Why do drivers make things so difficult?

General Discussion
81

PhillipNeuman: I was going to leave this thread alone, but I couldn’t in good conscience leave your last statement stand.

Train tracks should ALWAYS be negotiated at right angles (or as near as possible) on a two-wheeled vehicle. The Commonwealth of PA thinks enough of this–as a safety issue–that it uses this issue as a question on the “motorcycle written.”

The need to transition tracks at a right angle is also a lawful exemption to “travel as far right as practicable” laws for bicyclists.

I just worry about the novice who might take your advice unquestioned.

82

Perhaps we need to define what “swinging out” is.

It is the execution of a sudden and wide lurch in the opposite direction to a turn.
It is performed in the last split second before the turn.
It performs no function whatsoever.
Other drivers in the immediate vicinity may be startled and make an avoidance maneuver, whether it is necessary, or not.

When approaching a turn into a narrow driveway, one should signal and slow down gradually. Be as far out as you can in your lane and turn slowly.

Swinging out can be dangerous. Defending it is ridiculous.

83

Somehow I have survived all these years bungling along, lazily swinging wide at every opportunity and certainly I will continue to do so. It’s a shame that my lack of concern for regimentation annoys some people. But I don’t sweat the small stuff and their aggravation is certainly small stuff.

84

Rod Knox - There are a lot of other traffic rules, courtesies and laws that conflict with your dislike of regimentation, as well.

Rest assured that people are watching out for you - until they don’t.

85

''Why do drivers make things so difficult ? ‘’
…when the traffic light is out of service and it’s now a four way stop with two lanes in every direction.
Hey people…

GO TOGETHER with the other three vehicles !
coordinate the east/west and north/south traffic movement and save everybody valuable time.

You’re not doing anyone a favor, you’re creating mass confusion by by NOT going when you see the other three going too.
Who’s turn is it really ?
Who’s actually going to go ?
It’s now my ( and three other car’s ) turn but you haven’t gone yet…now what ?

Doesn’t matter if perhaps this time you might only barely stop then go quickly.
get your movement coordinated with the others.

86

Wish my wife would swing out a little in tight places,shes pretty rough on the right tire and wheel on occasion-Kevin

87

kmccune wrote:
Wish my wife would swing out a little in tight places,shes pretty rough on the right tire and wheel on occasion-Kevin

Instead of swinging out, perhaps she needs to start her turn a bit later and then turn more sharply. Most of the drivers I’ve ridden with who have hit a curb have started turning too early.

88

From my observations of women’s driving behaviors in parking lots and when making turns, it sometimes seems like they think their vehicle is hinged in the middle. In my area, the number of vehicles parked at strange angles and extremely close to other vehicles in parking lots is pretty significant, and when I have been able to observe who was driving that vehicle, it seems like at least 80% of them are women.

89

Oh oh, women drivers is the topic now? I feel trouble brewing! lol

Ok, here’s my two cents: I don’t notice women drivers are in genral any different in their driving abilities than men drivers, well, except for two things:

  1. Women are more cautious. I imagine stats would show women drivers cause fewer serious injury resulting accidents than men. I usually feel more comfortable in my safety riding with a woman driver than a man driver.

  2. Women have an inordinate amount of trouble with parallel parking.

The parallel parking thing is really a puzzler to me. And pretty much every woman I’ve known (well enough that I have to endure their parallel parking fiascos) has had the same problem. No matter what I say or show them when they ask me how to do it, they simply can’t grasp the idea of how to position the car initially, how to gradually time the turning of the steering wheel as you are backing up so as to position the car next to the curb and yet not hit the car in front or behind. Somebody told me once that women generally have a more difficult time with spatial orientation. Does that sound right to anybody here? I think I heard that anyway. Anyway, given a compromise between safety and parallel parking, I think women have it right. Driving safely is way more important than being able to parallel park.

90

I have observed that women are more likely to be otherwise occupied, i.e., cell phones, testing, make up, etc., while men tend to be more aggressive and less prudent. I have seen a few serious accidents where it appeared that the male was “pushing the envelope” and encountered a woman who was impeding traffic while totally oblivious to the situation. While I feel that reducing speed will greatly improve safety speed is not the specific cause for most accidents. The concentration of a myriad of conflicting personalities in a confined area of roadway when most are under some time constraint while dealing with the various day to day dilemmas leads to the inevitable mayhem. We might be better off to have automobiles governed to 76 mph.

91

Lion9car,perhaps you are right oft times in my profession I drive vehicles that steer from the back,skid steer ,are articulated ,have an extremely long wheelbase,etc-you ignore the “Ackerman principal” at the publics peril.So I guess its second nature to really pay attention on a switchback or short radius curve,these old college towns ,that were laid out in the horse and buggy days are pretty unfriendly to long wheelbase vehicles and vehicles that dont cut short(those lines at intersections are there for a reason inattentive ones) having a 53 foot trailer running over the front end of a car is not a pretty sight-Kevin

92

Just thought I’d relate a story that happened to me a while ago: I was pulling up to a light behind an elderly woman in a very large old white Oldsmobile. (think “Where’s the Beef” commercials if you remember those) I noticed that she had her backup lights on, so I gave her quite a margin of space. Sure enough, when the light turned green, she surged backwards and would have hit me if I hadn’t given her a wide berth. She figured out her mistake and plodded onward. I quickly passed her and left her doddering on her way.

A half mile or so down the road I pulled into the parking lot at a local grocery store and was walking up to the front doors when some ‘sixth sense’ feeling like hair raising on the back of my neck alerted me. I looked over my shoulder and did a double take: There she was again! Bearing down on me and she would have run me over if I hadn’t jumped out of the way! She continued on her way, sedately ignoring a stop sign in the parking lot, and I’m pleased to say our paths haven’t crossed again since.

93

Yoi! I don’t know about women being more cautious…Here in Pittsburgh, women can be real psychos. You could get a hold of a formula I and go 230 MPH on a winding road around here and some chick in a Neon or a woman in a Suburban will be 2 feet off your rear bumper yakking on the phone. A local school bus garage has a lot of 84 passenger rear-engine Thomas busses, and the wheels don’t cut right as sharply as the International busses do. One of the Thomas busses swung a bit to the left, out of necessity, to make a tight right turn and a woman who was tailgating in an SUV managed to bury her front end under the side of the bus. They needed one of them big Peterbilt towtrucks for that one. Fortunately, there were no injuries.

94

Amen, doubleclutch!

In my area, the roads are mostly of the twisting, 2 lane “country” variety, with no shoulder, no passing allowed, deep drainage ditches a few inches from the roadway, an abundance of deer ready to jump into the roadway, and speed limits–generally speaking–of 45 mph.

I can usually drive these roads (weather permitting) at ~50 mph. However, driving 5 mph–or even 10 mph–over the limit does not seem to satisfy the mid-20s to late 30s women who believe that it is appropriate to tailgate other drivers. And, when I say “tailgate”, I am talking about not being able to see the headlights of the car in back of me.

Am I ever tailgated by men? Occasionally, yes.
However, I would estimate that at least 80% of the tailgaters are women, and of this group of women, probably 70% of them are driving with one hand, while pressing a cell phone to their ear with the other hand.

And, if the above scenario was not dangerous enough, consider this scenario:
Once in awhile, I will be forced to drive in back of someone who is driving 5-10 mph under the speed limit. While I will tend to become peeved, I still maintain a safe following distance (using the “3-second rule”), simply because one never knows what that insecure slow driver will do, and because of the propensity for deer to leap out in front of cars in this area. Well, when I am driving in this type of situation, more often than not, I find that I am being tailgated by one of the women in the aforementioned age group.

Can I drive faster than the car in front of me? No.
Can I pass the car in front of me? No, passing is neither legal nor safe on these twisting country lanes.
Can the woman induce me to drive faster by tailgating me? No, this is simply not possible, in view of the slug driving in front of me.

So–why do they drive this way?
My theory is twofold
.
First, I believe that they lack the technical knowledge to understand just how much distance it takes to brake a car traveling at…let’s say…40-50 mph. Yes, they had to answer a multiple choice question on this topic years ago when taking their written test for a driver’s license, but…how many of them have retained that information?

Secondly, unlike men who are prone to “having their lights punched out” at the next traffic light for driving like a jackass, women are not likely to be threatened by the folks who they endanger with their brainless driving style. Thus, they motor through life, thinking that they are both immune to the danger of a collision, and immune to a confrontation with other drivers.

This is my theory, and you can feel free to disagree with that theory if you wish.
However, what you cannot disagree with is my long-term experience of having women tailgate me despite the fact that I am already driving over the speed limit on country roads that are…not exactly freeways.

95

If I am being tailgated, I never speed up. I slow a little and if the driver will not pass me, I pull over or make a turn.

If there is someone driving slowly in front of me and I cannot safely pass, I follow at a safe distance. On rare occasions I have pulled over for a few minutes. I will never see them, again.

Either way, it is far preferable to deal with situations like this safely and lose a few minutes of my precious time than it is to potentially spending a lot more time at the repair shop or in the hospital.

96

Unfortunately, “pulling over” is not an option in an area with no road shoulders.
Making a turn is an option, but “going around the block” in my neck of the woods usually means driving about 5 miles.

I do sometimes slow down a bit in order to transmit the message that I cannot be bullied into going faster.

97

VDCdriver - In your case, if I were being tailgated, I would do as you do and slow down, gradually. If the driver did not pass, I would turn on my right signal and slowly come to a stop on the roadway, pulling over as far as I could in a place with good visibility in both directions.

98

When I was in school, I had a pt job driving buses. Some of them were as wide as they could be without a special permit. I was driving one of those one night, threading it in my lane, when an SUV in the left turn lane swung right unnecessarily before making a u turn. If I had one of those recoding camera mounted on my windshield, I would have loved to give that Porsche Cayenne some bus love.