An Example of Why Other People Confound Me

This is the intersection at SE 52nd and Holgate.

There is a traffic signal in all directions. I frequently bike through this intersection heading south quite late at night with little of note happening (much like the rest of my ride). Tonight, though, I saw something that utterly perplexes me.

Some background. When I'm riding late at night and there is little to no traffic, I will slow at red lights, but if the coast is clear, I will continue through. It is my believe that without traffic, a traffic light has no meaning and there should be a change in the laws that from, say, 11 PM to 5 AM, all traffic lights should be treated as stop signs. Or better yet, blinking reds (except for when there is still a relatively high volume of traffic, which is why the blinking red would work best) (plus, not all signals sense when a bike is waiting and will repeatedly skip my turn). However, if there is another car at the intersection with me waiting for a green light, I will wait for the light to change. I don't want to fuel the fire between drivers and cyclists by blowing red lights right in front of them.

As I'm riding south on 52nd Avenue, a car passes, but the light at Holgate changes to red. The car comes to a stop, but, seeing no traffic in either direction, proceeds through the red light only to turn into the driveway to the right immediately after the intersection. This driveway is right in front of the Bud Light truck on the image above (and leads to a Plaid Pantry parking lot). Also on this same image, right behind the Bud Light truck, is another driveway.

So, if you're not with me yet, I'll break it down. This driver, heading south on 52nd came to the red light at Holgate. Instead of taking a legal right turn on red and make an equally legal left turn into the Plaid Pantry parking lot, the driver decided to drive straight through the red light to make the right into the lot. What the hell is wrong with people?

It's possible that my mind is so boggled because drivers are always talking about how cyclists break so many laws when this shows, clearly that drivers break these same laws (and let's not forget it's a Saturday night and there's a high probability that the driver is buzzed at the least. He or she is hitting up a Plaid Pantry at 1 AM after all...). But as someone who likes to believe he's remotely logical, this is the sort of thing that will eat at me for a while because I will never know what the driver was thinking. The incident drove me to write far too many words on the subject, for crying out loud. After at 13 hour shift! I hope that the passenger gave him or her an earful, at least.

People...

Public Service Announcement: Turn Signals

The lack of turn signal use makes me apoplectic. Aside from pressing down on the gas pedal, it might be the easiest thing to use in a car and there is no excuse not to use it. As such, this post is a bit of a surprise for me.

For the love of god, people... when you are faced with an off-set intersection such as this one:

and you want to go straight, DO NOT USE YOUR TURN SIGNAL! It's confusing and creates all sorts of traffic related confusion, be it cars, bikes, or pedestrians. As you can see from the picture, you don't even change street numbers. Plus, there's only only three options: left, right, and "straight." Ideally, we can figure out that if you don't signal, you're continuing on 52nd (in this scenario and provided you aren't one of those assholes who doesn't signal at all). 

This intersection happens to be on my bike route to work, so I've had time to build up a lot of rage about this subject.

Conversely, when faced with an intersection life this:

please, do use a turn signal, even if you're making that slight right. It's the nice thing to do.

People In Cars, Alone

I ride my bike nearly everywhere in Portland unless I'm traveling with my pregnant fiancee or going somewhere where I know my panniers won't be enough carrying capacity, like for grocery shopping (note to self: add cargo bike to wedding registry). On these bike rides, which mostly consist of going to the climbing gym and to work, I've compiled a lot of circumstantial data that a vast majority of people driving around town are driving alone. This makes me crazy. Portland is not a big city and is very easy to get around via bike and we have above average public transportation. There is no reason for so many people to be driving around alone (the sheer number of solo drivers I see everyday leads me to believe that it's statistically unlikely that everyone is going to the grocery store or other such errands where they need the extra car space).

So I was glad to see that my observations are correct. The numbers on this report boggle my mind.
Is it laziness or are we such a car-centric culture that it doesn't even occur to people that here are other options? I've talked to a few patrons at the theater who completely forgot that there is a transit stop two blocks away that is fed by three MAX lines and several buses. And the reason we started talking is that they were complaining about the parking! It feels like people just want to complain about all of the inconveniences of driving and not do anything about it.

It's a shame that people don't realize that not driving saves money, saves aggravation (I rarely have trouble finding parking), and keeps them healthy (which can even save money in the long run due to fewer health costs) among other things.  Of course, one irony we're facing in Portland is that with less people driving, less money comes in through gas taxes and that's less money for PBOT. However, bikes, walking, and buses all mean fewer cars on the road, which means less wear and tear so the roads last longer.

In the end, I just want people to think if they have to go somewhere alone, do they really need to drive?