What Shall We Call the Turn Lane Slowpokes?

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Good morning.

Good morning. Who’s this?

This is Bill in Del Mar.

Hi, Bill. Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

What would you like to talk with us about, Bill?

Well, I’m looking for a word that describes a growing driving discourtesy problem.

Well, there are a lot of those. Which one is it?

I was like running through the thousands of things that people do every day that are very irritating in their cars.

Yeah, so this is a new one.

Have you ever been waiting to turn left at a long traffic light and it finally turns green, but the driver of the car ahead of you doesn’t notice it right away?

Oh, sure.

They decided to do their taxes or something while the light was red.

Yeah, they’ve been looking at their phone for the last two minutes.

And so somebody politely honks.

The offending driver looks up, sees the car ahead of him have already turned left and takes off.

But the trouble is, by then, the gap in cars has triggered the traffic light to turn yellow, and that leaves the rest of us fuming at the red light.

Right. You’ve got to wait for another light cycle.

Exactly. So most of the times, the words follow change, but sometimes new phrases can speed the needed changes, like road rage or distracted driving or cruise control.

I just can’t find a word for this.

Okay, so you’re not talking about a word for the fuming or the polite honking.

You want a word for that behavior of the person who’s at the front of the line.

The evil deed.

Yeah, like when the word tailgating came out, it helped everybody not do it as much.

That’s a good point, right?

When we get that phenomenon called to our attention by a particular word, as you said, distracted driving or that kind of thing.

Huh.

Exactly.

Surely you have some candidates for that word.

Well, I was trying to think of some that started with phone and maybe have alliteration with a phone, and then the next word would also start with an F sound, but decided I would not suggest any.

I’m not aware of a word that exists right now, but it makes sense.

Are you sure that they’re always on their phone?

I’m thinking I might have been in a reverie or two at a red light before and messed up the line that way.

It’s gotten a lot worse in the last few years.

And, of course, here in San Diego, we’ve got Qualcomm, and they have helped everyone always be on their phone.

Yeah, it’s a universal condition.

Right, that’s true.

And it is irritating, right?

It’s irritating mainly because when you’re in the front, you have more responsibility, right?

You’re the leader of the pack.

Your responsibility is get everyone through that light, right?

You’re like the scout in the front leading the convoy over the mountain past to the safety of the other side, right?

Well, yeah, and you have to be careful, too, because sometimes people sail right through those red lights, right?

Oh, do they now?

Yeah.

So we need a word sort of along the lines of, I don’t know, light hog or…

I was thinking traffic time vortex because it’s like when you’re up there, it feels like you have forever, but you really don’t.

And you just take more time next.

Or how about this?

Stoplight vacation.

Stop on vacation.

Or red light vacation.

I think it really needs to be one or two words and have alliteration or something that has to do with distracted driving or texting.

And if we can form a new phrase that works like a lightning rod that collects all of the frustrations in society, maybe we can have words lead change instead of vice versa.

Well, that would be an interesting opportunity, right?

The only other thing I can think of is lane squatter or something like that.

What about left-turn loser?

Left-turn loser?

I like that.

Left-turn loser.

Left-turn lame-o.

Yeah.

Yeah, just something to make people more aware.

Well, you know what, Bill?

We have lots of listeners who have very creative ideas about these kinds of things, so we could throw it out to them.

Let’s do that.

If you know, if you’ve got something on your mind that describes Bill’s circumstance, what do you call that person or the thing that they’re doing when they’re in the front of a turn lane and they don’t turn in time so that everyone else can make the light?

What would you call that?

877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.

I hope we started something.

Thank you.

Thanks, Bill.

Okay, thanks.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye.