Earlier today, while I was on my way back from Costco, I was driving on one of our rural roads. Earlier in the day, I had noticed that the DPW had placed a traffic cone in a very deep pothole on that road in order to alert drivers to steer clear of it until they can repair it with their disease-depleted staff.
Well, as I was approaching that pothole/traffic cone, a woman driving in the other direction decided that, rather than brake for that obstruction in her lane, she would veer directly into my lane, thereby forcing me to jam on my brakes in order to narrowly avoid a head-on collision.
I have to wonder if Covid-driven anxiety was the cause of her dangerous and stupid behavior behind the wheel, or if she is one of the people who always drive in an inconsiderate and hazardous manner.
I wish I had a dollar for every time something like that happened to me.
There are many two lane roads in my neck of the woods. Sometimes there will be a truck, mail delivery vehicle, or slow-moving farm vehicle in the opposite direction lane. And what do the drivers behind them do? Instead of waiting for opposite direction traffic (me and others) to clear, they will just cross the double-yellow line and do just what you witnessed.
Just selfishness on their part.
And in my current state, Connecticut, in the case of an accident, the not-at-fault driver has a duty to mitigate damages. I even read in a court complaint of how a DRUNK motorcyclist rear-ended a car and filed suit against the driver ahead of him for “abruptly bringing his vehicle to a stop without warning”! So I guess if someone is in your lane, you’re supposed to run your car into a ditch to avoid a collision!
You’re a charitable man. Wrong, I think, but a nice guy. IMO, she didn’t see the cone until late in her approach, panicked, and veered into your lane without thinking about anything other than avoiding the road hazard in view.
Corona virus pandemic is temporary, stupid is forever. A trucking company I worked for for 17 years went bankrupt. A bunch of us were wailing in the break room for our
final paychecks (they bounced) and the dispatcher was throwing company records into the dumpster.
Some of them were accident reports and the driver that filled them out was never at fault (or so he said). The one driver came to a stop with his front tires in the back seat of a car. but it wasn’t his fault because “she was driving too close in front of me”!
Another driver took the roof off his trailer on a low railroad overpass bui it wasn’t his fault because a train came along and pushed the bridge down.
I’ve been noticing a deterioration in driving skills when I’m out the one day a week I have to go to the office these days. Even my own. I’m not dangerous or anything (I don’t think, anyway), but I do notice that as I pull out of the garage and start driving, things feel weird, and it takes a couple of stops before I’m used to the pressure I should be putting on the brake pedal (doesn’t help that I alternate between my car and my wife’s car since she’s not driving either, and they have markedly different pedal/steering feel).
I’m now driving a max of 15 minutes every week where before I was spending many hours behind the wheel. Others are in the same boat, and a lot of people had pretty abysmal driving skills before all this started.
I’ve been seeing people have trouble staying in the lane lines, even if they’re not on their phones. They drive really slow, misjudge when they should (or more importantly should not) pull out in front of people, etc.
And all that is exacerbated by the idiots who have decided that since traffic is way down, the highways no longer have speed limits.
I saw an article somewhere last week that actually said traffic fatalities are up with fewer people driving, because they’re all driving like morons.
I think you’d find that this may just be normal behavior. So many dashcam videos of truly Holy Snap! moments. Makes you more likely to look both ways even if you have the green light.
Yes, unfortunately, a lot of people nowadays seem to do things that don’t involve the thought process. Today, at Costco, they had a young woman sanitizing the touch screens at the self checkouts after each customer was done with his/her transaction. Unfortunately, she was wearing her surgical mask so that it covered only her mouth, with her nose completely exposed.
And, she is not unique in that type of ignorance. At the supermarket a few days ago, I observed two of their employees who didn’t seem to be aware that people normally inhale and exhale through their nose, and as a result they were also covering only their mouth with the mask.
I have noticed that drivers are in two camps when it comes to encountering obstacles in their lane of travel.
Some drivers, the “good” drivers, anticipate and watch out for obstacles in their lane of travel. They move over within their lane, slow down, stop, wait for traffic to clear in the oncoming lane, etcetera, whatever it takes to avoid obstacles and yet not interfere with drivers on the side of the road where no obstructions exist.
The other drivers, the _____ drivers often don’t notice obstructions ahead or notice them late and use whatever part of the roadway necessary to maintain speed without suffering any delay or inconvenience. Apparently they figure that if part of their lane or all of their lane is unusable then they are entitled to some of yours.
I am always on the lookout for these _____. When the driver in the unencumbered lane is actually a bicycle rider, watch out! They’ll “take you out” rather than be late for a rerun of My Favorite Martian on TV. Don’t ask how I know. CSA
This case seems like the usual stupid driver, nothing to do with COVID.
Here in Los Angeles, since the traffic is light, I see everybody is going so much faster. I think the police are also busy dealing with much more serious stuff and also some of them are out sick/quarantined.
People are driving at 95 MPH, changing lanes like crazy. The number of accidents has gone down but the number of serious accidents is higher. I guess there was a reason the 405 was turned into a parking lot.
If only we could get these people to take the bus instead we’d all be safer. Whaaat? Forget that. I was behind a guy the other day going seriously 10 mph through downtown in a 30 mph zone. I had to follow him/her/it/them for four blocks before turning off. I think it might just be the weekend driver syndrome where it is just not a daily routine and people forget. If I remember correctly, the Minnesota Patrol were reporting more instances than normal. But I have now turned that dang TV off. I refuse to listen to these people anymore.
There was a 50 car crash in Chicago today at 5am. There was snow and ice, but that many vehicles and so early in the morning at this time? That’s nuts.
Driving takes practice. I can tell when I haven’t been on a highway for a couple weeks.
There’s a musicians saying:
Miss one day of practice and you know it.
Miss two days and the band knows it.
Miss three days and the audience knows it.
