Tuesday, October 30, 2012

They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot

In my professional career, I've driven over 1,000,000 miles in my business travels. During that time, the only incident was being rear-ended whilst stopped at a red light. My employer pays me, in part, to travel. I am a professional driver.

Here is the first of a few hints, based on logic, rules of the road, and courtesy:

Situation:
In a parking lot, when you are driving down an aisle, and you see a car backing out.
Alternately, on a road, where cars are parked at a diagonal angle along the side.

What I've seen people do:
- Accelerate.
- Try to ram the vehicle backing out.
- Ignore the vehicle backing out.
- Honk the horn at the car backing out.
- Come to a stop and allow them to back out.

The correct answer:
The law, in most places, states that the vehicle backing out must yield to the vehicle that is traveling forward. However, it is often difficult for the person who is backing the vehicle out to actually see the traffic - particularly when that person is driving a sedan and there are trucks or SUVs on either side. Persons driving trucks and SUVs may actually have a bad angle for seeing shorter cars, like sedans, that are traveling down the aisle.

It is polite, and well within the limits of the law in most places, to slow to a stop so that you may show courtesy and allow the vehicle to back out.


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