The left turn
One could write a whole encyclopedia about the driving habits in New Mexico (”Officer, I swear I only drank a six-pack”, “Red? That doesn’t look like red to me!”, …), but there’s one thing that bugs the hell out of me.
The situation: Image a road with 2 or 3 lanes. The left-most lane is a turning lane. An intersection with lights on all four sides. Most of those intersections here have a “green arrow” which signals that it’s safe to make a left turn. Once the green arrow turns off and the general green light goes on, the oncoming traffic has right of way. Here’s where stupidity enters the stage. General green comes on and in about 50-60% of the cases I see people stopping right at the beginning of the intersection in front of the traffic light. So in the (crude) diagram below, the red and blue car (I’m in the blue one) want to make a left turn. There’s oncoming traffic pictured by green cars.
You can imagine what happens next. Person in the red car waits patiently for the oncoming traffic to stop. The lights turn yellow, red. In about 10% of the cases I observed, the red car will make a run for it and will cross the intersection while the light is red, but most of the time the driver in the red car will wait for the next “green arrow” phase.
Now, why would you want to do that? Did you learn that in driving school? Are there regulations that stop you from entering the intersection while you have a green light? The answers to the last two questions are: No and No. If you did something similar in Europe you would find yourself exposed to a lot of angry honking, raised middle-fingers and perhaps even ended up tied to a tree (with the rope around your neck).
You can squeeze at least two, sometimes even three cars into the intersection and safely make a left turn, before the side traffic gets a green light, as pictured below:
Makes sense, doesn’t it? Quite often I caught myself backing up behind the red car, passing them on the right and putting myself into the spot where they should be. Wild honking and flashing head lights are usually the result. However, I make the left turn while they are still sitting at the light.