When one of those guys with the big orange flags stops the driver in front of you, it isn’t a good idea to cross the double yellow line to pass the stopped driver and the flagman. I saw some genius try this move on my way home today. The flagman ran out in front of the driver who had tried to go around, and I got to laugh at him as I drove by him in the other direction. This idiot was trying to get onto the 376 where it takes you out of my neighborhood. I really hope he doesn’t live here.
Don’t drive like the idiots I saw a few weeks ago, either. Traffic was stopped on the 376 because of a wreck. We were all sitting there, not moving, a little ways past an exit. Sucks, but what can you do? Some idiots got the idea to pull over onto the shoulder and back up until they got back to the exit. Of course, there were also some jerks who think that, if traffic is stopped, it’s OK to pull over onto the shoulder and drive (in the normal direction) there. I didn’t see a collision between the idiots and the jerks, but I was expecting to any minute.
Share your stories of incredibly stupid bad drivers!
I’m certain there’s a flagman out there in GA who still curses my name. In my defense, there were no signs up indicating road work ahead, and they put the poor guy in the road just after a corner, where the speed limit was 50.
So when I came around the corner and was confronted by said poor gentleman, and in response locked up the brakes on the Ford Ranger pickup that I was borrowing, and slid on the freshly-spread asphalt, and nearly swerved into the yard on the other side of the road, and finally got the truck under control, I really should have been more sympathetic when he came over to yell at me. But I was busy shoving my heart back into my chest, and might have ended up implying he and his employers were dumbasses and someone was going to end up getting killed.
I got passed on the freeway by a motorcyclist with no helmet who was talking on the cell phone. In order to hear, he was facing his left with the cellphone in his left hand, steering with one hand and not watching where he was going. And, of course, speeding.
I took my foot off the gas and let him get a loooooonnnnng way ahead of me.
I was on the 8 here in San Diego earlier this week, and the car in front of me was wandering in his lane, and almost drifting into the next lane.
I pulled a couple of lanes over to make sure i was well clear of him, and when i passed him i could see that he was looking at himself in the rearview mirror and shaving with an electric shaver.
Some years ago, i was driving east on I-64 between Evansville IN & Louisville KY. There were several semis in the right hand lane, we were on a hill, so I hit my blinker & pulled out into the left lane to pass the trucks.
My friend in the passenger seat continued our conversation as I began passing the trucks. Do you ever get an unexplained feeling that…something… isn’t quite right? Thst’s the feeling I had, and I looked in the rearview mirror to see a pickup truck coming up behind us. Fast.
Too fast.
I continued watching as it gained on us. I tried speeding up to get around the trucks, but it was going WAY too damned fast… I’m going to estimate at least 100 MPH, because I was doing about 70. I told my friend to brace herself, this is going to be bad, and prepared for the impact.
Instead, the truck whipped out ONTO THE LEFT SHOULDER if the interstate and passed us like we were standing still, 2 young guys whooping and screaming like maniacs. This was back before cell phones, so there was no way for us to report the idiots. I literally felt sick to my stomach. Any little error of either of our parts and we would have all been killed. I had actually considered pulling onto the shoulder myself to let him pass, and decided for whatever reason not to.
Thinking about this still gives me the shudders.
The only good thing… about a half hour down the road we passed the truck, pulled over on the side of the road with 2 state trooper cars.
Many years ago, on the Long Island Expressway, I was driving in the left lane, and suddenly noticed some kind of commotion several cars ahead of me . . . like cars scrambling to get into the next lane. And there was a cop car with flashing lights, over on the shoulder, coming fast in the opposite direction. Sure enough, the car in front of me moved over, to reveal a car coming straight at me. Fortunately the car to my right was already moving over, so I barely avoided a collision. One of the cars behind me wasn’t so lucky.
Also years ago…
On a quiet Sunday morning I had just got on the 710 Freeway in where it begins in Pasadena. It travels north to south from somewhere in the middle of Pasadena down to Long Beach. As I enter the empty freeway with several cars pulling on behind me, I see a fellow entering the freeway at the next on-ramp, at that point a hundred yards or so ahead of me. As he clears the on-ramp, he decided he must have made a mistake, because he proceeds to do a U-TURN RIGHT ON THE GODDAMN FREEWAY. As he comes to 180 degrees and sees a wall of cars, me in front, barreling right toward him, he continues his turn to the full 360 and continues south. At that point I had to get a look, so I sped up and passed him. He was talking to himself something fierce.
Shortly after my wife and I got married, my mother-in-law was heading to the airport in Kansas City to pick up my sister-in-law and asked us to go along because she wasn’t sure how to get there. First of all my MIL is one of those speed-up-slow-down-speed-up drivers that just about make you carsick from the way they alternately stomp on the gas and the brake. So that was bad enough. But then as we were getting close to the airport, she started to get off on the wrong exit, stopped, and backed up to get back on the highway! :eek:
I told my wife after that trip that I was never getting in a car again that her mom was driving, and I never have.
Not that he was an example of a *good *driver - but I’m going to call massive brain fart: “crap, wrong road, let’s turn around - holy shit, this is the freeway! keep turning, keep turning . . . My god, I am an idiot!”
I hate to think how many people wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to complete the turn, actually. Can’t swear I’d be one of those who wouldn’t instead head for the median…provided there even was one. >.<
I work in an industry where I drive a tractor-trailer, and we routinely drive in convoy, to a job site and back. a few weeks ago, we were driving back from the Dawson Creek area, and that part of the (non-twinned) highway has one lane heading south-east (my direction of travel), and two lanes heading north-west, for a mile or two. the SE traffic can use the center lane to pass, if there is no oncoming traffic. A car is doing just that, passing my rig, and continuing on to pass the rig in front of me, when a red pickup blows past us all, in the far-left lane (the oncoming traffic’s outside lane). Why yes, as a matter of fact, there was a big rig coming at us, at the time. Red pickup pulls back in with seconds to spare.
You, hey you!! The car speeding through the intersection, admittedly on a green light.
Can’t you hear the sirens? Don’t you see those flashing lights? You’re supposed to stop and pull over you moron. It’s a firetruck, a big one. And it had to slow down and almost stop because of your sense of entitlement.
People who don’t get out of the way for emergency vehicles really annoy the fuck out of me. They should have a cop car following ambulances and fire trucks, just to hand out incredibly expensive tickets to these assholes.
A number of years ago when the speed limit was 55 MPH, I was driving on a freeway that had a two-mile stretch of construction, narrowing the entire freeway down to a single lane lined with cones. It was a Sunday afternoon and there were no workers.
I slowed down and entered the construction zone at the required speed limit (25 MPH, or something like that). There was nobody in front of me, and about 10 cars or so behind me.
For the next two miles, a girl in a Mustang behind me was going ape-poop crazy. She kept hitting her steering wheel, honking, and trying to swat me out of the way. I kept going the construction zone speed limit and kept my eye on her as she pulled dangerously close to my back bumper.
As soon as I cleared the construction zone, I tried to move to the right to let her pass me, but she swerved and cut me off, so I had to turn sharply back into my lane so as not to get hit. As she passed me, she accelerated to about 70, stuck her hand out the window, and flipped me the bird.
Apparently, she was so angry at me for going the construction zone speed limit that she had neglected to look in her rear-view mirror. As she passed me, I saw that the car immediately behind her was a Highway Patrol officer. He passed me and looked at me and laughed, shaking his head.
As soon as he was in front of me, he turned on his lights and siren.
About four miles down the road, I came upon them as he was writing her ticket. I honked and waved as I went past, and he actually waved back at me.
