but then, after you get through the light, they immediately merge into a single lane. If someone's not paying attention, it's easy to assume that the lane will continue for a while - otherwise, why have both lanes go straight. It's stupid, and if there are more than about 2 cars on the road, it's a pain to merge after the intersection even if you do know about it.
But it's still better than driving in Ohio or New York.
