I haven’t yet given a name to the type of driver that ever drove like my daddy.
Daddy was a terrible driver. The older he got, the terrible-er his driving!
He was a left-foot-on-the-brake, right-foot-on-the-gas monster. In addition, he constantly tailgated.
People who observed his driving habits and remarked about them were subjected to a lofty lecture from him that started with his looking heavenward and saying, “I was a pilot…”
Sit back, and try not to fidgit much. He would tell you all the pilot crap he learned so he could fly in the Army Air Force in China during WW2. Sixty years after his hey day in China, and he was still trotting out his pilot credentials. He figured his feet were “trained,” so therefore it made perfect sense for him to do the left-foot-on-the-brake, right-foot-on-the-gas. He’d tell you about his reduced reaction time, yadda yadda.
His riders suffered from whiplash, because that excellent reaction time meant sudden stops and racecar starts. And he assumed this excellent reaction time gave him permission to tailgate.
His superpower reaction time meant he totaled his next-to-last car by rear-ending someone at a stop sign. And I wonder if he trotted out his “I was a pilot” song and dance for the cop who gave him a ticket a couple of weeks before he died.
I’m sure God in His infinite mercy called Daddy to his Heavenly home before he could contest the ticket in traffic court. The judge didn’t need to hear, “I was a pilot…”
Related is when you are following a couple cars on a 2-lane highway (one lane each way) going below the speed limit and finally get to the passing zone (an additional lane) and you gun it, and everyone else does including the lead car. You were going 55, now you are going 75 and only manage to pass one or two, then when the two lanes merge back to one you slow back down to 55.
I don’t have a name for this, but my town trends elderly, and it seems that lots of Buick Centuries have the brake pedal connected in some way to the steering wheel such that the brakes are engaged during every. single. turn. no matter how gentle or uphill.
Then there’s the maniot. This driver does around 70 in a 75. When the speed limit goes down to 55 for construction they slow down. To 65. Then they speed back up to 70 after the construction when the limit is again 75.
I completely agree. People drive really fast and really close together, but they are driving in concert and it’s remarkable that there are as few accidents than there are.
The worse ones are the two footed drivers who are resting their left foot on the brake. They are not actually braking but their brake lights are flashing constantly. This is really bad for your brakes resulting in premature wear, but they are so fucking stupid since they can’t see there own brake lights and realize the havoc they are causing.
I call road boulders cloggers. This comes from the Ultimate Frisbee term for offensive players who clog the passing lanes. You should be constantly running into the open field and then if you don’t get the disc, immediately clear out. Some people stand there like idiots and completely disrupt the flow of the game. This has an amazing parallel to shitty drivers.
I despise the folks who are unable to maintain a constant speed. You’re moving down the highway with your cruise control set and your slowly gaining on the car in front of you. Then they’re pulling away. Then you’re closing again. Finally you close enough to get in the left lane to go around them. But then they speed up again, so you drop in behind. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Reminder that not everyone has, or uses cruise control. Drivers who don’t use cruise tend to be more alert to road conditions. And those drivers hate people who live by cruise control just as much as cruisers hate them. I use cruise rarely these days because the roads are just too clogged with cars going different speeds; it makes using cruise a pain unless you have the version that sets its speed by the vehicle in front of it, thus making a train of vehicles.
Obviously this depends on where you live and drive. Out here in the wide-open spaces on the plains, cruise control is a godsend and I wish everybody used it.
Also the guys who will not pass the slow truck or whatever in front of them. They back up about 5 cars behind them, who also won’t pass, but will not leave enough room for you to pick off one at a time (reason 143 for riding a motorcycle).
Makes me resort to the Speculative Banzai Pass Attempt, trying to get around 5 idiots and a truck all at the same time.
On the other hand, there are the people who use cruise control and don’t seem to realize that you can still use the accelerator. Similar to the situation where you are stuck behind one semi trying to pass another, these people will pull in front of you just as you are trying to pass them, then proceed on cruise control at 1/2 mph over the traffic to the right, taking forever to get around. I don’t have a name for them, other than “clueless assholes”.
My wife and I read a book about two decades ago, where the author applied rational, mathematical thinking to every day problems. He identified slow drivers in the left lane as a particular problem (in the US), calling them almost as bad as terrorists. Thus he came up with PLLO, for permanent left lane occupant. We have used this term ever since.
I have a few observations and derogatory names for drivers from different areas:
California 1: Confirmed; many drivers in the state see signalling as a weakness, so it can be a bad idea to signal your intentions.
California 2: There is a trend I see here more than anywhere else, and that is rushing at top speed toward a congested area of traffic, then in passing, they’ll dive into the right lane instead of passing on the left. And immediately they encounter slower traffic and find themselves moving slower than before. Maybe they’re just exiting? Not usually, if you watch them, they manage to finally move to the left and get ahead. I call this dive to the right the “California maneuver.”
Washington state (Puget sound area) 1: Drivers here love to stop for pedestrians. No matter what. Even if the pedestrians are not ready to cross. Such drivers get angry if the pedestrians don’t cross the street in front of the (hot, noisy, scary) car when the driver motions for them to go. So very angry. “I went to the trouble to politely stop for you, so get moving, godd*mnit!” I just call them “Seattle drivers.”
Washington state 2: They never check their rear view mirror. Ever. It is as if it doesn’t exist. So, is there a long queue of cars waiting to pass them? Ignored. Are they first at the light, ignoring the green signal / protected left turn signal? The more cars behind them, the longer they wait. Again, these are Seattle drivers.
Washington state 3: The bizarre phenomenon of the “rolling roadblock.” As pointed out by others above, some drivers cluelessly drive at the same speed across multiple lanes of traffic. Once I was in heavy traffic at about 55 mph in a 60 mph zone, when most drivers would normally be doing 65. I finally got through the leading cars, and saw they were collectively creating this roadblock. The road ahead, for at least a mile, was completely empty. I was astounded.
Illinois drivers in So. Wisconsin: “Illinois Assh*les.” Learned this one before I was 10 years old.
Your PLLO drivers probably were invented in Germany. You know, The Land of No Speed Limits. German drivers spend a LOT of money to obtain their licenses. Then they spend even more on their cars. Even the rust buckets cost outrageous amounts. Insurance is extremely high, and finally gas used to cost more than twice what we pay in the US, and it’s probably more now.
All of this boils down to an extreme sense of entitlement.
Rules of the road mandate you drive in the right lane. Even if there is a family of turtles convoying to their new home. The left lane is only for passing.
Yeah, right.
So Herr Entitlement in his 26-cylinder hotrod immediately hops into the left lane, with his left blinker on (to indicate he is “passing”) and he floors it.
If you are stuck behind a truck, or several trucks, and you’d really like to pass, forget it. Herr Entitlement and his brothers, all with left blinkers flashing, appear out of nowhere, and zip by you. And for added amusement, the Entitlement brothers tailgate each other at 175 KPH or more!
Just as bad tho are the ones who constantly maintain the same speed no matter what the current limit or conditions are. Going thru rural Georgia 2 months ago, where it would be 65 outside of the towns but as low as 25 in town, I kept dicing with a UPS truck for over a sixty mile stretch.
Hit a 65 zone, would slowly pull away from him (usually I’d go no faster than 70). But as soon as another town appeared ahead it would go 55-45-35-25, and he’d come roaring back onto my ass. I have no idea which towns do and don’t have speed traps so was forced to again not exceed 5 over. I eventually lost him in a hilly twisty section.
Same thing when it starts raining and I natcherally slow down, and all the assholes I had passed earlier go streaming back past me (note I drive a sporty Civic SI with the best rain tires on the market-Michelin Super Sports-but even they will still hydroplane past a certain speed).
