I have considered moving, due to the nature of my job I must live within 10 miles of work. The only way I could move elsewhere is if I get a new job, and at this point I am better off staying where I am at for at least another 2.5 years. I am that close to a pension and I cant leave yet.
I may move after that though, I have had my fill of this county, but for now I am stuck.
“I have worked in many states, and I have to say the people in Indiana tend to be very rude, and in a big hurry”.
Since the cars I own won’t let me be “King of the Road”, I think I’ll stay here in Indiana where I grew up and be “King of the Rude”.
Who are we to judge, I hate sitting at a turn on arrow only when the road is deserted, the system is not perfect, sure I could do the worthless write to your congressman etc. can only think of this vid for catharthis from 1976, how little things change. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINDtlPXmmE
Just because everybody does something, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea
Years ago, we all used to jaywalk from the the shop to the supermarket across the street, to get lunch
Well, one day I got busted for jaywalking, and got slapped with a $137 ticket. I calculated that I had to work about 6 hours to pay off that ticket. Ouch! The only consolation was that the officer handed out many jaywalking tickets that day, so I wasn’t the only one. I would have felt like an even bigger fool if I had been the only one.
For those of you wondering, the officer was hiding behind some bushes, and there was absolutely no way to see him before crossing the street
Anyways, I learned my lesson the hard way, and I’ve never jaywalked again. After that, I went out of my way to walk to a legitimate intersection and wait for the green light to cross. Paying that ticket hurt so bad, I don’t want to do that again
I wish you the best, and I hope you don’t get slapped with an expensive ticket
I’ve spent some time in Indiana a few years ago and didn’t find folks to be rude at all. Strident maybe, about certain topics. I quickly learned to avoid those as topics of discussion was my solution. Rick, here’s an idea: if you find you are constantly getting in arguments about certain topics, just don’t discuss those topics.
The way I see it, you’re free to do what you want, but you are not free from the consequences of your acts, whether you get tickets or you cause accidents or you run over a 3 year old on a tricycle. And you are not free from the judgments of the rest of us.
Sure, the world is full of idiots. The average IQ is 100, 50% of the population is lower than that. Are you surprised that some dim people cross your path daily? If you are, perhaps the lights aren’t shining too brightly in your mind either.
Every time I drive on the roads in the San Francisco Bay Area I’m amazed that the drivers are so willing to be so disciplined. We speak hundreds of different languages, we are from everywhere on earth. Every religion, every sexual proclivity, every political belief is represented in the cars flying across the Bay Bridge at 74 miles an hour, five lanes of traffic; some sober, some crying, some arguing with the old lady again, some so high on “medical” marijuana they can’t speak. In spite of that they stay in their lanes, they do look before they change lanes, they actually make it work. They make it work.
Rick, you’re missing the point. The point is they make it work. If you are holding up a flow of cars, you are making it not work. The speed limit sign has its place, but the free will of the people sets the speed. If you drive through red lights when others are around, you are making the system fail, because your behavior is too unpredictable. Don’t do that. Make it work.
There are 330,000,000 of us in America, and most of us are in cars many times a week. We can’t agree on medical care or military tactics or really much of anything, but we do make traffic work here every day in ways that are amazing and beautiful to watch.
Don’t screw it up just because you can.
@WheresRick, I’m sure that you’re familiar withe the old saying about what you do when no one else is looking. I think it applies here. I know it can be frustrating. I live in a huge urban area and far too many people live down to the reputation we have as drivers. I still leave a generous space between me and the car in front, and that attracts fools that think they can stuff their car in between. After all, who needs more than a couple of car lengths at 65? I think I need 4 car lengths and I hope the drivers in front of me appreciate it.
Oh, and you don’t live in California, so you can’t do a California Roll at stop signs.
I have run and turned left on red out of desperation after it was obvious that the sensor loop was not going to detect my motorcycle.
I’ve also done this more than once.youtube.com/watch?v=9H5pVObVAYw
Rick, I truly believe it’s much safer (and much more relaxing) to stay with the flow of traffic. A vehicle not doing so acts like a rock in a flowing stream, and creates turbulence in the traffic flow. Turbulence is, I believe, the cause of unnecessary traffic accidents.
I can’t say I condone disregarding stop signs, but I am glad to hear you’re using care in doing so. Having lived in Illinois and North Dakota, I also realize that in some states one can see another car from miles away. Here in NH everything happens suddenly. Tress, curves, hills, and valleys make everything appear suddenly. I’ve not driven in your area, so I don’t know your terrain, but I can only assume it’s less “vision blocked” than mine is.
In answer to your question, in 45++ years of driving I’ve only been in one accident…and it was not at all my fault. I was in the right lane of a divided highway, both lanes bumper to bumper at 70mph, and the driver of a work van to my left suddenly realized that he’s missed his exit…and tried to go through me to get to it. That was eight years ago.
I did spin out on black ice once back in the '80s, going very slowly on an empty highway in the dark in the wee hours of the morning. The cop behind me almost lost his cruiser the same way. No serious damage, but I did shear down a road sign.
I does seem to me that you post more than the usual amount of threads about the poor driving of others. And, I confess, that makes me suspect.
I just went through Indiana on the way to Ohio. I didn’t notice any rudeness but I’ll tell you what, that 65 limit for trucks is just plain stupid. If you try to stay out of the passing lane except for passing, you are constantly changing lanes because of the slower trucks. I think its a hazard.
Not enforcing the laws though brings to mind the problems New York had before they started clamping down on the smaller crimes which got the bigger ones under control. This is a little off topic but you have to enforce the small stuff or it will lead to lawlessness. The U of MN has been having assault and theft problems for a few months. Guys come on campus and steal computers etc. at gun point. One foreign student had his stolen but he had an anti-theft system on it so it beeped his phone to tell him where it was. It was in Minneapolis some place but get this-the Minneapolis police were too busy to go get the computer and find out who was behind the thefts. The U of M police did it instead and arrested the guy. So Minneapolis is too busy dealing with street crime, shootings, and robberies that when they get a solved case handed to them on a platter, they just can’t take the time.
Not saying that speeding or rolling through stop signs is the same as armed robbery, but seems to me to nail the small stuff and the big stuff stops.
Where I live, hardly anyone comes to a complete stop before turning right on red or at stop signs and hardly anyone gets ticketed for it, unless it’s really blatant or causes a problem. It’s tolerated much like going 5 over the limit is.
Actually, a lot of the stop signs here could or even should be yield signs. There was one infamous speed trap municipality up in North TX that was giving everybody that didn’t come to a complete stop and wait several seconds before proceding a ticket for running a stop sign at a certain intersection on a very low traffic highway where you could see cars coming even as you approached the highway. There were so many complaints that the highway department stepped in and replaced that stop sign with a yield sign and the speed trap town had to find another source of revenue.
Not coming to a complete stop at an intersection where it is safe to do so not only saves time, but gas and clutches also. Speeding is one of the most over-rated time savers there is, not stopping is one of the most under-rated time savers there is. I’ll take a small town and red light free 60 mph highway over a 70 mph highway with red lights and small towns every 20 miles or so any day. The reason freeways are fast has more to do with never having to stop than it does with high speed limits.
That is the biggest problem here, they do not enforce them small stuff, therefore they only catch the big stuff in a reactive way when it gets to out of control. 73 percent of my home County Jail inmates are in for meth related charges. Its actually a horrible place to live, and it wasn’t always this bad. I swear in the last 10 years the lawlessness problem has compounded it self so badly that you can actually do whatever you want with no fear of getting caught
Increased crime is directly proportional to the unemployment rate. Indiana has high unemployment. The auto industry was very big in Indiana. Elkhart Indiana has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. I have many relatives in upstate NY. Same thing up there. Very high unemployment…and very high crime rate. When I was growing up there…unemployment was low…and crime rate was low.
A few years back I toured a European friend of mine through a large cattle ranch nearby. When we went for dinner in town, courtesy of the rancher, my friend was appalled that the rancher drove his pickup though all stop signs. His wife did not seem to mind, but she observed my friend’s unease.
She told me, and I translated, that the family had originally homesteaded there in the 1800s, and got there long before the town did. In any case the family had donated millions to the town over the years, and the sheriff was not about to ticket him.
@WheresRick If you develop that kind of clout you can disregard stop signs.
@MikeInNH Isn’t Elkhart the trailer capital of the world? With many RV manufactureres? I can see where those job losses would up the crime rate. At the recently held Detroit Auto show many models to be displayed were stolen right out from under the baffled foreign car companies unfamiliar with the “Detroit Ethic”.
Elkhart used to be the band instrument capitol of the world. The musical and subsequent film, “Music Man” was based around the selling of band instruments. The main character claimed to be from Gary, Indiana but the real city for musical instruments was Elkhart. Unfortunately, much of that business is gone. Conn instruments moved its factories to Mexico. Yamaha of Japan has really captured a lot of the musical instrument business. I played a Conn French horn for almost 40 years. I tried a Yamaha horn. I was accurate on the Yamaha, but I really didn’t like the tone for solo passages. I purchased a Holton horn instead.
“If you develop that kind of clout you can disregard stop signs.”
Didn’t we have a similar situation a few months ago where a nasty old hag was using the police to do her dirty work?
Well,the more laws-the more lawbreakers you have,but the real problem is all the new found freedom from the sense of moral obligation and general lack of courtesy ,tact and morals.Have any of you watched any of the reality tv garbage? seems every third word has to blipped, Is this lack of respect for authority to be lauded or venerated? If the young folks in my younger days acted like this,they would have been punished or taken to task over thier actions.And a lot of this mess stems from the lack of belief in a higher power or anyone theywould have to answear to,dont depend on the law to help the moral fortitude of this sinking nation(wont happen) when a lot of the higher ups are worse then the perps(seen a fair amount of this in a certain
"joint" I was in, some people seem immune to the laws they saddle others with,can think of a few examples of this right off the bat.You always hear of the mythical state trooper who would ticket his own Grandmother,but I assure you that they are few and far in between,the same thing applies to certain moneyed people of privilage(bet you can think of a few cases of this,without much effort) till you can tolerate and become the servant of others and not think more highly of yourself then your poor fallen fellow human being,I just dont see things improving much. Altruism is a rare commodity these days.We need more Gandis and less Kardashians these days,Been having nightmares lately about the fall of civilization as we know it,each dream is a little different,but they are all terrible,I’m not going to mince words people,we live in a fools paradise,wether intentional or an" act of God" this applecart can be upset fairly easily(EMP anyone?) sabotage of the electrical grid(easier then you think) numerous things I wont be more specific,but never think that this great, nation of ours is universally respected Nuff said’ Kevin
Well said.
I think the issue of trying to minimize the potential danger comes into play. Obeying the law is one thing, but if obeying the law results in a more dangerous situation…
For example, part of my commute to work was a 60 mph speed limit. People travel up to 80 mph (may more?). The good news is that it is a 4 lane each way freeway and traffic doesn’t clog up behind anyone.
But occasionally, I will see a driver doing just under the speed limit in the leftmost lane. I am sure they think they are obeying the law in its entirety and entitled to be doing what they are doing - after all, they are obeying the law and everyone else is not, right?
But I submit that they are creating a more dangerous condition and it would be better if they were in the rightmost lane.
My guide to this? If you are getting honked at or getting fingers and fists, you are probably doing something wrong and you should take an honest look at your own behavior.