This morning coming down the Everett Turnpike I got behind a 4-dr fro Mass that pulled up beside a box truck and slowed down and matched the box truck’s speed for about a mile. I blipped my highbeams to get him to move over and clear the passing lane. He did, then he opened his windwo and gave me a New York Digital Salute. What the heck do people who do that think they’re accomplishing?
“…and when the light turned green a Chrysler Kcar and a VW bus started screaming down the street racing each other.”
Maybe each driver thought his car was the slowest, and the just had to prove it:
My car is the slowest thing ever built.
Nah, mine is!
Couldn’t be - wanna race ? I’ll show ya how slow my bus is!
Your on! My K-car will limp in a car length behind you!
While not really something that would be considered strange, my wife and I had to seriously slow down due to a tow truck angling in on a car as we drove by a state trooper making an arrest This was about 15+ years ago.
The guy under arrest in the back seat of the trooper’s car was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh although at that moment in time we had no idea who he was along with the trooper who was also unaware of who he had cuffed.
I forget where this discussion started, but @the same mountainbike reminds me of one of my consternation on the freeway. OK, I am the guy that typically goes 10 over because you won’t get a ticket, yet occasionally I am stuck behind some godforsaken people that think 55 is 55, OK I applaud your citizenry but do not drive on for miles in lock step with another car going 55 and clog up the system, please!
I remember driving on a very slick I-74 and I looked into my rearview and saw a car in my lane behind me go every direction but straight. He was sideways left and right. I had the time to hunker down in my seat and think to myself “I don’t want to make car payments but looks like I’m gonna”.
Then a streak went by my right side and took the exit. After that I had a very good day!
Posts like this make me know that hindsight is 20-20. I drive about 50,000 miles a year and if I would have written down everything that I saw like these stories it would make a book.
Some years back I exited a 4 lane and looped around to go down a cross street. As I rounded the turn several cars passed me with their lights on so I was careful on the speed thinking that the cops had set up a roadblock to check licenses and so on. Not so.
As I rounded onto the straight section of roadway there were a few more cars passing with their lights on; and this was on a sunny, calm afternoon.
Down the road a quarter of a mile there was a huge lingering cloud of white smoke that was being emitted by one of those old Buick land yacht station wagons and which was moving at about 20 MPH in a 40. Anti-freeze must have been pouring into every one of the 8 cylinders on that car and vehicles were stacked up a dozen deep behind it because no one could see well enough to pass.
As he got closer I just pulled over into a parking lot and watched the procession. The smoke was so thick that objects on the other side of the road were not even visible. Now and then someone would dart out from behind him while hoping nothing was approaching from the opposite direction and gun on past. It was dead calm so that cloud just hung there. I’ve seen some bad smokers before but that one took the cake.
I was in at sears once to get new tires, the lady in front was complaining she could have gotten at least another 300 miles if she had not had to drive on a gravel road.
I used to go out for lunch, get a paper and sit in the parking lot across from a home improvement store. The people leaving the home improvement store were often more interesting than the paper.
Like the geniuses that thought they could hold onto several 4x8 sheets of foam board insulation using nothing more than their hands holding those sheets to the roof. They made it about 100yds before they cracked in half and blew all over the road.
You might not know it but twine has a big following amoung the DIY crowd tying down anything from lumber to washing machines atop their cargo hauling compact cars…
Not too long ago, I came up to a red light. Already there was a pair of young ladies in front of me flirting with a dude driving a Fed-Ex truck in the adjacent lane. The light turned green and they both continued their conversations. After a generous 10 seconds, I beeped once to get their attention. No joy. So I laid on the horn and did not let up. I got the old stink eye but since they could no longer talk and hold everyone else up, they moved along. I don’t care how pretty you think you are, not everyone is so enamored by your looks they will sit behind you patiently waiting for you to complete your social activities.
I had some woman do the same thing putting on makeup at a stoplight. She had raced to cut me off and then sat there putting on makeup while the light was green. What possesses people to think they are more important than everyone else around them?
Like TSM I have often wondered about people flipping others off. Most curiously women who would likely otherwise be more hesitant to do something like that if not encased in a rolling metal cage of perceived invincibility. You never know what kind of nutcase might be driving that other car…
I know a woman that likes to drive fast. She will pull up close behind someone and honk lightly at them to get them to move. She thinks that she is being courteous by honking lightly, and doesn’t appear to be angry at the driver in front. I think that she is an aggressive driver and doesn’t really know it.
Jt, that sort of depends. Pulling up on the rear ends of others is definitely an aggressive (and dangerous) habit. And if she’ doing so and honking at them even when they’re in the process of passing someone else, than I’d consider that aggressive and dangerous driving.
If she’s only doing that when someone is lazily cruising along in the passing lane without reason, than it’s the pulling up tailgating, IMHO that’s aggressive.
SMB, she does it to anyone that isn’t going fast enough, but is patient enough not to do it to someone passing another car until there is room for them to pull into the right lane. Then she toots them up if they stay left.
This is a good thread.I tell my wife and daughter never flip anyone off,you dont know what might be laying on the passengers seat.Some people do think that the world should make an exception for them-Kevin
Something that I observe on a fairly regular basis has always puzzled me.
Why do so many people who pull over on the shoulder of an expressway park–literally–about 1 inch from the right lane traffic that is zooming along at 60+ mph?
Are these folks so dense that they cannot contemplate the possibility of someone who is just a bit too far to the right in the right-hand lane hitting them and throwing the parked car and its passengers into a ditch? Then, to compound matters, some of these same geniuses decide to change a tire on the driver’s side, and wind up squatting IN the roadway, simply because their car is so damn close to the road to begin with.
I am not referring to those older roads that might have extremely narrow shoulders, because drivers really don’t have much of an option in that type of situation. Instead, I am referring to expressways that were built post-1970, that feature very wide shoulders bordered by smooth grassy areas.
On the few occasions when I have had to pull off of an expressway, I made sure that my car was as far away from travel lanes as was humanly possible, with my right-side tires on the grassy area. Why is such an obvious safety issue NOT obvious to so many people?
VDCdriver, the situation you mention about someone parking on the shoulder and changing tires or whatever the case may be is something that I’ve also seen a number of times. I flat do not understand how someone could do that and not be scared to death by vehicles passing by a few feet away at 70 MPH.
It’s strange to watch someone in situations like this and one can tell by their actions, facial expressions, and so on that getting smeared does not even cross their minds.
VDC,State Troopers will even do this-I’ve had to almost buck VDOT on a pullover to get them to move to a safe locale,so they could possibly give me a ticket,safely-Kevin
Troopers do it for a reason. They’re taught to position the cruiser to protect them in the event of a car that would not otherwise give them room to stand. It’s far, far safer that way. They’re also taight to turn the steering wheel to the left and point the car toward the center of the road so that if someone hits the cruiser it heads into the lane instead of crushng them.
But cruisers have flashing blue light bars to warn drivers that they’re there. Regular people that leave their vehicles almost in the lane are just plain dumb. But God must love dumb people…he made lots of them!
When I get pulled over I always look for a spot to pull far over, well off the road. Cops have a dangerous enough job as it is.
…and, let’s not forget that most of those people flirting with danger on the edge of expressways also do not activate their 4-way flashers. In fact, based on how few people use them, I wonder if some of these dim bulbs even know that their car is equipped with 4-way flashers.
Related to that topic, many years ago, I helped the brother of a friend jockey a couple of his cars around in a very congested urban area. Since I had to leave one of his cars (an early-'80s Chevy Celebrity) double-parked for a few minutes, I activated the 4-way flashers, so that approaching cars would know enough to go around the car.
When this guy saw the flashers, he freaked out. As it turned out, he thought that this feature was a one-time-only thing, and that by activating them, he would never be able to use them again. (Sort of like a road flare, according to his reasoning, I suppose)
However, since he didn’t even know where the GM had hidden the switch on the underside of the steering column, I doubt that he ever would have been able to activate the flashers even if he wanted to.
VDCdriver, you reminded me of something I witnessed many years ago. I went to lunch at one of those fast food places that have the glassed in garden areas. We saw a guy roll to a stop in front of the place, on a two lane road with no shoulders. There is a deep, weed filled ditch on either side. There is a fair amount of traffic on this road, especially during lunch hour. The guy comes to a stop on the opposite side of the road, facing the wrong way. This caught my attention.
He gets out and opens the trunk. After a bit of rummaging, he gets the spare tire out and leans it up against the traffic side of the car. Next comes the jack. Aha! he has a flat and has parked on the opposite side to make sure he’s not in traffic when changing it. WHY NOT JUST PULL INTO THE PARKING LOT??
Anyway, he’s standing in the ditch jacking up the car. The tire is getting more and more vertical as the body of the car comes up until it stands completely upright and starts wobbling and rolling down the road. This guy can’t see the tire and has no idea what has happened. The tire is gaining speed as it goes down a slight hill and running straight now. It finally ends up in the ditch about 100yds down the road.
This is when it gets funny. The guy comes around the car and you can tell is perplexed why the spare tire is not where he “thinks” he left it. You can just imagine what’s going through his mind. I know I took it out and put it here…He retraces his steps several times, rummaging through the trunk, going back to the side, looking up and down the road…Man, we were rolling on the floor.
Finally, we finish up and decide to end this guy’s misery. Hey, you looking for your spare? It’s down the road over there!
TT, that’s hysterical!
Thanks.