Wednesday 6/20/2018. About 6:45AM. I was making the 15 mile journey to sit my Grandson in the capitol city. Clear sky, dry pavement. and light traffic. Perfect. I was on the bridge with no conflicting traffic and slowing to take my left exit to a surface street with no one behind me. I heard a screaming engine and saw a giant pickup at a high rate of speed approaching in the lane to my right. I thought “no their not” then realized “yes they are” swerve into my lane, slam on their brakes and take the exit which is a downhill sharp left hand blind curve which frequently has several vehicles stopped for a traffic signal at the bottom. There was only a couple vehicles at the light and he stopped in time. I usually only use my horn as a warning but this A-hole deserved it. Unfortunately my Kia’s horn is about as intimidating as a Plymouth Roadrunners ‘Beep-Beep’. The A-hole in his side view mirror was laughing at me while giving me the finger!
Number 2
While driving home everything was again fine, I was cruising on the four lane and noticed a California car trapped behind a slow heavy tractor trailer. I slowed and let them into the left lane. They took forever to pass the truck. and continued at a very slow 50mph speed in the left lane. When I attempted to pass in the right lane they of course accelerated. I am unfortunately familiar with this game and choose not to play. I resumed following them as they returned to their less than 50mph rolling road block speed while everyone else including the truck! Passed on the right. I turned left onto the 2 lane highway and continued home being very thankful to be rid of them.
Number 3
The next morning I was driving on an extra wide 25mph residential street. A pickup driver ran the stop sign from a side street on my left then continued in front of me at 15mph! As they approached a car parked at the curb they moved to the oncoming lane barely missing it by 10 FEET! The street ends with a 90 degree left hand blind curve. There was another parked car and they again moved to the oncoming lane through the blind curve!
@sgtrock21 I had a similar day recently. Watched a driver try to get on the interstate going the wrong way on an exit ramp. Fortunately s/he finally pulled to the shoulder and stopped after multiple exiting cars had to swerve to miss a head-on crash. A few miles later on a local busy 4-lane road a driver impatient to make a left turn, not willing to wait far back in backed up traffic, simply pulled into lighter oncoming traffic racing wrong way at high speed forcing oncoming cars, including me, dodge out of the way as best we could. Nearer to home I barely missed a third almost head-on by a gal in a huge SUV so busy apparently texting she blew through a red light and drifted into oncoming traffic. Lots of drivers blowing horns at her barely got her attention long enough to steer back into her own lane before the phone was back up in her face with both hands on the phone! After all that in less than ten miles, when I got home I decided there was nothing worth going back out again that day!
Idiots are everywhere and the cops are never around when they’re at their worst. Just coming into work today, I got to watch an idiot in a motorcycle on a damp highway swerving through lanes and shoulders at high speed…odds are I’ll be seeing him in the ER later tonight as a Trauma Alert if he keeps driving like that
Idiots, inconsiderate A-Hs, stressed out people, Luckily they remain a small minority. Lucky for everyone including themselves. But again it comes to mind my idea that classes of licenses could help us all. Many drivers my age and older are unable to deal with the seeming madhouse on expressways and many younger drivers don’t have enough driving experience to deal with the expressways either. And in my opinion there are people whose mental and social skills seem to put them at a disadvantage when dealing with stressful driving situations. Could it be that ~10% of driver should be limited to local roads with speed limits of 55mph and under for any of several reasons?
For now I feel grateful when I recognize someone’s mistake in time to avoid an accident and hope I will be lucky enough to have someone recognize my mistakes and give me a break in the future. When fighting the Nimitz and MacAurther regularly many years ago I lived in a semi-permanent state of hostile angst that I will make every effort to avoid and my sympathies to those who find themselves dealing with that stress these days.
I always "love " the ones who run stop signs, red lights, etc. and then decide to drive like slow pokes in front of me. I always feel like shouting: “what’s your hurry, fella?” The potential for road rage just isn’t worth it- time to move on.
Almost without exception, the people who don’t use the opportunity to turn or to merge into traffic when there is plenty of room, but who then choose to suddenly dart-out in front of you at the last second, are the ones who then choose to drive waaaay below the speed limit after they have cut you off.
I have to think that these people are missing a few screws, or have absolutely no clue regarding safe driving practices.
All I can say is wait a few days to buy a lottery ticket. Your luck won’t get any worse. We always used to worry about barometric pressure plus a full moon and worry about the impact it has on peoples behavior. Check the pressure before venturing outside. Believe it or not people go nuts when the pressure is too high.
I have way over 50 years of driving experience and more than 3 million miles.
We have a lot of bad drivers on the road the problem is getting worse because there is an increasing entitlement mentality that leads to anger and stupidity when things don’t go peoples way.
I can’t control that and neither can you. The only way to keep your sanity and serenity is to spot them and take action so they don’t involve you and once they no longer present a danger to you, dismiss them from your mind and enjoy the rest of your drive.
I get that the entitlement bred road ragers are a problem but there are a lot of just bad drivers out there. Poor cornering, entering opposing lanes, tail gating and, one of my biggest complaints people who completely ignore the lines and lanes in a parking lot. My son is finally learning how to drive at age 28. I was out driving with him in a large school parking lot last weekend and was telling him to check all mirrors and signal before moving from a parking spot. A couple of days later I nearly got hit by someone crossing a parking lot diagonally from my right in my blind spot. Luckily I had not taken my foot off the brake otherwise the front right side of my truck would have been taken out. Still on the subject of learning how to drive my son had to fire his first in-car instructor because, wait for it, the guy was texting while he was supposed to be teaching! Lots of bad habits getting passed on/reinforced out there these days.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I think that it is worth mentioning again.
In my area, most of the roads are one lane in each direction, with either no shoulder or–at most–a “shoulder” that is about 4 ft wide.
When utility trucks have to park in order to do their work, obviously they have no choice but to block a lane.
Wouldn’t you think that drivers who encounter a blocked lane would take a look at what lies ahead in the opposing lane before veering into the opposing lane?
Well, think again!
I have encountered so many drivers (usually, elderly women) swerving toward me in my lane of traffic that when I see a parked utility truck in the opposing lane, I now slow down to a crawl because it is almost inevitable that someone will suddenly veer into my path.
Yes. Parking lots. Speeding through empty parking spaces is far to common. Although traffic enforcement is rarely applied it can be if an injury results. I still follow basic rules of the road. Using the designated traffic lanes, signaling turns, yielding to traffic approaching from my right, and of course pedestrians.
The trouble is, we test drivers more for parallel parking skills than driving skills. Our road tests around here ar all conducted in 30 mph or less speed limit areas.
Like I said before, I took my driver’s test in a blinding snow storm. When I parallel parked on the hill, I had to get out and clean the rear window off again. I still got a 94 and never got stuck. Me and my 61 Merc. Loved that car.
And the red-light-right-jumpers. That’s when the person pulls to the intersection on a change from green to red, hangs, waits, and then turns right on red right just as the cross traffic reaches the middle of the intersection.
On Jun 9, driving along a 35mph road, sunny dry day, I hear a screeching sound seemingly to my left.
So I look to the left first.
Before I can look behind… POW. The other driver then passes to my right, loud noises from under the hood.
I give chase long enough for my passenger (wife) to get the tag number. Back tire rubbing and smoking.
The car was a VW station wagon. Young male driver.
Turns out he left the front tag at the scene. The tags belonged to a rental truck.
The car skidded about 100 ft before it hit us. No injuries.
Uniinsured motorist coverage paid off.
Replaced with 2017 Tucson SE.
Back in 1959 or so, I was riding in the back seat of my father’s '55 Plymouth, when I heard squealing tires behind us. I turned just as we were hit a glancing blow in the rear by '55 or '56 Ford. What was really alarming was that the Ford’s door flew open, and the driver was ejected, rolling over and over on the pavement. Luckily, traffic was so light that nobody hit the body in the roadway.
My father immediately pulled over, and–as luck would have it–a NY State Trooper was on the scene immediately. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that he had been tailing the Ford before it went out of control.
The driver proved to be totally inebriated, but had apparently not suffered any injuries other than abrasions from the pavement. The Trooper informed us that the driver was from a nearby Indian Reservation, and that he likely had no insurance. Luckily for us, the only damage to our Plymouth was a tiny ding in the rear bumper, so we had no need to deal with our insurance company.
I don’t think I will ever forget the image of that driver rolling over and over on the pavement.
Wasn’t there an old saying about God protecting little children and drunks?
One thing that bothers me is that some motorists do not heed warning signs, particularly lane closure warnings, speed along in the lane that is closed ahead, and then force their way into an open lane cutting off other vehicles. We were on a beltline around a major city yesterday. The overhead warning signs were on reporting that the leftmost lane was closed several miles ahead due to a vehicle fire. Had the signs been heeded, the traffic could have flowed along at a reasonable pace. However, there were motorists speeding along in the left most lane and then slowed everybody in the other lanes by cutting in. Also, there were motorists that apparently had never seen a burned out car and slowed down traffic while they gawked. Had everyone began merging out of the left lane when the warnings on the overhead signs appeared and there were at least three of these signs, and kept moving in the open lanes without slowing down to stare, the traffic flow would have been safer and quicker.
