This happens every single day on my route and all over town. At an intersection, there is a point in which your vehicle is “in the middle of that intersection”, and no longer a part of the street. This may be confusing to most folks, but drivers of big vehicles understand it all too well. We will be starting out into the intersection and preparing to turn, with our turn signal on. There is always a smaller car, truck or van that approaches from the other direction & continues up into the intersection (oblivious to this big vehicle that is turning right in front of them & heading in their direction). They then stop their vehicle (if they are lucky) within inches of ours and look up, as if to say how did you get here? where did you come from?
We now have a tricky situation in which our big vehicle is in the middle of the intersection at a very odd angle, and this little van is waiting for us to back up! Well, there is no way that we will (or can) back up, especially since we were here first, and so the van needs to back itself up. Once they realize that we are not moving and that they will have to. They will frequently do so after going through the mental checklist of:
1-what do I do now?
2-Oh, I should back up
3-look around to see who is behind me
4-now how do I get my car to go backwards?
5-Oh, shit, there is a car behind me now
6-what now?
7-that bus is coming toward me now!
You may think that I am joking, but I assure you that this very scenario plays itself out many times each day at an intersection near you. The chances of you going through this are greater than you think. I can only hope that you will pay more attention to your surroundings when you get there. Alba T. Ross
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