Do you go to great lengths to completely avoid certain intersections in Baristaville? What about this one (below) at Park and Lorraine? Or the North Mountain and Bellevue four-way stop? What about Harrison and Llewellyn? Or North Fullerton and Chestnut? Tell us your worst in and around Baristaville.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_NvuwUjQjI
I HATE Bloomfield and Fullerton! Very dangerous and confusing.
OMG!~ don’t get me started! how I WISH we could see the plate of that scofflaw! Trooper Truth, are you there? Can you please run every blue Hyundai wagon in town and figure out who deserves a big fat ticket??? OK everyone makes mistakes, but with the new ladder striped crosswalks it is pretty apparent that a driver ought to be paying attention instead of serenely rolling through the stop sign.
Instead of a skate park, let’s buy some cameras like they now have in Newark, and start mailing tickets to bad drivers! Bet the cameras would pay for themselves within 12 months!!
Someday when I hit the lottery, in between volunteering in the nursery at Mountainside and the animal shelter, I will pick a different place in town every few weeks and stand there with a sign that says, “Pay Attention, Stoopid!”
Watchung Plaza does it for me
As for driving faux pas, the one that drives me (and my husband) bonkers is people (asshats-cough) who try to pass you on the right. Not only is this illegal, it’s dangerous. It’s hurry up so they can beat you to the red light!
Hoover Ave and East Passaic/JFK in Bloomfield, they “fixed” the light so now you can’t turn right on red and it takes a hundred years for the light to change.
Shifty – you’re right, that’s probably the most confusing and ridiculous intersection in the area, now that Bloomfield Ave at Rt 23 in Verona was reconfigured a couple years ago. And people who are slow on the trigger can cause you to wait through 3 or 4 cycles! Hooray for 5 minutes of idling!
I recently gave directions to a friend who’s not from B-ville on how to get to the Hoover Ave GSP entrance from Montclair. I ended up having to draw a diagram right on the Google maps image because it’s just so dicey. (…hope she makes it!)
Driving, riding, running and walking around town is a dangerous thang.
Why?
Because we have far too many IMPORTANT people in town who have places to go and people to see. And your dumb ass is just in the way…
As for intersections– anyone with a crosswalk. To often, if you stop you risk getting rear-ended or someone passing on the right!!
Though, in fairness to the car in the video, it appears they realized the mistake and tried to stop mid intersection, only to realize that made no sense. Thankfully, it was a 4-way, so it was easier to see.
We all make mistakes.
To this, I now AVOID anyone with a phone driving. I pull over, speed up or turn onto another road.
Prof: good start, but let’s go better.
I refuse to be on the other end of a telephone conversation with anyone who is driving. I just say, “Call me back after you are out of the car” and hang up.
Same here, Walter…that scares me to death.
The problem with the intersection at Harrison and Llewellyn is that you can’t even see the stop sign which is behind a tree if you are coming down Llewellyn from South mountain. Very dangerous and way too many accidents there.
Yea, waltermitty- I do that too.
Is anyone else annoyed by the text wrapping around the avatars?
How about someone filming an intersection as they approach it? That doesn’t seem too safe either! Please tell me the camera was mounted.
Prof – do you mean you’d rather have all the text left justified under the “P” in “Posted”? If so, then I definitely agree.
But if you mean, start the text at the left but Under the avatar, then imho that would leave too much blank space.
I nominate what I refer to as the ‘bermuda triangle of intersections’ — the area on Glenridge Ave in Montclair near the Little Y and Crane Park. I approach that area with a lot of caution. Cars routinely blow off the stop signs in the area. Now that I think about it, all of Glendidge Ave. from the Post Office up to Forest Street is pretty bad. You have the jaywalkers darting in and out of the Post Office from between parked cars, the speeders and the folks that ignore stop signs. A nice, deadly, combination.
I’m gonna have to go with Hoover Ave and East Passaic/JFK in Bloomfield, an intersection I navigate twice a week. Bad news. And Watchung Plaza’s pretty bad too. My pet peeves re drivers are those on cells or texting. Scary.
Looking at your post, I don’t like that the first 2 lines are justified with the “P” in Posted, while the remaining text is justified with the left side of the avatar.
LIKE THIS.
Or is it THIS?
Though as I toggle text size, the portion of the text that wraps (obviously) changes.
And I don’t like it.
NAH!!
I live off from North Fullerton and the intersection for Chestnut & North Fullerton is a PITA. When it first became a 4-way I prayed for my life every time I had to drive through there. People suck at 4-ways and my other bad intersection is on the MSU campus, there is a 3 way stop and people blow through them. With last night’s weather my husband was in a hit/run and the kid in the minivan just kept all in that bad rain yesterday. Now my car looks like someone took a can opener and peeled the back end off….effers.
I dare anyone to drive westbound on Oxford and try to cross Grove Street to continue onto the intersection with Christopher Street. All of the intersections others have listed are pretty bad and accident prone, but none leave you playing Russian Roulette like this one. Just try it some time either in the morning or evening rushes.
There are always about 10 cars parked illegally in both directions on the north side of Grove Street which are made up of commuters utilizing the Walnut Street rail station (and you wonder why the parking authority is broke?). Then on the north side of the intersection, there are always cars parked illegally (albeit temporarily) as people are not willing to walk more than 10 yards to drop off their dry cleaning, or to pick up a newspaper or lottery ticket. Sometimes, Decamp buses and UPS are guilty of this as well. All of these cars park so close to the corner that it is actually impossible to see if there are any cars heading northbound on Grove Street making it impossible to cross it safely.
It’s a long way around, but to get to my home on Chrsitopher Street when coming from the south and east, I will always wait at the light on Walnut. Thank the lord, the county finally replaced the signals at that intersection. For a while there, you couldn’t tell which light was for which traffic as it was set 45 degrees between the intersection.
Now that school is open, I continue to see countless drivers passing school buses whose lights are flashing red. If they should put a camera anywhere, it should be on the front and back of our buses.
There are a lot of intersections I hate, but lately I’ve been thinking about aggressive driving & our response to it. I’ve realized that there are certain intersections where I’ve been confronted with particularly outrageous instances of aggressive driving, & I still remember every detail of those incidents, sometimes even 10 years later.
That seems odd on the surface, but I think there’s a reason for it. Does that happen to anyone else?
I think it’s because some incidents are the roadway equivalent of an ambush: it’s a sudden attack that puts you in immediate & serious physical danger. That evokes the fight-or-flight response & all that that implies. The situation gets imprinted deep in your brain; it’s a primitive thing, almost beyond conscious control. It can also trigger an intense bout of road rage. That’s how bad driving creates more bad driving.
Of course, living in ultra-crowded NJ, we’re exposed to more instances of aggressive driving per mile than most folks elsewhere. It’s a monster. This is why I take trains into the City.
Not an intersection, but my pet traffic peeve is bicyclists who ride on the wrong side of the road, against traffic. Saw one the other day who was not only riding on the left side of the street, without a helmet, but he also had a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. The whole thing was like a death wish.
Amateur bicyclists, adult and children, need to know that they make conditions on the road more dangerous when they ride against traffic, even if it makes them feel safer. Walking is a different story.
I don’t understand why some 4-way stops are nightmares, while some are navigated just fine. For instance, the 4-way stop in the video is awful, while the stop at Highland and Belleville Ave (or is it still Glen Ridge Ave there?) is fine. Everyone goes when they are supposed to based on arrival at the stop, and no one blows through it. I guess because it’s more crowded?
Midland and Bloomfield is horrible. If you stop for a pedestrian in the crosswalk you are often the only one.
Also Walnut Street down by the train station. A tall SUV or van makes it impossible to see if there is someone stepping into the cross walk and too many people walking to / from the train are staring at the phone instead of paying attention to the road.
Intersections don’t kill people, cars do.
Don’t even mention skateboarders in intersections. Yeah, Watchung Plaza can be a melee. The recent change in DMV regs requiring a full stop for pedestrians is a two-edged sword: drivers, attimes obey.But, pedestrians now feel entitled to blithely amble out into traffic. Common sense is not all that common.
So prof do you think your considerations about the wrap has anything to do with your expectations for your students’ . To APA or not. That is the question.
Long Hill Rd and Ridge Rd, if Outer Baristaville (Little Falls) counts. It’s a T intersection with a stop sign in two of the three directions, but whether they get followed is always a crapshoot. Also, I wish the town would make the property owner on the corner trim his/her hedges in order to improve the sight lines.
The corner of Fifth and Vermouth has always given me fits.
I avoid Belmont Ave. & Franklin St. in Belleville. When the Light Rail crosses the 2 streets, the traffic lights have to reset. You can be stuck on red forever. The situation is compounded when the grammar school lets out.
Cutting the light! I just happened to me at Upper Mtn & Clarement this morning. Why do I have to slam on my brakes to avoid someone who does not have the right of way? One of these days it will be ramming speed…
Update: NEVER EVER attempt to drive within a two block radius of the intersection of North Fullerton and Chestnut on weekdays between the hours of 7:40 and 8:30 or 2:00-4:00 M-Th (3:00 on Fridays). What a nightmare!
If I had any money to bet, it would be that the Board will start tinkering with the Renaissance start time…. (sigh)
p.s. LiFer – that is indeed a stupidly designed intersection, and usually the Ridge Rd folks want to roll right through their stop sign. But I make sure they don’t! and someday when I trade in my kid transporter for hubby’s old F-150, and load the bumpers with cinderblock, people will darn well stop rolling where they shouldn’t! Bwaaa haa haaah!
I’m with Stu. Oxford & Grove need a blinking light or a traffic light. Drivers routinely ignore the yield-to-pedestrian signs, and if they turn onto Oxford they drive about 40 mph down it. The street is filled with kids!
Also, who timed the light on Belleville & State Street? If you’re heading westbound and get that light you will wait forever, only to see an occasional tumbleweed roll across State street. There is no reason for it whatsoever. Theyy should stick a stop sign there, and put the light on Oxford/Grove.
mrx, unfortunately in many cases, you need approval at the Parliamentary level plus ratification by the Emperor of Mars to install a stop sign.
I avoid Oxford at Grove like the plague. Even though I have a mid size SUV I still find it hard to see past the parked cars on Grove (ie. in front of the bake shop)
so I will go out of my way to turn out elsewhere. The sightline is terrible!