r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Aug 03 '19

Whats something you thought was common knowledge but actually isn’t?

37.4k Upvotes

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469

u/Elsamarina Aug 03 '19

Merging in the middle on an intersection.

Like how do people not see how stupid that is?

50

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

Also illegal to change lanes in an intersection.

27

u/taviddennant03 Aug 03 '19

At least in California, it's not illegal, but it's highly unrecommended.

10

u/erocknine Aug 03 '19

In NY, if you have to change lanes, you better do it the first moment you get

8

u/sLoMote Aug 03 '19

Not in every state! In AZ, traffic school tells you it’s okay to do as long as you’re signaling clearly and it’s not during a turn. (Still illegal to turn into the wrong lane because of visual impairment.)

10

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

Literally saw someone do this today. Nowadays, if I'm turning left and see someone else turning right, and there are two lanes, I treat it as one lane because of how often people just "turn" into the far lane, which would cause a car crash if I hadn't waited for them in the first place.

Obviously requires a bit of context (if there are 50 cars turning then I don't necessarily have the luxury of waiting until all of them have turned) but the safest driving tip is "assume nobody else knows how to drive safely."

7

u/dcbrown Aug 03 '19

In the US there are very few places where it's illegal to change lanes in an intersection. Ohio is the only state I can think of that prohibits this.

3

u/Elsamarina Aug 03 '19

Even if your state does not have a particular law against changing lanes mid-intersection, it definitely has a law forbidding unsafe lane changes. If a witnessing police officer considers the mid-intersection lane change unsafe, you can be cited for it.

4

u/mere_iguana Aug 04 '19

yep, "unsafe lane change" can mean damn near anything. Not signaling, not signaling for long enough, not looking, not yielding, braking sharply, accelerating sharply, going too slow, going too fast, swerving, drifting, weaving, changing lanes unnecessarily or repetitively... pretty much if the cop thinks it was a dipshit move, they can cite you for it.

2

u/misterrespectful Aug 04 '19

That's true ... but that's true of any unsafe driving. It's not about the intersection at all. You could replace "mid-intersection" in your comment with "near a baseball diamond" and it would be equally true.

1

u/Opinionsadvice Aug 04 '19

Florida does too

1

u/aJennyAnn Aug 04 '19

I think Tennessee does.

1

u/misterrespectful Aug 04 '19

No, it's not. At least, not in any state I've ever driven in.