"AdverseMartyr" (ewilliamson)
03/21/2019 at 10:50 • Filed to: None
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"AdverseMartyr" (ewilliamson)
03/21/2019 at 10:50 • Filed to: None | 1
| 1 |
So to get to the grocery store I have a left turn that comes extremely close to an electrical pole. Being Japan the turn is of course very tight. How tight? Tight enough that the stop sign and line are a good distance back from the pole to give cars turning right or coming straight across the intersection space to cross the center line and clear the pole (because obvious electrical poles should be in the road, how else can you fit the storm drains behind them).
That’s the pole on the right. The actual stop sign is out of frame above the pedestrian sign, and you can just see part of the lettering below the stop line (here the existence of ‘stop’ painted on the road is enough to receive tickets for not stopping even if there are no pedestrians) so it’s a definite need to stop always intersection.
So I was making my left around that pole when a black kei minivan blew through the sign and I had to throw the wheel over to full lock to miss him as he swerved to the left. People here have a bad habit of flying up to the edge of an intersection and then standing on the brakes to slam to a stop at the other end of the crosswalk which is what this guy did. I saw him approaching the sign as i began my turn, but didn’t expect that he would not even pause at the line (as most everyone does pause at this particular intersection). I can only assume he thought he would force me to wait on him (some drivers here think that if you can see them the magically gain the right of way, not sure why).
I really wish I had more than one vehicle as I could have perhaps fought my reflexes and let him hit the car, but since i only have one and I need it every day... I get this instead:
The good news for me is that (as you can see by the spot of rust) this sort of thing happened to the car before I owned, and the pole has a rubber mat on it to help protect the pole and cars from minor glances such as this. Most of it rubbed right off
I guess it’s time to work on repairing that rust spot now, see if that ding will pop out, and try to polish out the last of that rubber .
Urambo Tauro
> AdverseMartyr
03/21/2019 at 15:00 |
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Gah! That is a VERY good place indeed to have stop signs (and for people to obey them) . There are some intersections that I would rather see converted to yield signs, but this is one of those that I hope is never considered for such a thing.