I'm Not the Only One Complaining About MFFY Behavior

Scott en Aztlán wrote:

> Look for the follow-up next week.
>
> http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/146053
>
> George Perlmutter has a question that Road Runner can't answer.
> "When a car pulls up to a red light and stops one or two car lengths
> behind the car in front of them, don't they realize that they may
> cause the cars behind them to miss getting through the intersection? I
> often wonder why they do this," he wrote.

But, does it? (I'm not sure).

If you start to move when the light changes, and then have to
brake again because the guy in front didn't move in time,
then the whole line of traffic becomes uncoordinated with
people starting and stopping, which certainly would cause
people to miss the lights.

An advantage of leaving a gap is that you can start moving as
soon as the light goes green. The sloth in front usually takes
a couple of seconds to actually notice the change, put his car
in gear, etc. , and your "buffer zone" has absorbed the
congestion that this sloth would have caused if you had
been right up his arse.

Before gpsman pipes up and says "Why don't you not move
until the guy in front does", that's a sure way to get as few
people through the lights as possible. No doubt he will
now tell me that those people should have left home
earlier in order to make the previous cycle...

Old Wolf wrote:
> Scott en Aztlán wrote:
>
>
>>Look for the follow-up next week.
>>
>>http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/146053
>>
>>George Perlmutter has a question that Road Runner can't answer.
>>"When a car pulls up to a red light and stops one or two car lengths
>>behind the car in front of them, don't they realize that they may
>>cause the cars behind them to miss getting through the intersection? I
>>often wonder why they do this," he wrote.
>
>
> But, does it? (I'm not sure).
>
> If you start to move when the light changes, and then have to
> brake again because the guy in front didn't move in time,
> then the whole line of traffic becomes uncoordinated with
> people starting and stopping, which certainly would cause
> people to miss the lights.
>
> An advantage of leaving a gap is that you can start moving as
> soon as the light goes green. The sloth in front usually takes
> a couple of seconds to actually notice the change, put his car
> in gear, etc. , and your "buffer zone" has absorbed the
> congestion that this sloth would have caused if you had
> been right up his arse.
>
> Before gpsman pipes up and says "Why don't you not move
> until the guy in front does", that's a sure way to get as few
> people through the lights as possible. No doubt he will
> now tell me that those people should have left home
> earlier in order to make the previous cycle...
>

When driving a stickshift, I always take my foot off the brake when the
light turns green so that the guy behind me has yet another clue that
the light has changed... whether it helps or not, I dunno. Can't do
that in most automatics though, they "creep" too much, unless they have
a "loose" torque converter.

nate

--
replace "fly" with "com" to reply.
http://home.comcast.net/~njnagel

In article .com>, Old Wolf wrote:

> An advantage of leaving a gap is that you can start moving as
> soon as the light goes green. The sloth in front usually takes
> a couple of seconds to actually notice the change, put his car
> in gear, etc. , and your "buffer zone" has absorbed the
> congestion that this sloth would have caused if you had
> been right up his arse.

If you ignore that line of people who didn't make it into a turn lane
because of it.

Old Wolf wrote: <brevity snip>
> Scott en Aztlán wrote:
>
> > Look for the follow-up next week.
> >
> > http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/146053
> >
> > George Perlmutter has a question that Road Runner can't answer.
> > "When a car pulls up to a red light and stops one or two car lengths
> > behind the car in front of them, don't they realize that they may
> > cause the cars behind them to miss getting through the intersection? I
> > often wonder why they do this," he wrote.
>
> But, does it? (I'm not sure).
>
> If you start to move when the light changes, and then have to
> brake again because the guy in front didn't move in time,
> then the whole line of traffic becomes uncoordinated with
> people starting and stopping, which certainly would cause
> people to miss the lights.

Perhaps certainly "could" cause people to miss lights. But I think the
line would probably have time to recover its coordination before the
green ends and that experience pretty rare.

> An advantage of leaving a gap is that you can start moving as
> soon as the light goes green.

What's the advantage, a "head start"?! The space before you is limited
by the vehicle to your front exactly to the same point and degree from
no matter where you start. I would consider a faster rate of
acceleration in those close quarters a disadvantage myself.

I would like to figger out why so many drivers in front at a light
creep forward, that seems silly to me as well. I guess they might be
thinking the trigger was positioned just beyond the crosswalk, but I've
never seen that. I suspect it's the perspective that 15 feet closer is
going to "save" some time.

> The sloth in front usually takes
> a couple of seconds to actually notice the change, put his car
> in gear, etc. , and your "buffer zone" has absorbed the
> congestion that this sloth would have caused if you had
> been right up his arse.

I think that's referred to as reaction time. And some people, like me,
don't barge into an intersection when the light changes, just because
the light has changed, and launch like a drag racer. Usually there's
another red light or one about to change to red... within view... that
hasn't yet changed. So I see no advantage to be gained unless pumping
gas and replacing brakes are your hobbies.

>
> Before gpsman pipes up and says "Why don't you not move
> until the guy in front does", that's a sure way to get as few
> people through the lights as possible.

Duh. You ain't really goin' anywhere until he moves anyway, why start
first?

> No doubt he will
> now tell me that those people should have left home
> earlier in order to make the previous cycle...

You have to admit, it's hard to argue with.

You're going to catch a certain minimum number of lights, some days
more, some days less. Over the long haul I don't see what difference
it could make. Focusing your attention on the inevitable delays
everyone experiences and can do little or nothing to subvert is a
pretty big waste of mental energy, IMO.

"It's that guy's fault" provides no benefit, unless you're looking for
excuses for why you're late. A more rational perspective would be "I'm
late because I didn't allow enough time and now that's guy has made my
error even worse".

Leaving with time to spare takes any worry out of making or missing
lights. For me anyway, YMMV.
-----

- gpsman

Scott en Aztlán wrote:

> One thing that you can be sure of: these MIFYs who stop needlessly far
> back often end up blocking the entrances to left and/or right turn
> pockets. Since right turns can be made on red and left turn arrows
> tend to precede the green light for through traffic, these jerks are
> needlessly forcing other drivers to wait, sometimes for an entire
> light cycle.

Yep. I stop fairly close to the car in front, usually. When they get
the "creeps", I don't participate because I have a clutch.

In Texas, there was one particular interchange/freeway entrance ramp
that frequently had a lengthy line. As a car got out, everyone would
move up one space. Nah. I'd only participate every other "lurch". It
didn't hold anyone up, there were no cross streets (it was a ramp), and
the ramp was lots longer than the line of waiting cars. In short,
there was no downside. Other than the fact that some bozo behind me
who was trained in "lining up" in kindergarten and never grew beyond
it. Kinda funny to watch them squirm. ("There's a space in front.
Quick, it must be occuppied.")

Now, for the situations you (Scott) describe, actions are different. I
usually let people make their turns, etc. through the stopped traffic,
ensure that if possible people turning can do so.

Brent P wrote:
> Old Wolf wrote:
>
> > An advantage of leaving a gap is that you can start moving as
> > soon as the light goes green. The sloth in front usually takes
> > a couple of seconds to actually notice the change, put his car
> > in gear, etc. , and your "buffer zone" has absorbed the
> > congestion that this sloth would have caused if you had
> > been right up his arse.
>
> If you ignore that line of people who didn't make it into a turn lane
> because of it.

I wouldn't do this in situations where there is a turn-lane that would
be affected, of course.