h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We went to a friends hobby farm last weekend, who lives in New Jersey...along the way I eperienced a Jersey left turn.

I had no idea that this extraordinary event was to occur...so it was with all innocence as a passenger I experienced this.

I sat quietly next to the Geo in the car... we were having one of those quiet comfortable moments just taking in the scenery and traffic as you do when your not chatting away. The G-force was occuppied in the back seat with the gameboy. All was idyllic.

Then..

We approached a set of ordinary unassuming looking traffic lights at a crossroads/intersection, which were red and we dutifully stopped.

We turned right, when the lights changed.

and...

....kept on turning right, and as we went around the hairpin bend it occurred to me visually - there was the set of traffic lights we just left behind.

We sat at the traffic lights again.

? !

I looked at Geo..who looked quite placid and not out of sorts, and was patiently waiting for the traffic lights again, which of course were red again..

And I said, very diplomatically..."didn't we just go thro these lights"? I thought perhaps we'd missed our turn..or was going the wrong way.

I was non-plussed, because in the event of missing a turn usually an expletive or two pops out from the driver...*chuckles*

Geo looked at me and laughed and said, "that was a NJ left-hand turn at an intersection..you cannot turn directly left, you have to turn right and come back to the set of traffic lights and then continue striaght on.





I was like, "yer wot, you mean to tell me that happens at every crossroads in NJ"?

Geo said, "yup".

How very strange

Though to be fair I come from a town with a roundabout you can drive round in both directions

They call those rotarys here...*cute*

Cambridgeshire, UK (where I used to live afore here) has like a trillion or so lil roundabouts..I love em...much better than giveway/yield to those on your right at a crossroads.

I think your less likely to have an accident at a roundabout than you are at an intersection/crossroads with no traffic lights and just stop signs...some peeps tend to miss the stop signs and fly thro...hear quite a lot of shrieking of tyres skidding across the tarmac...and seen quite a few fender benders too..and that's just on our street alone

A rounabout that goes in both directions? You mean clockwise AND anticlockwise?

Not the safest of things then


Yes, it's worse than that though, it's one big roundabout with 6 smaller ones around the outside

How !

In England "somewhere" there are 2 roundabouts together, in a figure of 8...I never want to go near it!

i still don't understand what a Jersey Turn is
think we'll all be safer if I stick to public transport

"Yes, it's worse than that though, it's one big roundabout with 6 smaller ones around the outside"

Crikey Moses, Unc, remind me never to visit your home town.

I haven't mention the river through the middle and the bas lane yet

Or even the river and the bus lane

Pity, I was hoping it was a bass lane in the river

Well, there are fish, as there's normally a heron in the middle of it

I'll bet (s)he only eats the that are speeding

I've no idea .

Curse you, Paul Simon - how can I count all the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike if some of them are attempting Jersey Turns and might get counted twice?

Speeding will be speared and eaten? Cor, that's harsh.

Never, ever go to Salmiya in Kuwait City & attempt to try the roundabout that has been shipped across from Milton Keynes.

Terri.

Your kiddin right, a roundabout shipped to Kuwait?

WHY?

Yay, public transport. (I don't drive, never have and probably never will... Except for my motorbike in the 1980s. Her name was Stella and she was a neat litle 250CC Suzuki. But I wrecked my left knee - *not* Stella's fault.)

They have intersections like that (at least in that you have to do something roundabout to turn left--I'm not sure if it works exactly the same way) in the Detroit area.

I'm really having trouble picturing this. I googled it and nothing came up. Does anyone know if there's a diagram somewhere?

I'd like a diagram, too. I don't recall exactly how it worked.

BTW, I read somewhere that they're phasing put red, double-decker busses in London, so I suppose they'll have to change the smiley.