Quote:
|
Absolutely nothing wrong with letting people out into traffic, in fact, it helps everyone by freeing up traffic flow.
|
Well, as the many examples provided show, there certainly CAN be something wrong with it. Those examples make it plain that it can cause (and has caused) wrecks and even fatalities. Pretty hard to argue that "nothing is wrong" when someone ends up dead.
Quote:
|
Of course you have to exercise common sense...
|
Common sense is always a very good place to start, but it is only a start. Good situational awareness of what is going on with all the other drivers on the road at the time is also critical, in addition to being able to predict what they will do with reasonable accuracy. Furthermore, understanding what the other drivers can (and can't see) is also important as that plays a big part in how things play out.
I'm not saying people should never do it (although there are official sources recommending against it) just pointing out that it has been proven that it is potentially a very dangerous, even deadly, practice.
For whatever it's worth to others who read this thread (and yes, I realized quite awhile back that there's no chance of changing your mind on this topic), here's what one source had to say about it:
Do Not Wave Across
The easy way to prevent this is to not "wave across" anyone who wants to pull out and cross lanes of traffic to go the other direction. The drivers wanting to pull out may not be happy with you, but they will be more upset if you wave them into an accident. Only allow cars to pull out if they want to pull into the lane you are in and go the direction you are going.
And here's what another source said:
Every time we wave someone through or across a lane when the law grants no right-of-way to the recipient of the “favor” the possibility of a collision greatly increases. While it is somewhat ironic that being nice can be dangerous and illegal, the best practice is to save those favors for when someone is trying to merge into the lane in front of you.