So, I take my drivers license test next week Friday. I’ve been learning to drive for a year now, and for the last month I’ve been driving to and from university almost every day (with a qualified driver in the car, of course). And this has been through the rush-hour Mowbray traffic. So I’m used to most of the odd and dangerous things that Capetonian drivers do. What happened this morning, however, still has me amazed five hours later.
On the way to UCT from Pinelands, I was on Raapenberg Road where it joins Klipfontein Road. (OpenStreetMap plug: here). I was the first in the queue, stopped at the lights and waiting to turn right onto Klipfontein. Because the lights at Liesbeeck Parkway (here) were out, the traffic was really clogged up. Indeed, when the lights changed to green for me, there was no space to turn into on Klipfontein Road because the whole intersection was full of cars going straight on Klipfontein that had entered the intersection without being able to clear it. So, naturally, I didn’t move into the intersection because I was waiting for some space to appear to turn into.
This, apparently, was not good enough for the idiot in the Mercedes behind me, who was clearly in too much of a hurry to actually think. He decided that if I wasn’t going to go, he was going to just pull around me and enter the intersection. When he did this, of course, there was absolutely no space for him to go, so he ended up stopping in the middle of the intersection.
Now, of course, the lights change, and Mr Merc is blocking both lanes of traffic going the other way on Klipfontein. And, as is the way of such things, a space didn’t open for him until the lights were about to change back again – and enough space opened up that I could go across as well, ending up right behind him. So, ultimately, for the sake of getting exactly one car ahead, he blocked two lanes of traffic for a whole traffic light cycle.
Hmm. Maybe a diagram would explain things more clearly:
(click for full version)
What is even more disturbing is that the traffic turning left from Klipfontein onto Raapenberg (left lane of yellow cars in the diagram) get a green arrow when the light would otherwise be red for them. So, by pulling out into the opposite lane, Mr Merc could quite easily have hit an oncoming turning car; and if he had they would no doubt have crashed into me.
One rule that is taught during the learners test is that you must never enter an intersection if you know you won’t leave it.
I didn’t understand the importance of this rule until I had a similar situation to yours.
Mr Merc breaks the rule, makes everybody else late and gets one car in front of you. Awesome.