How’s this for annoying–and incredibly dangerous–driver behavior?
Incidentally, this incident took place very near to last week’s freakish accident, in which a brake drum crashed through a windshield and killed the driver. And yet–this area of I-78 is one of the most beautiful stretches of highway to be found in the Mid-Atlantic states!
Shadow: Where I am (South Texas), it’s now a primary offense (texting, don’t scroll back up). They can pull you over for it. On top of that, they can use the text logs to PROVE you were doing it on the road. /sigh
They’re going through the motions to make it illegal state-wide…I hope they do.
By all means… Texting is becoming a really bad problem even here in rural Mississippi. I passed a potato chip distributor recently and as I came along side his left wheels crossed into my lane and when I looked up I saw he was operating a cell phone device of some kind and never noticed me. And when I see the Mercedes Benz commercial on television touting the “radar” system on the car I understand that they wish to avoid the true cause for the need for such technology but I learned to read between the lines many years ago.
sometimes the only way to get the slow moving person in front of you to go faster is to try and go around them. When you do, they’ll floor it so you can’t get around them.
I, too, was a victim of the non-signaler at a light on a 2 lane street in town awhile back. I had my signal on, waiting to turn left, out in the middle of the intersection(it’s a small one). The guy in the opposing lane did not have his signal on, nor did he try to move. I sat there waiting for him to move, he sat there waiting for me to turn… Finally, when the light was probably getting ready to turn yellow, he turns on his signal, letting me know he was also wanting to turn left. Maybe he learned a lesson in tun signal use, maybe he thought I was an a$$hat, I dunno.
What about the people on the highway who are about to pass you and all of a sudden they slow down and hibernate on your left quarter in the blind spot acting as if they just formed up in a squad of WWII bombers? Sometimes they go as far hanging onto your side like a pace lap at Talledaga or heaven forbid blast past and hang out at the tip of your fender. For crying out loud dude, go past me, it’s not that hard!
As mentioned above, the boom boxes that boom to loud BUT it’s installed in an 80’s-90’s car so you hear more metal vibration than bass.
People who drive in random directions in parking lots. People drive at right angles to the proper line of travel, or even opposite to the line of travel.
Passing lane drag racers.
Around here there are plenty of mountain passes, two lane roads, and these uphill drag racers. Be it a car or a truck with a travel trailer you’ll be behind them for miles on end braking at each curve and getting up to 50mph in the straights. Never hitting the speed limit.
The moment the uphill two-lane passing zone appears they floor it. I had to hit 85 to slip past a pickup and trailer just the other day right before the merge. What do they do as soon as it’s two lane again? They start going 45 in the 55 again!
This makes no sense to me and I see it all the time.
…Passing lane drag racers…
That’s the one situation where my stupid-powerful motorcycle comes into its own. Shift down to second gear, roll on the throttle, and I’m past those passing lane drag racers before they even know they were going to be passed.
Some people seem to take being passed personally, I went around a person who was going painfully slow once and for the rest of the road, he seemed determined to tailgate me, geez, if I knew he was planning to drive that fast, I wouldn’t have passed him.
The common connection for all of the complaints is the lack of consideration by many drivers for their fellow travelers; automotive courtesy is becoming a thing of the past. Distracted by cell phones, GPS, media centers, encouraged by womb like anechoic interiors with poor peripheral visibility, comforted by ABS, AWD, traction control, (and coming soon ) radar assisted braking, blind spot assist, and lane change assist, today’s auto-pilots are increasingly disconnected from driving as a communal experience. People who would never think of farting in an elevator will happily plug up a parking lot waiting for a space fifty feet closer to the mall entrance. Air travelers who would cordially step aside for their poor companion running to catch a plane, once they are on the highway will drive clumped together in a moving plaque constipating traffic for miles behind. People who won’t crowd you in a queue at the supermarket, when waiting in the left lane for the light to change will assuredly pull up and block the view for anyone wanting to turn right. The majority of today’s drivers aided by technology are achieving the long sought goal of having a driving experience approaching that of riding a bus. For those who value driving as an experience in itself things will only get worse.
Passing lane drag racers are common over here in Colorado.
The worst ones are fellow motorcyclists.
Normally I don’t wish ill will upon people, but these one’s make me want to carry a paintball gun, and start shooting until I can spell out A-H Driver on their trunk, or something equally descriptive.
BC.
I understand your feeling, Blade, but the best bet is to breath three slow, deep breaths and think of something positive. The guy you pull your paintgun on just may be packing a .357. There’s lots of them out there.
B.L.E., I get those all the time. They drive slow, I pass them, then they speed up and tailgate…sometimes comminicating digitally. I generally just put my rearview on “night” setting, settle into my preferred speed, and ignore them. I used to hit my brakes, but we recently had a guy arrested for “brakelighting” another driver. Go figure, the tailgater got off scott free and the guy trying to get him off his tail got arrested.
@Msechs, oh yeah, before highway 151 here was widened, my mom would give her Caddy full exercise passing these jerks. Just like you say, 45MPH, maybe for the bulk of the highway (one lane each way). Passing zone? (The kind where you pull into the oncoming lane to pass). They speed up to 55 or 60. Hill where there’s a slow lane? They stay in the “fast lane” and speed up to at least 75 or 80, so the only chance to pass is to run a V8 at full throttle. Luckily this highway is two lanes each way now.
@AL5000, if people are passing you on the right, you probably don’t belong in the left lane.
So, to me neither of these are a serious problem -- but,
1) A few years back, people here would frequently swing WAY out to the left (to the point they are not in the right turn lane) to make a right turn, and even stupider, I'd see some swing their car out to the right while making a left turn, like they thought they were driving a semi or something. I still see people do it but to a much lesser extent.
2) A few tight curves (one way road but two lanes) people will just go the full 25MPH and slop right up the middle of the road. Even when there's a car next to them. One road here, I just keep my hand balanced over the horn. Well, if there's a semi or a bus, I don't know if they could cleanly make the turn (whether they "could" or not, they don't..), I'll make sure I'm not next to them. Iif there's someone else beside me there's probably a 75% odds I'll have to lay on the horn. SUVs are of course the worst, but I even see people in like Miatas and stuff that should be able to do better go right up the middle. If I can go full speed and keep my Buick perfectly within a lane a Miata sure should be able to. Strangely some people slow down to like 10 or 15, but STILL go up the middle (again, heedless to if there's a car besides them or not). Then they always look all offended that I'd honk at them!
3) For some reason, people here NEVER use their horns. I do! It's not like I'm going around laying on my horn all day, I probably average less than once a week. I guess it's no skin off my back if others don't use their horns, but you'd think if someone looks right at a car then turns RIGHT in front of it (and doesn't bother to even try to accelerate to match it's speed) or blows a yield or stop sign or whatever the car that got cut off would honk at them. I actually saw someone last year roll down the window and yell "dumbass!" at someone rather than just give them a blast on the horn. When I was learning to drive, I made a few mistakes and got honked at, it made me think "Oh, maybe I shouldn't have done that!" So, now that almost noone here uses their horn, people who do have bad driving habits never get broken of them.
4) I was going to mention "not signalling" where someone in front of me comes almost to a dead stop, then turns, without signalling. But that's on the list. I do honk at them sometimes, and if there's no other cars to confuse, when they look back I'll give them one blink of the turn signal to remind them "hey, use your turn signal!"
That said, have you guys been to Rochester, MN? It's THE WORST. I was astounded, and I've been to California, I've been to New York, I've seen New Jersey drivers. These guys, they were going like 70MPH during an ice storm (this was probably a 55-60MPH highway. But it was quite sliperry). Tailgating. Changing lanes without signalling. They ACTIVELY try to stop people merging on AND changing lanes. For real, I was riding with my mom driving, she signalled to move over a lane *3* times (since there was heavy merging traffic), each time cars would LITERALLLY speed up 15 or 20MPH to close up the gap and block her out. And, she was NOT going slower than the speed of traffic or anything (I could see blocking someone if they were going like 45 and expected to cut into 60MPH traffic for instance.) Finally, she had to NOT signal and just jam the car into a gap (at which point, whoever is "behind" the gap usually honks and acts all offended.). We thought maybe it was a fluke, maybe a few drivers in a row were just dicks. OH NO. Same thing happened trying to move right a lane to exit.. two or three times, there could be a 5 car length gap, and if she signalled, after the time it took to blink once or twice, the cars "behind" would punch the gas and fill the gap in. Again she had to just find a gap and go for it. I mean, I've seen people do this OCCASIONALLY in like Chicago or whatever, but in Rochester? EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Side note, California drivers have a bad reputation, but I found it just fine. They do speed like madmen (when I was there in 1999, I probably averaged 105MPH between San Diego and LA, and I had my 1985 Celebrity at full throttle and was being passed pretty often so "flow of traffic" was probably closer to 110.. then about 5MPH through the rest of LA). But I found drivers there courteous, I did see people do the "cut across five lanes of traffic" thing but they appeared to actually look if there was room to do it instead of just doing it blind like they do in Chicago, and people on the road would try to make space if someone was merging on, or wanted to move over a lane. Well, other than LA busses, when they are ready to leave a bus stop, they blink the turn signal once and just gun it onto the road whether there's a car there or not. But the cars seem to know this so they just get out of the way.@hwertz, you are missing my point. I’m in a line of traffic, hence the “leaving space comment”. Could be doing 70-75, not uncommon here, the guy behind me feels he’s better off being one car ahead rather than one car behind. I’d rather leave a couple of car lengths than be right on the bumper of the car I am trailing.
Sand-bagging
ie; NOT going when they dang well should.
Many, many instances where the entire problem is at the FRONT of the line.
Average Drivers.
These are the people that drive 50 in a 55 zone then when they get to residential area they don’t slow down for the 40 mph zone and just keep going along. If 55 was too scary to drive what the heck are you doing 10 over the speed limit around people backing out of driveways, kids playing in the yard!!!
As a general rule, Canadian drivers (Quebec) are terrible drivers, they stay in the fast lane even when the next car to pass is a mile head and will take 15 minutes before they catch them. If they do move to the right after passing someone they pull back in front of them after they have cleared 1/2 a car length. When you go to pass with your cruise control on, they speed up and stay in your blind spot or accelerate to stay in front of you for a few minutes till they slow down again.
Of course this is stereotypical, drivers everywhere are terrible! There is not enough education before they start bad habits, poor enforcement of driving laws causing people to push the limits on speed, cell phones, eating, hair care, etc. As the number of drivers on the road increases and the percentage of poorly trained drivers increases the number of (idiots, morons, dipsticks) grows exponentially.
“As a general rule, Canadian drivers (Quebec) are terrible drivers…”
Especially the ones that winter in Florida!
Okay–let me try to describe a situation that I have encountered a few times recently.
In my area, most of the roads are two-lane country-type roads with either no shoulder or a very narrow shoulder. When repair work on overhead wires is required, the utility trucks are essentially forced to block one lane of the road while they do their work. Yes, there are copious warning signs and flashing lights to alert drivers as they approach.
If you were approaching one of these repair situations on your side of the road, don’t you think that it would be prudent to take a look at oncoming traffic before veering into the oncoming lane? Well, unfortunately, I have had a few close calls (usually with elderly women) who see fit to just steer around the utility trucks and head right into oncoming traffic–while driving about 50 mph. Luckily, I know enough to slow down when I see repair trucks, even when they are on the other side of the road, but I don’t think that everyone does this, and even though I have already slowed down, I have still had a few close calls.
I don’t think that it will be long before the local papers have an article about a head-on collision due to this type of scenario.
I am shocked the repair trucks aren’t required to have someone out there in an orange vest with a stop sign stopping traffic in one direction while traffic passes in the opposite direction.
VDCdriver…Nothing makes me happier than seeing a pill box hat, and a set of knuckles on the steering wheel when approaching a situation like that. I just back off and watch with baited breath as it happens. :)~
I sometimes wonder if the driver can see enough of the road from that position…and if they can… are they able to reach the brake pedal in time to stop themselves ?
DWE.(Driving while Elderly) If I see an older person driving oddly and know the family, I will usually say something to them and hope they take the time to explain. If I know they don’t have family in the area,(lots don’t any longer) I tell the local P.D. to keep an eye on them.
Whitey
Actually, in NJ, we are required to have a police car stationed at these roadside repair situations. However, the cops–who are doing this as “extra-duty”–usually just sit in their cars and make no attempt to control traffic.
It would be interesting to see how things stacked up in terms of liability, in the event of a head-on collision right next to the police car with flashing lights and a lounging officer sitting inside in air-conditioned comfort.