Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Road Rage on Seattle roadways

Fodor's Travel Talk Forums (https://www.fodors.com/community/)

- United States (https://www.fodors.com/community/united-states/)

- - Road Rage on Seattle roadways (https://www.fodors.com/community/united-states/road-rage-on-seattle-roadways-273073/)

My take on all this is that the Seattle region has suffered mightily at the hands of a couple of factors: The first is using traffic engineering as a tool to manage human behavior. There has been a long-standing unspoken Puritanism in planning circles in the Northwest (including Oregon, believe me) that basically says if you make doing something sinful enough of a nuisance, people will stop sinning. Increase the price of booze (State liquor stores) until it's the highest in the country, and people will stop drinking. Wrong, it just turns the liquor business into one of the few profitable operations in State government, so they permit increased advertising to increase consumption. As for traffic, it goes like this: If we don't build roads up to recognized standards (say, five lanes for major suburban roads, one just for left turns), and synchronize the lights, and enforce sight lines, then people won't be able to go too fast so they won't drive so much. Wrong, they drive too fast anyway, but there's no turning or pedestrian space, and everybody plays "beat the yellow." Frustration ensues, and everybody starts going as fast as they can. I am amazed when I visit Southern California at how the major arterials (not the freeways) really move, because they were made wide enough to handle the straight-aheads as well as the turners. The second big factor is population growth and density. Interstates 5 and 90 and 405(parts) were built in the 1960s to designs made in the 1950s. The population of the area has tripled since then. In addition, in older areas (central Seattle, for example) residential densities are much higher than in the suburbs, or even in much of urban California, so there are more people, hence more vehicles, per acre. But in those cases the roads were laid out in the 1910s and 20s, just like in other older American cities. The bulk of immigrants to western Washington urban areas over the past 20 years haven't been from California but from rural parts of the Pacific NW (E. Oregon, E. Wash., Montana, Idaho etc.) Urban driving conditions might not be familiar to many of these folks, while many of those Californians who moved up probably (not sure but sounds reasonable) came from the high-tech suburbs of northern and southern Calif., not inner cities. Those areas, being newer, had highways designed more recently, and for bigger populations, than the folks encountered in Seattle. Hence, they find driving habits (beat the yellow etc.) more aggressive than they're used to, and call it "road rage" (the violent sort of which, by the way, is almost unheard of hereabouts.) It's only going to get worse - last week the voters nixed a gas tax that would pay for road expansions and improvements. Guess they'd rather keep sinning than put a few bucks in the collection plate.

John, I totally agree with your assessments re the inadequacy of the roads, engineering and traffic-wise. This afternoon, I entered I-5 south from downtown and the entrance lane quickly became an exit only lane. The lane to my left was exit only also. I had about 1/4 mile to get two lanes over in heavy traffic. At 60 mph, that gives you about 15 seconds. So, I decided when I had room and made my move. Well, the car behind didn't like it and honked and practically climbed my bumber. My choice, exit the highway or make some Seattle psycho angry. Now that's when I need the yoga! I've decided, once we can afford it, I'm ditching my minivan, which seems top heavy in these high speed maneuvers, for something that hugs the road. Or, I could get a humvie. I could be like Charles Bronson in "Death Wish," avenging myself on the Seattle Psycho Drivers. Or, I could try sticky Michelins that would last 10,000 miles on my mini-van. That might do the trick and be cheaper than a new car, but not nearly as much fun as the humvie. Think I need to call up Bob and Ray on Car Talk about my choices!

Having lived in Seattle for twenty-three years, after moving from the Twin Cities, I had to laugh at Dan's comment that "Seattle is full of psychos" and tend to agree with his other comment, "And perhaps the most poorly planned city in the country." While the drivers here aren't exactly psycho, many of them are passive-aggressive and others simply do not understand how to drive (whether this is a function of poor driver education programs in Washington state, or poor driver education programs in the places people have moved from, I don't know.) Interesting that your post is about road rage, Lisa, since, although I certainly do notice aggressive driving--such as what seems to be ever-increasing running of red lights--I notice far more overly cautious and just plain bad driving. By overly cautious, I mean the kind of example Kostroma gave, drivers who are too timid to pull into traffic even when the next oncoming car is quite a distance away. But perhaps the greatest irritant are the drivers--and there are many here--who can't seem to grasp the elementary concept of slower traffic to the right, faster traffic to the left; who don't seem to understand that a passing lane is for passing, not cruising. If you come up behind someone in the passing lane in Italy, or France, or Germany, they'll move over. Not so in the Seattle area, or in other parts of Washington state. They'll continue driving along cluelessly and, if one is so bold as to honk or flash one's brights at them, they'll stubbornly remain in the passing lane and often even flip you off. The kind of "flip side" of these drivers are ones who tailgate you in a non-passing lane, even when the passing lane is wide open, as if they can't be bothered to actually change lanes and use the passing lane for it's intended purpose. I think John's comments are, for the most part, right on target. I've always felt that highways around here were very poorly designed and am not sure whether this was due to a certain level of incompetence, or a lack of foresight, or limitations imposed by geography or--as John seems to be suggesting--intentional, or perhaps a mixture of all of those. I heartily agree with John that drivers tend to play "beat the yellow" here because lights, for the most part, are not synchronized. Sometime this past year, the city trumpeted the fact that it had finally synchronized lights on a stretch of Aurora Ave. N., as if this was some major breakthough in traffic engineering. (Hey guys, got news for you: other cities in the U.S. have been doing this for years; it can't be rocket science.) Roads are full of potholes (studded tires are legal during the winter even though the Seattle gets snow only about 2-4 times a year; it is, however, very close to the Cascade mountains) and signs are, overall, very poor. But...we do have two brand new sports palaces, so I guess the area's leaders have their priorities straight.

I got a chuckle out of this thread. I live about equal distance between Portland and Seattle and will often visit both cities to go shopping, attend events, etc. I find both areas full of aggressive drivers. I see no difference between the two. Personally, I have no problems driving in either places...I just adjust my driving to the situation...but I have really don't see the difference in driving attitudes/behaviors that Lisa is referring to. Sorry, it doesn't wash.

What the hell does this have to do with travel? What's next: Why are movie lines so long in _______ as compared to _______?

The problem is that people are rushing to keep up with thier fast lifestyle. And with technology, everything is getting faster. People are rude.. well I think the biggest problem of all is the breakdown of family and lack of personal intelligence. Where I live, lives are first, traffic secondary.