A couple of weeks back, while I was in Las Vegas, Houston Chronicle Staff Writer Jhair Romero penned the following "explainer" (A term that I hate but here we are).
Every Houston Driver Knows 'Rubbernecking'. What Other Unwritten Rules are Out There?
Now, this article is behind the Chronicle's paywall so I won't block quote the body of the article, but I do think it OK to put up the question that he asks at the end.
Tell us about the rest of them, the other unwritten rules of driving in Houston. What habits and courtesies and routine traffic infractions do you spot on our roads every day?
This question got me to thinking. What DO we see on Houston roads on our commutes, driving to the store, doing our level-best to get the heck out of Dodge during Houston Live Stock Show & Rodeo season?
I will say, this list has changed mightily post-COVID lock downs. I have said several times, both on this blog and on Xitter, that I'm working under the theory that the National Response to COVID broke society into pieces. As a matter of fact, most of the things that you're going to see listed below are further evidence of that.
So, without wasting any more of your time. I give you the Top 5 Unwritten Rules of (Bad) Houston driving. These might not be exclusive to Houston, but they are legion now and happen frequently on a daily basis.
Finally, before I get fully into this list, I present my Houston driving credentials. I commute to work around 20 miles one-way three times per week. The drive takes approximately 35 minutes during the early AM hours (think 5:30AM) and around 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours in the afternoon (think 3:30-4:00 PM) I also drive around NW Houston A LOT, and I make the drive up North a few times per month for various reasons. I also drive to the Airports, mostly IAH but occasionally Hobby, and I've been known to drive down to NRG on occasion for various events.
Let's get into it.
Number 1: Line Cutting.
You are familiar with this one. You have to make an exit. Unfortunately in the lane to actually exit there is a back-up, due to traffic on the feeder road or heavy traffic on the Freeway you're exiting to (Aside: Houstonians cannot merge.) or some other exit. You see the back-up, move your car over, dutifully, into line and inch forward waiting your turn.
Suddenly, a car in the lane next to you on left flies by, then suddenly turns on their blinker and cuts off the cars in line, close to the actual exit, often almost causing a collision and making the exiting traffic hit their brakes to avoid it.
You have just experience the Houston Line-Cutter. The scourge of Freeway driving and one of the most self-centered, selfish, moves that a driver can make. Nothing says "My time means everything and your time and safety mean nothing to me" than this move. Tesla drivers LOVE this move, as do Chevrolet and Ford Pickup drivers and luxury sedan owners. It must be in the vehicles Owner's manual that you have to perfect this move in order to own one.
The funny thing is, these drivers get the MOST frustrated with you if you do not let them cut-in. Prior to the Pandemic Lock-Downs, I used to put up some resistance. However, one day I saw a driver run his car into the concrete barrier and the car beside him to cut in and I have since just backed off and let them go. Also, Houston drivers are very shooty right now, and one car length in front is JUST NOT WORTH GETTING SHOT over.
I don't remember this being as prevalent pre-COVID as it is now, but now it's Legion. I've a feeling it's only going to get worse.
Number 2: Right (or Left) turns from a non-turn lane.
This one is closely related to Number 1 but it can be much more likely to result in a collision.
You're in the lane to turn (right or left) your lane is a dedicated turn lane and the one next to you is not an optional turn lane (it's go straight only). Your turn arrow, or light, turns green and off you go. Suddenly, the car next to you also turns and tries to race you to the lane.
To be honest, you're not expecting this and they don't have their turn indicator blinking so you have no warning. You catch them out of the corner of your eye and then, amazingly, they have the audacity to lay on their horn at YOU. They scream at you, glare, you're seriously worried a road rage incident is upcoming despite the fact that you have done nothing wrong.
That's the thing about these people, they don't care that they're breaking traffic laws, all they care about is that they want to get where they are going and they will not take responsibility for either a) not wanting to wait in the line for the turn lane or b) admitting that they effed up and found themselves in the incorrect lane due to inattention or lack of prior planning and are more than willing to run you off the road than to just go straight and work their way back to where they want to go.
Number 3: Stop Signs Optional
The "California Stop" is a well documented event that long pre-dated COVID. Rolling a Stop sign was a right of passage for young drivers in West Texas where I grew up. I'm not referring to that however. What I'm mentioning here is just blowing through a Stop without even a tap of the brakes, without checking for oncoming traffic or pedestrians or anything.
This phenomenon has gotten so bad I saw on my local NextDoor page that the Sheriff's office actual did some Stop Sign enforcement in our area and pulled over 7 drivers in a 20 minute span.
I once had the driver of a huge GMC pickup run the sign and LOOK RIGHT AT ME while he was doing so. Knowing that, if I did not let him go (despite the fact that I had been there, had come to a stop and was preparing to go) we would have been in a collision.
The Government has a term that it calls "knowing and willful". What they mean by this is that what you did was intentional, or that you just failed to take the basic care that an idiot would take. Most of the people running Stop signs are knowing and willfully doing so and could care less who, or what, they could hit.
Number 4: We don't need no stinking lights.
There is a line from the 80's movie Star Man where Jeff Bridges, playing an alien stuck on Earth who is trying to get home, drives Karen Allen's car for the first time suggesting that he knew how to drive by watching her. As he's driving he comes up to a traffic light that turns yellow. At that point he guns the throttle and blows through the light just after it turns red, almost causing a collision.
Allen freaks out and asks him what he was doing. "I thought you knew how to drive?!?"
Bridges Responds, I do, "Red Light Stop, Green Light Go, Yellow light Go, very fast."
I'm not suggesting that none of us have ever done this. I know that I have and I'm sure you have as well.
What we've morphed into in Houston is Green Light Go, Yellow Light Go, very fast, Red Light Go, even faster. I've seen drivers blow through Red Lights that have been turned for over 10 seconds. I've seen drivers just blow through a light that I've been sitting at Red for 30 seconds.
The worst transgressors are the drivers (usually pickups) who go into the turn-only lane to get around cars in the main lanes only to drive straight on without stopping. Either that or on the shoulder. One time I saw a car move over into the oncoming traffic lane to run the light.
The problem has gotten so bad that you now have to utilize what the wife and I have been calling the "Houston 5 second delay" before rolling forward on any Green Light at some intersections. Of course, this will most-times get you honked at by the drivers behind you who would much rather see you plow into the cross-traffic running the light than wait behind you as you let them clear the intersection.
Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.
Number 5: Pass, Brake and Turn.
This last one is one that, sadly I admit, is the one that tends to infuriate me the most. Let's say you're driving along in the right lane of a 4 lane road. Suddenly a car shoots past you in the left lane. Once past you they immediate cut you off and then, in a move of stunningly poor judgement, slam on their brakes and proceed to run right, directly in front of you causing you to have to slam on your brakes to avoid a collision. Whether they actually use their turn signal or not is optional, sometimes yes, sometimes no, but the end-result is always that your front collision detection system is going off.
This maneuver is especially egregious if there is no car behind you for quite some distance.
I believe that some of the drivers who attempt this move are intentionally trying to cause a collision. Either they upside-down on the vehicle they purchased or they just cannot afford payments or they just would like an insurance settlement. The others, much like every other bad driver on this list, are just selfish and don't care.
At the end of the day driving a vehicle in traffic is part of a large social contract. We agree to follow the rules and regulations of the road in return for the privilege of driving on them. We also agree to operate courteously and safely out of respect for our fellow drivers. Once this social contract is breached then driving becomes a free-for-all, collisions increase and insurance rates skyrocket (if the drivers are insured at all which, increasingly, they are not.)
Sadly what passes for driving now in Houston has little to do with honoring this contract, much as functioning in polite society has become something of a lost art. I would even argue that polite society itself has become somewhat of an archaic idea, much like intelligent social media posts or quality, hard-hitting journalism.
Society is broken, the bonds that joined us are irreparably frayed. What we're left with is a selfish, me-mongering husk of a city where the people don't care and the rules are optional. Gone is the gentle raising of the index finger and a polite nod to another driver as they move over to let you down a residential street when cars are parked on the side and only one care can get through, what is increasingly replacing that is anger, bitterness and, increasingly, road rage.
I'm unsure how to fix this, outside of some Righteous traffic policing by law enforcement which doesn't seem likely at this point, but that a fix is needed seems to be beyond a doubt.
Maybe outfit us all with bazookas and allow the taking out of one transgressor a year?
Too much? OK, yeah. But we need to find some way to return some civility to the roads. If nothing else for the well-being of our new, increasingly overpriced vehicles.
