My wife is reading a book that mentioned “The Pittsburgh Left”. It’s mentioned on this website. I’m reading this website right now. http://59u.blogspot.com/
The book said this driving habit is only practiced in Pittsburgh & Shanghai. The Pittsburgh LeftThe narrow streets of Pittsburgh are not conducive to left turns, so Pittsburghers watch the light closely to make a quick left turn before opposing traffic moves. Over time, this evolved into some kind of common courtesy that overrides the law. Always let someone take a left in front of you.
I’ve seen “The Parking Chair” but has never practiced this habit. This is America after all.
The wesbite also has a video of folks talking Pittsburghese. I haven’t lived there since I went away to school. Other folks from Pittsburgh can comment on the accuracy.
I remember in NE Ohio, when the light turns green you ease into the intersection, looking both ways for some sucker that is still 1/2 a block back doing 90 miles an hour that’s gonna make the light.
It is a bit of an adjustment from out here where it is more of a drag race starts now thing…
Driving habits are, no doubt, regionally distinct. I breathe vastly easier once I get out of the northern New Jersey world of intolerant, impatient, type As.
In our area Annapolis/Baltimore/D.C., those chartreuse crosswalk signs on either side of a striped crossing are a relatively new thing. They mean you are obligated to stop if anyone is about to step into the crosswalk. (No stoplight involved.) But because they’re newish, we don’t always remember to notice them as we breeze by (but I try, seriously, and usually do stop.) Some people don’t even know they’re supposed to stop though.
They have the same thing in San Diego. But what I noticed there, from the standpoint of being a pedestrian, is that San Diegans are very well trained. Any time Jeff and I got anywhere near one of those crossings, suddenly cars would stop, their drivers looking at us expectantly. Sometimes I’d even back up and shake my head apologetically, because I hadn’t really decided whether to cross the street yet.
There’s a thing in Ontario that’s similar. In some lights, one direction (north) will turn green before the opposite (south), which is signalled by the light flashing green. What that means is that northbound motorists have until the flashing stops to turn left, although all lanes can go straight or turn right. When the flashing stops, the other direction (south) turns from red to green. North goes to solid green. East and West still have red. This situation is called ‘advanced green’, and is announced by a discreet sign bearing the cryptic ‘advanced green when flashing’.
I’ve seen it in New York City. I’ve also seen using two lanes to make left turns on wide streets where it is illegal. Using the second lane is about the only way to get through on some busy streets, if there is someone with no nerves in the left turn lane refusing to go. In New York, it isn’t common courtesy, it is more like dog-eat-dog, or perhaps taxi-eat-taxi.
In New Jersey there are few left turns. Most of the time, to go left, you stay in the right lane and take a jug-handle side road, swinging around.
Delivery company UPS has their computer draw up routes that avoids left turns because accidents and delays are much more common when their drivers are making left turns.
The phone company in Ontario was said to have trained their drivers to make three rights rather than a left, because of the sheer number of accidents that arose from making left hand turns.
We are going to get red light cameras in our community after a long fought battle in the legislature. It will be interesting to see if the greatest transgressors, who happen to be police, get tickets.
Members of my family all over the country will pull into intersections past the light to make left turns. Even when the light changes most believe they have a legitimate right away because they were there first. It gets even more exciting when red light runners continue through the intersections while the folks with the right away venture forth.
I particularly enjoy upstate New York farmer’s turns where they signal their intent and slow down 2-5 miles before they reach their turn on busy two lane roadways.
You could, at least on someone’s handwritten signs intending “right o’ way”, I’m thinking. Or in that newish jocular misspelling convention born of some types of marketing, “right-o-way”, like as in “tons-o-stuff”. That’s even backcrept into speech such that for emphasis I’ll bite the words off and say, “Tons. O. Stuff.”
Denny,
It’s still like that in NE Ohio. In Cleveland the lights always stay on red in both directions for a second or two, presumably to let that last sucker get through the light without killing anybody.
I celebrate this practice. I live by an intersection where if a person didn’t do this they may have to wait through a couple of lights to get the opportunity to make a left turn. Not me.
I remember in NE Ohio, when the light turns green you ease into the intersection, looking both ways for some sucker that is still 1/2 a block back doing 90 miles an hour that’s gonna make the light.
