The MFFY Story, as told by Google Street View

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&ie=U...,0.032959&z=15

This lane ain't big enough for the two of us!

Whole sequence of events:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&om=1...,0.016479&z=16
--Whoops. Somebody wasn't paying attention, and rear ended somebody.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&om=1...,0.016479&z=16
--At least everybody's OK.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&om=1...,0.016479&z=16
--"Oh no! My lane is blocked! That can only mean one thing! IT'S MFFY
TIME!"

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&om=1...,0.016479&z=16
[honking, screeching, cursing]

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&om=1...,0.016479&z=16
"Coming through!"

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&om=1...,0.016479&z=16
"Another lane conquered, by MFFY POWER!!"

! > wrote in
ups.com:

> http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&ie=U...=37.764206,-12
> 2.477242&cbp=1,359.186289698382,0.56936911005406,3 &hl=en&ll=37.771902,-
> 122.476015&spn=0.022762,0.032959&z=15
>
> This lane ain't big enough for the two of us!
>
Was there contact? I can't see how there wasn't any. Can you say hit and
run? Maybe the pictures will be found on the internet and used against the
white car in small claims court.

Freak'n amazing. But not surprised.

Doug

In article >, Scott en Aztlán wrote:
> ! > said in rec.autos.driving:
>
>>http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&ie=U...,0.032959&z=15
>>
>>This lane ain't big enough for the two of us!
>
> Don't you know that lane-splitting is legal in California?

Um one of the vehicles has to have no more than TWO wheels for it to be
legal.

> Either the chick in the white car wasn't watching her mirrors closely,
> or she was determined not to let this MFFY intimidate her; in any
> event, she went ahead and changed lanes anyway. The fact that their
> vehicles made contact and yet she did not stop or even slow down
> suggests that she was teaching the MFFY in the silver car a little
> lesson.

Or what I have found is that the driver in the dead ending
lane doesn't realize it ends while there is time to plan and then
slows/stops to figure out what to do. While this is going on, any gap
the driver may have had to get over vanishes. This would fall under the
'invisible bus' heading.

On Jun 27, 8:43 pm, Scott en Aztlán > wrote:
> Actually, I think you might have the wrong MFFY. If you look back a
> few frames, you can clearly see a period where the silver car was WELL
> BEHIND her and she had plenty of space to merge to her left.
> --
> MFFYCam Videos Galohttp://www.geocities.com/mffycam/

I'm not so sure.

If you start he
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&om=1...,0.016479&z=16

And keep hitting the South arrow, you'll see that the silver car is
doing roughly the same speed as the maroon SUV in the left lane and
the SUV behind it, and all of them are going faster than the white car
and the rest of the right lane traffic, until about 1254 19th Ave.

>From 1254 to 1270 19th Ave. you can see how much distance the red SUV
gains on the silver car, when the silver car has to brake to try to
avoid the white car.

As soon as 1228 19th Ave (if not earlier), the driver of the white car
could have seen the wreck stopped in her lane, moreover, there's a red
car getting over to go around it.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&om=1...,0.016479&z=16

If you spin the display around, you'll see that the white car has at
least 500 feet of warning of something in her lane up ahead.

What this appears to be is a case of your "invisible parked semi":
people drive up to an obstruction in their lane, then force their way
over assuming that people in the lane will slow down, rather than
watching for obstructions in the lane ahead and working into a hole in
traffic.

It's the same principle behind the people that, instead of
accelerating or decelerating in a merge lane into a hole in traffic,
riding all the way down the lane then barging in at the last second.