OTR: Traffic Signs

I'm going to have an Andy Rooney moment here.

In the town next to the one in which I live, there is an intersection where traffic laws are violated by the minute. (Go to Google Maps and search for 2 West Burlington Ave., LaGrange, IL and click on the StreetView function. Look at the intersection with LaGrange Rd.) If you are traveling east or west on Burlington Ave., at LaGrange Road, you will find not less than four no left turn signs in each direction. The rationale, in one direction (eastbound), is that turning left would put you stopped on the railroad tracks on the other side of the tracks, or force you to run a red light over there (which is what happens all the time). In the other direction (westbound), there is simply no turning lane and waiting for oncoming traffic would back up traffic behind you unnecessarily. In addition, there are signs (westbound) that prohibit right turns on red and permit right turns on green arrow only. Again, these signs are disregarded with abandon.

Now I have lived in this area for 35 years. The traffic rules for this intersection have not changed in those 35 years. And yet, I can sit and watch people disregard those signs almost every time I go through that intersection.

So I have to ask -- are people just that oblivious to signage or are they just so "me" focused that they aren't going to let a little thing like a traffic law prevent them from going about their business?

And here's another one. The other day I was pulling out of a shopping center parking lot. The entrance has been engineered to only permit a right turn out of the lot -- and prohibits people from turning into the lot at that entrance from the other side of the street. There's no stoplight, so traffic crossing opposing lanes is supposed to go to the next stoplight to turn in. I'm sure that there is a traffic engineering term for that sort of entrance / exit, but I couldn't tell you what it is. (I did find this drawing that is similar.) However, as I was about to hit that exit, some clown comes flying in my exit lane from the other side of the street! And flips me off when I blast my horn at him! Had I been a couple of seconds faster, he would have hit me head on. Guess the No Left Turn and Do Not Enter signs weren't intended for him...

Thanks for obliging me in my Andy Rooney moment.