LA Bad Habit #1: Blocking the Crosswalk

You missed a rare opportunity to walk over the hood of a car blocking the crosswalk... I highly recommend it.

Don't forget to yell: "Pedestrians have the 'right of way'... Sucka!" (Then run like hell.)

"So... how often DO you turn on a red light anyway, dumbass?"

Ohh, please. Don't tell me you've NEVER been in a situation where you wanted to turn left, but there were some opposing-traffic assholes who ran the light while someone was STILL crossing the street or something stupid. So it was either crashing into the cars now making left turns, or staying there until you get another chance to turn left. Yes, it's illegal, but it happens, and this is vastly preferable to it sticking out even a little bit more maybe causing an accident.

And then there are those ANNOYING as hell lights that go from green to red, or from yellow to green unexpectedly fast. And the extremely short turn signals that don't give you a chance to turn before it's green for opposing cars, because there were too many cars from your right AND left making red-light turns (and yes, people do this, all the time).

And for what it's worth, I believe the commenter you're quoting would make more sense if he were talking about right turns. And even then, there are crowded intersections with no right-turn signals that make it IMPOSSIBLE for more than one or two cars to turn no matter what was going on if they WEREN'T hugging the curb trying to make a right turn when there are no pedestrians nearby, instead of waiting for a situation where there were no pedestrians, and turning right didn't mean crashing into the car trying to turn left onto the same street. And sometimes there are no pedestrians, but they show up out of the blue running like crazy to cross the street when it says "Don't Walk"..like you're gonna back up when there's cars behind you honking at you to go when you can't...or like you're even going to see them running from behind you into the intersection. And once in a while there's the pedestrian that just randomly decides to cross the street after standing there like he/she wasn't going to...AFTER the big crowd does. Or today, like in downtown LA driving to tofu fest, when there was a guy jaywalking at the slowest rate possible while it was green for me. There are signals and crosswalks for a reason...pedestrians always have right-of-way, but to expect cars to see you and react in time for your illegal street crossing...

So yes, this IS a bad habit, but in some cases if we didn't do some of these things, traffic would be annoyingly slower. And I'm sure people all over the place have shitty habits, but it happens. Sometimes you miscalculate/misjudge things, or something you didn't expect happened and it was safer to stay put. Maybe it was an off day. Stopping in the crosswalk is hardly heinous compared to other stuff people do (like those freaky idiots who put on makeup while looking in the mirror and driving at the same time). And personally, I'd rather blame the lack of increased safety measures that are possible on the part of the city more than anything or anyone else, because it seems that they love putting up more red-light cameras than dedicated left/right turn signals. Would it really hurt to cut down on putting cameras up, or to use that money to fund signal changes to put in protected turn signals...and maybe to put up "No turn on red" signs too? I don't want this on tiny residential streets...honestly. More like at major intersections like western and normandie in ktown, where in the morning it's impossible to make a right turn because there are so many pedestrians.

And for a personal tale, I don't think it's just the front of the car protruding that's a no-no. I remember a long time ago I took the driving test and failed it on my first try in a crowded intersection because the rear ~1 foot of the car was sticking out into the crosswalk, and that was "blocking the intersection" that wasn't even going anywhere (fwiw it was a red light for them and green for me until I was well out of there, if you crossed the street you'd have to be nuts). Sigh.