Every Which Way But Forward - Suzanne At Coops

In most parts of the USA, traffic patterns are pretty bland. Left turns are left turns. Right turns are right turns. A freeway off ramp has a stop at the end of the ramp and a turn onto the side road. Freeways are for non-stop driving. But if you’re a trucker or if you travel a lot, you know that there are some areas that have some interesting twists on driving patterns.

New Jersey has the jug handle. The first time I encountered this in a set of directions to a freight company in New Jersey, I thought whoever wrote it must have been drinking. My directions said, “Take the jug handle for a left turn on Everett Street.” What the heck? I found out that it means that instead of turning left on Everett Street, you will follow a turn off to the right which will then swing you around perpendicular so that you cross over the street you just left. You effectively make a left turn without ever turning left.

Michigan has the Michigan left turn. A lot of intersections in Michigan won’t allow a left turn. To turn left, you get in the left lane and continue straight through the intersection. Just beyond the intersection there will be a break in the center divider/median that allows for a u-turn. You take the u-turn and get over in the right lane to make a right turn. You effectively make a left turn without ever turning left. Try this in a 75-foot-long truck and see what you think about it!

Texas and Arkansas and parts of Louisiana have a network of frontage roads. Instead of the traditional exit ramp with an intersection, the exit ramp feeds onto a side road that runs parallel to the freeway.

These are usually one-way roads, but once in a while you’ll find a two-way frontage road, which will really throw you off if you’re not prepared for it! The traffic on the frontage road generally is required to yield to the traffic coming off the freeway. I have been in numerous traffic jams in Texas and watched pickup truck after pickup truck drive across the grass divider between the freeway and the frontage road.

California has checkpoints on the freeway where all traffic has to stop. Truckers lovingly refer to these as “bug checks.” They do this to be sure that contaminated fruit, vegetables and livestock do not enter California. I 8 in California and Arizona and I 10 in Arizona and Texas have checkpoints on the freeway where all traffic has to stop. These are border patrol checkpoints and you are asked if you are an American citizen. Usually, the person asking has a strong foreign accent and truckers often joke that THEY are the ones who need to be asking if the immigration official is an American citizen.

In New York, the freeway overpasses in Brooklyn and Queens are marked as 12’2”. They used to be marked 12”6’ but apparently they shrank. There are signs that tell truckers that if their trucks are taller than 12’2” they must take the next exit. The trucks you see on the freeway are 13’6”, so you’d think there would be no trucks on the BQE (I 278). But the truckers know that these bridges are marked well below their actual height- though most of them stay out of the right lane (where the overpass is lowest) just in case. They also know that if they follow the directions to exit, they will be in trouble. Once off the exit, there are no detour signs or directions whatsoever and an 18-wheeler isn’t something you want to be driving around aimlessly on city streets.

What it comes down to is that you can never take roads for granted. When you travel in areas you aren’t used to, you always have to pay attention to traffic patterns and expect to be surprised by them now and then.

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