[DISCLAIMER]
Before I get to the heart of this article, I want to make it clear that I am known for being a bad driver — a very bad driver, at that. While I do not think these claims are true, I suppose you should take the meat and potatoes of my article with a grain of salt… I GUESS.
But overall, I feel like everyone complains about driving in Washington, D.C. So, if you have never had the absolute pleasure of death-gripping the steering wheel while making a left turn in D.C. rush hour, or would like to commiserate with me about how tough the driving is, here’s why D.C. driving is bad, from my personal experience.
- Roundabouts/Traffic Circles
It is so incredibly clear that this city was designed before cars were invented because these are actually the worst things I have ever experienced when I am trying to drive downtown in the morning. You can claim that D.C. is a grid all you want, but that is MISLEADING because these things create diagonal roads that make everything confusing.
- Hazard-Light Loophole
This is super ridiculous, but it is also something I very much practice if I am in a pinch (I never said I wasn’t a hypocrite). But basically, what this entails is a driver stopping in the middle of the road and putting on their hazard lights, “magically” allowing them to evade any repercussions for blocking a roadway. What are they doing? Anything from running back inside their house to grab something they left, having a smoke break, checking directions, taking a nap, waiting for a passenger to get into their car…who knows!
What I do know is that it is incredibly annoying when I am driving east on Massachusetts Avenue in the morning, and the entire line of traffic has to slow down and switch lanes around a car that has just been left there with the hazards on, sometimes even without the driver in the car!
- Lack of Left-Turn Lanes
As a Californian (sorry), I loooooooove left turn lanes. They’re efficient. They allow traffic to keep flowing. They’re great. They’re everywhere.
In D.C., not so much. It is rare that I actually come across a left-turn lane. Most of the time, to turn left in D.C., you have to wait for a green light and pray that there isn’t any oncoming traffic that will block you from your turn — spoiler alert: There almost always is. Instead, what happens is someone, likely the first car in the lane, creeps into the middle of the intersection with their blinker on (if you’re lucky), and completes the turn right as the yellow light turns red. If two cars or more are able to complete the turn during rush hour, it’s honestly a miracle.
Additionally, with these turnless lights lined up for blocks and blocks, all this does is turn two-lane roads into effectively one lane during rush hour. And, if there’s a car in the right lane doing the hazard-light loophole, you’re stuck!
- No One Cares About Turn Signals
Notice how I just said “if you’re lucky” regarding someone turning left on a light. Yeah, it’s because NO ONE USES TURN SIGNALS.
I don’t know, call me a conformist or whatever, but I personally find it very considerate to use your turn signal. But instead, most of the time, I am just staring at the back end of the car in front of me, pensively wondering what in the world they are going to do at each light.
- Never-Ending Construction Sites
I swear the right lane on 2nd St. NW by the Georgetown Law Center has been blocked off for three years now.
And like, okay, yes. I will admit. D.C. is technically an ever-expanding city, and it is a luxury to live in such a vibrant place. However, please let me continue complaining. Sometimes, that construction happening on the sides of the street is there for literal years. And D.C. already has so few lanes to begin with; it’s not like it can spare any more. I just feel as though there might be more effective ways of siphoning traffic that don’t include blocking the roads fully, but what do I know about urban planning?
- Crossing Guards
This is no shade to anyone who is a D.C. crossing guard. I understand that they are needed and that these people technically work in dangerous situations for the public good. But first of all, if the streets were actually designed well, then we wouldn’t even need them. Period. End of story. Secondly, every crossing guard experience I have witnessed has caused more confusion than good.
The constant whistling? Who is that for? What side of the street are you whistling at? Does that mean stop or go? The signals? Unclear. Is that a stop hand, or are you opening your arms to point in a direction? Who are you looking at? Like most things about driving in D.C., I have no idea.
- Motorcades
Only in D.C. will you get caught in the middle of an intersection because the vice president’s motorcade is taking him home. To some degree, is it cool and unique? Sort of. But it is mostly annoying because I, too, want to go home. There’s probably some social commentary in there, but that’s besides the point.
- I-395 North Exit on George Washington Memorial Parkway
Take a look at this image:
Normal-looking on-ramp, right?
Wrong. You see that line of cars? This is the on-ramp of doom and despair.
And what makes this worse is that only about five hundred meters ahead is another off-ramp, and this traffic coming from the on-ramp blocks the lane that cars need to get into for the exit.
Combine that with the lack of turn signals and drivers cutting the line, it amounts to a complete mess.
- GPS Cuts Out in Tunnels
I’ve already established that D.C. is hard to navigate because of these roundabouts, but that is not even considering the fact that the GPS doesn’t even work in the roadways that go underground. I never know what exit I’m supposed to be taking until it’s too late. You would think that this a design flaw that should be fixed by now, but every time I go under a tunnel, the GPS thinks that I am on the street above the tunnel, even though it told me to take the tunnel in the first place.
Sigh.
- Flocks of Eighth-Grade Trips
Like motorcades, another D.C. specific issue. In the spring and summer, if you want to go to the monuments or the Smithsonians, I wish you luck. Where will you park? Nowhere, because there are buses loaded with preteens wearing tacky street merchandise lining the streets of the National Mall. Want to drive through the area? Can’t do that either. Every crosswalk is full of these eighth-graders fighting with each other and running in the streets. I find it best not to bother, but you are free to live your own life, man.
(insert photo of me in 8th grade on my 8th-grade trip)
(And like I said, I never claimed not to be a hypocrite.)
To be abundantly clear, I am very grateful for the privilege of having my car to drive myself to work, weathering ill-timed storms and enabling my late-night Taco Bell runs. I am also very aware of my history with the California highway system, because, as much as I criticize “petroculture” and car dependence, I often yearn for a 6-lane interstate in the middle of nowhere…
But even taking into consideration the constraints of a historic East Coast city like D.C., I have to ask:
Pierre Charles L’Enfant, why did you do this? Why do I have to drive both defensively and offensively? Why is there a speed camera on every corner that will charge you $100 for barely going over the limit? Why did I get caught at an intersection because the crosswalk was full of people in fursuits walking to an anime convention? Why am I always stuck behind the bus? I wish I knew.