There
may be other turns that provide a driver with misleading visuals.
Could
be.
Quite
likely, in fact, considering math and statistics and so on and
so forth. There are many places to be encountered on our travels
and in our daily routines.
But
I’ve never encountered one quite like this.
Heading
home, there is a turn that needs to be made. As you approach it,
if there is a car coming in the opposite direction, it always
feels as if you need to stop because there is no way you’ll have
enough time to turn left and clear the road in time. And yet,
in all of my experiences to date, there always is time to turn.
Plenty
of time in fact.
Enough
time to come to a stop, adjust the radio station, decide you don’t
like the new station and adjust it again, realize you don’t like
that station either and open Spotify, search a bit and find something
you haven’t heard in quite some time, realize how much you like
the song that you’ve chosen and consider for a bit why you don’t
play that entire album more often, send a message to your partner
with a link to the song, wonder whatever happened to the band
and look them up online, find out they’re still performing and
are currently on tour, order tickets for a concert coming up nearby,
make dinner and hotel reservations on show night so you and your
partner can have a nice night away, look up and realize you never
needed to stop and that you still have time to turn onto the side
street before that approaching car arrives.
That
much plenty of time.
First
time I found myself at the intersection with traffic coming my
way, I slid into the lane for turning, came to a complete stop,
and began to wonder if it was me.
(Writer’s
note: Drive safely. Obey local traffic laws. My saying that at
this intersection—this unidentified intersection—has plenty of
time for you to make the turn is in no way intended to be even
a whiff of a suggestion to not stop. That safety tip in place,
back to wondering if it was me.)
What
the heck was going on? Because I finished that stop and, based
on a really old joke but it works, could have timed the approaching
vehicle with a calendar instead of a watch.
Now
a regular in the neighborhood with dozens upon dozens of left-hand
turns to my credit, I’ve decided it must be some kind of physics
defying optically illusionary natural rarity.
Overall,
the location is somewhat unremarkable. Don’t get me wrong, it’s
plenty unique, somewhat picturesque, and a lovely example of local
beauty. But it’s also borderline anywhere and everywhere your
town.
To
begin with, it’s a one lane two lane road. By that, I mean that
it is an opposite directions two lane road, where this one has
a median that’s about six-feet wide running between the lanes.
Not a boulevard, kind of remote for a parkway, but boulevard and
parkway probably work better at summing it up than other options
would. The parkway’s median breaks, as stripes and curbs and medians
do, when an intersection shows up. And at those points, the set
up of the median is such that it thins to create spots to safely
tuck you and your vehicle in, get out of the flow of traffic you
were a part of while you wait for the opposing flow of traffic
to allow safe passage for your turn to a new road.
Next
for your consideration is that the road has, depending on your
direction of travel, a very slight lift or a very slight drop
to it. In the case of our x marks the spot of deception, you are
a bit above and looking downhill at the oncoming cars. Cannot
stress enough how slightly elevated a vantagepoint it is, but,
it is.
Then
there’s the speed. While it is a fairly major road, the speed
limit reflects that it is also heavily residential. Varies, for
the majority of its run, between 30 and 35 miles-per-hour.
My
guess is that factors such as these—trees and brush in the median
creating a mildly obstructed view, change of elevation altering
sightlines, lower speeds without routine traffic-based landmarks—along
with others combine to create something of a perception anomaly.
Summary?
None of it is exactly what you’re used to seeing from a presentation
you’re used to having.
Have
you ever heard of a gravity hill? It’s a location where down appears
to be up, so to speak. The road and landscape, from design to
set up to more, means you could come to a stop, believe you are
looking uphill, shift into neutral and release the brake to find
your car begin to roll forward. You’re going downhill, but every
sensation says you are moving uphill.
Most
studies into gravity hill locations seem to indicate that the
most significant factor seems to be the horizon. Or, more specifically,
that the view of the horizon is blocked in some fashion, removing
a significant visual cue that we normally take for granted.
I
have no idea if what I’ve stumbled upon is some gravity intersection
of some sort. Never before considered that I can’t see the horizon
that well at that spot. And to be fair, the name gravity intersection
would need a bit of consideration, since you aren’t rolling uphill.
But there is something going on here. Something a bit different
and unusual.
Until
I sort it out (and definitely after I do as well), I’m going to
come to a complete stop before I turn. Just seems like the wise
thing to do when nothing feels right about everything being right.