DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a racist/sexist/any-ist thread, just a “have you noticed, in your opinion” thread.
OK.?
Now, I drive alot and in quite a few areas, so here goes.
Midwest: nothing in particular stands out.
Dallas/Ft. Worth: nothing in particular.
West Coast of Fla.: Whitetops, retirees. Man they pull some really stupid stuff on the road.
California: high percent of the time I witnessed a dumb traffic move, it was an Oriental woman driver. Hands on the wheel at 10 and 2 o’clock and lookin straight foward as though she had blinders on, oblivious to traffic.
Central Florida: Tourist in a rental car. duh!
East Coast Florida: This is the one that really mystifies me. Saturn drivers! An exceptional amount of stupid moves I see Saturn there. Aggressive driving, turning left across 3 lanes from the right lane(no signal), driving too slow, stopping for no particular reason, all of the stupid moves you can come up with -SATURN? WTF!?
Oooh, don’t get me going.
I hate tourists in rental cars. Why don’t they bring their own cars with them and leave our rental cars alone.
Rotten bastards.
I’ll play. The worst areas I have seen are the Phoenix suburbs. Especially Mesa AZ. Once the “snowbirds” show up it is a free for all. They just don’t look for or can’t see other cars.
Atlanta- the tourists who refuse to take 285 around the city-and freak out when they see a traffic jam.
BUT that wasn’t the question, was it?
My experience is that 95% of the time, the bad driver is a woman with 2-3 kids in the car, talking on the phone and yelling at the kids. I would say…30-35, and totally stressed out…lives in Gwinnett, Cobb, or North Fulton county.
Scott county Iowa drivers.
Dunno why but they ignore no passing zones.
No wonder there are so many accidents on hwy 61 between muscatine and bluegrass Ia.
Don’t get me started on Lee County, Florida during tourist season… Take one part tourists in rental cars they don’t know how to operate, combine with cars from every other state in the union that forgot how to drive on their way down here, add contractors taking building materials to all the houses the rich tourists are building on Sanibel, such as 5 tons of lumber which appear to be secured with dental floss to the back of a truck, add some local 90 year old woman driving 25 in the 35 zone where everyone drives at least 50 since it’s a BRIDGE and there’s no cross traffic on a bridge, duh, and add tourists that no matter how many signs we place for 2 miles back on the road leading to the causeway get into the leftmost lane and then figure out it’s automatic, not attended, and you need a transponder to get through so some attendant has to come out and take your $3.00 (Yes, the toll is 3 bucks, and the tourists keep coming, damn them) and of course you pay her in pennies which you keep dropping on the ground so you get out and pick them up and try again and… what was the question?
I use my sister’s maxim: Never drive behind an old man with a hat. THEY are the scariest drivers. :eek:
In Florida, the turn signal means either:
[ul]
[li]I am turning left in 50 feet; or,[/li][li]I have been turning left for the last 5 miles.[/li][/ul]
About rental cars: little scenario.
I was a witness to an accident in the Central Florida tourist corridor between a rental car (they took off the LEASE county designation, but you can still tell it was a rental) and a car with Florida tags. The rental car switched lanes at the last minute and barrelled through the intersection (not stopping for the red-light), smashing into the car with the Florida tags (had the green light and right of way).
Both out-of-state tourists and Florida residents were involved in this particular accident.
Guess what?
The Florida tag car was driven by the tourists from New York (car was borrowed from the brother, a Florida resident).
The rental car was driven by the Florida resident (native IIRC): rented because his car was in the shop from a previous accident, from driving like a maniac and wrecking his car!
Ironic, huh? Gets better:
His previous accident, why he had to get the rental car? He hit my car.
YES!! And then… there’s the I-74 bridge in the Quad-Cites. My God. I drove over that thing every day for the past 12 years to go to school in Bettendorf. Why oh why, when the weather was anything but 70 degrees, no humidity and sunny, would there be a massive backup on the bridge? I guess some people freaked out at the mere sight of gasp clouds that they would jam on the brakes as soon as the bridge hove into sight.
What is it about bridges that has drivers so freaked out? Yes, they’re narrow, but so what? I’m claustrophobic, and I can still make it over 'em… all you have to do is keep the car pointed in the direction you want to go, keep your foot on the rightmost pedal, and stay calm.
I was intrigued by the one about not driving behind (or anywhare near) old men with hats: I knew someone in Wales who had exactly the same theory, so it is obviously not country-specific. Weird.
Old Man Fisher. He is the worst driver ever. “He” is actually 350 SUVs with boat trailers. He comes from the Minneapolis suburbs, going “up north” to go fishing. And he is a bastard. The speed limit on I35 is 70mph. He goes about 57mph. He is a traffic hazard. He merges without signal, he knows not what a “blind spot” is, therefore he doesn’t bother to check it. He is a menace to responsible drivers everywhere but, most of all, he pisses me off.
Almost as bad as Old Man Fisher: Those damn elderly folk who feel the need to invade Hinckley in packs of a hundred. Can’t they go to Mystic Lake? What is so good about the Grand Casino anyway? These people go “up north” from, again, the Minneapolis suburbs. They can’t drive. They’ve yet to figure out what the blinker is, they brake for no apparent reason, they weave in and out of traffic, they absolutely cannot stay between the lines of their lane, they drive 50mph in the fast lane and, when they finally (thankfully) begin to approach exit 187, they slow down to 45mph a mile before the actually exit, THEN decide to turn their blinker on.
Repeat above scenarios again Sunday night when they all go home.
Try driving in Texas. They will gladly show you the title form they got with their pickup truck saying that they now own the road. The Texans are almost as bad a Californians except for the simple fact that our freeways are so superior that other people can drive like hell and you can still get somewhere.
Incidentally, the “old man wearing the hat” Rule of Thumb is also widely used in Denmark. Definitely not specific to any coutry or location.