Maybe it’s the growing congestion in the Front Range leading to road rage or maybe it’s all y’all coming to Northern Colorado from Tex-ass and Cali, but over the last year traffic here in the Denver/Front Range has gotten worse. I started noticing it about a year ago. Empty spot in a lane so I signal to move over and the car 3 length behind me in that lane would speed up because “You’re not fucking getting in front of ME!” I thought it was an anti-Tesla thing, but nope, they do it no matter what you’re driving. Worst offenders? Ford F150 and any Jeep driver. Oh and the drivers that sit in your blind spot despite plenty of room to move forward or go back. A few times my blind-spot monitoring saved an accident. There is a short onramp by my house that I refuse to use anymore because do cars not slow down to let you in, they SPEED UP because fuck you - I’ll knock you into the shoulder for daring to be in front of me. I have been almost sideswiped so many times there that it is actually scary.
And guess what … signaling does not give you the right-of-way. Coming back from an event in Denver, there is a long line to get on the freeway onramp. Some lady more important than everyone else decide to go around us and then signals at the last second to merge over. We are creeping along and she keeps edging over and is going to end up in the side of my SUV. Man I wish I had my old piece of shit Envoy because I would have been more than happy to have her insurance buy it off me, but of course I had a new car so I let her go. Repeat at least 5 times a day where drivers think “zipper merge” means they can zoom up and knock you into the weeds to be first.
Look I get that some people on the freeway want to drive 10mph below the speed limit, but get the fuck out of the #2 lane! The far right lane is called the slow-lane for a reason. But that doesn’t compare to truck drivers in the #2 lane 20 mph below the speed limit. I have seen three lanes blocked by these fuckers riding side-by-side slowing everyone down. And drivers of Big Ass-Trucks like the Ford F350 that feel their size = right-of-way over you you piece of shit, they have nothing on truck drivers that are in the slow lane behind another truck going 20mph below the speed limit. They HAVE to cut you off to drag race the other truck going 19mph below the limit.
Yeah, they’re everywhere… and they proliferate when I’m in a hurry.
Trigger alert: Wholesome Anecdote…
The other day, I got errands done quickly, so I left a half hour early to drive a couple of hours to my mom’s. I couldn’t believe the difference in my attitude! I kept to just over the speed limit (I could’ve gone slower, but I feel a little funny if I’m not breaking a law). And I had time to slow down for nimrods changing lanes for no discernable reason, and idjits merging at ten under the limit… one even promptly moved over into the center lane before they thought about mayyyybe speeding up.
And I got to watch the Heart Attack Poster Boys who are late to a meeting with the Big Boss and are frantically redlining their Buick and changing lanes to try to get past twenty cars in a work zone.
. . .
“Why am I so relaxed?” was followed by another thought: “Why haven’t I ever done this before?”
In my very brief experience, it was even worse when driving a commercial truck. A few weeks ago I rented a 16’ box truck, and people absolutely had to get in front of me, even if the didn’t want to go as fast as me.
For my time on the freeway the truck was empty, so it could easily keep up with traffic, and maintain traffic flow at about 10 over. I stuck to the right lane, and in 20 miles on the freeway I had multiple instances of people moving from the left lane directly in front of me, and then slowing down. Why did you pass me if you just want to go slower?
That sometimes happens when I’m in my car, but nothing like the frequency I experienced that day.
As I see it, there are two main factors to blame here:
Driver training in the U.S. is not very good.
But because we don’t have well developed public transportation and cars are a necessity in many areas, we won’t improve it. That would create a burden on too many people, unfortunately.
Enforcement is fixated almost solely on speeding.
While it’s true that higher speeds correlate with fatalities, AIUI, it’s speed differentials that cause more accidents. Then you add in people who have never heard of using the left lane for passing, misunderstand right-of-way and are generally inattentive, and you get lots of problems. But we fixate on speed enforcement because it’s quantifiable. Much harder to catch someone in the act of not signaling their turns. So we act on what we can measure, and speed is it.
Then there’s the whole problem of speed enforcement as a revenue tool, but don’t get me started…
Traffic is a cooperative activity, not a competitive one. But irrationally, it’s the people who expect it to be cooperative but mainly to their benefit who create the problems. The out-and-out competitors are present in a spoiler percentage but never the majority.
I’ve come to expect non-cooperation, and gladly yield to assholes/“people who must be having a bad day” I just assume I’m helping to train them into a state of laxity until they pull the same shit in front of a cop who’s low at quota crunch.
There are two kinds of people on the roads. Drivers and racers.
Drivers are just trying to get somewhere in a vehicle.
Racers see a road as a competition and need to be ahead of someone. It’s not to get to their destination faster, they just feel like if they are behind someone they are “losing”.
I don’t get the mentality of racers. This isn’t a video game.
what do we call the people who drive 15 in a 25 mph zone? Was behind one last night, and I didn’t enjoy it. I wouldn’t call him a driver or a racer. Just an asshole.
I try to be understanding of behavior I don’t understand. We never know what’s motivating some drivers. I recall driving really show home from the hospital with my new baby. I’m sure most other drivers didn’t understand or appreciate my slowness. I once raced to the hospital with same baby years later when she was having trouble breathing. Probably pissed off a few other drivers that day too.
Idiots and potentially lawbreakers based on the jurisdiction and circumstances, if they are causing too much of a traffic delay and don’t let people pass.
A few years back, before COVID, I had two instances separated by only a week where the police were right there to stop some asshat for traffic violations. The first was on a busy street in Little Rock where I was halfway from merging from the right to the middle lane when the guy in the left lane decided it was his turn to take the middle. I beat a hasty retreat when suddenly bright lights appear behind us and the nice officer pulls the other vehicle over. The following week, I was heading north on 430 when the exact same scenario plays out and a cop was immediatly behind us flashing his lights.
I don’t know if people forgot how to drive while we working from home during COVID or my patience is no longer what it once was before. Earlier this week, I was headed to the office and the guy in front of me slowed down on the on ramp to 30 west. He was going about 60 MPH on the access road, but as soon as we got into the acceleration lane he did the opposite and decelerated to about 50 MPH making it very difficult to merge into the right lane.
Is more of this kind of thing happening or am I just a cranky old man who is more bothered by it now than when I was younger?
I dunno about this. I would always take someone speeding up rather than slowing down when I’m merging. Sure I’d rather they just do the right thing, namely maintain a constant speed (or even move out of the slow lane when people are trying to merge and the middle lane is free). But if I’m merging I’m trying to match speed and then slip in behind someone, so I don’t care if they speed up but if they decide to slow down then it will be a problem
Here in Mesa our main streets are four lanes plus median, perfectly straight, and with a speed limit of 45. So why do so many people slow down for green lights? And they only slow to 40. It’s not like, if someone runs the red on the cross street the 5 mph are not going to make a difference. So why are they doing this? They must have been taught it, because so many do it.
And the universal second one is, no one seems to understand what the lines on the road are for. We have a crosswalk outlines with two white lines, AND a “stop” line back from the crosswalk. But most people stop at the furthest crosswalk line. This not only blocks the crosswalk but prevents right turners from seeing oncoming traffic. I can’t mark this down to “asshole” because I don’t think they know what they are doing is wrong. I think it must be a failure of basic driver’s ed.
Traffic around here is fairly mild-mannered.
I have a feeling the Lil’wrekker is probably the one screaming to her windshield on a regular basis.
But, life out in public has gotten more angry, finding fault, pushy shove-y. People looking for a reason to engage you in a pissy, petty argument.
Here I am, limping around on a broken foot, waiting my turn for PT. I sat and forgot I didn’t sign it. Stood up to walk up to the counter and a woman nearly, inches away, elbowed me to get there first. I took a step back(ain’t easy folks) and let her move ahead. She signed in. Then I did. I was called in immediately after that. We have appointment times. It’s not like that’s gonna change. The sign in is to let them know you’re in the building, not what order you go back.
So he says ‘Do you know how fast you were going?’ and I said ‘Sorry, officer, I know the speed limit’s 65, and I just got going too fast, maybe 75…?’ Cop starts chuckling, ‘Son, you were doing 35 in the fast lane.’
