Are You Guilty? Nearly Every NJ Driver Does This Simple Task Incorrectly

Let's be honest -- driving in New Jersey isn't easy or fun in many cases.

Besides the traffic and endless roadwork and road rage and traffic circles and jughandles and not being able to make a left turn anywhere, getting from A to B in this state is a competitive sport.

But there's one simple thing that many drivers in the Garden State do incorrectly -- and you might be guilty of it yourself.

I see it practically every time I'm driving.

Two words: median openings.

Back in the day, to make driving easier, the NJDOT would cut openings in a divided highway instead of putting in jughandles or more elaborate turn lanes.

Looking back, traffic being able to make a left turn every couple of hundred feet on a fast-moving highway probably isn't the safest thing in the world. Still, it's an accepted practice in the state, albeit one that seems to be slowly disappearing.

However, when it comes to navigating a median opening, lots of drivers use them incorrectly.

Median openings are really just small streets. With that in mind, when you go to make a turn, you need to still keep right, which means you should be on the far side of the opening from where you are coming from.

If you hug the inside of the median opening, you are technically driving on the left, or wrong side, of the road.

Keep right!

Worse, if you are on the wrong side of the median opening at an intersection, it's quite possible that traffic crossing the road will wind up on the right, which means two cars will be trying to turn the same way at the same time and then no one goes anywhere.

So remember New Jersey, if you drive safely, keep right, and stay the !%$@%@$ out of the left lane, we'll all get to where we're going a heck of a lot faster.