Bizarre Things You've Seen Other Drivers Do This Month

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ll set the bar pretty low with my example, but it did baffle me.

As is probably to be expected on December 23rd, traffic was heavy and slow. Past one of the lights I crawled through late this morning was a spot where, just before two lanes merge into one, there’s also an off-ramp from the highway that merges into the soon-to-be ending right lane.

We inch our way through the lights and the person ahead of me motions for a driver waiting to merge in from the off ramp to do so ahead of her. The other driver tries to, but for some reason she kept creeping up, forcing him to hug the shoulder in order to squeeze past her. Fortunately, he was able to get ahead of her before he ran completely out of off ramp :thinking:

So, what have you seen drivers do this December that’s had you scratching your head?

2

This month?? More like this year…

Like people forgetting how to sliiiide over into a turn lane; they instead come to a complete stop in a regular lane, cut their wheels over, and nose into the turn lane…with the ass of their car still sitting in a regular lane, blocking it.

I’m not talking about turn lane spillover, where there’s so many cars in the turn lane that it backs up into a regular lane; it’s annoying, but it happens, especially at rush hour.

Or this gem: the road out of my subdivision has two lanes where it intersects the main boulevard: a left turn only lane, and a straight-or-right turn lane. Not many cars go straight through, as there’s not much over there to go to, but there it is. Following the typical right-on-red-after-stopping rule, the right lane generally makes some progress even with cross traffic, until you get to that one person who’s going straight, and has to wait for the green light, and every right-turner behind him is now stuck waiting, too.

So there I am, about 4, 5 cars back, waiting on the green light so the lead guy can go straight, and the lady behind me starts having a meltdown; horn honking, screaming, etc. I didn’t take it personal, I figure she’s just railing against traffic in general.

Nope; she singles out me specifically, and follows me for several miles honking, screaming, flipping me the bird, pulling up next to me at the various stop lights, rolling down the window, screaming curses at me. She eventually lost interest and went her own way, but not before getting an ear full of Ministry’s Jesus Built My Hot Rod while I mimed deafness.

The weird thing is, she looked to be in her mid/late 50’s, and really did look a lot like this. Not your typical looking “Karen”

3

A couple of weekends ago while my wife and I were out doing some Christmas shopping, we were stopped at an intersection with two left turn lanes. I was the first car in the leftmost lane. When the light turned green, as I started to make my turn, the woman in the car to my right, halfway through her turn, came right over into my lane. I had to slam on my brakes to keep from broadsiding her. I laid on the horn but she was completely oblivious.

4

it wasn’t this month, but the strangest thing I have seen in traffic was the day the oj verdict came out. i was in the left turn lane when they said “we the jury find him innocent.”
I was a couple cars back, but we all sat there, not noticing the arrow turn green, listening. when I looked up, the arrow was yellow then red.
every damn one of us sat there, not moving, in fairly busy traffic, through an entire light cycle, but not one person honked.

5

You call that bizarre? I call that wannabe Beijing drivers. Every day as my shuttle bus turns into the entry gate at school, I count at least ten drivers turning left at the “no left turn” sign (because that puts you on the WRONG SIDE of the street driving directly into heavy traffic. Why do they do this? Well, the U-turn lane in the road is 400 meters away so why wouldn’t they? After all, why should someone so important have to drive an extra half-mile?

On any given day, I see someone driving a high-end car and then that someone decides that they can’t be bothered waiting in traffic. Yep, it’s onto the sidewalk! Is the sidewalk unoccupied? Dream on! The damn sidewalk’s packed–elderly, young, parents pushing strollers, people on electric scooters, people on motorcycles–all of them bolting out of the way of the entitled jerk driving a large sedan on the sidewalk.

China’s road traffic law provides for right turn on red after a full stop. If you think anyone’s ever come to a full stop, you’re insane. You’re doubly insane if you think any driver’s ever slowed down at all before barrelling through the pedestrian-occupied zebra crossing.

There’s a reason we foreigners here refer to the car horn as the “Chinese brake”.

6

Recently, I was in a stretch with two lanes going straight through in each direction with left turn lanes at intersections as needed, in the outer lane minding my own business. Come up to an intersection, some speeding idiot decides to hit the left turn lane.

To pass straight-through traffic in the inner lane.

7

Not just this month, but always. I was always taught that when merging onto a freeway you fit yourself into the existing traffic. But no one but me seems to realize that and groups of cars come up the on-ramp bumper to bumper and people traveling in the right lane have to brake or change lanes to let them in.
Also, people who don’t put their headlights on in the rain/fog/dark. Arrrghh!

Sorry, rant over.

8

Generally, the cars already on the freeway have the right-of-way, and cars entering from the on-ramp are supposed to fit themselves in. But when the traffic is jammed bumper-to-bumper (as it common during rush-hour), zipper-merging seems to be the preferred protocol.

9

It would be perfect if that were what happens, but in absence of a light at the on-ramp metering the flow of traffic onto the freeway, people just bunch up and expect the traffic already on the freeway to move for them.

10

Seems to me that most drivers are more-or-less good enough about doing the zipper merging when it makes sense. At least to a rough approximation.

11

Not where I live. Here they just barge up to the merge point and get very aggressive about pushing into the traffic stream. They’re just TOO special and important to take turns, after all.

12

[Ellipses added]

I had a guy, 3rd in line behind me and a left lane hog as we all slowwwlllyyy passed a truck, who kept flashing his highbeams at ME, as if the hog could see the beams through my undoubtedly invisible car. Even if I moved over, he would have gained 10 feet and .3 of a second. Of course, as soon as I was clear of the truck I moved over to the right lane (hog of course couldn’t be arsed) and zipped on past him, leaving Mr. Highbeams eating my dust.

13

Yep. Guess we’d better move to wherever Senegoid lives…

14

Last night on the way home from work at about 11:30 PM on a short stretch of divided two lanes on each side road. This one monster pickup truck was trying to weave its way around a several cars ( one of them being me ) and in so doing changing lanes abruptly without signalling and cutting in front of the passed vehicle by just a few feet. When I say abruptly, I mean, changing lanes with a sharp jerk of the wheel as if trying to telegraph a “F— You” to each vehicle he passed. You had to be there to sense the vibe.

I don’t know if it was being in a rush to get home before Christmas Eve turned into Christmas day, or if it was just Alpha MAGA aggression.

15

Not this month but recently…
Along with a few other cars, I was stopped at a green light for a funeral procession. The lane next to me was empty and a car just drove on into the intersection without slowing down.
There was swerving and slamming on the brakes, and they barely avoided a collision.

16

We were driving northbound on I-81 last week, and saw another car driving southbound… on the northbound lanes’ right shoulder. Not even backing up - this car had somehow turned around, so it could drive “forward”.

Reminds me of this old joke: An older fellow is out for a drive. He’s just gotten a cell phone - and answers it when his wife calls. She says “Are you on such-and-such highway?” “Sure am!” “Well, be careful - I just saw on the news that there’s a driver going the wrong way!” “A driver? A driver? There’s HUNDREDS of them!!”.

17

Yesterday morning, while commuting to work in the rainstorm that gave everyone else snow, there were several areas where water had pooled on the road. In one spot, the water covered the width of the road, but the state has done some work to make the area very passable even in a heavy downpour. The driver in front of me was apparently not too familiar with the road; upon encountering the standing water, instead of slowing down or coasting a bit to pass safely through, they opted to swerve into the other lane – into the path of an oncoming tractor trailer. 😵‍💫 They made it back into their lane in time to avoid a collision. I’m not sure what they accomplished, since the puddle was across both lanes.

18

This reminds me of a strange behavior I’ve seen not once, but twice:

I don’t know if they have them everywhere, but New Hampshire is full of short temporary left-hand turn lanes on roads that are otherwise one lane in each direction. Said lane is only 2 to 4 car lengths long, so it’s obvious what it’s for even though many aren’t marked with an arrow.

Anyway, I’ve now seen someone driving southbound swerve across the northbound lane to enter the left-hand turn lane, facing the wrong direction now (!!), that’s meant for people traveling northbound to make a left turn, then proceed to make a very confusing to other drivers left turn.