Terrible driving -- recklessness, annoyance, and pet peeves
It just seems worse out there on the roads since the Pandemic. People seem more hurried, careless, entitled, aggressive, and confounding on the streets and highways where I live, and I'd wager that it seems like that to others in other places as well. It's become a bit challenging, as well as a bit dangerous, just to drive the speed limit. I joke now that to instantly reveal the latent anger in any community, motor on its roads and drive at or slightly below the speed limit. It's actually an interesting experiment, but you'll likely find yourself among a painfully small number of travelers. Rolling through stop signs without coming to a complete stop is anything but a rarity now, it seems, along with its cousin behavior, rolling through a right-hand turn at a red light. There also seem to be a lot more drivers pushing their luck too far through the interval of a yellow light (before it turns red), and blasting through an intersection in violation of a red light -- cross traffic beware. Overwhelmingly, and despite new-ish laws to the contrary, people are on their smartphones while driving (swerving as they go) as well as sitting for too long at intersections. Often now a light will turn green, and a column of cars will have to wait until the distracted driver at the top of the queue snaps out of their online reverie, or is unceremoniously honked at from behind. Manufacturers are still making vehicles turn signals, though any more I'm not entirely sure why.
How's the driving where you are?
How's the driving where you are?
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A former roommate used to say that drivers are in such a hurry to get to the next red light.
I find it especially annoying when drivers will use their turn signals in situations where they are unnecessary -- such as pulling out of a driveway onto a one-way street -- but hardly ever when exiting a freeway.
I saw a car recently with a bumper sticker that said “Go ahead and pass me. I’ll see you at the lights”
Much the same as it's always been. Driving is ultimately a cooperative affair: we are all driving on the same roads, and if we are sensible and considerate about it then we all get where we want to go efficiently. Unfortunately, ...
We are just as rich in idiots that weave in and out of traffic trying to get a few car lengths ahead at the next traffic light as we always have been. We are still rich in the sort of self-righteous idiot that likes to hog the middle or outside lane on the highway, and say "well, I'm doing the speed limit, so nobody should be driving faster than me". I don't care what speed you're doing. If there's an empty lane to your inside, you should be in it.
We are rich in idiots who blindy merge on to roads and assume that other road users will magically get out of their way. We are rich in idiots who think that black clothing and no lights was a good choice for going jogging or cycling at night.
We are rich in idiots who think that having a 4x4 means that their tires have traction on ice.
Frankly, with the various different kinds of stupidity on display, it's a wonder that there aren't even more accidents than there are.
@Amanda B Reckondwyth re indicators, we also get a significant number of drivers who merrily drive around indicating off in to space. Are you intending to turn left at the next opportunity? Are you looking for your turn and are lost? Did you accidentally hit the indicator whilst looking for your cellphone, and are confused about what the clicking noise in your car means? Did you indicate to turn on to the road, and never cancel it? Did you think that was the windscreen wipers?
One of the worst habits around here is not making a direction indication until you are half way through your turn. I am unable to comprehend the mental process that leads to that. Also, swerving out into the other lane to pass the car in front that is making a turn.
Anyway, my peeve is with ignorant selfish drivers who do not understand the basis for reduced speed limits on motorways. What part of “different braking distances between vehicles at different speeds” do people not understand? There’s a section of the M4 near me that has a permanent 50mph limit and the numpties don’t, won’t or can’t accept that a lower speed limit enables more vehicles to use a given length of road safely (at 50mph the distance to a stop is 174ft and at the usual 70mph the stopping distance is 315ft). There’s nothing that congests a road quite like a shunt.
Same folks don’t understand that “relief roads” don’t relieve anything for more than a few years.
Add to that those who seem determined to preserve the factory-fitted lamps in their indicators by using them as little as possible: they drive up to the side road they intend to enter before making an emergency stop prior to turning 😡
I have a similar driving habit -but don't get anything like 75mpg. What car do you drive?
It’s not just the indicators. I’m sure millions of drivers try all they can to Save the Planet, by not switching on their headlights and rear lights until it is pitch black. Everyone can make a mistake, but once one uses other vehicles lights to see them isn’t it time to turn your own lights on?
I shall not mention the brands that possess this feature, but they seem to be dark monochrome and therefore lacking visibility in twilight conditions.
This. So much this. I've pulled up alongside cop cars at red lights and seen cops staring at their phones -- I've shamed more than one into putting them down.
2005 Skoda Fabia 1.4 TDi. I think the 1.9 is nearly as good on fuel; the thing is to go slow and try, wherever safely possible, to preserve momentum. On a good day (no hold-ups, following wind, summer, dry) for a 200 mile motorway trip I might get 90+ mpg.
Interesting. In the USA, if you're going to make a left turn, you pull as far to the left as legally possible. On a one-way street, that would be the leftmost lane. On a two-way street, it would be the lane closest to the center line.
In some jurisdictions, bicycles seem to be the exception. I was driving once in Los Angeles, in the leftmost lane of a one-way street, as I was about to make a left turn. A bicyclist riding in the rightmost lane suddenly cut across all the lanes in order to make the same left turn. I almost smacked into him.
Quite right. Ontario, Canada.
Camping means they are traveling in the passing lane, usually at slower speeds than normal traffic. In the USA it is the law for slower cars to move to the right lane so faster cars can easily pass on the left.
Try camping out on the autobahn in Germany. See what would happen.
On the open highway, it is quite possible to move into the oncoming lane to complete your left turn provided there are no oncoming cars. I did this once in front of a state trooper. He had no problem with it.
A colleague used to define a moron as the fastest person between two sets of red lights.
In the UK its an offence to "hog" the middle lane on a motorway. But you still get plenty of people who set their cruise controls to 70mph (the speed limit) and sit in the middle lane, not overtaking vehicles in the inside lane. For mile after bloody mile!
There are stretches of motorway with slight inclines that seem to act as a signal for some lorries to move to the middle lane as a matter of principle.
I drove across Germany in the car of someone (with whom I was driving in 'shifts') who wanted me to maintain 70mph. From preference I would have pulled into the stream of lorries doing 100kph (60 mph) in the RH lane, but his instruction meant some rather disciplined use of mirrors and indicators on a two-lane autobahn. To be fair, everyone was being pretty disciplined - it's Germany. Nonetheless we saw a pile-up, and were lucky not to be in it. The whole thing felt one thrown-lorry-tyre-tread away from disaster.
The problem as I see it is in the way the exit ramps are engineered. It should be IMPOSSIBLE to enter a freeway via an exit ramp.
Yes, I have been on what would be a single lane anywhere else in the world, but not Germany.
The rest of the cars were managing to treat it as a two lane road. I just think this guy was stoshious, as they say in Ireland.