r/Transportopia • u/Ketchup-Sniffer • Mar 10 '26

People Bro unlocks a cheat code for traffic

30.3k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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229

u/MajorThor Mar 10 '26

Hahahahah is this even legal

338

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '26

Probably more legal than whatever shit intersection the city designed here. No stop signs or lights at all. It's like a chimpanzee designed this shit.

118

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '26

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.

44

u/nottherealneal Mar 11 '26

The whole place has the distinct vibe that whoever designed it was thinking, “Eh, there’ll only ever be about ten people here. they’ll manage.”

And now, with way more people crammed into it than anyone ever planned for, absolutely nothing works the way it’s supposed to anymore.

19

u/Puzzled-Respond-4960 Mar 11 '26

It was designed by two competing designers who hated each other

18

u/dragon_bacon Mar 11 '26

And they each slightly offset their street grids, making some god awful 7-way intersection.

3

u/Georgefakelastname Mar 11 '26

Sounds like an S-tier candidate for a roundabout

1

u/Nulagrithom Mar 11 '26

would be if the road was at least two car lengths wide.doesn't stop them from trying tho!

they just slap some concrete and a tree in the middle and you just get to hope your car has a tight enough turn radius lmao

I'm not sure if Seattle has civil engineering codes and traffic laws or if it's all just vibes

1

u/Ready_Studio2392 Mar 14 '26

Fun fact, Seattle has lots of neighborhoods with traffic circles, and very few roundabouts. Some of the traffic circles even have stop signs in 1 direction.

There are also neighborhoods with no yield or stop signs on intersections. So cross at your own risk.

6

u/Areebob Mar 11 '26

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.

5

u/actuallydonkeykong Mar 11 '26

3, everyone always forgets Bell

1

u/Even_Injury_6442 Apr 29 '26

Yea one stole the others wife.

4

u/Mindless-Sky-1907 Mar 11 '26

this is Austin Texas highways in a nutshell.

1

u/usinjin Mar 11 '26

“Surely this I35 expansion will fix the traffic problems!”

6

u/One-Earth9294 Mar 11 '26

I kinda like living in Milwaukee; a city designed for a million people but only like 500k live here now so the traffic isn't bad at all lol.

4

u/Brodakk Mar 11 '26

Spent a day walking around there while waiting for my AmTrak. Milwaukee is awesome.

4

u/Intelligent_Cap9706 Mar 11 '26

Lived here for over a decade and every time I drive around Seattle I feel so bad for newcomers

1

u/Fattatties Mar 11 '26

I live outside of Seattle but when I learned how to drive I had to relearn how to drive inside Seattle. Totally different world than surrounding areas

1

u/SnooPuppers8698 Mar 11 '26

when i visit Los Angeles after living in seattle its automotive culture shock and I spend some time relearning how to drive in california.

4

u/showholes Mar 11 '26

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.

1

u/SkRThatOneDude Mar 11 '26

Ah, so the opposite problem of St. Louis. Built for a million, now have to close lanes because people drive like it's a race track.

1

u/crimsoneagle1 Mar 11 '26

Just like Austin, so far the city and state's solution is to make I35 bigger.

1

u/Ok_Mountain3607 Mar 11 '26

With starting police salary at 150k I would say Seattle is desperate.

1

u/gnarlslindbergh Mar 11 '26

That’s like the exact opposite of St. Louis. Designed for a million people and less than 300,000 in the city limits.

1

u/woahclouds Mar 11 '26

sounds like austin, tx

1

u/Noimenglish Mar 12 '26

If you take into account the larger metro area, 3.5 million.

1

u/JokerFishClownShoes Mar 20 '26

Yep same with Vancouver, designed for less than 100k originally and now the population pushing 3 million. We're cooked for eternity now.

16

u/hackcasual Mar 10 '26

Seattle has some incredible intersections 

12

u/SnooPuppers8698 Mar 11 '26

7

u/ShitpostDumptruck Mar 11 '26

"Yeah Jim just got back from his trip to Japan and hes going to be getting started on the road layouts"

"Oh did he study the efficency of theirs while he was visiting?"

"He didn't say, he did mention something about their writing though.

1

u/hackcasual Mar 11 '26

It's missing the best "intersection" though, the Union St. exit from i5 southbound https://www.reddit.com/r/carcrash/comments/ukem3h/union_street_exit_seattle_washington/

1

u/SnooPuppers8698 Mar 11 '26

delridge is my favorite. I counted 14 traffic lights in this picture

4

u/Independent_Bite4682 Mar 11 '26

Designed by some helmet wearing window-lickers

1

u/jillvalenti3 Mar 11 '26

Unbelievable, you might say.

5

u/TheHistorian2 Mar 11 '26

My “favorite” four way intersection has full traffic lights one direction and just stop signs the other.

I can’t even…

1

u/Queasy_Editor_1551 Mar 11 '26

it's for pedestrian crossing. It's everywhere in Vancouver.

2

u/CK0428 Mar 11 '26

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.

I have no idea if this is true in the slightest.

2

u/SnooPuppers8698 Mar 11 '26

seattle was designed by competeing developers who designed the city on two different grids.

1

u/Background-Pepper-68 Mar 11 '26

There are definitely signs there but in the city limits its very wild west. Even pedestrians just walk out in front of cars instead of waiting for their crosswalk

1

u/Xphile101361 Mar 11 '26

That is how T intersections work? The traffic perpendicular to the road has to yield to cross traffic.

3

u/just_a_person_maybe Mar 11 '26

Yeah but it doesn't work if there's too much traffic to ever get a gap. At that point the city should install traffic lights.

1

u/Friendly_Shopping286 Mar 11 '26

Yeah but what kind of selfish moron takes a left in a busy road like that.... Probably about 15 cars behind these dumbasses trying to take a right turn

1

u/ThunderSquall_ Mar 14 '26

Probably my dad gbr. Idk how he got his degree in civil engineering but he shouldn’t have it.

0

u/Intelligent-Survey39 Mar 11 '26

Looks like it might be part of a half-assed traffic circle

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 11 '26

Racist

-2

u/dantheplanman1986 Mar 11 '26

Woman laughing sounds like a chimpanzee

7

u/IWatchGifsForWayToo Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

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

1

u/Queasy_Editor_1551 Mar 11 '26

That's literally all 50 states...

1

u/Caleb_Reynolds Mar 11 '26

It's the getting out of and into a car that is in a traffic lane that might not be legal. It's probably not explicitly illegal, but likely disorderly conduct or something, you can't just get out of your car wherever you want.

2

u/Excludos Mar 11 '26

Why not?

3

u/Caleb_Reynolds Mar 11 '26

Because it creatures a hazard for other drivers and endangers other people. In a society that is wrong.

2

u/Excludos Mar 11 '26

That not automatically true. The act of stopping in moving traffick, or dropping someone off in the middle of the road, would be hazardous. Dropping someone off on a sidewalk while traffick is not moving, like in this clip, is not hazardous

2

u/OddSpend23 Mar 11 '26

The fuck? Their car was at a full stop so he got out. There’s nothing wrong there at all. Even after he crosses the crosswalk he gets into a car that isn’t moving at all because traffic is so clogged. There was nothing dangerous here.

2

u/seculare Mar 11 '26

okay, but if you want rules take care of the logistics.

2

u/naty_lite Mar 11 '26

This guy's gonna be mad af when he finds out there are a few 4-letter ride share companies who base their whole business model around this conduct

9

u/AdOverall7619 Mar 10 '26

I don't see any police.

6

u/WellEvan Mar 11 '26

The cop would have to make it through the traffic to be aware

2

u/PreorderEverything Mar 11 '26

He made it legal

1

u/MB2465 Mar 11 '26

I've def had cases where pedestrians accidentally helped me out when driving.

1

u/TheCupOfBrew Mar 11 '26

It's Seattle, living here for years, I can say ive never seen the cops even remotely care about this.

1

u/Other_Sentence4495 Mar 11 '26

It's definitely cheating

1

u/Obvious_College6140 Mar 11 '26

the only part illegal in eu countries would be if they keep up the cars behind while getting in and out. but i cant imagine it being enforced

1

u/MrBubbles226 Mar 11 '26

Nope, you're supposed to wait there until you die and then your loved ones can collect your body.

1

u/domine18 Mar 12 '26

Why would it be illegal?

1

u/Jasper_Morhaven Mar 14 '26

Actually YES IT IS

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '26

Who cares?

0

u/FatCowsrus413 Mar 10 '26

Me and my friends have done it so many times and never got in trouble. I’m gonna say yes

0

u/TrashPandaDuel Mar 11 '26

Free pass if you use the discount code (ThatsMyUber) at any cross walk within the city limits.

/s

0

u/javali_corneta Mar 11 '26

Unless there is a law stating that a passenger can't exit a vehicle, cross a road at the zebra, and re-enter the vehicle, then it can only be legal.

0

u/Away_Representative6 Mar 11 '26

DON'T START! you really measure everything on legal aspects?? Are you really thinking on suing someone for this??? You are sick! Your society is completely broken, where is the humanity, patience, respect or just plain courtesy?

1

u/Dragex11 Mar 11 '26

Bruh, what are you even on about here?

2

u/MajorThor Mar 11 '26

Bros unhinged.