You're Doin' It Wrong! Common Traffic Misconceptions

Is that the "fast" lane or the passing lane? When should you merge? Do speeding drivers really get out of tickets on technicalities? Join Scott and Ben as they explore the ins and outs of the driving world's most common misconceptions.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the Wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Scott, my name is Ben.
We are joined as always with our super producer. Today
it is uh null the right hand pass brown or

(00:25):
it's a it's it's a null zipper merge brown. Okay,
that's a good one. That's an okay one. And we
are exploring something that I know is going to what's
what's you used the term last week's got grind your gears,
ladies and gentlemen. We're gonna talk about some of the

(00:45):
irritating things out there because let's just set the stage here,
Can I set the scene? Yeah? Okay, thanks to all right. So,
human beings are gregarious animals. We have our disagree which
are many and varied. But we are the most successful animals,

(01:06):
you could argue, because of our incredible ability to work together. Right.
We invent things, we adapt, we can adapt. Right. We've
spread across so many all the continents, you know what
I mean. There're even a couple of us down in
Antarctica right now. Apex predator, Apex predator, my friend with
a capital A. We have a system to this because

(01:30):
we have what you would consider you could call it
rules of engagement, right, and those can change from culture
to culture, from place to place, but there there's some
pretty common ones, like if you're depending on what part
of the world you're in, most people have an appropriate
understanding of do you form a line, do you just
run as a mob at the cashier? You know, how

(01:53):
close or far should people stand? Yeah, I feel like
some of those things that you mentioned already have some
variation and culture like cultural Oh definitely. Yeah, that's why
I'm mentioning it. But the point is that there are
these unspoken, unwritten, but almost universally agreed upon rules depending
on the region the world, or the situation of the

(02:15):
context in which you live in your day to day.
And here in the US, one of the strangest melting
pots of actual law and then sort of rule of
thumb meets in one place, and that is on the road.
On the road, most people have a general understanding of

(02:37):
what is to happen on the road, and that comes
from awesome instruction early on. Honestly, not a lot of instruction.
I mean it's not it's not very intense. I mean, it's, uh,
you know, some people went through a pretty intense program
when they were learning to drive. I I did. I
went through a summer program. You know that that was
hours every day, and you know, there was book learning.
There was a road course. There was um you know

(03:00):
of course set up in the parking lot with cones.
You would drive on the streets. It was just there
was a lot of I said a road course. I
don't mean like a race road course. I mean you know,
you would go out on the road and you would
you drive a certain pattern that they would have set
up for you early on, and then later on you
kind of you know, freewheel it. You'd go wherever you wanted. Um.
But yeah, there was a it was a pretty intense
I guess package of um course work you had to

(03:21):
do in order to get your license at the end
of the summer. And uh not everybody did that. Some
people would pay a little bit of money and have
a private driving instructor, and you know that was probably also, um,
you know, a little bit more intense than what I'm
hearing now from my daughter Ben. This is crazy. She's
getting near the driving age and her friends are starting
to turn fifteen. She's not yet, but she's you're starting

(03:42):
to turn fifteen, and apparently here in Georgia, I'll have
to I'll have to look this up because I'm just
kind of winging this right now from what my kid
told me. So, you know, that's take take all this
grain of salt. So she says that when you turn fifteen,
you're allowed to apply for your permit without taking any
kind of course, as long as you can and pass
their test. So like, you don't have to go through

(04:04):
a driver's ed course ahead of time or take any
type of course work. You can just go right into
the d m V, take the test, and if you're
able to pass their test, you're you're able to drive.
I mean, that's your permit. That's how you get it.
You don't have to do the um, you know, calling
an agency and have them pick the kid up for
you know, the next five or six weeks or whatever
every day after school and you know, have them drive
around town or whatever. It's it's a little bit more um,

(04:27):
a little bit more loose than that down here. Apparently
that's crazy. Yeah, I don't I don't agree with that,
and I don't know if that's one accurate or not,
but that's what she's telling me. So we're gonna find
out very soon. I think, you know, if that's the case,
if that's true, I guess, I mean, if if parents
are teaching kids still that's something. But yeah, that's good. Anyways,
Getting back to our point is that you know, most

(04:48):
people have this general understanding of how the rules of
the road work. I mean, and you learned that right
from the very beginning. Of course, with the tests that
you have to take, and of course even driving on
the road, you learn this stuff kind of quickly. Somebody
besid I do is normally telling you initially what to do,
but then you get it and you observe your parents.
You know, in a lot of cases, like you can't
turn right on red in most cases, you know, you

(05:08):
always watch for the sign you can't turn, you have
to yield to green, and you know the green light
on a left turn. You know, to oncoming traffic. Um,
you know, stuff like that. You always let pedestrians go
in front of you. Here's what a white line means,
here's what a yellow line means. A lot of a
lot of people get that right from the very beginning.
The problem is, as you get a little bit older
and you drive in more and more you become a

(05:29):
little bit more relax with this stuff. And there are some,
you know, some things that maybe people didn't learn right
in the very beginning, that they never knew about. But
I think a lot of people in in a lot
of cases that we're gonna talk about today, are just
simply being quite frankly, a bit lazy about some things. Right.
That's a huge set up common traffic misconceptions, the things

(05:50):
people get wrong. How many times, Scott have you and
I run into a listener who says some I'll be
frank here, who says, why the hell do people realize
the left lane is the passing lane, yeah, you know,
or that you shouldn't pass on the right. Well, see,
because people will call the left lane the fast lane also,
and they think that's the fast lane. It's not the

(06:10):
fast lane, it's the passing lane. Technically, on a multi
lane highway, it's the passing lane, so you're supposed you're
technically only supposed to get in that lane to pass.
But a lot of people feel that if they're going
faster than everybody else, then there's no harm done, right,
But that's not the case. That's not what it's for
it's supposed to be left open and that's strictly for
passing and that. And you'll find that out when somebody
is going a little bit faster than you get some

(06:31):
you know up behind you and you have to pull
over to the right. But also you're you're kind of
like a jam car there for everybody else that is
trying to pass. So maybe you know someone up ahead
of you and you're approaching them. Sure you're going faster
than than them. Right now, you're approaching your your you know,
I don't trying to say you're you're gaining on them,
I guess in traffic, but they're looking to pass as well.

(06:52):
They're gonna you know, accelerate around a truck as a
summer or something becomes a race. Yeah, that or they
have to back way down and then that kind of
slows things down in that lane. It just it's it
builds up, I guess. And there's another thing. Uh, this
is maybe not so much a misconception as a double standard.
Almost everyone that I see driving um in a stupid manner.

(07:17):
And by stupid, I mean, uh, you know, tailgating at
high speeds. You know, every everybody, Yeah, everybody's idea of tailgating.
Who does that seems to be um so strange because
when they're going, when they're riding someone's bumper, their thought
processes this boosting you get out of my way. I'm

(07:39):
a hot shot and I'm going places, which is almost
never true. And I mean that in the larger sense
about like their lives. The people in the biggest hurry
are often going the least important places. And uh, the
ones that are going important places have sirens, so you
know that you should move. But but God forbid somebody

(07:59):
get um even the proper distance behind them, because they'll
be like, I can't believe this guy's tailgating me. He's
riding my bumper. I got places to go, stuff to do.
You know what, that's funny when you talk about, you know,
tailgating or following too close. Of course, there's again that's
another thing that you learned early on, is is proper
following distance and that varies by weather and by um

(08:20):
the time of speed ye at all that stuff. I
I guess there's like a two second rule usually, or
some people say it's a too two vehicle length rule,
but I think that's a little bit too tight in
most cases. Um, it's funny that you don't realize maybe
when you're doing that, that if there were to be
a collision, if if they were to hit the brakes,
the one following too close would be the one that

(08:41):
gets the ticket for that, right, the person hitting the
person in front is the one that's at fault in
that situation. And also remember if someone's writing your tail
and trying to essentially trying to pressure you to go
in excessive speed or speed faster than you should be going,
they're not the ones who get the ticket. When the
if the cops are out there, if law enforcement is

(09:03):
out there and they've got the gun on, they're getting
you because you're in front, or it forces you to
make a bad decision. You might merge into traffic where
you normally wouldn't in a in an area that's too tight,
or maybe are already going too fast and you know
you you'd have to pull into the lane to your
right and you have to break hard. That's a dangerous
situation for everybody. So um, again, again, this sounds that
this sounds like our Pet Peeves podcast, doesn't it. I mean,

(09:24):
it's getting close kind of is. But the thing is
these are common things that a lot of people find
on the road or see on the road every single day. Sure,
here's here's one more. Um, let's do another quick one first.
But turn signals, Um, everybody's car is equipped with. And
I got this. I heard this somewhere. I can't remember
where I read this. Man, everybody's card. Even old cars

(09:45):
are equipped with lights that indicate what your vehicles do
it or is going to do your intent? Right? And
some are automatic, like when you when you break the
brake lights come on, you don't you don't have to
flip a switch to make the brake brake lights come on.
Good thing. And when you go in reverse, you know
you don't have to flip the switch for a reverse
light in most cases, right, I don't think that is
ever the case in a modern car. And um, you've

(10:06):
got turn signals. Of course. The problem is you know
that which tell people you're going left or right. Of course,
a lot of people just don't take the effort to
use their turn signals. And that is something that a
lot of people say, well, it's not necessary. If there's
nobody around, I don't need to do that. But that
leads to you having kind of a bad habit of
not doing that even when you are in traffic. And
I see this all the time in Atlanta traffic, and

(10:27):
I'm sure wherever this is being heard around the world. Um,
you know you can say, like all that, you know, idiot,
didn't use this blinker when you cut into my lane
or you know, it would just make things so much
smoother if they would do that, if they would indicate
that they want to get in, maybe there be a
little bit more leeway given to that person, you know,
instead of and you're not trying to be a jerk
by being too close to the you know where they're
trying to merge. You just don't know that they're trying

(10:49):
to get into your lane, and then they are Also
My old joke with it is, uh, you know, you
don't want people to know your secret plan and the
and there's there's another thing for people for people who
honestly say, like in traffic, if I put my turn
signal on, really all that happens is the car and
the next lane over speeds up. And that is true,

(11:09):
that's true in Atlanta traffic at least. But here's here's
the other part. Just because you have don't have a
turn signal on. If you're driving without them for some
ludicrous reason. It doesn't mean that people don't know necessarily
where you're going. It means you're a bad driver, But
it doesn't mean that people can't see it, because I

(11:30):
know what I see so often people people's cars start
to sort of shift or trend towards the lane they're
planning to go into, and I can like, it's it's
almost like watching someone lean left or right. Yeah, you're right,
is there approaching an off ramp or something. You can
see that they start to get to the right side
of the lane, and you know that person is going
to take that exit, but they haven't signaled that yet,

(11:52):
so lane kind of predict what they're doing. Everybody knows
your secret plan. Dude. That's funny. You caught the secret
plane like without the signal off, Like you're you're just operating,
you know, like undercover, and I can see, Like, of course,
signals can be irritating because something that will happen sometimes. Uh.
In Atlanta traffic is another misconception, which is that if
I have deigned to come down from my high and

(12:15):
mighty king of the road thrown and use a turn signal,
like you commoners, then I'm not. I'm not indicating that
I want to get in this lane right intend to
you must let me pass. A turn signal is not
a passport, you know what I mean. It's not a
it's not an order to another vehicle. And there have

(12:38):
been people who have been involved in car accidents. Is
completely their fault that thought they weren't going to be
culpable because they put on a turn signal first, Like
I used the signal so that cars just shouldn't have
been there. And it's like without explaining the physics of
how matter cannot simultaneously occupy the same space, Like what

(13:03):
what is the judge supposed to do? Just like try
not to embarrass them in court? Maybe he asked how
much turn signal did he use? Yeah? How much? Oh
that's the thing too, That's the thing I always makes
me think of, um And I still don't know why
people don't use turn signals, but it always makes me
think of that situation that happened to me when I
was When I was a we we kid are we

(13:26):
taught h We got a Nintendo very big deal at
my house and there was the game Mario brothers and
Mario brothers. You can get this. I'm sure everyone knows this,
but you can get this flower that gives you the
ability to shoot fireballs. And so for like the first
six months, I would barely ever use that because I

(13:48):
was afraid I was going to run out. And that's
what I always think about with people who have turn signals.
I'm like, what do you just did? You keep counting
you down to eleven? Buddy, there's not a tank, there's
not turn signal. But but also to be completely fair,
sometimes when it looks like someone's not using a certain signal,
the lights out and they just don't know all that
happens to or what happens, or you know what. You

(14:08):
know what. Else kind of bugs me a little bit
is when someone has a break light out and they're
tapping the brakes and you think that the turn signals on,
but it's not the turn signals their break light that's
coming on. You're saying that happening, Yeah, that happens sometimes.
And there's these little odd quirks that happen with lights sometimes,
but you can't really get angry. I mean, they should
have both lights working, but it's kind of a gray area.

(14:30):
I guess, you know, maybe they're on their way to
get the bullbri placed right now. But you know what,
how about this before we get to another big one
that I see every single day. Let's take a break
for a word from our sponsor, and we're back. What's
the one you see every day? All right? The one
I see every day is this? And I bet a
lot of people feel my pain on this one. People
merging into or out of traffic when they're not supposed
to be over solid white lines happens all the time.

(14:53):
And the line thing with me is kind of big.
I mean, you learn that stuff early on. If it's
a solid white line, you don't cross that white line.
You wait until it becomes a dotted line. And that's
what most people don't quite get it on on on,
at least on the pathway that I take home, when
there's a ramp that enters a highway, a high speed
you know freeway or highway, um, oftentimes will be a

(15:16):
solid white line that stays in that merging line or
I guess, not the merging that, yeah, I meant the
margin line, I guess for a long long time. And
then and then it either goes away or becomes a
dotted line, and that's where you're supposed to merge in
with the faster moving traffic. A lot of people immediately
off the ramp, they just cut right over the two
solid white lines when it's still in you know, kind
of a triangle shape. Everybody can picture that right as

(15:37):
it merders, or that solid line that extends, you know,
maybe a significant distance down the road, but it gives
you time to get up to speed and then match
the traffic and all that. A lot of people just
completely ignore that and make kind of a left turn
into faster moving traffic and you know, prematurely a little
too early, and uh, that's not good. So that happens
all the time. And I and another thing is that,

(15:58):
um and you've probably seen that thing too, write I
mean the solid white line. People get into turn lanes
a little too early and go through areas where they're
not supposed to. Like, so let's say there's a driveway
on the right and there's a solid white line and
it's broken then at one point, and that's to enter
like let's say it's a drug store or something. You're
gonna you're gonna enter the turn lane and turn into

(16:19):
their parking lot. But that lane continues on and the
line becomes solid again and there's another driveway down the road.
A lot of people will get into that lane way
too early and then buzz past that first driveway into
the second driveway. And that's pretty dangerous because people have
the expectation that if you're in that lane that early,
you're gonna be turning in the first one, not the
second one. And that leads to a lot of accidents

(16:40):
because people pull out in front, you know, to get
into traffic again. Uh. They assume that you're going to
turn earlier than you are going to turn. You're looking
at the one hundred yards down the road instead of
the one that's fifty yards down the road. Here's another one.
Uh merging in general, so we use the phrase zipper
merge earlier. Oh yeah, So when someone is going on

(17:03):
is coming from a surface street to an interstate right
there on the off ramp or the on ramp, uh,
and they're getting into traffic and it's heavy and there's
a line. Do these people should they zipper emerge or
is there any rise Because a lot of people when
they're drive on the interstate, especially if it's traffic, rush
hour traffic or something, and they're in the far right

(17:25):
lane and they have other people trying to emerge. Many
people often say like, what what if I don't have
to let this person in? This this JIBRONI, this Johnny
come lately. Yeah. Well, one one thing that I heard
a long time ago is this that, and we'll talk
about you know the right way to do it just
a moment. But you don't own that little bit of
property right in front of your car. You know, the
ten feet of road that's always in front of your

(17:47):
car that's not yours. When you when you're trying to
defend it, I guess you know, like that's you're not
gonna let somebody in that space, you know, between you
and that next vehicle. I get the frustration. I understand
that you know you've had a rough day, or I
know that totally done, the person behind you didn't let
you in, or you know, whatever the case was. Um,
I get the frustration. But it works so much But

(18:08):
traffic flows so much better if you do adhere to
the zipper merge rule that the Ben's talking about, and
it's a smart way to do it. I wasn't always
on board with this one when the situation was the
signs ahead of time, like you know the when they
say two miles ahead, like two right lanes closed, two
miles ahead, and then you get to the next one,

(18:28):
it's a one mile ahead and then half a mile.
The way I used to handle this was I would
I would politely, I thought, get over into the lanes
that were going to continue through. Yeah, I would stay.
I would stay. I would make my way to the
lane that was going to remain open. And it led
to a lot of people going by, and of course
my wife would get very upset with me, and I thought, no,
I'm doing it the right way. I'm just being a

(18:50):
polite driver, and you know, getting over the way everybody
should right now, and then it will work fine, it'll
flow smoothly. That's not the way it really works best.
The way it works best is if you go right.
Somebody has to do it. Somebody has to go right
to the end. Other people have to be in the
lane that does go that does go through. But some
people have to go all the way to the end
and then do the zipper zipper merge maneuver that you're

(19:10):
talking about, and then a lot of people will be
resentful of that. Let's say I'm not going to let
this guy in, But it turns out that is the
most efficient way to do it. It's the proper way,
and the reason is because it fills up the most
space with the most the vehicles on the road are
not trying to cram into the one or two lanes
that's that are open. They're using all three lanes in
that case, or four lanes or whatever the situation. Maybe

(19:33):
that many more vehicles are able to get farther down
the road, and if you watch it all play out,
you understand how it's faster. But that also relies on people.
People being kind to each other and allowing them in
in the zipper maneuver, and a lot of people are
still kind of the way I was about it before,
where I thought, look at this jerk who's cutting around everybody.
They knew two miles ago this lane is going away,

(19:53):
and yet they wrote it all the way to the
very end, and they're gonna merge right before that cone
you know that blocks their lane. I should go ahead
and point out, Yeah, that's one that surprised me. Exuse
back in the days to think the same way, But
I should point out while we're on merging and merging
in and out of things, when traffic is at a standstill,

(20:15):
this happens so often somebody who probably fancies themselves a
maverick will say, Oh, I'm just uh, just a little
ways away from the exit. I need to get off
where an exit, So I'm gonna go in the breakdown
lane and drive through. And then what happens is that
encourages a bunch of other would be mavericks to say like, well,

(20:38):
well he did it, Flowa. They can't catch all of us,
they'll they don't. They don't drive down the shoulder and
drive down the shoulder. And the problem with that, the
reason why that is such a garbage idea is because
when traffic is at that much of a stop, there's

(20:58):
a very real post ability that there are injuries ahead,
that there there might be people dying. You know, there
might be like a half mile up and I've seen
this scenario that you're talking about play out. And the
only way that the only way that the emergency vehicles
can access it is if somebody is if everybody agrees
not to be self important enough and also you know,

(21:21):
dumb enough to use to try to use that shoulder
lane as their own personal Um what lexus lane is
that what they call lane. And and that's not a
slant at anybody that drives a lexus. It means it's
like your your own personal lane. It's like it's like
a comfort thing to them. So I've seen it when
like an ambulance is trying to get through because that

(21:44):
shoulder thing happened, and everybody thought it was okay for
them to do it right, and then now this ambulance
has nowhere to go and the shoulder lane is blocked up. Yeah,
and see now you're replying on this traffic that's not
moving to allow you in somehow to allow the ambulance by,
and it's it just becomes a really bad situation. I've
seen the exact same thing play out as well, where
you know, fire trucks are trying to get through police

(22:04):
officers that are driving in lane in about eighty miles
an hour trying to get to an accident that just happened. Um.
Seen it happen you know as recent as last month here,
Um in the morning, there's a huge accident, you know,
around on the on the road that I take in
as like a six car accident left debris all there's
still debris on the road, you know, in piles on
the side that they haven't cleaned up yet. Um. Yeah,
it's a it's a really bad idea. And you know

(22:25):
another thing about that too, is if you're using the
shoulder to drive, um a lot of times, that's where
all the like the crap from the road ends up
over there, you know, like the sharp stuff, the stuff
that's gonna hurt your tires, the stuff that's going to
um uh, you know, maybe there's an old launcher that's
pushed over there that you know it fell off of
someone's trailer or something. That's not a great lane to
travel in really, and you never know what's ahead. And

(22:46):
you don't also know if somebody's gonna be a jerk
and and try to cut you off in that lane
to stop you from doing that, because I've seen that
happen to where someone decides they're not going to allow
that guy to go by, and they kind of split
the lanes. They get, you know, in the middle of
one lane and they try to block that person from
going ahead, and that's it says. It's you can see
so many of these frustrating scenarios playing out on the road.
It's it's really, it's really tough to uh. I was

(23:08):
tough to watch sometimes and and you know, and not
feel like you're you should be policing them as well, Like,
you know, you can't really give them your wisdom, I
guess on the road if or maybe you don't you
don't know that, you don't really know there's anything wrong
with that. Maybe to some people that's fine, but I
want to be completely honest. You know. I know I
might be sounding kind of high and mighty and cantankerous,
but I've done a lot of this stuff. I've done

(23:30):
a lot of this, especially the emerging stuff. It was
a real I was a real pill about that one.
And you know, we can't discount the fact that somebody
may like truly have an emergency going on in that
vehicle right there too. They might be there may be
someone ready to give birth in that car. I don't know.
There could be somebody that you know, is seriously cut

(23:52):
or shot or whatever. They're trying to get to a
trauma hospital or something. You never know what's going on
in that person's life or car or whatever. So so
that's my that's mighty big of you. You got a
hold back judgment until you know the facts, until you
until you see that you know that guy was just
going ahead. So you get to the Wendy's drive through.
Let's go to another I would consider this a slightly

(24:14):
different subset of misconceptions about traffic. Yeah, but you know what,
before you do that, I think we should take another
break for a word from our sponsor. All right now
about those misconceptions. Oh yeah, we're back. Can you feel
the suspense? Its tense. Let's say you're feeling punchy. You know,
you've got your favorite awesome driving music on. Traffic's going crazy,
and then you get and take no prisoners mode and

(24:36):
you're the king of the road until you hear that
whoop whoop, and you look back and the red and
blue lights are compelling you to pull over and gosh,
darn it, some for something or other, maybe speeding, uh
maybe some moving violation or something has has brought you

(24:56):
to the attention of Johnny Law. Oh yeah, And there's
a lot of misconceptions about what what happens at that point, right,
what happens at that during it and after work? Okay,
So so what are some of the big ones here
are what are the highlights? I guess because I'll tell
you an odd one that I've heard and there's no
truth to this, by the way, and we've got some
We've got some law enforcement officers in the audience, so

(25:18):
I think you guys and ladies may get a kick
out of this. There's a lot of talk about uniforms. Right,
the proper uniform for an officer when they when they
pull you over is if they have to be like
at full dress or something. Right. So I have heard
that these are crazy rumors or whatever. But you know,
if they if they are um in plain clothes, they're
not allowed to give you a ticket. That's not true. True.

(25:39):
If they don't have their hat on, they cannot give
you a ticket. Not true. Yeah, it's crazy, like just
and weird variations of this, like they have tennis shoes
on instead of the standard issue shoes that they're you know,
crazy things like that. I mean, you hear these really
weird like situations that that relate to the way they're dressed. Uh.

(25:59):
And and the legality of them giving you a citation
and then what you can do with that information when
you get to court. So here's some more you nailed at, Scott.
Here a few more. I heard a lot of these, uh,
in earlier days in high school and college, a lot
of self appointed experts. So there's this idea people have

(26:21):
that you can get out of a traffic ticket if
the cops spells your name wrong. Okay, so like a
clerical ayreror. But that's but a clerical ayror that's made
on the side of the road where there's cars going
by at seventy five or whatever the spy speed is.
I mean, I can understand if they miss a letter
here or there, or if they misread your your license,
you know, and in dim light or you know, whatever
that is. I mean that that's a huge misconception, is

(26:42):
that if there is an error on your ticket that
is really inconsequential, and you tell people, you know what
they're gonna do, They're not gonna be like, curses, how
dare they spell Scott Benjamin with three ends? Uh? The
laws have failed. What they're going to do is say,
all right, well, will just write down Benjamin the way
it's spelled and pay the fine. They'll amend the ticket. Also,

(27:05):
you still get those points. Yeah. So the thing and Also,
I guess what would your argument be. Would you say
that you know, uh, well this isn't my name, this
isn't me and they'd say, well, how do you have
the ticket in your hand then? And the officer that
you know pulled you over is right here in court
with us. That's another one, the idea that you automatically
beat the ticket if the officer doesn't show up in court.

(27:26):
All right, So that's a that's a huge one because
I've heard that forever. It's possible that an officer's continued
absence after several after several court dates may result in
the ticket being dismissed. But it's very very rare for
that to happen because usually they'll work with the officers
schedule of the officer, work with the court to make

(27:47):
sure that they are there, um, so that it's not
a waste of time. So if you go and get it.
If you have a you know, a speeding ticket or whatever,
and you go to court for that and the office
there's not there, it doesn't mean like confetti drops from
the ceiling and the judge brings out some go go
dancers and they you know, like clap for you have

(28:09):
like an Austin Powers sexy party. Right. No, what happens
is they say, okay, we'll move that date to a
time when the officer can show up. So it's totally
like it's a total misconception. It just doesn't work that way.
But that's that's one that I have heard practically from
the day I started driving, right. And there's there's more too,
There's there's more to it than just this. All right,
I got one more here, it's uh and maybe maybe

(28:32):
more than that. I don't know as well as we're talking.
But um, there's also a common misconception that you have
to be shown the radar gun that has your speed
posted on it and somehow proved that you actually were
clocked at the speed that you were clocked at. I
know that it is possible. I believe it is possible
to request uh the testing records for those things, but

(28:52):
I don't know if they have to, if anybody has
to show a driver that. And again, of course, you know, Scott,
you and I are not law enforcement officials, right, you
have to tell me if you're a cop right now? Yeah,
I'm getting that's another misconception kind of situation. Will we
in here? Why do you keep leading down and talking
into your chest. Say that one more time, right, so

(29:16):
jokes aside, though, Um, we are not law enforcement officers,
nor are we doing anything that would constitute legal advice.
Just misconceptions. Yeah, exactly exactly. So you know that's a
that's just something I've heard along you know, along again
a long time ago. They have to show you that
that radar gun reading and you mentioned you know, the
validation and all that, but UM, I don't think that's true.

(29:38):
I don't think that's one that it would ever hold
up to say, like, well, if you know, I trust
my officer and they're just out there to do their job.
And when one last thing that I want to clarify
about the radar gun thing, too, uh, is that it's
not always a radar gun that gets you. Sometimes they
just pace your vehicle and you drive behind you at
the same speed you're driving and realize that you're going
eight miles right and there's you know, there's no there's

(29:59):
not and really to look at them, you know in
that case, it's just you're going eighty they pulled you over. Well,
let's take this hypothetical, uh Dudley do wrong situation and
follow another misconception. Dudley do There's a Dudley do right
and a Dudley do wrong? Are there? Okay, I don't know.
I just I know there's a Dudley do right, but
I can't remember the other guy's first name. Snidley Whiplash.

(30:22):
Snidley Whiplash. That was the guy. That's the bad guy,
Si Whiplash. That's perfect. Okay, so let's follow this example.
Let's say somebody does get pulled over. Uh, they get
their ticket, they say, you have to show me the radar,
and uh also, I'm gonna take a picture on my
cell phone because their uniform is not perfect or whatever.
You know. They're they're being just a very difficult person

(30:46):
to deal with, and they say, you know, when the
officer says, okay, here you go citation for you know,
doing like sixteen over or something like that, something not
crazy bad, but beating. And uh so they get the ticket,
roll out the window, and they're about to drive away,
and they think, well, too bad for this sucker. I

(31:09):
actually live in Connecticut. You'll never catch me, coppers. They're
making a huge mistake because they are falling for the
myth that traffic tickets do not transfer out of state. Yeah,
or that you just somehow mystically disappear from their system. Right,
because what happens then is then you you fail to
pay the ticket or you know, um, a lot of

(31:32):
times people have the misconception that the points won't follow
the under their stage or whatever. But let's say that
you just don't pay the ticket because you feel like, well,
I've lived across the state line. I don't need to
bother with that. You fail to pay that, and then
that results in you having a court date set and
you have to go into court and you know, show
your face and you pay this and explain why you
weren't you know, white and pay the first time once
the court data set and if I miss a step here,

(31:54):
don't get too crazy. But um, once that court data
is missed, and then maybe they give you a second chance.
Maybe if they don't, they set out a bench warrant
for your arrest. Right, So if you're pulled over for anything,
even it doesn't matter if it's in that state or
in your state. Let's see you get another speeding ticket
for ten miles an hour over. At this time, you're
gonna be taking a ride down to the station and

(32:15):
that happens all the time. People have outstanding warrants in
other states, they get that they get busted for. It's
kind of a funny thought that, you know, these agencies
aren't talking to each other. I mean, that's that's one
of the greatest advances of the last what decade or so,
is that they're all interconnected, maybe even longer than a
decade I think at this point. And then there's the

(32:35):
this is a defense or a misconception that I think
most people know will never work now. But people used
to say I was only keeping up with the flow
of traffic, and that is never ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever ever going to work. How about the I'm only
going five over rules so they won't pull me over. Uh,
maybe that's that's a rule, but they a lot of

(32:57):
people think that if they only go five five over,
they will never get pulled over. But that's not true
to get pulled over. I've even heard people saying like, well,
as long as it's the local police department, they can't
pull you over unless you're going eleven or higher over,
but the state troopers can get you for one mile over.
Like that's that's weird ruled out that way. Yeah, there's no,

(33:20):
there's no different levels like that. I guess that it
doesn't work out that way. Um, okay, you know what,
let's get back to some of the traffic ones that
I've got a couple more, and then maybe that's about it. Absolutely.
Um one that has bothered me recently. Not every state
has these, I realized. But you know that when you're
on a road that has let's say, two lanes going
one way and to go in the other, and there's
a center lane and it's got yellow solid lines on

(33:40):
both sides, and that is a turn lane, right, you're
allowed to pull into that lane kind of wait for
the traffic to clear on the left side or yet
I guess the left side, and uh, and you can
turn in. Then a lot of people use that as
a lane to get to the next light, or as
a travel lane for you know, they'll pull out into
it from one parking lot and use it to dray
drive too, maybe the next parking lot down the road,

(34:03):
you know, the next strip, mall or whatever it is.
Without merging into actual traffic. That's that's not allowed. You're
not allowed to do that. In fact, there's a legal
distance that you're allowed to travel in that lane and
it's only three feet and that is really that's just
for you too, uh slow down. So when you pull
into that lane, you're the maximum that you're allowed to
travel on that lane is three hundred feet and uh,

(34:24):
and then you have to stop and make your turn
or you know, just turn in if you're only having
to yield. But a lot of people will drive way
farther than three or they'll get into the lane, you know,
fart Let's say you're gonna make a left turn at
the light ahead. You're gonna a lot of people get
to that lane it seems like a quarter mile road
and drive down that that's super dangerous for a lot
of reasons because people are one using that lane to
get in and out of uh, shopping malls or whatever.

(34:47):
And the other one is that people that are close
to the light then aren't thinking to look in the
rear view mirror before they get into that turn. Land
they should, but they're not, And a lot of times
that leads to you know, them cutting into the lane
and and you know, of some kind absolutely it happens.
It happens more than you would think for sure. Oh yeah,
And there's one more little little tidbit here that I
picked up along the way too as I read that

(35:09):
it is not contrary to popularly if it is not
the place where you can pull out and then kind
of wait for traffic to clear and then and then continueing,
you know, like merging the traffic. Again, it's not the
lane for that. They say, you're supposed to drive just
straight through that. You're not supposed to kind of hang
out in that lane at all. It's only for turning.
That's it. It's it's so strange though that people get
used to using the vehicle or the using the lane.

(35:33):
It's one of those again, it's a common misconception. It's
a lot of people think that that's totally fine to
do that. They think that it's it's okay to use
that as kind of like a like a stepping stone
to get out into traffic, and it's not that way.
It's it's not intended for that purpose. But most people
don't know that. And here's another fun one. It's a
strange one. A lot of people think it's illegal to
drive barefoot Scott. You know, I've always heard that too, Like,

(35:56):
you know, if you're going to the beach, you're coming
from you know, like dat on the boat or something.
It's kind of bummer. You gotta put your gotta put
your shoes back on and get in the car. I mean,
if you don't have sandals or something, that's a bigger
deal than what it sounds like. I know, but um
or maybe no. I have that backwards. It's it's not
as big a deal as I make it out to sound. Well,
it's interesting because this also seems to perplex law enforcement officials.

(36:19):
There's a great, great quote from a guy named Mike
Chirk who is a state police sergeant in Michigan, and
he I'll just read the quote. Someone asked him about
it and he said, that's the textbook traffic myth that's
out there. I guess, to be honest, I don't know
what the safety concern would be. I don't know why
there'd be a law against it. Like a lot of

(36:40):
law enforcement officers are stumped about how this one came about.
So that's right from a copy saying I don't find
any plan of problem with that. If someone is driving
with no shoes on, yeah, it's weird. I don't understand,
you know. I think on a long drive a lot
of people will slip the shoe off, you know, and
and just for like for the comfort level that you know,
it feels good or something. But also, there is a

(37:01):
law against riding a motorcycle barefoot in Alabama. So that's
just a good sense. I mean, it doesn't really Uh,
it's the only state I believe that expressly banned some
kind of vehicle operation barefoot. But most states here's here's
the sticky part. Most states have you know, some kind

(37:24):
of catch all reckless driving or driving to endanger statute.
And so if the officer thought barefoot driving somehow violated
the law, they could probably cite under that. So he's
being kind of like a real stickler about everything, you know,
letter of the law type thing. He could he could
cite you for something, right, And here's okay, for the

(37:45):
most part, they're not gonna have a problem with it. Right.
Here's another thing that's that this brings to mind when
we're talking about discretion of a law enforcement officer. People
have this idea that if they just have a good
enough story, it'll make up for them speeding. But notice,
for people who've ever seen traffic court, the judge only

(38:08):
asked whether you were speeding, not why. It is up
to the officer's discretion in many cases too, to make
a judgment call about like why you're speeding. So if
you to Scott's earlier example, Uh, let's say we're hanging
out in the studio and then, uh, super producer Noel

(38:30):
Brown all of a sudden gets I don't know, in
a knife fight or has has somehow received a horrendous injury. Knight.
That sounds possible, and that's Classicnal. And we're and we're
barreling down the interstate to get him to a hospital,
to give him to a trauma center or something. If

(38:50):
a cop pulls us over and sees this someone's leaning out, uh,
it's they will probably just contact um ambulances, you tease,
stuff like that. But if our emergency is that one
of us drank one of a big gulp or some

(39:11):
other you know, ungodly amount of soda and really had
to use the restroom, they would probably say you have
a different definition of emergency. Yeah exactly, And yeah that's
not that's not what we consider an emergency that you
should endanger other people in life or limb. No, no
exactly not so um, Yeah, you're right, a lot of

(39:32):
the so much of this comes back to the police
officer discretion, right, I mean it's it's if they feel
like it's something that they can allow to pass this
time with a warning, they will do that. But um,
a lot of times, yeah, they they just have to
give you a citation because otherwise, and to be honest,
spend a lot of people don't learn until they get
that slap on the wrist, you know, until it happens.
And and okay, here's another quick one, maybe maybe my

(39:54):
last one right that day? All right, So how many
times been have you and houndered in this this crowded
city where let's say that the power goes out and
an intersection is affected by this, and the light the
traffic lights go out. They go to kind of a
default setting where the main route of travel, you know,
the main road blinks yellow and then the side roads

(40:16):
blink red because you know you want to stop and
you know, allow that main traffic to go through. But
the people on the main road with the yellow blinking lights,
they stop at that light. So it becomes a four
way stop, and that does okay, it confuses everybody because
the people that are going to do the right thing
and go through then have to be cautious because the
people that are entering traffic from the sides, you know,

(40:38):
where it's blinking red so entitled. Yeah, they feel like, well,
it's my turn, and so you know, if you're the
one to to just buzz through there the first time,
people are shocked by that. But that's the right thing
to do. Just no one ahead of you has done that,
and no one behind you is going to do that,
And then you look like the jerk. And it only
it only seems to happen, at least in this city.
It only seems to happen in crowded situations. Now, I

(41:00):
will say this makes me such a horrible person, Scott
ladies and gentlemen of car stuff. I confess in this situation,
I am a jerk. And you know why, I'm glad
you asked, because if I'm in that situation and I've
got the yellow light, then you know it's Katie Barr

(41:23):
the door. I'm gunning through it. Yeah, I'm going cautiously
through it because it is right of way, and I
rationalize it so much, dude, and I'm saying like, well,
I'm doing the right thing. Maybe these other people catch on.
That's that's the way I feel about the whole. But
but when I'm in a red light and someone stopping

(41:44):
at the yellow light, I'm not going to motion him through.
I just take that. I just go. You capitalize on
their mistake, I absolutely do. It's such a bad things.
The last time that this happened to me was that
was the situation, was the guy in the you know,
two lanes going one way and it's the yellow, blinking light,
and the guy in the right lane had stopped, and
there was a car waiting, you know, at the red

(42:05):
at a red blinking light on the right or left,
I don't remember which, um, but I was in the
left lane and I went right through it. I mean
I cautiously went through it, I should say, but I
went right through it. I didn't stop, and I was
hoping that people around me would see that that's the
way it works. It's a blinking yellow that's what happened.
That's what you do. Didn't work that way. The people
behind me stopped, and a lot of the other people

(42:25):
who go through, so no lesson learned. I guess they
didn't learn by observing what happened there, but they probably
just thought I was a jackass, you know, that I
was the one. I was just impatient or whatever. But yeah,
and you know, see that's the thing with all this
stuff that we've been talking about today. It's like you
can lead by good example, but you can't really until
you can like explain to the person why why what

(42:47):
you did was right, or why that is the letter
of the law or whatever that's the right way to
do it. Um, it doesn't really get through to that
person because they're doing it the way they feel is right.
So there's there's constantly going to be this friction on
the road with everyone almost every one of these situations
we talked about outside of you know, getting a ticket
or whenever. Um, yeah, you know, like emerging and all
that stuff. And we'll point out though, yeah, and that's interrupt,

(43:09):
but we do need to make it absolutely clear for
anybody who doesn't know, if you are at an intersection
where all four lights are blinking red, that is to
be treated as a four was sty Oh yeah, I'm
talking specifically about one that's red and yellow for one way,
and you know, you you understand what I mean. Um,
but yeah, it's it's it's really a frustrating thing that

(43:32):
happens to everybody I know, and everybody has their own
thoughts about the way it should work. Like exact the
ZIP emerges maybe the best example, because there are definitely
two ways to look at that thing, and and everybody
that's doing it one way thinks the other people are
jerks and the the opposite of the other side. So um,
it's just again without being able to talk to each
other about this, like what we're doing right now, um,

(43:54):
without getting that point across that you know, there is
a right way and a wrong way to do this,
and most well, I guess fifty some of the people
do it wrong. It right? Do you remember those? Uh
those wheels, the LED display wheels. I wanted to get
some of this so bad. But the main problem would be,

(44:14):
I don't know if I would write helpful messages you
know what I mean? Prohibitive too. They're very expensive, Yeah,
they are, but expensive. What would you write then? Would
it be? Would it be would you use logos or
would it be like hand signals? Uh? I don't know.
It depends on how much character space I have because
I would probably get verbose. But there you know, if

(44:39):
I used to have really bad road rage. I I
would love to, you know, write down someone's license plate
number and display it man vindictive? Yeah, yeah, which I
When I say display, I don't mean like posting on
social media or anything. I think that's a very dangerous

(45:01):
thing to do. But not a good idea now. But
you know, at the end of the day, you and
everybody in a car around you're your fellow drivers are
all just trying to get from point A to point
B with the minimum amount of hassle. And although it
doesn't feel like it, every time you're on the road

(45:21):
with any other vehicle, you are officially part of a team,
and the point of your team's mission is to avoid
people getting injured or killed. Can I tell you a
little secret? And this will be the last thing today.
I still have all the rally car decals on my
car because we're still working on some stuff here at
the office. But I've lost all of my anonymity on

(45:45):
the road. So I find myself and I think it's funny,
but I find myself being overly Um what do I
want to say, like overly courteous to people in that
you know, I don't want to. I don't ever want
them to think anything bad about me because represent well
that too, I mean, but but then even to like
let's say tomorrow we're on the road and we happened

(46:05):
to be by each other on the road again, like
there could be some instant karma there, it's an instant
bad karma. I'm not instant, I guess, you know, day
long krma or whatever. Um, but I feel like I
am being like overly courteous to other people on the
road maybe because of that, I don't know. It's it's
weird how it's kind of affecting the way I drive
a little bit. And it's not that I'm you know,
mean to people in any other any other way, but um,

(46:27):
I don't want to be the guy that's kind of
like nudging them out of the lane or you know,
not letting them into traffic or whatever. I'm allowing people
in and uh, maybe it's maybe it's a move for
the better, you know, like maybe it's a maybe it's
helping things out. Maybe we should remove all in andimity
on the road. It's a terrible that's just so everybody
gets a number on their car and then you can
just remember the big numbers that are on the car,
right right, maybe there's a chat function, which would be

(46:52):
the worst thing to happen in traffic ever. All right,
I just thought I mentioned this that you know, it's funny,
but I feel like it is kind of in a
way affecting the way that I'm driving just a little
bit better. Yeah, I think for the better. Oh, definitely
for the better. Were you a monster on the road? No,
let's that's my point is that it wasn't that way before,
but you know, it was a little it was a
little easier to get away with stuff like and again,

(47:13):
nothing you know, illegal or anything like that. And really
am not I can ree bad driver or anything. I'm
just saying like, yeah, if somebody wants to merging, like,
I'll back off a little bit and let them come in.
You know, before it kind of depended on the day
I was having, I guess, but now it's not. Just
come on, and I just have these pictures of you
pre rally car to cols uh, just taking jumps off

(47:37):
over passes into the wrong direction of traffic on the interstate,
flipping people the bird. I was just well, I was
just giving off these these these common misconceptions because I
just want everybody to start doing that so I can
disobey all of them. That's what I Yeah, it was
my whole goal behind this whole thing. We'll let us
give it a week to see if you accomplish it,

(47:58):
my friend, h And if you and I meet in traffic,
let it be members as members of the same team
rather than opponents in a war, which sometimes it feels
like from about four to seven every day here. It
shouldn't be that way. It should not, It absolutely shouldn't.
Everybody is probably a great person. Just try and get

(48:20):
to their house before the pizza gets cold, you know
what I mean. Uh, So we are going to head out.
We would like to hear some of your pet peeves
and traffic misconceptions, right yeah, I'm sure we've missed a
ton of them. Like people, they think they're doing the
right thing, but they're not, So tell us what that
is and let us know what you think. You can

(48:42):
find us on Facebook and Twitter with your Car Stuff
hs W. You can check out all of our other
audio podcasts on our website car Stuff show dot com,
where we also I believe have a road rage or
pet peeves episode we do, oh boy, at we might
have more than one, or if you would to write
to us with your story of misconceptions or a topic

(49:05):
that you think we should cover for your fellow and
listeners in the future. You can write to us directly.
We are car stuff at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
that how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff

(49:25):
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