I hear you, but im going to stand by my statement.
I see the confusion on the roads; drivers with the right of way second guessing themselves on the rules of the road. Can I turn? In a neighboring city: looks wide enough and the line is dashed. Great! But in my city, no because there is a cement curb jutting out. Oops!
This is dangerous in the same way as a teen learning to drive. Its not standardized rules anymore, but city-centric. I have decades of experience to rely on and never caused an injury. knock on wood
But there have been some changes that had me confused especially in cities I don’t frequent. For example, a crosswalk that had horizontal flashing OR solid lights indicating different actions. The first time I encountered one one of those, it took longer to read and process the conditional argument then I had time before the situation was upon me. I lucked out, totally admit that, but it was a terrible, terrible design for out-of-towners learning on the road. I can not rely in my experience as I have in the past.
Our city downtown is a Mario cart track of green and white. There are hazards like curbs jutting out, bus only lanes, light rail in lanes. It is utter chaos. Drivers reach maximum cognitive saturation quicker. It is overwhelming at times; I get overwhelmed. It is simply not possible to read all the warnings and rules in real time. Its why we memorize them beforehand and take a test.
Rules for pedestrians and bicyclists keep changing. Are they going to run that stop sign? Who knows. At least they are on the right side of the road this time. Does that pedestrian between parked cars know they can’t cross with me approaching? Is that jogger with airpods going to ignore traffic control signs?
I guess we’re just a city that’s fed up. We all want our way and more rules are how we impose our will and wants on others. Some of us want predictable, some embrase the chaos.
Meeeh, going to be honest, it’s extremely late and I’m super exhausted. When the rules change frequently to mean what’s popular, they stop mattering when its important.
Example A: San Jose
Q. E. D.
Peace out, it’s been fun. :)
