[rayiner]

These situations aren't rare at all. Just in the last few months, I've had: change in left-turn traffic pattern leaving my office onto a major road; humans guiding traffic on 2-3 separate occasions (very common around July 4th); cones dramatically changing lane patterns in construction zones; two occasions of cops blocking off a road with their cars to let a motorcade pass.

And this is just me driving (i.e. my car is parked 90% of the day). If you're talking about a self-driving Uber in D.C., one of the above events will happen on a daily basis.

[dboreham]

Your mention of humans guiding traffic reminds me of advice from my father many years ago: never assume that a human giving you direction when you're driving is giving you good information. Always evaluate whether what they're conveying to you may be either misunderstood (e.g. what does "wave" mean??) or just plain false. Hard for a human to do.

[vel0city]

I imagine traffic in D.C. is incredibly atypical compared to most US cities. Issues common to drivers in D.C. are probably very rare to most drivers in the US, including those in other major metropolitan areas.

[cmiles74]

I live in New England and the poster's description of DC traffic sounds like what I see all the time, from cities like Boston or even small towns like East Longmeadow.

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/05/east_longmead...