Niceholes are going to get Washington State drivers killed

Ever been waiting to make an unprotected left turn in traffic, and someone in the oncoming traffic in front of you motions to let you in?

Don't take the bait. That person is a "nicehole", and they may get you killed.

What is a "nicehole"?

Although I just learned about this term recently, "nicehole" was coined about a decade ago. Sue Thomas on the Mark Reardon Show defined this as a driver "who thinks they’re being nice but is actually driving dangerously." Usually, this is a driver who believes they should actively choose to give their right-of-way up for a driver who doesn't have it.

Some examples include:

• Stopping in a roundabout to let someone in
• Stopping at a crosswalk for a pedestrian that is waiting to cross but has not indicated they are
• Waving someone "through" a gap in traffic to make a turn

You might be wondering what's wrong with at least one of those examples. There's two main issues this kind of "nice" can cause.

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First: You should never stop moving traffic.

Stopping in moving traffic impedes the flow of traffic. Yes, you are supposed to keep intersections clear during traffic. Washington State law states in RCW 46.61.202:

No driver shall enter an intersection or a marked crosswalk or drive onto any railroad grade crossing unless there is sufficient space on the other side of the intersection, crosswalk, or railroad grade crossing to accommodate the vehicle he or she is operating without obstructing the passage of other vehicles, pedestrians, or railroad trains notwithstanding any traffic control signal indications to proceed.

I added emphasis to the last part, because that's what niceholes often forget. If you are waiting for a light to turn green, you should leave any intersections, including those with driveways, clear. When the light turns green, however, you should begin moving with the flow of traffic - not stay stopped to let someone in the lane.

In short: Letting someone in while already stopped? Nice. Continuing to wait to let them in when traffic begins moving again? Bad.

Second: You create a false sense of safety to the person you are stopping for.

This is the most dangerous part of being a nicehole - and what can get people killed. Let's take a look at two examples.

The driver in this video does one the right, but for the wrong reasons, and it left me biting my nails to watch. Yes, the driver should have left the intersection clear until there was room for them to proceed forward. However, any indication to the turning driver was a dangerous maneuver that was not necessarily going to help the flow of traffic.

Why? Notice that the lane to the right of the driver is relatively clear and thus, traffic could continue to proceed. The person turning left in front of the video's driver takes the sense of security to continue into an unprotected left turn. However, they cannot see the second lane's traffic. They risk getting crunched by a driver in the right lane. This is nicehole behavior.

Here's our second example.

The video's driver here is not a nicehole, and did nothing wrong. It's also not likely that the oncoming traffic driver, who was stopped to keep the intersection clear, was being a nicehole - at least at that moment.

What this does is illustrate how incredibly dangerous these situations can be. Believing you are "safe" because traffic is stopped for you in one lane does not mean you are - in fact, your entry into the roadway is usually as much of a surprise to the oncoming driver as they are to you.

Imagine if this was a pedestrian believing they were safe to cross the street, motioned on by a nicehole who was "letting" them in when they didn't have the right of way or a protected crosswalk.

Getting T-Boned is terrifying

Unfortunately, about eight years ago, I was in a t-bone accident that was, in part, caused by a "nicehole." It was dark, and a driver motioned our car to go through on a left turn from a driveway onto a four-lane street. Traffic was stopped at a red-light - but we should have never pulled forward to go through. A driver was speeding toward the light, and t-boned our car - totaling it and leaving me with a terrible case of driving anxiety that I only got over recently.

Who was at fault? The police, and insurance, determined that we and the driver that hit us were equally at fault. We shouldn't have made the unprotected left turn, as we could not see that we were clear to make the turn across all lanes. The other driver was going too fast toward a red light and had not properly slowed. The "nicehole," obviously, was not charged - nor should they have been. The memory, though, reminds me of how that kind of "wave in" behavior can be dangerous - or fatal.

Be predictable, not polite, when driving

This came up recently on the Seattle subreddit, in a thread titled "Please Don't Do This Seattle Drivers". Several people in the thread point out that this behavior is, essentially, unpredictable - it does not follow the rules of the road, which are specifically designed to keep traffic predictable and safe.

It's one thing if you let your foot off the gas a little to let someone merge in front of you. It's another if you hit the brakes to let them in (something that happens so frequently in Salt Lake City that I call it "Utah braking.")

No matter what, please drive safe. The lives of other people - and your own - is on the line.