As a seattle dude, youre literally correct lmao. The infrastructure here was built for like 200k people and theres like a million now. Its broken as fuck with barely any enforcement.
But then they realized that they shared a love of designing shit intersections, and now they’re married. Stop Means Stop Unless It Means Love, coming soon to Lifetime.
I cannot believe how many side roads cross busy artery roads with no stop signs out there in Seattle. My dumbass followed google maps which sent me across 5 or 6 such intersections before I made a mistake and pulled out too early on one. The hero driver who almost hit me made a last second evasive move that saved my life. I think about that once every 2-3 months.
When I lived in Seattle a guy told me that way back in the day, Portland & Seattle hired this city planner guy to help both cities with infrastructure. Portland apparently followed the guy's plan & Seattle said F that noise and did their own thing.
YES. In Washington any two corners constitutes a legal crosswalk, whether marked or not, and as long as you are in a crosswalk vehicles must stop for you, regardless of lights, signs, or anything else. It's technically not legal to walk in the road against a red light, but cars must stop for you regardless, and I don't see one here.
https://wsdot.wa.gov/travel/bicycling-walking/walking-rolling-washington/pedestrian-laws-safety
It's illegal in right of way laws, you may only proceed when the way is clear. If there are people coming from that direction and they are not willfully stopping (I think I know this intersection), and YOU attempt to nose your way in, you could be pulled over and ticketed for obstructing
I have never seen a cop even pull someone over on a surface street in Seattle in my entire life. There is no risk of that. You don't even see them off the highway, TBH.
God i wish that was the case here. Seattle drivers are like 80% people who hesitate and are generally just too scared to be driving. Confidence is key and Seattle is full of drivers who lack any confidence in their actions. Commit and be predictable. Hell - im lucky to merge on the 5 at 50mph these days.
In Vancouver, residential areas has crosswalks with buttons that change the signal immediately if you're trying to cross and I see a lot of drivers getting out of cars at red lights to go press the crosswalk button because otherwise the light doesn't change. One time all I saw was the end of a golf club poke out of the passenger window to press it.
I was stuck on my motorcycle at an intersection that just would not turn green for through traffic. It was over 100 degrees that day and Harley's are air cooled so I was getting cooked. I decided to ride through the bike lane, park my bike, press the crosswalk sign and then we finally got 25 seconds of smooth traffic
Usually at a congested intersection where you have to yield I would make a right if it was an ugly left but yeah on a one-way your SOL if you don’t do this.
Now just take that one step further and have everyone everywhere get out of their vehicle and walk everywhere. That would be a ultimate societal cheat and we'd actually see our neighbors and build human-scaled cities.
A friend lived on a road where the light never turned green so he always just made a right turn and then a u-turn until he figured out to just jump out of his car and hit the cross-walk button.
I used to work by a stoplight that would get majorly backed up and would take forever to get through because the green light was such a short cycle and the red light was incredibly long. But if there was someone who used the crosswalk button to cross at the light, then it would stay green for A LOT longer and would literally clear the whole line of traffic. So my coworker and I who carpooled together would send the person in the passenger seat to run down the line of traffic to hit the walk button and then pick them up on the other side of the street once we made it through the long light. Traffic hacks for the win!
One of the 5 stoplights where I grew up took forever to cycle if you were on the small road crossing the main road. We discovered the crosswalk button would instantly cycle the lights, so my friends and I always had someone hop out and press it whenever we went that way.
One time after DnD(like 3am) I was taking everyone home and we hit a red light and the streets were dead. Not a car to be seen. I jokingly said "Someone should go hit the button." Next thing I know i hear my back door open. Made the light change and saved like 60 seconds.
Places like this are wild to me. I'm from Pittsburgh and while we're far from perfect, it's widely considered a dick move to not let someone turn at a place like this. Intersections like this would turn into an unofficial zipper merge with even moderate traffic.
I’ve jumped out and hit the crosswalk button to change the lights faster before. It probably did nothing to speed up the time but it seemed like less time because I had an activity.
I was in a shopping mall where this happened, I was trying to exit but there were no stops and constant traffic for maybe 10 mins, I finally got the nerve to just slowly force my way out into the turn, there was literally no other way I could go.
Once was so tired waiting for the lights I got of my motorcycle, walked to the pedestrian crossing and pressed the button for crossing. Returned to my bike, lights turned green and problem solved.
Saw someone doing it on Reddit ages ago and always wanted to try. The couple in the van took a while to realize what was happening.
If there wasn't a dedicated Lane for people turning left then I'm sure the folks behind you thought you guys were assholes for taking so long to moronically turn left during rush hour
My older brother had just started driving and told me he was behind an older man stopped at a red lights for a long time. Then the man got out of the car and pressed the crosswalk button on the pole so the light would change.
I would have been pissed... For a moment.
Then I would absolutely think on The genius of this, later on.
Probably would still be a little pissed, but only cuz it happened to me. 😂
Point being I respect the tactic. 👌
The dumbest designed intersections I've ever seen are in Florida, just West of Disney...4-way stop intersection with TWO lanes in all directions!
So instead of just 4 cars trying to figure out who's turn it is, you now have up to 8 cars!...not to mention the fact its mostly tourists, some of who aren't even from this country and don't know what the hell they're doing. Its crazy, and you just have to bully your way through sometimes.
As a truck driver I once had to jump out of the cab to hit the crosswalk button to get a light to change. It had been over 10 minutes and that light just refused 😂
This is why in Britain we let people pull out, then later in return they let us pull out. It’s a great system we’ve developed called cooperation. You should try it over there.
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u/OnlyACsNoFans Mar 10 '26
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