chicken lane

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “"chicken" in sense of "coward"?”)

The name derives from the game of "chicken," in which two drivers head directly at each other head-on, which is what drivers in opposing "chicken lanes" do until they both turn.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

chicken lane (plural chicken lanes)

1. (slang) An additional lane in the middle of a two-way street that assists drivers who are turning onto the two-way street.
   • 1998, Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia:

     It's about two miles long with three lanes - one this way, one that way, and a chicken lane. Our driver was determined that the chicken lane was his going across the bridge driving about sixty miles per hour.

Synonyms

• suicide lane