The accelerator pedal helps you vary the speed of your vehicle. Don’t go 45 all the way along a nice clear bit of 60-limit road, then hurtle through the 30-limit village at 45. If 60 was too dangerous for you, why is 45 safe through the village?
High-visibility vehicle my cheesy knob! Up there, in your lovely SUV or people mover… you can see all the way down the line of traffic, thus able to see hazards earlier. I’m behind you. I can’t see diddly-squat. I’ve tried hanging back a bit, but nope - still can’t see anything. If there’s someone in a high-vis vehicle behind me too, I could be in traffic or could simply be sandwiched between the two of you. Inconsiderate arseholes. Do you stand up at the theatre? “Well, it means I can see over the heads of people in front of me”.
What’s this fucking horse doing in the road? I drive along a nice 60mph country lane every day to work and back. Many people like me know it really well, and we hurtle along at 60, or sometimes even more than that. There are a lot of cyclists on the road too, but visibility’s normally good and we can zoom past, leaving them loads of room. If there’s a car coming in the opposite direction, we have to slow down, wait till the oncoming car passes, then speed up again to get past the bike. Fine. I’m quite happy with cyclists. What idiot takes their horse for a walk down here? It would be the same as cyclists, except of course, that you must drive slowly past horses, they might get frightened. So then, when there’s a car coming the other way, slowly for the horse, I have to sit behind the horse, slow, until they go past. And then, unlike a cyclist, I can’t launch my car past to make sure I get back in my lane before another car comes, I have to drive steadily and quietly past. All the while the rider looks at me thinking “you just behave nicely near my lovely horse”. A horse does not belong in the road. Next time I’m coming past you from behind at 80 with my horn blaring. Idiots.
School buses - if at all possible - when you see you’re pulling a train the length of the Mississippi River behind you, please pull over for a minute or two and let the lot of us commuters who planned ahead and left 20 minutes early only to be held up because Junior couldn’t get to the bus stop on time go past you, it would be greatly appreciated.
**Just because someone is sitting in a car does not mean they’re about to pull out of a parking space. ** This weekend Papa T. waited for me in the car with our two dogs while I ran into a store on a brief errand. Rather than sit blocking the aisle or, as some people are wont to do, the fire lane, he pulled into a parking space. Obnoxious Old Geezer comes along and, seeing him sitting in the car, stops and waits for him to pull out. Papa T. waves OOG by. He doesn’t budge. He wants that parking space, dammit. Papa T. again waves him by. Again, OOG doesn’t budge, just sits there giving Papa T. the stinkeye. Finally a spot two spaces down opens up and OOG pulls into it. As he walks by Papa T., he gives him the finger. If Papa T. had been sitting in the aisle blocking traffic, maybe he would have deserved it. But he was parked. In a legal parking space. That did not, as far as we know, have a big “RESERVED FOR OOG” sign on it. You don’t own the fucking parking lot, asshole!
If you stop to let a pedestrian cross instead of flying through, you get the spot five feet from Foley’s front door. Then I watched all six of them look at me from the other side, where they can’t get back to my side because of the garage design. Ha-Ha!
Ah, the buses. The Calgary city planners (we suspect they contract this function out to mental patients, but we haven’t had confirmation on that yet) look at a map, plunk down bus stops where it makes a pretty pattern, and to heck with what the location of bus stops actually does to the traffic.
Conversations that I don’t think ever happened: “Here’s a good place for a bus stop that will be quite busy with a lot of people loading and unloading.” “No, wait, we can’t stop a bus on this road here. That would tie up traffic on a narrow, busy road unnecessarily.”
Or “Let’s put bus stops just after the intersection whenever possible.” “No, wait, that would be a traffic hazard because people don’t expect a bus to slam on its brakes immediately after going through an intersection, and it would tend to have people who expected to make it through the intersection stopped in the middle of it, waiting for the bus to move.”
And a big shout-out to bus drivers - yes, I know that it is expected that we yield to you, because you have a mission with a time limit. I will comply whenever it is safe for me to do so; however, I am not able to do anything if you put on your signal indicating you’re coming back out into traffic and pull out as you do so, WHILE I’M DRIVING BESIDE YOU.
Yup, here in California that is illegal (and I am entirely too lazy to look up the law, so take what I say with a grain of salt). Like I said, most everyone does it- even I have on occasion- but it is totally not legal.
And if you do have a big honkin’ truck or SUV, why is it that you need to pull up as far into the crosswalk as humanly possible at a red light when you’re not in the right turn lane? You’re not making a turn, and the extra foot or two isn’t going to make a difference when the light turns green. It may, however, make it impossible for someone to the right of you to turn safely on red.
There’s a place to do that- it’s called the far right lane. Please do not do this in any lane other than the far right lane- you will back up traffic. And don’t try to keep me from passing you- I swear, I won’t hold you responsible if I get a speeding ticket.
If I’m sitting at an intersection with my turn signal on (waiting to turn either left or right - it doesn’t matter), the light is green, and I’m not moving, don’t assume it’s because I’m an oblivious idiot and pound on your horn. Maybe, just maybe, I’m sitting there waiting for the pedestrian who’s the crosswalk (crossing with the WALK signal) to finish before I make my turn.
Number 2:
Just because the law allows you to make a right turn on red, it’s not enshrined somewhere in the state constitution. That means, when you’re at an intersection where the cross traffic is crawling along bumper-to-bumper, it’s clearly obvious that you’re not going to be able to make that right turn until the signal changes in your favor. There will be no miraculous Red Sea-like parting of the oncoming vehicles that will let you in.
Therefore, please don’t situate your vehicle in the middle of the pedestrian crosswalk whilst you anxiously peer at the oncoming traffic. You’re forcing those of us attempting to cross the street to either (a) step around in front of you into the traffic or (b) try and squeeze, one at a time, into the gap between your car and the one behind it. Neither one is an attractive prospect.
And when we glare at you for doing this, don’t give us an embarrassed shrug with a “How was I to know” expression on your face. Dipwad. You could see the traffic before you reached the intersection. You’re just convinced that reality will alter to suit your needs.
The next time you do this, I swear I will walk across the hood of your car. Heavily. Stomping as hard as possible. Enjoy the dents.
Alternatively, you could interpret their expression as “What can I say? I’m a complete idiot who had to get his driver’s license from a mail-order school.” Give him a big grin and a thumbs up!
Can’t speak for the intersection you normally use, but sometimes there’s the expectation that there’s no pedestrian traffic there. Ever. Yeah, it’s designated for pedestrians, and sure, they can use it, but from plenty of experience you just know that no one ever, ever uses the crossing. And then one day, out of all of the days that no one’s ever walked across the intersection, Runestar has to leave his damn footprints on my hood. Sometimes the shrug is a “sorry, dude.”
Emm, has the phrase Traffic calming made it out to CowTown yet ?
My own personal one is that city traffic planners that add a advance green to an intersection , would it be too much trouble to add the advance green to the opposite lanes.
You know, I’m not much for the swearing, but when I read this, my first response in my head was, “Fuck, yeah.” And not in the good, Team America way. That’s one of those phrases that is guaranteed to spike my blood pressure. Let’s see, natural traffic flow indicates that people want to use this road to move rapidly; let’s put a stop to THAT.
We have an excellent example of it here in Calgary, at the north end of Centre Street. There are maybe 20 houses on a little one block stretch of it, but the 2000 people living north of these 20 houses must go approx. 2 kilometres out of their way (it’s a big hairpin - you drive 1 k east, then you turn around and drive 1k back west - the end of Centre and where it resumes are about 50 feet apart), because they have blocked off the north end of Centre to all but bus and emergency traffic. The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many in this town, let me assure you.
And then we have the speed bumps in the roads where the richest of the rich live. It must be nice to own city councillors.
And while we’re at it, how about increasing the left-turn or right-turn lane length if it is consistently overflowing and blocking a driving lane? There are so many places where there is a huge meridian and plenty of room to make the dedicated turning lane four times as long as it currently is to accommodate the actual traffic, but they just…don’t.
Yeah, I could see that, and don’t really have a problem then, but it’s not the case at this intersection. This particular intersection is located one block from the University of Washington, and one block from my office (home to a large, multistate company). One street is a major artery, the other the home to the commercial district serving the university. There are always people crossing at this intersection - day or night - but this particular incident occurred at the height of rush hour, when the sidewalks were crowded with people, the streets were full of trafffic, and at least a dozen folks were trying to cross the street in either direction.
And also note that part of the issue I had was that it was clearly obvious that no right turn would be possible, due to the volume of cross-traffic (bumper-to-bumper, creeping along), so it was pointless for them to drive into the crosswalk in the first place. They weren’t going anywhere until the light changed.
Unclerojelio’s Corollary: Don’t troll around a parking lot looking for the ultimate closest space
If you enter the rear of the parking lot simply park in the first available space that you come to. If you are forced to enter near the front, take the nearest lane headed toward the back and then park in the first available spot you come to. Do not troll back and forth up the lanes causing congestion up near the front where people are trying to enter and exit the building! Do not sit and wait in the aisles for a spot to open up!
Driving to slowly is against the law (In Maryland anyway)
And according to PA bus driver handbook (that was a fun read) They are allowed to pull over to allow traffic to go by. Somebody told me it was illegal. Idiot.
My biggest peeve is tailgating. Especially when my kids are with me. It’s quite apparent as they usually are flinging their hands in the air as if they are riding a roller coaster. The offending tailgater just keeps following too close.
In such cases I usually put my cruise control at the exact speed limit and let them deal with it. In the event of their stupidity causing an accident, I make sure I’m not going to be at fault. If they are driving erratically, I pull over. I don’t need to endanger my kids for some dumbass who couldn’t manage to get out of the house on time and obey the law in order to reach their destination.
Hear! Hear! There’ve been times I’ve seen the came fool on my way out of the store still creeping around looking for a spot. You know, the store’s six acres in size, and you wanna save 100 feet of walking? (Heck, I can almost justify the elimination of non-van handicapped spots with that one).
It seems like it’s always the thing to do on the Boulder Turnpike. The speed limit is 65, assholes! If you want to go 40-45 do it in the right lane. :mad:
Or if I’m in my car, tootling along at about 1.5 car lengths behind the next just in case, for god’s sake don’t hustle your little tin-car ass into that space **WITHOUT ** using your turn signal. My car might be common as dirt, but I do happen to like the freedom of not having another car wedged halfway into its nose. Makes driving a little difficult, that.
Ooh, or if I’m slowing on an uphill to avoid, oh, maybe PLOWING INTO THE ASS of the next car because of stop’n’go traffic, it’s not a bright idea to change lanes in your equipment-compensating pimped out Mustang with about six inches to spare between your car and my bumper. I practically had to rear-end the car in front to avoid YOU rear-ending me. Asshat.
Or the motorcyclist who’d been behind me for several miles. I knew s/he was there, so I made sure to signal well in advance to avoid fluorescent yellow and red shreds all over my back end. Except to have them change lanes, then cut me off and THEN turn on their turn signal mid-cut-off. Gee, thanks ever so much, man.
Sometimes the shrug is a “sorry, dude.”