OPs should not be written on BlackBerries while driving in the passing lane.
Here I thought you were going to be complaining about traffic jam situations or something like a congested midtown avenue in New York with 17 taxis per block. Then I was going to tell you to grow up and get a pair, because it is all well and proper to respect only the “nose-in” under such circumstances. But nope, you ran into actual assholes. I don’t understand those people either.
I also endorse this, and the “speeding up to keep people from changing lanes” phenomenon doesn’t even seem to have infected this area. There’s no reason for it, they’re just being self-involved pricks.
I have driven in many parts of the country. Many are bad about this…but many are good about it. Believe it or not, the Los Angeles area was very good about letting people in if you signaled. Yea, the traffic was bad in LA but the drivers seemed human which is in direct opposition to the stereotype we hear about.
Minneapolis area though, is the worse for 2 types of driving behaviors:
- What I mentioned before, the trying to cut you off if you want to change lanes. LIke I said, it is so bad that even LOOKING OVER YOUR SHOULDER causes many people in that lane to accelerate to cut you off. It is not uncommon to look over your shoulder, see a car but there is enough room, quick look forward and change lanes to have that same car honk at you as you try to merge into them. Think about that…it’s about a second and they react fast enough to close the distance that fast. They must SLAM on the accelerator to close it that fast…and it is not uncommon. I would say 1 out of 7 or so lane changes it happens to me. So, you evolve a do not signal, VERY quick look over your shoulder followed by accelerate yourself flip on the turn signal and start to change lanes…maybe half a second.
I have experimented with this by looking over my shoulder when I don’t want to change lanes and observing if the person closes rapidy. Minnesota nice my frackin arse.
- Every area has their quirks. Southern Georgia it was slamming on the breaks for no apparant reason (I lived there 2 years). In wyoming it was weird informal right-of-way rules. In Minnesota it is refusing to pull up into the intersection while waiting for traffic when turning left on a green light. Therefore, when it is busy and in normal areas of the country when the light turns yellow and 2-3 cars can make the turn…in MN you are still sitting back behind the intersection and only 1 car can really make the turn. Sounds like a minor gripe…and it is (unlike Georgia) but it is irritating as hell when traffic is busy.
Oh…and MN LOOOVVEEESSSS their stoplights. The even put stoplights where there are no intersections…100 feet from another stoplight…
I do the very same thing when someone is polite enough to signal their intent. It means “I see you and you’re clear to move over.”
If one spends an hour or more a day, every day, in a specific activity, after awhile most of us tend to think about it a bit.
I agree that LA traffic is surprisingly accommodating and that Minnesotans tend to look at commuting as competition. But the worst for those behaviors? I’m thinking you haven’t done much driving in the Chicago or Boston areas.
Not sure where in MN you are driving, but this is definitely not the norm in and around the metro area, or anywhere in the state for that matter.
That’s exactly what it DOES mean in most situations. I’m not asking your permission, I alerting you that it’s about to happen
What it ISN’T is a warning to get out of my way. If I don’t have room to change lanes, I don’t use the signal.
On rare occasions I use the signal when there isn’t room, hoping the driver will give me a break and slow down to give me a little more space. But hardly ever, because like the OP, I’ve found it more likely that the driver will pull forward and make damn sure I can’t fit in. More often I will change my own speed to give myself room to change and then signal and go.
While we have our share of loons, it seems like central Ohio has more drivers than anywhere else I’ve lived who will pause to let you into a space in traffic.
There is a busy stretch of road that I must turn right on every morning heading to work (we have a stop sign, no light and thus no guaranteed period of time in which to make the turn). On almost a daily basis, someone will slow to let one or two of us turn in front of him/her, possibly recognizing that there’s a light up ahead and it might cost them all of a second of commute time to be nice.
It’s a wonder all of us haven’t been driven bats by a common local form of highway engineering insanity, which requires drivers exiting an interstate to intersect the path of the highway on-ramp. Whoever thought up that idea should be drawn and quartered.
I live in Boringville, Indiana and the majority of people don’t USE their signals, so i don’t know what the fuck they are thinking. I try to use mine, but i wonder if I’m doing it right.
Well, then, according to my state’s driver’s manual, you are using them incorrectly, at least in heavy traffic. Waiting until there’s an opening is much more dangerous.
In Washington state you can get a ticket for signaling with your brights or a horn toot.:rolleyes:
They also frequently drive 10-15 mph slower than surrounding traffic with absurd lengths between the car in front of them, both on highways and intercity. Drives us nuts, it does. But you never have to worry about having to merge into an exit lane way at the end of a long line. Without exception, you can be sure that somewhere close to the actual exit, where traffic is crawling along, there will be someone with five to ten car lengths open in front of them, even though the line is only moving at 10-20 mph.
With respect to Washington State drivers, I completely agree. I live in BC and whenever I drive down the I-5 to Seattle, anyone driving over the speed limit will have BC or Oregon plates, with the odd one from California.
You should try driving in Montreal. Signaling means shit there. You just go, inch your car in then they let you in. There is no other way to do it otherwise you’ll be sitting there forever waiting to change lanes.
I dated a woman from Montreal that helped me figure it out. “oh you mean drive like the locals ?”
Yup.
What state?
When I still had my car, I learned to NOT signal exactly because some asshole will always make sure you can not change lanes. You and Asshole can have the entire road, no one else on it, and yet that bastard will do whatever it takes to fuck with you.
Some people are crazy once they get behind the wheel. The ones I can’t understand are the ones that must get ahead even if they’re just one car ahead. I drive to work on a two lane road. This morning one car passed me, then a semi, then another car (not in a row). How does that help? You’re not getting there any faster!
I’ve seen people cross double yellows to pass people. Hell, one time I was sure there was going to be a huge head-on collision because some idiot decided they were too good to wait at a light at the T-intersection and zoomed past the line - on the wrong side of the road, mind - past at least five cars.
I get as impatient as anyone. Traffic backs up near the lights, but its still faster than the freeway. But its not worth putting my life at risk just to go to work.
Communist!
Florida’s bad driving habit is the people who pass you on the right while you are in the middle of passing someone else on the interstate AND there is already a car in front of you! In other words, you are not driving slow on purpose, but are behind someone who is driving slow and leaving a semi-reasonable gap and then someone scoots around you into that small-ish gap.
In cases like that, I do close the gap unless the driver was there before me. If they’ve just tried to pass me on the right, then try to merge back in, into my “safety” zone (which is usually only a bit more than 3 car lengths anyway,) I don’t let them in unless required by the laws of physics, and even then I lay on my horn.