The Science of Gas Station Driving

Is it just me, or is the pavement around the gas pumps at a gas station among the most chaotic places to drive? Seriously, almost any crappy driving manuever or cutting off of your fellow-man is tolerated.

To make this point, consider the following technical diagram. I went to Quik-Trip, and mapped out where each vehicle went over a 60 second period. Here’s my data:

As you can see, anything goes. You can cut people off, make 8-point turns (note: the wife and I refer to any turn that has more “points” than the classical 3-point-turn as an 8-point-turn. You know what I’m talking about. They are trying to back out of a tight area or don’t know where the corners of their car are, and end up pulling forward and back about 8 times.), you get the idea.

As for cutting people off, it doesn’t matter who has right of way and who doesn’t. If you’re in a parking space, you can back out right in front of people, and even the angry drivers of Atlanta rarely get all up in your grill. Which is good, cause there’s no metal on my grill. It’s just, uhh, teeth.

Anyway, I’m kinda “bleh” today, so sorry this post isn’t as zany and wacky as others tend to be. w00t that its Friday, or something.

Funny Link: Text Book Disclaimers - The author of this site has compiled their own stickers that you could print out and put inside of science textbooks as an alternative to the actual sticker that was put into Cobb county HS science books. Here’s an example: