A good reason why you shouldn’t leave a gap in traffic when you don’t have to.
Presumed Miami resident and Redditor /u/SwaggDreww posted up dashcam footage earlier last week (Feb 6, 2024) from Miami, FL to the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit showing the moment when a driver in Ford Bronco Sport blindly U-turns into an obscured lane and finds out quick why that’s a bad idea.
Check out /u/SwaggDreww’s video below.
[oc] After weeks of owning a dashcam I finally caught something
byu/SwagDreww inIdiotsInCars
The incident happened on the 5700 block of SW 40th St near the intersection with SW 57th Ave (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
As OP’s footage shows, he’s stopped in the middle of three lanes before the next major intersection with SW 57 Av.
Although he’s not required to, he’s left a gap for cars on the other side with a center turn lane.
“I was just simply not blocking traffic,” OP clarifies.”
While it gives enough room for drivers in the center turn lane to take advantage of, it does set them up for an accident as, if they want to turn into the farthest lane, it’s obstructed by the other cars.
A driver in a Ford Bronco Sport in the center turn lane takes advantage of the gap left by OP, makes a U-Turn, but doesn’t yield.
The Ford Bronco Sport causes an accident and gets T-boned by a Corolla with the right of way.
The accident doesn’t look too bad thanks to the Corolla driver slowing a lot, but it’ll definitely cause each of them money and time to suss out.
“This is why I’ll never go if someone is yielding their right of way,” /u/PhillyPride08 comments.
“Move forward in traffic, leaving the space open makes it seem like you were letting them through (which you were whether or not you were waving). This isn’t a “don’t block the box” scenario as it’s not an intersection with cross traffic,” /u/bk606 points out.
“Don’t leave a gap. Don’t drive through a gap, especially multiple lanes.Slow down when multiple adjacent lanes are slow/stopped,” /u/steadyaero enumerated.
Unless there’s signage on the road to keep that portion of the road clear in the case of stopped traffic, you’re not obligated to keep center turn lanes open.
In fact, doing so, as this example shows, opens up drivers in that turn lane to accidents if they don’t yield properly.
Do you agree with that assessment and with other Redditors to not leave unnecessary gaps in traffic?
Let me know your .02 in the comments below.
