I have a little book called the Boston Driver’s Manual that diagrams several insane maneuvers, all but one I had performed in the city before reading it.
The best was a left turn - on a four lane without a median - from at least two cars back. As the first car turns, hit the gas, jump into the opposing lane, use the turning car for cover, and cut in front of it using also the opposing lane on the next street. I’ve seen it happen, but I’m not brave enough myself.
Then again while there, I was inclined to ignoring one-way signs, turning left on red, and turning right from the left lane (best done when there is a car sitting in the right, oblivious). I never triple-parked, though. I have my standards.
Not a specific place, but a situation; Anywhere there are toll booths. Especially on a freeway that crosses a bridge. You have 3-4 lanes which expand to 6-8 toll booths, and it’s like a demolition derby. People cut across several lanes to get to what they perceive to be the shortest line. Then they change their minds and go back. And then after they pay, they go through the same maneuvers to get back to the lane they were in to begin with. Often from the far left booth to the first exit after the bridge. Matters are made worse by ‘car pool’ and ‘electronic toll’ lanes.
Yes, S. Califorians have no clue how to drive in the rain. Here’s what I noticed. Moisture makes them clump, like setting concrete. They lock position in their lanes and all drive at the same annoyingly slow speed. So, because the left lane is the same speed as the middle lane, which is the same speed as the right lane, NO ONE SHIFTS POSITION. When it rains, the roads fill uo with these clumps of cars that are nothing less than huge f*cking ROLLING ROADBLOCKS.
Yes, NY drivers (by which I assume you mean NYC drivers) are nutjobs. I have a theory. It’s all the immigrants here. I suspect they all think it’s okay to drive (and honk) the way they did back in Moscow, or Jeruselum, or Shanghai or wherever other demolition-deby place you want to pick. As for the red-light runners, I think they are a different breed altogether – they’re native NYCers, usually from Brooklyn or Staten Island, who are just too damn impatient to wait (“Hey, my pizza’s gettin’ cold here!”). They’ve been around long enough to know that the odds are very long that they’ll get caught. And if they do, they know that the PBA card they got from their brudda Vito (or Kevin) will probably get them out of it.
(Yeah, I know, lots of quasi-stereotypical generalizations in the above post, but I live here so I know wutI’mtalkin’about. YaknowutImean?)
Speeding is definitely affected by the condition of the roads. In my area of Saskatchewan (where the least voters are) the roads are the crappiest, all broken up with pitiful shoulders, and no one ever goes faster than 15 kmh over the speed limit (unless they’re a new driver).
We commonly cross the border into Alberta (they’re so close), but even the roads I’m on in there aren’t their finest, and the above counts.
A little further south in Alberta, around Lloydminster (if it helps anybody) the roads are awesome. I’d be chugging along at about 110kmh in the slow lane, and people would still be passing me and going back into the slow lane.
I then went to visit my relatives who live north of Prince Albert (in Sask), and the highway heading north was a single lane highway that really should have been a double lane. The road here was good too, so people would be going around 120 km. The practice here was to pull over onto the shoulder and let the guy behind you pass if you were going slower than him (it was impossible to pass in the left lane). I only caught on to this after seeing others do it a few times. The shoulder was also used as a turning lane.
I know this is edging over into IMHO territory, but…
IMHO, the reason Florida retirement areas and DC driving sucks so much is because…there are so many people who live in those areas who come from OTHER areas with their own driving quirks that all those regional driving quirks blend together and make life a living hell.
There are differences in driving habits from region to region. I’ve lived in 4 different metro areas (and one rural area) in my driving lifetime and they have all been distinct.
I think there are three relavant factors that create noticable differences are:
Rural vs. Metro. Duh. The more traffic, the greater neccessity there is to be more “assertive” driving. I speculate that rural areas also tend to have a higher percentage of elderly drivers, who tend to drive a little slower.
Metro planning. Left-turn lanes and lights; Proper implementation of one-way avenues; non-highway route alternatives; thought-out signage; grid-style city layout; road maintenance; public transportation usage; traffic light timing; urban sprawl/length of commute; etc. I think that the more challenging it is to navigate an area’s roads, the more stressful it is, and the more prone they are to drive aggressively.
Monkey-see, Monkey-do / Ambivalent policing. If I run a light and get away with it, I am more prone to do it again in the future. Every time I do it, several other drivers see me get away with it. If traffic cops don’t curb the behavior, it will become more commonplace. Bad behavior excused is bad behavior reinforced. However, I think police temperament is just affected by the first two points as much as it is you or I.
Learned to drive in ‘Central Texas’ always did move onto the shoulder if on a rural highway and someone wanted to pass. This is technically illegal in Texas and you must be careful not to do this on a curve/hill lest there be a broken down car on the other side. I now live in north texas and this action is much less common but sometimes still practiced (probably from traveleing Central Texans)
According to my defensive driving instructor, this practice is legal, except in areas where the opposing lane is permitted to pass. IMO, it should be illegal anywhere that you are not permitted to legally pass. Simply because if they can’t see well enough to pass, I can’t see well enough to know that there isn’t anything on the shoulder that I will hit while they are beside me. Apparently this practice began around the same time as the “Drive Friendly” slogan. I can’t give a timeline since I haven’t been in Texas that long.
However, the lack of turn singal and horn use is very disturbing. Just because you’re on the interstate doesn’t mean you don’t need to use horns. Also, I’d much prefer someone flashing me out of a lane than residing 12 inches from my bumper because they want me to pull over (or go to the shoulder). This has caused some dangerous situations for me when I can’t/won’t pull onto the shoulder.
I’ve lived in several places, and Massachusetts easily has the worst drivers I’ve known. Of course, I now live in Massachusetts (I drive here, too, but, as I’m a transplant, I’m a GOOD driver )
As far as regional things, Massachusetts drivers drive on the shoulder more than folks elsewhere, I think, and that’s partly because driving in the “breakdown lane” is, in some cases, allowed and even encouraged. But people carry it to ridiculous extremes – driving for miles on the shoulder, driving over “zebra-lined” areas that aren’t really shoulders, and the following item, which I report from a columnist:
A guy had the bad fortune to break down. It was some minor problem, like a flat tire. So he pulled into the breakdown lane to fix it. A car came barreling down the lane, trying to avoid traffic and get to his exit.
Fortunately, he saw the stopped car, and stopped in time. He then blew his horn at the broken-down car. Probably he wasn’t aware that the car really was broken down, but it’s the kind of thing you really ought to expect. The nerve! Broken down in the break-down lane!
Don’t get me started on turn signals, my favorite pet peeve. Sometimes passengers in my car get annoyed with me because I signal even in a parking lot. My son-in-law claims to be embarrassed by it. Embarrassed? Because I signal? Poor baby.
The most common lament of non-signallers in CA;
“If you let people know what you’re going to do, they’ll jump ahead of you.”
Heaven Forbid that should happen. :rolleyes:
Peace,
mangeorge
Actually, in my case as stated in the OP, I was driving on I-10. There were three lanes of traffic going in each direction. I was in the rightmost lane. I think there was someone in the lane next to me, but I know all three weren’t blocked. I was passed on the shoulder because some idiot was too lazy to cross two lanes to pass someone.
That’s the problem with practices like this. People take a habit that may be harmless under some circumstances and apply it to inappropriate situations, rendering it dangerous.
Mr Sea is from SoCal and he is indicator-impaired. He doesn’t turn it on when he’s trying to get over, then gets mad because no one will let him in. He waits to use it until he’s actually in the middle of switching lanes.
The majority of drivers in that town putter along very, very slowly. It’s not due to a large population of retirees. Las Cruces has a very large … well, not Hispanic, but New Mexican Hispanic population, and everything from speaking to walking to driving is done at a much slower pace. Also, there’s a great deal of people on the road with no auto insurance, driving in 1960s and 1970s era beater trucks, causing folks to be very, very careful on the roads.
No horn honking. Never.
Infrequent use of directional signals. The attitude was “it’s none of your business to know where I’m going, so why should I tell you?” Very Western.
Buffalo, New York
Snow. Buffalonians know how to drive in it, at impressive speeds, too. The trick? Consider your car as a boat, with the same manuverability and braking capability; i.e. none. Sure, we’re going 60 on the Thruway in a lake-effect storm, but it takes us about 60 seconds just to change lanes.
Right lane use. If you are in the right hand lane, approaching a red light, and you won’t be making a right-on-red, you move over to a leftward lane if at all possible. Gotta’ keep the lane free for those who want to turn.
Canadians. North of the border, they’re maniacs, treating that “MAXIMUM 100” sign on the Queen Elizabeth Way as if it indicated MPH, not KPH. Cross into the States, and they’re clueless. They hog the left hand lane, don’t use directionals, drive in the rain with their emergency flashers going … WTF?
Denver, Colorado
The functions of the left and right lanes on limited access highways are reversed. Slow (but steady) traffic stays to the left; it acts as an express lane. Traffic of varying speeds stays to the right. In the Fort Collins to Pueblo corridor of I-25, the left lane isn’t used for passing.
SUV dominance. Not really an SUV rant, but it could be interpreted that way. Denver supposedly has the highest per capita ownership of SUVs in the United States. Generally speaking, but not always, SUVs will offer certain courtesies to other SUV drivers that they won’t offer to cars; i.e. cutting in to merge.
If you want to really rattle a SUV driver, don’t be afraid of him (usually him) in your “little” car. It’s not a good practice, though, to piss people off.
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