Chicken Lane, Suicide Lane

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Shelly Tatum from Dallas, Texas.

Hey, Shelly. Welcome to the show. How can we help you?

Well, my question is regarding a traffic term that I’ve used my whole life, but I recently had an experience that’s kind of made me want to find out more about it.

Oh, do tell.

So just to give you some background, I was on a road trip recently with a friend who grew up in Florida and my boyfriend who grew up in Minnesota. And then I’m, of course, from Texas. My friend from Florida was driving and I was navigating and I realized we were about to miss a left turn. So I told my friend to get in the chicken lane and she paused and looked at me very confused and got in the right lane. And I got really frustrated and said, what are you doing? I said the chicken line, and she responded that she had no idea what that meant.

So I was really frustrated because we missed our turn, and everybody was acting like I was speaking some foreign language. So it dawned on me it must be a regional thing, and I explained to them that the middle lane with the two yellow stripes where the car is going in either direction can make left-hand turns with the chicken lane. And my friend from Florida said that they didn’t call it that. She had no name for it. And then my boyfriend said, oh, you mean the suicide lane?

So I guess my question is just where on earth did this phrase come from and where did I learn it? And, yeah, just any background on it that y’all might have.

Shelly, there’s a couple of things. I just want to, for everyone, I just want to make sure that we’re talking about the same kind of road. So we’re really talking about a two-lane road, one lane going in each direction. But in the middle of those two lanes is a turning lane that you can temporarily get into to make a left turn.

Yeah, and I mean, I guess I’ve always thought of it as you’re kind of playing chicken with oncoming traffic.

That’s right. Somebody who is also trying to make a left-hand turn coming the opposite direction.

That’s right. That’s exactly right. It dates to playing chicken when two vehicles drive directly toward each other and one has to get out of the way or else there’s going to be a crash. And that dates to the 1950s. So we would know that chicken lane then probably also dates to after the 1950s.

The suicide lane one is very similar. I, years ago, collected a bunch of citations, people using suicide lane for my dictionary, Double Tongue Dictionary, which is now on the radio show’s website. And I had a number of commenters reply that they also use the term chicken lane for that, just like you do. And I have not been able to determine any geographic distribution that shows it’s more common in one place than another.

I do know that some people, much to the chagrin of others, call it a passing lane, not a turn lane. And people get very upset about this because it’s not meant for passing, but people do use it for passing.

Oh, wow. Yeah, that makes me a little angry, too. I would still want somebody to try and pass me in that lane.

Yeah, it’s not meant for that. It’s got these two solid lines typically, right?

Mm—

So, Shelly, you’re not the only one, you and your dad.

Okay, but we still don’t know exactly where in the country.

No, like I said, I don’t think it’s got a where. I think it’s just widespread without any particular center or locus.

If you want more information on Suicide Lane and Chicken Lane, just go to the radio show website at waywordradio.org and search for either one of those terms, and you’ll come up with the conversation and the citations for them.

Oh, great. Okay.

Thank you so much for your call, Shelly.

Oh, thank y’all. It was fun.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Well, if you’ve moved to some other part of the country and people are looking at you like you have two heads because you’re using a term they don’t recognize, we’d love to hear about it.

So call us, 877-929-9673, or send us an email. That address is words@waywordradio.org.