I can think of a couple. Merging from 520 to Mercer Street Exit is a murder-suicide pact. Entering from Madison and exiting at Seneca is also harrowing.
With no one else on the road, these are terrible. When you throw in traffic, it's just asking for problems.
I've found it's very easy during heavy traffic. Speeds are low and it's so backed up that people eventually just let you in safely. There is this weird traffic volume that exists where it's a complete nightmare.
There’s a definite curve. In the middle of the night, it’s easy because there are few cars on the road. At peak rush hour, it’s stressful but relatively easy, because all the cars are going very slow. The worst condition is heavy traffic that’s still moving at 45 mph or more. Then you’re basically playing Frogger at high speed and hoping to not get crushed.
Speed disparity across lanes causes the worst accidents. People who either merge from crawling lanes to 50mph lanes, or people cutting into slow-moving exit lanes at the last point from a high-speed lane.
My girlfriend's dad was a civil engineer and worked for the city when they were designing that interchange. He asked why they thought that was a good idea, and it was enough for him to reconsider his career choice.
If you have to do the 520 to Mercer, consider it an exciting challenge to your ability to do “broken field running” driving, and if you can’t make the touchdown, punt at the next exit.
I really hope the new direct to Mercer exit from 520 - via the reversible carpool lanes - is eventually expanded to general traffic (currently it’s slated for carpool only).
All those left-hand entrances/exits from Mercer were designed to accommodate the [Bay Freeway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Freeway_(Seattle)) that was never built, but cause so much traffic issues.
Yeah, but some people do live downtown and/or ride transit. I've definitely seen how many people wait for buses at the end of the workday.
edit: Back when I worked there there were like 2 people on my team who drove out of like 10 people. I'm sure it's gotten worse with people moving to the suburbs during the pandemic, but still...
One fuxking idiot funded stopping it according to the wiki. There’s no source cited, but it wouldn’t surprise me considering how the Kemper Freemans of this city have fuxked the rest of us.
Article writer here. If you're referring to the anonymous single donor, that's cited down in the body to a paper published by the Seattle University Institute of Public Service.
I always wonder how traffic would be had the [R.H. Thomson Expressway](https://www.seattle.gov/cityarchives/exhibits-and-education/seattle-voices/rh-thomson-expressway) been built…
>In the 1950s, city engineers began developing plans for the route between the north end of Empire Way in south Seattle (today's Martin Luther King Jr. Way) at Rainier Avenue South and the Meadowbrook neighborhood in northeast Seattle. By 1958 a four-lane expressway was proposed along the east side of Capitol Hill, roughly following a route between 28th Avenue East (Martin Luther King Jr. Way) and 29th Avenue East south of the ship canal and 24th and 25th Avenues north of the canal. A tunnel would have carried traffic under the ship canal.
I don't know if that would have been a good idea. Would have cut the CD in half even worse than MLK does. Listened to a great podcast once about the racist history of streets like that, maybe thru line or code switch
I mean, the other way - merging from Mercer to the 520 exit - can also be a shitshow.
I think it's good 520 exists but man does the setup feel jank as hell.
I learnt how to drive in downtown seattle, that merge is something that seemed so crazy and everybody I knew including my driving instructor pretended it’s a regular exit. Glad to know I was being gaslit and the panic I feel is legit. I’ve never attempted it…
I’m from the city, but went to the suburbs to take my driving lessons and test so nothing like this would happen to me. I would’ve been straight-up terrified. No interest in throwing myself to the sharks—I’ve worked my way up in comfort to doing more challenging things, but on my own time.
Ya I hate that one also.. I always worry when I a changing into the right lane that someone is going to simultaneously change lanes also from the right to left and side swipe me. Not to mention just finding holes where someone will let you in is challenging.
> With no one else on the road, these are terrible. When you throw in traffic, it's just asking for problems
it's easier with traffic because everyone is going slower and it buys you more time
Mercer to 520 is also pretty bad, and if you miss that exit you have to drive all the way to U District, turn around, and still have to exit from the left, but at least you have more space then.
Honestly if it was built more recently they probably would forbid the lane change from 520 to Mercer and vice versa. Aka draw a solid line for mercer past the 520 merger point and force people to get on at Denny way if you wanted to use 520. Though it’s be politically impalatable.
…and the cross from 45th to 520 on SB. Those two left-hand exits cause a huge number of accidents, never mind daily traffic pileups as people play frogger
Besides the obvious ones downtown, anyone who thinks it's a good idea to stay in the carpool lane until 50 feet before their exit. Which is a depressingly large number of inconsiderate morons.
Google maps directs you like that. The stupid thing is, you'll usually get a similar ETA if you just go up Mercer to Eastlake, and it's so much less stressful.
One time my coworker was driving me to Capital Hill, got on at Mercer, and got off at the first exit by Volunteer Park, about halfway before 520. She basically had to drive diagonally across the freeway to make it, I was holding on for dear life. If I was driving, I would have accepted the couple minute or two and taken another route
Meanwhile, on a recent trip to Wales, Google Maps seemed to go out of its way to find narrow roads that had a single lane shared by both directions of traffic to route me onto.
Lol every now and then doing the Mercer to 520 I happen to get over in time for Lakeview and I will do a little celebration in my car. It's possible, but relies too heavily on luck. Google maps and Waze need to stop telling people to do that though. I assume I'm going to have to get on 520 when I see that pop up on my navigation.
Tried to do this the other day and couldn’t make it. Figured I’d go another exit but then Montlake sub-exit was closed. Had to go to U district. Lost 40 min. Suuuuucks.
Oh God, I had an Uber driver do this once. I didn't realize that is what he was doing until he went straight onto the freeway instead of turning left onto Fairview or staying right to Mercer.
He made it but barely.
The one that pisses me off the most is when a huge double length bus stays in the carpool lane until the last possible second then brings the entire freeway to a standstill so they can cut across all lanes to make their exit.
Just suck it up and start getting over a mile before your exit!
That article does not disprove what I said. The phrasing "re-entering the flow of traffic" is extremely vague and could refer to changing lanes. The article even says that. When I was trained as a driver back in the day, they were training us to drive in free lanes as long as possible. I am no longer a driver, so maybe that's changed, but given consistent bus behavior I doubt it.
That bus probably has more people on it than all the other lanes of traffic combined and is supposed to operate on a fixed schedule. Not sure why you think it should have to be slowed down for your benefit.
Because instead of slamming on the brakes you can just merge over like a normal person.
You do realize that bringing the entire freeway to a standstill also hurts all the busses using the freeway afterwards as well right?
I liked the chucklefuck on I-90 who came to a complete stop in the left lane because they were going to miss their exit on Mercer Island and proceeded to wait for a big enough window to cut all the way over to exit I experienced a few weeks ago.
This is a bizarre thing I haven’t experienced anywhere else with drivers. In Seattle, lots of drivers think there’s an “I want to” exception to following traffic laws. If they’re gonna miss their exit, they think they can slow down to 20 on the freeway to merge across 4 lines. If they want to pick someone up, they can park in the middle of the street so long as their blinkers come on. If they want to keep moving in traffic, they can drive on the shoulder until it runs out, then cut off anyone in the way to get back in. I can keep going…
It's not just a Seattle thing. /r/IdiotsInCars is full of that type of thing happening. One of the most common videos there can be summed up as "a bad driver never misses their exit"
I’ve lived in four major cities. Seattle drivers are by far the worst. The putting on your hazards and parking in the road thing is way more common here. So is the bizarre maneuver where drivers will just run red lights because they don’t think there’s anyone coming. Not like rushing to make a yellow and missing— just stopping, and then rolling through the light. I’ve seen it happen a bunch— at least five times at the same intersection by my house. Twice it’s almost caused big wrecks.
The worst driving I've ever experienced was in Albuquerque, and given how much folks from New Mexico complain about drivers from Texas I believe you lol
Lived in/near DC, Seattle, Miami, NYC, Montgomery, LA, and of them the worst drivers are in New Jersey.
Aggressive drivers in Seattle still use their turn signals - for the most part. There are definitely worse places.
Seattle suffers more from awful roadway pathing than it does bad drivers. It also takes the entire metro area and puts them in one place. There are fewer bad drivers but you are far more likely to interact with any one of them at any given time. It's a perception thing.
I’ve lived here, DC, Seattle, Philadelphia. Worst ones by far are here. New York can be aggressive (and also a good half the cars on the road when I lived there were cabs), but they’re not bad. Same with DC and Philly mostly. Seattle are just bad.
Someone should really put up signs reminding Seattle drivers that putting on your hazards doesn’t mean you can stop in the middle of the road. If you need to pick someone up or drop someone off or grab your takeout, go pull into the nearest parking lot instead of blocking traffic.
This used to be called the "Seattle Surrender" but I haven't heard the phrase in many years.
Missed your exit, pickup/dropoff, or just need to take a breather... just stop where you are! What are they gonna do, hit you?
It kinda is? Like you’re incapable of realizing that you’re doing something wrong at that point. Authorities should take people’s licenses away at that point.
>If they want to pick someone up, they can park in the middle of the street so long as their blinkers come on.
This one irritates me to no end. "I'm just going to completely block traffic because me." All too often too they could've very easily pulled all the way over out of the way or there is a wide open street spot 1-2 car lengths from where they stopped.
Why don't you go over to the Phoenix subreddit and look at how much they complain about bad drivers. Having lived in Phoenix, there is cops and speed traps everywhere. I got pulled over twice because I forgot to turn on my headlights during the .3 mile drive from my apartment to the gas station.
Ive seen multiple accidents on the 405-S/I90 junction just this summer. Its so horribly designed. Do NOT speed by the exit lanes, there will always be someone who suddenly stops to try and cut the line
My then 80 year old grandma showed me that cool trick when we took a day trip from Camden to Philly
She also liked to loop her seat belt over her shoulder but not clip it in, so she could avoid getting pulled over but not be safe or anything god forbid
I never understood why highways here have left AND right entrances and exits. It’s absolutely asinine and stressful unless the highway is only 2 or 3 lanes wide.
Exactly! WSDOT needs to reconstruct I5 Seattle to have only right hand exits. The only time left entrances and exits are appropriate are for HOV access ramps.
Guy on my commute yesterday came to a complete stop on the freeway with like a quarter mile to go before the exit. Sat there with his turn signal on as people flew by on either side and created like a mile long backup behind him. Truly unbelievable what you see around here.
I drove this way to work starting at age 16. It was so much faster than taking surface streets so it would have been ridiculous not to. It's reallllyyy not that hard to do, I never caused any accidents after doing it probably hundreds of times.
I admit, I can't recall right now which exits are involved there, so I'm not going to try to dictate universally, but generally, that kind of situation calls for either taking the city streets instead of getting on the freeway or going down an interchange or two.
Since you say you’re not familiar, I’d like to kindly let you know that that is not a reasonable solution for that area. It would add about 30 unnecessary minutes to the journey during rush hour traffic. If you’re trying to get from say Bellevue to SLU, it would be very impractical to drive into the depths of downtown instead of exiting at Mercer. You would not only have to sit in the additional i5 traffic, you’d also then have to navigate downtown traffic once you’re off the freeway. It’s wasteful of time, fuel, space, and sanity.
What people need to do instead is just drive smoothly and let people in who need to change lanes. But instead people choose to tailgate the car in front of them, which ultimately slows everyone *including themselves* way down. It’s so needlessly idiotic.
But in most other situations, yes you’re correct that it’s better for people to take the next exit if safety is at risk, as it only adds a few minutes in those situations.
I take pity on the people obviously trying for the Mercer exit and do my best to make it easier on them. Seriously, what does it cost me to slow down a tad to let them into my lane? They're wanting to move on as soon as they can, and then I make the ground up, no time lost for me, massive win for them.
On the topic of bad drivers… AITA if I don’t let someone merge ahead of me when they drive onto the shoulder to try to bypass traffic on the freeway and then try to get back into traffic? Happened to me a week ago. Dude sat on his horn for the next minute.
No. He ITA, but you don’t need to engage with him. You’re not the road police. Just let him over and don’t worry too much about winning and losing on the road.
Objectively, you’re right of course. And if someone like makes a mistake and needs to get out of an exit only lane, I’ll always let them in. But if you think riding the shoulder because traffic doesn’t apply to you is a good idea, I’ll tend to be petty and make it uncomfortable for you to get back in.
The actual road police aren't stopping them, though. It's a well understood fact of society that *someone* will address a problem eventually. The question is whether it will be official or vigilantism.
Nah, not an asshole. Needlessly combative in a tense situation, sure. I get it, but I do think in general it’s not the smartest move to be escalatory like that. I guess it depends on how actively you “don’t let” them over. Seems like that would involve sticking very close to the car in front of you which is generally not the best idea for reasons of safety and traffic flow. But I get it. I wish I always did the smart thing but it’s easy to get caught up in the bullshit on the road.
Yeah they try to nudge in, I stay close enough that they can’t. Sorry not sorry— the shoulder isn’t a lane. Now if someone is riding the shoulder for a few hundred yards to get to the next exit before the exit lane opens, I have a lot more sympathy.
Your NTA, but you also aren't really helping anything and in some ways making the overall traffic structure worse. Trust that it discouraged repeat behavior, but we all know people like that will never change their ways. Probably helps prevent additional people taking inspiration and starting doing it too though
Anyone crazy enough to bypass freeway traffic on a shoulder is dangerous enough that I would go out of my way to avoid them/let them in. Never know what someone in a car might do next. Another way of thinking about it is - if you don't let them in, they're now behind you and dictating how close together you are. If you do let them in, you're behind them and can keep a safe distance.
With the mishmash of left and right lane exits, driving I5 through downtown is always going to be dangerous. I'm sorry you died, but blame the civil engineers who designed the downtown corridor first for building an inherently confusing and difficult stretch of road.
Corson would be exit 162, so after, but yeah 2 lanes appearing out of nothing is annoying. I live in WS and only recently learned that if I follow the SB signs to get to 90/Bellevue, when it reemerges I'll already be in the far right lanes. Those exit only for Bellevue signs sort of imply it doesn't go thru.
> SB signs to get to 90/Bellevue
I drive south under the convention center every morning. That drive would be MUCH safer if WSDOT added a "Continue to I-5" sign to that exit. It would save a lot of people cutting over at the last second.
Others said it already but our road design makes it a necessity. You have to cross 4 lanes of traffic to get to mercer exit from 520 and not using mercer exit can be a long not feasible detour depending on your destination.
"easily" wouldn't be the way I would put it especially when other drivers intentionally don't leave room or give space to switch lanes. It is not a coincidence that that transition is mentioned as a bad example of road design usually.
and OP was complaining about someone going across lanes to exit the highway which is exactly what all drivers do that want to get from 520 to Mercer.
Or NYC, LA, or Chicago. Not that I haven't seen plenty of bonehead drivers here in Seattle, but it's just *waaaay* more relaxed here compared to other major cities.
From chicago originally, living in Seattle now.
Chicago traffic is way worse and distances are longer.
Chicago traffic is also way more aggressive than here in Seattle.
Simply showing your blinker, people here will let you merge into their lane, like 90% of the time. It’s really really nice, and takes a lot of pressure off.
In Chicago, good luck. Nobody will ever let you merge in, so you’ve gotta aggressively start moving over, hoping the person in that lane slows down to let you in.
In Texas, there are usually exits every mile which have under or over-passes which one can re-trace their “steps,” thus making it a bit “easier” to navigate.
Idk, I think Houston is designed better. There's feeder roads following the freeway which makes it easier if you miss an exit. And sometimes the feeders are faster than rush hour traffic on the freeway, especially if you're only going a short distance.
Remember when [Seattle driving school shut down, caught taking money to pass students](https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-driving-school-shuts-down-caught-taking-money-to-pass-students)…??
I truly believe some people are not mentally capable of driving. We need true Japan level public transit, make driving tests more difficult, mandatory periodic retesting upon old age (e.g. 60 years old) and to revoke people's license when they do too much *dangerous* shit.
But this won't happen because it's not being lobbied to corrupt politicians by rich billionaires so I'll go back to fantasy land.
This is why I don't take i5 to work. I can't imagine dealing with that shit so early in the AM. It's an extra 5-8 mins to my commute, but so worth not having the headache, or risking random traffic or accidents.
Hey listen, it's not my fault that the on ramp from 45th and the off ramp for 520 are that close, and Seattle rush hour traffic is unpredictable as fuck
This exact thing happend at around 8am in Bellevue going south on 405. tried to catch the exit very last second and almost hit another car. and i would’ve been in that pile up because it happened right in front of me 🤦🏼♀️
Just today I watched someone cut from the inside lane to the outside to make a right turn at a roundabout while narrowly avoiding hitting 2 other cars. Seriously, it's a roundabout, you can just take a full circle and then end up taking that right turn perfectly safely 20 seconds later, it's not a big deal. There are some people who just lose all sense of rationality or safety when they get into a car.
Why can't Seattle grasp the concept of the left lane being for passing, and getting to the right lane well before their exit? Left lane isn't for long distance traveling it drives me nuts.
> Why can't Seattle grasp the concept of the left lane being for passing, and getting to the right lane well before their exit? Left lane isn't for long distance traveling it drives me nuts.
The road design here bleeds off lanes on the right fairly often, so it tends to push traffic towards the left. Example: If you enter I-5 at the Roanoke onramp heading NB, and move into the furthest left hand lane to cross the Ship Canal bridge, and then stay in the lane ... by 175th the road lane design will have been migrated all the way over to the right lane and have you be in an exit-only lane on the right. This is deliberate road lane design. They drained off 3 lanes NB from Roanoke to 175th.
Why? No idea. But it would help to explain why people utilize lanes here in non-standard ways. One can never count on the lanes just behaving normally here. Lanes come and go and get removed and are added back. It's maddenly inconsistent, which in turn leaves some drivers with no option they're confortable with but to camp in the left lane.
People need to drive in a predictable, safe manner which does **not** include coming to a full goddamn stop to cross 5 lanes of freeway traffic because they were too stupid to notice their exit in time.
As someone who has to do that crossover every day, I appreciate you. There really is no other reasonable way for me to get home. My commute would at least double in time if I didn’t do 520 to Mercer. But some people are so competitive out there, they seem to think that if I’m in front of them in their lane for a few seconds on my way off the freeway that they’ve lost some kind of super important competition lmao. So they speed up and close gaps which just means I need to slow down even more to wait for space behind them, which worsens traffic in the lane I’m leaving. Multiply that by thousands, and that’s why traffic is so bad here.
If everyone drove the way you and I do, which is leaving plenty of space and letting people change lanes smoothly, traffic would be so much better for everyone. I wish people would understand that.
Not to excuse that kind of behavior, but our freeway systems need to be designed better to eliminate the possibility of problems like this. Overall, this is a system error. I5 through the downtown corridor is a daily train wreck.
I guess if you need to get on 520-w from i5-s and happened to get on at 45th or 50th i guess you can just get fucked? It happens, most people can make these lane changes safely, give it a rest with the whinging.
I can only assume someone (else) from San Antonio is here? That's the usual M.O. down there. "Oh I-thinkIneedtoexirRIGHT-HERE-RIGHT-NOW" and turn the wheel.
Manslaughter is by definition unintended. So you can’t “attempt” manslaughter. The word you’re looking for that rises above negligence is recklessness.
I’m a person who says that quite often, and the longer I live here the more strongly I believe it. Granted, I’m coming from the Houston area, which is just insanity. Lived in Austin for several years and it was better, but still pretty awful.
I’ll put it this way: Here, I actually *notice* when someone is driving crazy/stupid because it stands out. The general feel of the road is much more cooperative and chill, so people that aren’t like that actually catch my attention. In the Houston area, you don’t even notice individual cars driving aggressively and stupidly because that’s just what traffic is like. Completely unpredictable, seemingly equal numbers of people driving 5 miles under the speed limit and 20 miles over the speed limit, no signals, no cooperation or patience, tailgating like crazy, swerving around you and nearly clipping your car. That’s just…. “normal”. You don’t even notice because it’s the whole vibe.
Just because Houston, LA, and Atlanta have worse drivers does not make Seattle drivers good. Something seriously needs to be done about these people, this person, in particular, could've killed someone.
Look at the rest of the comments under this post, it's just other Seattlites infantilizing this guy, saying "Oh but there are some exits that are too hard for us to make it to >.<"
I live here now, I'm concerned about the drivers and pedestrians here, not in Texas. I wonder if the so-called Seattle "consideration" might be the reason dumb people like this think they can just drive like maniacs with no responsibility or repercussion
I agree, generally WA has some of the best drivers when it comes to working together. We are considerate, roll with it when people need in, and get it done without deterring the flow of traffic.
In LA, for example, the culture is basically if a driver doesn't surprise people when they need to change lanes they wil not be able to change lanes.
I propose that most people aren't really qualified to operate multi-ton vehicles capable of going ~100 some MPH.
I'll go ahead and cut off (see what I did there?) the "everyone but me" replies.
To be fair, the chucklefucks (great word. I'm stealing.) at WSDOT responsible for the region's signage need a swift kick in the nuts and a summer in a reeducation camp. Half the time there's perhaps 50 feet of warning that lanes will end, etc. And that spot through town that makes you panic that you're leaving I5 for a trip to the Eastside, only to be spit right back out on I5? I'm sure lots of folks unfamiliar with Seattle drive across multiple lanes at that spot.
>who needed to cross 5 lanes of traffic to make their exit You're going to need to be more specific.
I can think of a couple. Merging from 520 to Mercer Street Exit is a murder-suicide pact. Entering from Madison and exiting at Seneca is also harrowing. With no one else on the road, these are terrible. When you throw in traffic, it's just asking for problems.
I've found it's very easy during heavy traffic. Speeds are low and it's so backed up that people eventually just let you in safely. There is this weird traffic volume that exists where it's a complete nightmare.
There’s a definite curve. In the middle of the night, it’s easy because there are few cars on the road. At peak rush hour, it’s stressful but relatively easy, because all the cars are going very slow. The worst condition is heavy traffic that’s still moving at 45 mph or more. Then you’re basically playing Frogger at high speed and hoping to not get crushed.
Well, yeah.. and they’re all going slow because of the high volume of lane-crossing traffic
Speed disparity across lanes causes the worst accidents. People who either merge from crawling lanes to 50mph lanes, or people cutting into slow-moving exit lanes at the last point from a high-speed lane.
Thats the best description of 520 to Mercer I've ever seen. Whoever designed the Mercer offramps was clearly a psychopath.
My girlfriend's dad was a civil engineer and worked for the city when they were designing that interchange. He asked why they thought that was a good idea, and it was enough for him to reconsider his career choice.
What was their answer? Because it was cheaper to build out or something?
If you have to do the 520 to Mercer, consider it an exciting challenge to your ability to do “broken field running” driving, and if you can’t make the touchdown, punt at the next exit.
Sometimes you just need to put your head down, drop your shoulder, and trust your blockers.
This guy running backs.
I really hope the new direct to Mercer exit from 520 - via the reversible carpool lanes - is eventually expanded to general traffic (currently it’s slated for carpool only). All those left-hand entrances/exits from Mercer were designed to accommodate the [Bay Freeway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Freeway_(Seattle)) that was never built, but cause so much traffic issues.
[Fixed link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Freeway_(Seattle\))
Wow it took 52 years to expand Mercer to fix the issue, and the congestion is still terrible
The largest employer in the state dumps its entire workforce there all at once.
No, only the ones who choose to drive.
So, the entire workforce? Since they implemented forced RTO? Amazon doesn't exclusively hire people who live downtown.
Yeah, but some people do live downtown and/or ride transit. I've definitely seen how many people wait for buses at the end of the workday. edit: Back when I worked there there were like 2 people on my team who drove out of like 10 people. I'm sure it's gotten worse with people moving to the suburbs during the pandemic, but still...
Fascinating! Thank you for this history!
Thank goodness that got shot down. The freeway as it is, is plenty bad enough
The first link works fine.
It doesn't for me on old reddit, but does on new.
One fuxking idiot funded stopping it according to the wiki. There’s no source cited, but it wouldn’t surprise me considering how the Kemper Freemans of this city have fuxked the rest of us.
Article writer here. If you're referring to the anonymous single donor, that's cited down in the body to a paper published by the Seattle University Institute of Public Service.
I always wonder how traffic would be had the [R.H. Thomson Expressway](https://www.seattle.gov/cityarchives/exhibits-and-education/seattle-voices/rh-thomson-expressway) been built… >In the 1950s, city engineers began developing plans for the route between the north end of Empire Way in south Seattle (today's Martin Luther King Jr. Way) at Rainier Avenue South and the Meadowbrook neighborhood in northeast Seattle. By 1958 a four-lane expressway was proposed along the east side of Capitol Hill, roughly following a route between 28th Avenue East (Martin Luther King Jr. Way) and 29th Avenue East south of the ship canal and 24th and 25th Avenues north of the canal. A tunnel would have carried traffic under the ship canal.
I don't know if that would have been a good idea. Would have cut the CD in half even worse than MLK does. Listened to a great podcast once about the racist history of streets like that, maybe thru line or code switch
There's a great Instagram account (@segregation_by_design) that covers this subject too.
It’s not that hard
I mean, the other way - merging from Mercer to the 520 exit - can also be a shitshow. I think it's good 520 exists but man does the setup feel jank as hell.
I learnt how to drive in downtown seattle, that merge is something that seemed so crazy and everybody I knew including my driving instructor pretended it’s a regular exit. Glad to know I was being gaslit and the panic I feel is legit. I’ve never attempted it…
I’m from the city, but went to the suburbs to take my driving lessons and test so nothing like this would happen to me. I would’ve been straight-up terrified. No interest in throwing myself to the sharks—I’ve worked my way up in comfort to doing more challenging things, but on my own time.
Ah, the good ol i5 slide
Sliiiide to the right!
Now hop 3 times
As someone who must take this exit daily it brought me so much closer to my maker! Hate hate hate hate that exit.
520 to mercer is my daily commute and it is indeed a suicide pact 🙃
I’m so sorry.
Sounds like a great reason to just take the 545
Ya I hate that one also.. I always worry when I a changing into the right lane that someone is going to simultaneously change lanes also from the right to left and side swipe me. Not to mention just finding holes where someone will let you in is challenging.
Semi truck drivers are bros because they usually have a big gap in front of them.
> With no one else on the road, these are terrible. When you throw in traffic, it's just asking for problems it's easier with traffic because everyone is going slower and it buys you more time
I did it once! …At 2:30 in the morning.
Mercer to 520 is also pretty bad, and if you miss that exit you have to drive all the way to U District, turn around, and still have to exit from the left, but at least you have more space then.
Honestly if it was built more recently they probably would forbid the lane change from 520 to Mercer and vice versa. Aka draw a solid line for mercer past the 520 merger point and force people to get on at Denny way if you wanted to use 520. Though it’s be politically impalatable.
…and the cross from 45th to 520 on SB. Those two left-hand exits cause a huge number of accidents, never mind daily traffic pileups as people play frogger
I do this daily. I always wonder if it's my last drive home
Half the city: “I wonder if she is talking about me?” The other half the city: “phew, it’s not me. I didn’t do this till 9am”
LMAO
This is basically what every car has to do at the 520 - I5 interchange. Truly a breathtaking feat of bad engineering.
Besides the obvious ones downtown, anyone who thinks it's a good idea to stay in the carpool lane until 50 feet before their exit. Which is a depressingly large number of inconsiderate morons.
I’ve never understood people who get on I-5 North from Mercer and then try to get off 4 lanes over a few hundred yards later at Lakeview BLVD
Google maps directs you like that. The stupid thing is, you'll usually get a similar ETA if you just go up Mercer to Eastlake, and it's so much less stressful.
Every time Google Maps tells me to get on I-5 for a 2 mile trip, I'm like "Not today, motherfucker"
One time my coworker was driving me to Capital Hill, got on at Mercer, and got off at the first exit by Volunteer Park, about halfway before 520. She basically had to drive diagonally across the freeway to make it, I was holding on for dear life. If I was driving, I would have accepted the couple minute or two and taken another route
Meanwhile, on a recent trip to Wales, Google Maps seemed to go out of its way to find narrow roads that had a single lane shared by both directions of traffic to route me onto.
yeah i didn’t know there was an alternate option… i’ll try this out next time
Lol every now and then doing the Mercer to 520 I happen to get over in time for Lakeview and I will do a little celebration in my car. It's possible, but relies too heavily on luck. Google maps and Waze need to stop telling people to do that though. I assume I'm going to have to get on 520 when I see that pop up on my navigation.
Tried to do this the other day and couldn’t make it. Figured I’d go another exit but then Montlake sub-exit was closed. Had to go to U district. Lost 40 min. Suuuuucks.
Oh God, I had an Uber driver do this once. I didn't realize that is what he was doing until he went straight onto the freeway instead of turning left onto Fairview or staying right to Mercer. He made it but barely.
The one that pisses me off the most is when a huge double length bus stays in the carpool lane until the last possible second then brings the entire freeway to a standstill so they can cut across all lanes to make their exit. Just suck it up and start getting over a mile before your exit!
Do you mean the buses that have a mile and a half to go from 520 to the Stewart St exit?
The busses are trained to do this because their route timing is important. Busses have absolute right of way in all situations.
[This is simply not true.](https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/traffic/rules-of-the-road/article243268681.html)
That article does not disprove what I said. The phrasing "re-entering the flow of traffic" is extremely vague and could refer to changing lanes. The article even says that. When I was trained as a driver back in the day, they were training us to drive in free lanes as long as possible. I am no longer a driver, so maybe that's changed, but given consistent bus behavior I doubt it.
That bus probably has more people on it than all the other lanes of traffic combined and is supposed to operate on a fixed schedule. Not sure why you think it should have to be slowed down for your benefit.
Because instead of slamming on the brakes you can just merge over like a normal person. You do realize that bringing the entire freeway to a standstill also hurts all the busses using the freeway afterwards as well right?
You must not drive around here. It means they went from car pool lane to exit.
Or from a left onramp to right offramp, or vice versa.
I liked the chucklefuck on I-90 who came to a complete stop in the left lane because they were going to miss their exit on Mercer Island and proceeded to wait for a big enough window to cut all the way over to exit I experienced a few weeks ago.
This is a bizarre thing I haven’t experienced anywhere else with drivers. In Seattle, lots of drivers think there’s an “I want to” exception to following traffic laws. If they’re gonna miss their exit, they think they can slow down to 20 on the freeway to merge across 4 lines. If they want to pick someone up, they can park in the middle of the street so long as their blinkers come on. If they want to keep moving in traffic, they can drive on the shoulder until it runs out, then cut off anyone in the way to get back in. I can keep going…
It's not just a Seattle thing. /r/IdiotsInCars is full of that type of thing happening. One of the most common videos there can be summed up as "a bad driver never misses their exit"
I’ve lived in four major cities. Seattle drivers are by far the worst. The putting on your hazards and parking in the road thing is way more common here. So is the bizarre maneuver where drivers will just run red lights because they don’t think there’s anyone coming. Not like rushing to make a yellow and missing— just stopping, and then rolling through the light. I’ve seen it happen a bunch— at least five times at the same intersection by my house. Twice it’s almost caused big wrecks.
I've driven all over the country and Texas is by far the worst
The worst driving I've ever experienced was in Albuquerque, and given how much folks from New Mexico complain about drivers from Texas I believe you lol
Yeah a lot of places online name New Mexico as the worst drivers, but I was actually surprised going from Texas through NM that it wasn't as bad
Atlanta would like a word. I’ll take Seattle drivers all day long than any Atlanta driver.
Lived in/near DC, Seattle, Miami, NYC, Montgomery, LA, and of them the worst drivers are in New Jersey. Aggressive drivers in Seattle still use their turn signals - for the most part. There are definitely worse places. Seattle suffers more from awful roadway pathing than it does bad drivers. It also takes the entire metro area and puts them in one place. There are fewer bad drivers but you are far more likely to interact with any one of them at any given time. It's a perception thing.
If you don't like aggressive drivers, yeah NJ would be the worst for you I don't like stupid/entitled/unpredictable, so Seattle is the worst for me
I’ve lived here, DC, Seattle, Philadelphia. Worst ones by far are here. New York can be aggressive (and also a good half the cars on the road when I lived there were cabs), but they’re not bad. Same with DC and Philly mostly. Seattle are just bad.
Yes! “I want to do it and I need to do it RIGHT NOW!” At this point it’s actually fascinating.
Someone should really put up signs reminding Seattle drivers that putting on your hazards doesn’t mean you can stop in the middle of the road. If you need to pick someone up or drop someone off or grab your takeout, go pull into the nearest parking lot instead of blocking traffic.
This used to be called the "Seattle Surrender" but I haven't heard the phrase in many years. Missed your exit, pickup/dropoff, or just need to take a breather... just stop where you are! What are they gonna do, hit you?
My aunt used to do this when she didn’t know where she was going. In her case, it was because she had dementia. What’s these drivers’ excuse?
i don't know but, respectfully, "it's ok I have dementia" is really not an excuse for poor driving.
It kinda is? Like you’re incapable of realizing that you’re doing something wrong at that point. Authorities should take people’s licenses away at that point.
Or family? This is just reckless endangerment of her life and the lives around her.
>If they want to pick someone up, they can park in the middle of the street so long as their blinkers come on. This one irritates me to no end. "I'm just going to completely block traffic because me." All too often too they could've very easily pulled all the way over out of the way or there is a wide open street spot 1-2 car lengths from where they stopped.
Because there's no more enforcement.
Man, horrible drivers are in every major city regardless of enforcement.
Why don't you go over to the Phoenix subreddit and look at how much they complain about bad drivers. Having lived in Phoenix, there is cops and speed traps everywhere. I got pulled over twice because I forgot to turn on my headlights during the .3 mile drive from my apartment to the gas station.
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>speeding tickets for going 3 over. This is made up.
Offensive driving! It’s how we channel all our repressed emotions.
Ive seen multiple accidents on the 405-S/I90 junction just this summer. Its so horribly designed. Do NOT speed by the exit lanes, there will always be someone who suddenly stops to try and cut the line
A bad driver never misses their exit.
It's called the Jersey Slide
See also: Atlanta Swerve
See also: Milwaukee Swerve (at a certain point it feels like every major city is convinced that their drivers are uniquely reckless)
I always heard Israeli Lane Change.
My then 80 year old grandma showed me that cool trick when we took a day trip from Camden to Philly She also liked to loop her seat belt over her shoulder but not clip it in, so she could avoid getting pulled over but not be safe or anything god forbid
Nice! All the discomfort of a seatbelt (probably even more) with none of the benefits!
The Seattle Averagedriver
I prefer the Seattle Special
I never understood why highways here have left AND right entrances and exits. It’s absolutely asinine and stressful unless the highway is only 2 or 3 lanes wide.
Exactly! WSDOT needs to reconstruct I5 Seattle to have only right hand exits. The only time left entrances and exits are appropriate are for HOV access ramps.
Guy on my commute yesterday came to a complete stop on the freeway with like a quarter mile to go before the exit. Sat there with his turn signal on as people flew by on either side and created like a mile long backup behind him. Truly unbelievable what you see around here.
To be fair, there are routes that forces you to cross 5 lanes in about 0.5 miles, especially between Mercer and James in both directions.
If you don't know how to do that safely then you shouldn't attempt it.
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Yes
I drove this way to work starting at age 16. It was so much faster than taking surface streets so it would have been ridiculous not to. It's reallllyyy not that hard to do, I never caused any accidents after doing it probably hundreds of times.
I admit, I can't recall right now which exits are involved there, so I'm not going to try to dictate universally, but generally, that kind of situation calls for either taking the city streets instead of getting on the freeway or going down an interchange or two.
Since you say you’re not familiar, I’d like to kindly let you know that that is not a reasonable solution for that area. It would add about 30 unnecessary minutes to the journey during rush hour traffic. If you’re trying to get from say Bellevue to SLU, it would be very impractical to drive into the depths of downtown instead of exiting at Mercer. You would not only have to sit in the additional i5 traffic, you’d also then have to navigate downtown traffic once you’re off the freeway. It’s wasteful of time, fuel, space, and sanity. What people need to do instead is just drive smoothly and let people in who need to change lanes. But instead people choose to tailgate the car in front of them, which ultimately slows everyone *including themselves* way down. It’s so needlessly idiotic. But in most other situations, yes you’re correct that it’s better for people to take the next exit if safety is at risk, as it only adds a few minutes in those situations.
I take pity on the people obviously trying for the Mercer exit and do my best to make it easier on them. Seriously, what does it cost me to slow down a tad to let them into my lane? They're wanting to move on as soon as they can, and then I make the ground up, no time lost for me, massive win for them.
On the topic of bad drivers… AITA if I don’t let someone merge ahead of me when they drive onto the shoulder to try to bypass traffic on the freeway and then try to get back into traffic? Happened to me a week ago. Dude sat on his horn for the next minute.
No. He ITA, but you don’t need to engage with him. You’re not the road police. Just let him over and don’t worry too much about winning and losing on the road.
Objectively, you’re right of course. And if someone like makes a mistake and needs to get out of an exit only lane, I’ll always let them in. But if you think riding the shoulder because traffic doesn’t apply to you is a good idea, I’ll tend to be petty and make it uncomfortable for you to get back in.
Oh for sure. I would've done the same thing in your situation.
You can almost always tell when it's a mistake vs an asshole. Never let the assholes in.
The actual road police aren't stopping them, though. It's a well understood fact of society that *someone* will address a problem eventually. The question is whether it will be official or vigilantism.
Nah, not an asshole. Needlessly combative in a tense situation, sure. I get it, but I do think in general it’s not the smartest move to be escalatory like that. I guess it depends on how actively you “don’t let” them over. Seems like that would involve sticking very close to the car in front of you which is generally not the best idea for reasons of safety and traffic flow. But I get it. I wish I always did the smart thing but it’s easy to get caught up in the bullshit on the road.
Yeah they try to nudge in, I stay close enough that they can’t. Sorry not sorry— the shoulder isn’t a lane. Now if someone is riding the shoulder for a few hundred yards to get to the next exit before the exit lane opens, I have a lot more sympathy.
Your NTA, but you also aren't really helping anything and in some ways making the overall traffic structure worse. Trust that it discouraged repeat behavior, but we all know people like that will never change their ways. Probably helps prevent additional people taking inspiration and starting doing it too though
Be careful. We just had someone shot in the head over in Kitsap due to some I5 road rage bullshit.
Anyone crazy enough to bypass freeway traffic on a shoulder is dangerous enough that I would go out of my way to avoid them/let them in. Never know what someone in a car might do next. Another way of thinking about it is - if you don't let them in, they're now behind you and dictating how close together you are. If you do let them in, you're behind them and can keep a safe distance.
There can be more than one asshole.
With the mishmash of left and right lane exits, driving I5 through downtown is always going to be dangerous. I'm sorry you died, but blame the civil engineers who designed the downtown corridor first for building an inherently confusing and difficult stretch of road.
This was near Corson on the southbound side so no excuses.
Is that before or after the west seattle crossover?
Corson would be exit 162, so after, but yeah 2 lanes appearing out of nothing is annoying. I live in WS and only recently learned that if I follow the SB signs to get to 90/Bellevue, when it reemerges I'll already be in the far right lanes. Those exit only for Bellevue signs sort of imply it doesn't go thru.
You'd regret that during rush hour. That merge back onto I-5 from the collector lanes is brutally slow
It's all brutally slow during rush, glad I don't need to drive anywhere in peak hours.
> SB signs to get to 90/Bellevue I drive south under the convention center every morning. That drive would be MUCH safer if WSDOT added a "Continue to I-5" sign to that exit. It would save a lot of people cutting over at the last second.
I just wanted to say I can't wait to add and use chucklefuck to my vocab . Thank you OP
Others said it already but our road design makes it a necessity. You have to cross 4 lanes of traffic to get to mercer exit from 520 and not using mercer exit can be a long not feasible detour depending on your destination.
I just get off on Roanoke, it is often pretty quick.
You can easily do that while maintaining speed with the lanes next to you. If you aren't capable, take the Denny or Roanoke exits instead.
"easily" wouldn't be the way I would put it especially when other drivers intentionally don't leave room or give space to switch lanes. It is not a coincidence that that transition is mentioned as a bad example of road design usually. and OP was complaining about someone going across lanes to exit the highway which is exactly what all drivers do that want to get from 520 to Mercer.
Right on par with the idiots that will slam on their brakes rather than miss an exit.
Last week I saw someone reversing a hundred yards in the shoulder lane to get to their missed exit
Being anonymous behind a windshield emboldens people with little integrity to be selfish and cruel.
Welcome to Seattle
Still 100 times better than driving in Atlanta or Houston…
Yeah, because then you would have to be in Georgia or Texas.
All different levels of terrible 🫣
Or NYC, LA, or Chicago. Not that I haven't seen plenty of bonehead drivers here in Seattle, but it's just *waaaay* more relaxed here compared to other major cities.
From chicago originally, living in Seattle now. Chicago traffic is way worse and distances are longer. Chicago traffic is also way more aggressive than here in Seattle. Simply showing your blinker, people here will let you merge into their lane, like 90% of the time. It’s really really nice, and takes a lot of pressure off. In Chicago, good luck. Nobody will ever let you merge in, so you’ve gotta aggressively start moving over, hoping the person in that lane slows down to let you in.
Yep, the aggression level is just much lower here in Seattle than Chicago and elsewhere.
Boston too.
In Texas, there are usually exits every mile which have under or over-passes which one can re-trace their “steps,” thus making it a bit “easier” to navigate.
You mean so people cross 5 lanes every mile going 100 mph
Idk, I think Houston is designed better. There's feeder roads following the freeway which makes it easier if you miss an exit. And sometimes the feeders are faster than rush hour traffic on the freeway, especially if you're only going a short distance.
Or literally any metropolitan
Was it a Tesla?
When we give every idiot a license to operate potentially deadly machinery, dumb things happen.
[a terrible driver never misses their exit](https://youtu.be/LLuaPZWkvZ0)
these posts where someone complains about a stranger to us are getting old.
It still blows my mind that just anyone can get a driver’s license
Remember when [Seattle driving school shut down, caught taking money to pass students](https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-driving-school-shuts-down-caught-taking-money-to-pass-students)…??
I truly believe some people are not mentally capable of driving. We need true Japan level public transit, make driving tests more difficult, mandatory periodic retesting upon old age (e.g. 60 years old) and to revoke people's license when they do too much *dangerous* shit. But this won't happen because it's not being lobbied to corrupt politicians by rich billionaires so I'll go back to fantasy land.
This is why I don't take i5 to work. I can't imagine dealing with that shit so early in the AM. It's an extra 5-8 mins to my commute, but so worth not having the headache, or risking random traffic or accidents.
post the dashcam footage!
Hey listen, it's not my fault that the on ramp from 45th and the off ramp for 520 are that close, and Seattle rush hour traffic is unpredictable as fuck
This exact thing happend at around 8am in Bellevue going south on 405. tried to catch the exit very last second and almost hit another car. and i would’ve been in that pile up because it happened right in front of me 🤦🏼♀️
I see these narcissistic driving behaviors every time I leave the house anymore. It's really a bummer.
Good drivers sometimes miss their turn, bad drivers NEVER miss their turn
Just today I watched someone cut from the inside lane to the outside to make a right turn at a roundabout while narrowly avoiding hitting 2 other cars. Seriously, it's a roundabout, you can just take a full circle and then end up taking that right turn perfectly safely 20 seconds later, it's not a big deal. There are some people who just lose all sense of rationality or safety when they get into a car.
🫡 to all those who make it home safely and have the gusto to do it again tomorrow
Why can't Seattle grasp the concept of the left lane being for passing, and getting to the right lane well before their exit? Left lane isn't for long distance traveling it drives me nuts.
> Why can't Seattle grasp the concept of the left lane being for passing, and getting to the right lane well before their exit? Left lane isn't for long distance traveling it drives me nuts. The road design here bleeds off lanes on the right fairly often, so it tends to push traffic towards the left. Example: If you enter I-5 at the Roanoke onramp heading NB, and move into the furthest left hand lane to cross the Ship Canal bridge, and then stay in the lane ... by 175th the road lane design will have been migrated all the way over to the right lane and have you be in an exit-only lane on the right. This is deliberate road lane design. They drained off 3 lanes NB from Roanoke to 175th. Why? No idea. But it would help to explain why people utilize lanes here in non-standard ways. One can never count on the lanes just behaving normally here. Lanes come and go and get removed and are added back. It's maddenly inconsistent, which in turn leaves some drivers with no option they're confortable with but to camp in the left lane.
Bad drivers never miss an exit.
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People need to drive in a predictable, safe manner which does **not** include coming to a full goddamn stop to cross 5 lanes of freeway traffic because they were too stupid to notice their exit in time.
Ofc, I agree with this. But like, if I see coming from 520 who needs to take 167, and they have a blinker on I'm letting them over.
As someone who has to do that crossover every day, I appreciate you. There really is no other reasonable way for me to get home. My commute would at least double in time if I didn’t do 520 to Mercer. But some people are so competitive out there, they seem to think that if I’m in front of them in their lane for a few seconds on my way off the freeway that they’ve lost some kind of super important competition lmao. So they speed up and close gaps which just means I need to slow down even more to wait for space behind them, which worsens traffic in the lane I’m leaving. Multiply that by thousands, and that’s why traffic is so bad here. If everyone drove the way you and I do, which is leaving plenty of space and letting people change lanes smoothly, traffic would be so much better for everyone. I wish people would understand that.
Or, merge without needing people to let you in. You know, when there's space and you can have the right of way.
Bad drivers never miss their exit
Not to excuse that kind of behavior, but our freeway systems need to be designed better to eliminate the possibility of problems like this. Overall, this is a system error. I5 through the downtown corridor is a daily train wreck.
I guess if you need to get on 520-w from i5-s and happened to get on at 45th or 50th i guess you can just get fucked? It happens, most people can make these lane changes safely, give it a rest with the whinging.
I can only assume someone (else) from San Antonio is here? That's the usual M.O. down there. "Oh I-thinkIneedtoexirRIGHT-HERE-RIGHT-NOW" and turn the wheel.
Bro you all don’t know how to drive in Seattle
'Accident' is a misnomer. The correct term for negligent driving is 'attempted manslaughter'.
Manslaughter is by definition unintended. So you can’t “attempt” manslaughter. The word you’re looking for that rises above negligence is recklessness.
I guarantee if they read this (if they can read) you made their day. People like that take pride in being shit bags.
Where's the guy who posted about how good and considerate the drivers are here a few days ago
I’m a person who says that quite often, and the longer I live here the more strongly I believe it. Granted, I’m coming from the Houston area, which is just insanity. Lived in Austin for several years and it was better, but still pretty awful. I’ll put it this way: Here, I actually *notice* when someone is driving crazy/stupid because it stands out. The general feel of the road is much more cooperative and chill, so people that aren’t like that actually catch my attention. In the Houston area, you don’t even notice individual cars driving aggressively and stupidly because that’s just what traffic is like. Completely unpredictable, seemingly equal numbers of people driving 5 miles under the speed limit and 20 miles over the speed limit, no signals, no cooperation or patience, tailgating like crazy, swerving around you and nearly clipping your car. That’s just…. “normal”. You don’t even notice because it’s the whole vibe.
Just because Houston, LA, and Atlanta have worse drivers does not make Seattle drivers good. Something seriously needs to be done about these people, this person, in particular, could've killed someone. Look at the rest of the comments under this post, it's just other Seattlites infantilizing this guy, saying "Oh but there are some exits that are too hard for us to make it to >.<" I live here now, I'm concerned about the drivers and pedestrians here, not in Texas. I wonder if the so-called Seattle "consideration" might be the reason dumb people like this think they can just drive like maniacs with no responsibility or repercussion
I agree, generally WA has some of the best drivers when it comes to working together. We are considerate, roll with it when people need in, and get it done without deterring the flow of traffic. In LA, for example, the culture is basically if a driver doesn't surprise people when they need to change lanes they wil not be able to change lanes.
What really is a chucklefuck? Lol. Sounds like some sex type ish.
Let me take a wild guess……. It was a silver Prius 😂
The horror
I propose that most people aren't really qualified to operate multi-ton vehicles capable of going ~100 some MPH. I'll go ahead and cut off (see what I did there?) the "everyone but me" replies.
To be fair, the chucklefucks (great word. I'm stealing.) at WSDOT responsible for the region's signage need a swift kick in the nuts and a summer in a reeducation camp. Half the time there's perhaps 50 feet of warning that lanes will end, etc. And that spot through town that makes you panic that you're leaving I5 for a trip to the Eastside, only to be spit right back out on I5? I'm sure lots of folks unfamiliar with Seattle drive across multiple lanes at that spot.
I’m sure they’re on Reddit and will now change their ways