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Comment by throwaway0a5e | Hacker News Reader

If you're routinely having problems with how everyone else is acting it's probably not them.

There are many things drivers, pedestrians and cyclists do that are not in accordance with the official rules but are expected and accepted. If you don't expect and accept your local variation of whatever these exceptions are you are going to have a very bad time. There is a predictable pattern to how traffic works. Being caught up on the letter of the law will results in you poorly communicating with all the other traffic around you which increases the frequency of conflicts. They way you walk or drive in Boston is different than the way you walk or drive in SF and neither of them adheres strictly to the official rules and markings.

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I've lived on a one-way street for over a decade now. Pre-COVID, it was unusual to go a week without seeing someone going the wrong way. It was not unusual to see this multiple times in a day.

I also bike down a two-way separated bike lane to/from work. It's separated by concrete barriers, except at intersections. I'd come across drivers trying to drive down them, again, roughly weekly.

It's predictable that I'll see a car turn the wrong way onto a one-way street, and I've learned to anticipate it, but it's not accepted.

Most drivers are okay, but there's a small number who are really bad. If you come across a hundred drivers a day, you're going to come across bad ones pretty often.

The author didn't say every driver sucked -- just that he regularly comes across drivers who suck. I'm willing to bet that most road users will assert the same experience.

Most drivers pass safely, and several times a week, one won't. Most drivers stop at red lights, and every week or so, one won't. Most drivers check their mirrors before turning, and every few hundred, one won't. Most drivers use their turn signals and...actually, that last one might be a lie.

I have to disagree though: all drivers are bad. Most think of themselves as good drivers who only make a rare mistake - but all those rare mistakes across the thousands of drivers you encounter every day means it is rare that you don't see someone do something wrong regularly.

There are a few really bad drivers who shouldn't have a license. However that isn't most of the cases of bad driving you see in a day.

> If you don't expect and accept your local variation of whatever these exceptions are you are going to have a very bad time.

As it turns out I do expect this behavior and still have a very bad time. These laws are not frivolous, and violating them is extremely dangerous.

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