Hurricane Evacuation Etiquette

[alicia-w]

Okay folks, I'm sure all of us who have ever evacuated from an oncoming storm have something to offer here.

One of the first things I noticed is this:

When driving and travelling through traffic lights on city surface streets, please dont sit out in the intersection waiting for the line in front of you to move. When the light turns red, NO ONE can get anywhere. It isnt fair that vehicles driving in the cross pattern have to sit and wait for you to get your keister out of the intersection when you could have waited.

Dont get into fights at the gas station and for crying-out loud, dont cut the lines. You dont have any right to do that.

When driving on the interstate and going only 20 mph, dont ride up the tail end of the guy in front of you so merging cars cant get in. You arent going to get anywhere any faster by doing that.

We went to east Tennessee and folks seem to typically as where you're from. The minute we said Florida, they were all sweet and sympathetic. One place, we didnt even have to pay for our breakfast. For dinner that night, the lady threw in free dessert.

We drove back yesterday and what a cluster that was. LOTS of rude people pulling trailers, driving in the left lane of the freeway and going 20 miles under the speed limit. GRRRR.

The back roads went much smoother and we were able to find gas too.

Anyone else have any etiquette points to offer?

[drudd1]

With traffic as far as the eye can see, don't honk your horn! Unless that puppy has one heck of an air blast coming out of it, nothing in front of you is going to move.

[Swimdude]

With traffic as far as the eye can see, don't honk your horn! Unless that puppy has one heck of an air blast coming out of it, nothing in front of you is going to move.

In fact, I kinda wish people wouldn't do that in ANY traffic, much less hurricane-rush-'hour.' I've never had to evacuate, myself. [Can you tell; I live in Houston!]

[themusk]

When driving and travelling through traffic lights on city surface streets, please dont sit out in the intersection waiting for the line in front of you to move. When the light turns red, NO ONE can get anywhere. It isnt fair that vehicles driving in the cross pattern have to sit and wait for you to get your keister out of the intersection when you could have waited.

FYI -- anyone who does that at any time can be ticketed for running a red light. When the light turns red, you're supposed to be out of the intersection, period. No exceptions and no excuses, and that includes no special exemption for sitting still in the middle of a red light instead of driving straight through one.

Cops often ignore cars sitting partway in the middle of an intersection, just as they ignore borderline speeding. But if it causes a traffic problem or public safety issue and the cops are under orders to clear the obstruction, whoever is sitting out there will be going home with at least one, and possibly more than one, pricey little citation.

[HurriCat]

WARNING, and not just during evacs: Here in Orlando, red-light running is really bad. I mean running the "dead reds", too. You can have a green for two or three seconds and some A** goes blowing right through.

And forget about the turn arrow going red - four or five little s-words just keep on a-turning - they KNOW you aren't going to hit them, and also that the cops are NEVER enforcing this!

"Funny" how we have LOTS of ticketing for 35-40 in a ridiculously-posted 30 zone (how convenient), but you never see them getting the 'runners. I want to know why red light running doesn't carry a multi-thousand dollar fine or even jail time!

[alicia-w]

When driving and travelling through traffic lights on city surface streets, please dont sit out in the intersection waiting for the line in front of you to move. When the light turns red, NO ONE can get anywhere. It isnt fair that vehicles driving in the cross pattern have to sit and wait for you to get your keister out of the intersection when you could have waited.

FYI -- anyone who does that at any time can be ticketed for running a red light. When the light turns red, you're supposed to be out of the intersection, period. No exceptions and no excuses, and that includes no special exemption for sitting still in the middle of a red light instead of driving straight through one.

Cops often ignore cars sitting partway in the middle of an intersection, just as they ignore borderline speeding. But if it causes a traffic problem or public safety issue and the cops are under orders to clear the obstruction, whoever is sitting out there will be going home with at least one, and possibly more than one, pricey little citation.

not much chance of them being caught unless a cop is sitting on the median. as for the red-light running, it was more like a c - r - a - w - l....

[HurriCat]

Yeah, my observations are still valid - that the police always seem to have the resources to pick-off "speeders" in these cute little 30-zones on straight, wide open roads (cough-speed traps), especially towards the end of each month (cough-cough - quotas), but there is no enforcement on light-running to be seen. Even at low speeds, there are increasing numbers of scoff-laws who know the score. Like I said, many cars just turn on through the red arrows, looking all smug.

A recent scene: On a certain major road, we saw what were obviously hookers waving at passing cars. In the store parking lot, a number of gangsta-types were hanging around car windows, with hands going in and out. A block down, there were about FIVE officers - one with a RADAR gun, and at least three writing tickets. Niiiice.

So, if it's like this now, don't even expect civility or law-enforcement to much degree in a real crisis. Either evac well in advance or stay put - don't be out fighting and clawing for water or ice (for cryin' out loud). The roads will be very dangerous.

[Pebbles]

Just had to jump in here even though this has nothing to do with the topic beside the red light running coming up. *puts on her infomercial voice* Here in Chicago they are now installing nifty little machines that can and will take a picture of your car at major intersections if you go through a red light. Yes you too can get a ticket along with a picture of your car and license plate mailed to your home...even if you were not the one driving the car! Just ignore the red color on the light signal and 2 bright flashes will occur as the picture is taken and the government pulls in piles of your hard earned cash! No need for law enforcement to be around to catch those feeling the need to flaunt the red light laws! Coming to a city near you soon! *ends infomercial voice*

Sorry had to try to be silly about it. It's quite controversial up here actually as many times those that know which intersections have these little babies try to slam on their breaks when they realize they aren't gonna make it and the person behind usually ends up rear ending the car. Thankfully though I'm not one to go driving like a chicken with my head cut off so don't run the lights, and thus have never received a ticket.

[Hurricaneman]

Food for thought

[stormie_skies]

Just had to jump in here even though this has nothing to do with the topic beside the red light running coming up. *puts on her infomercial voice* Here in Chicago they are now installing nifty little machines that can and will take a picture of your car at major intersections if you go through a red light. Yes you too can get a ticket along with a picture of your car and license plate mailed to your home...even if you were not the one driving the car! Just ignore the red color on the light signal and 2 bright flashes will occur as the picture is taken and the government pulls in piles of your hard earned cash! No need for law enforcement to be around to catch those feeling the need to flaunt the red light laws! Coming to a city near you soon! *ends infomercial voice*

Sorry had to try to be silly about it. It's quite controversial up here actually as many times those that know which intersections have these little babies try to slam on their breaks when they realize they aren't gonna make it and the person behind usually ends up rear ending the car. Thankfully though I'm not one to go driving like a chicken with my head cut off so don't run the lights, and thus have never received a ticket.

They tried that in Denver when I lived there....they would put the cameras up at random busy intersections in the city each day and try to catch all the red-runners. But there were a couple of problems:

1. The cameras may have been able to catch the license plate of the car, but they had a much harder time catching the driver's face....especially if the driver was wearing a hat or sunglasses. If the driver's face could not be clearly seen, the tickets were easily contested - people would choose to go to court, and then say that they were not the ones driving the car (they borrowed it to their family member/friend/roomate/etc.). Because tickets go to drivers and not necessarily to the person the car is registered to, these tickets were dismissed.

2. The location of the cameras was public information, and had to be disclosed to local media if they asked for it. So every morning, the rush hour drive time radio shows added this info to their traffic updates - warning everyone which intersections had cameras so people knew which lights were not "safe" to run....

They were seriously considering pulling the cameras when I moved away 6 years or so ago, I don't know what happened, though....

[alicia-w]

it was determined to be unconstitutional in Las Vegas. Something about invasion of privacy.

but I figure if someone t-bones me at an intersection because they ran a red light, they invaded MY privacy....