Helpful driving tips

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

Hi, drivers! I’m a pedestrian. You see me at intersections (or perhaps in driveways or parking lots), and only at intersections, since I don’t jaywalk. Can I offer a few tips to help both of us?

–Don’t flash your lights at me. I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

–If I’m in a crosswalk and have the green light (where there is a light), it is legal and proper for me to be there. Furthermore, I am only crossing the street to get to the other side. I’m not trying to make you late for work, or set you up for a lawsuit, or in any other way drop another turd into the giant cesspool that is, apparently, your life. So don’t bother honking, swearing, or fuming.

–A variation on being predictable, not courteous: If you decide to be a nice guy and wave me across the intersection, please keep your foot on the brake until I am no longer in front of your car. Waving me into the intersection and then riding your brake towards me doesn’t save you any useful time and cancels out your “nice guy” points. I know you can kill me. You don’t have to taunt me with it.

–Turning right on a red is permitted; it is not required. It isn’t even permitted unless you come to a stop first, use your signal, and look for any pedestrian who may be crossing on the green. This may require you to look both ways. That is why God put your head on a neck. Swivel it already.

–The crosswalk is for me, not you. Please keep your car out of it until you have the green light and can start across the intersection.

–A parking lot is not a road. I’m allowed to walk in it.

–A driveway is not a road. A driveway that crosses a sidewalk is, basically, a sidewalk. I’m allowed to walk in it.

–If you’re going to be an asshole, own it. Lean on your horn and gun your engine; be a big noisy obvious asshole so I have plenty of warning. I’m happy to stay on the sidewalk until you go on your way and find somewhere to deal with your inadequacies. I deal with bike riders every day who are ruder than you can dream of being, so don’t think you can shock me.

62

If you are in a line of traffic stopped on an incline - leave plenty of room between yourself and the vehicle in front of you. At least enough to see their rear tires.

On a decent grade hill anything with a manual transmission is likely to roll a bit backwards when starting from a stop. You can control this pretty well with a car but trucks are gonna roll a bit.

63

  • If you can’t see both of my headlights when you’re passing me, you don’t have enough room to move back into my lane.

  • For Tennessee drivers: Our curve signs are for real. Unlike the flat midwest or wherever the hell you’re from, they mean slow your butt down, the road makes a curve or switchback that you can’t take doing sixty.

64

I’ll add to the pedestrian tips - if you’re driving a Behemothmobile and you’ve politely stopped for me as I wait to cross at the crosswalk, please understand that I can’t see around you, and neither can other traffic coming up beside you - be a little patient as I peek around you to make sure that there are no cars flying by you because they don’t know why you’re stopped (and not everyone is clued-in enough to make sure they’re not going to mow down a pedestrian).

As for cars blocking sidewalks, it would probably help if drivers knew they were supposed to make a COMPLETE STOP before driving across a sidewalk when leaving a parking lot or back alley. That helps cut down on the pedestrians you run over and inconvenience.

65

Don’t poke along 15 miles under the speed limit on a 2 lane black top with no place to pass but a ditch.

When we get to the only place to pass, please don’t speed up and block me from doing so. That is stupid and dangerous. I know you are all studly manly man, you need not prove it with your car. And by the way there are 14 more vehicles backed up behind you.

As someone already said, when making a left turn, pull OUT under the light, and when it turns yellow or even red and the oncoming traffic has stopped, GOOOOO!

I am learning a lot from this thread, by the way.

66

The white lights in the back of your car that go on when you shift into reverse? They DO NOT give you the right of way when backing out of a parking spot.

67

At a four way stop: the person who stops first goes first. No exception! Waving the other person through just screws up the sequence for everyone.

If you both stop at the same time, let the person on the right go first. So, hey, dude on the right- move it already!

Another one from the motorcycle files:
If you stop at a traffic light, please stop at the correct distance from the car in front of you and STAY there. DO NOT stop five cars back, then slowly creep forward a foot at a time. Do you have any idea how annoying it is for me to be behind you, stopped on my bike, then have to inch forward slowly behind you? A total pain in the ass. Even worse when someone is behind me and I’m able to keep the bike in neutral and my feet flat on the ground, only to have to get in gear and pick my feet up for a few feet of travel.

68

90% of all this can be summed up as:

Driving is a team sport.

What is the most important thing in any team sport? Knowing what your team-mates are doing.

Pay attention.
Learn to merge.
Signal (I use signals as a request, too, and don’t mind if people speed up to get out of my way.)

And remember your basic physics - two bodies can not occupy the same place at the same time. If you want to be in my lane, you have to wait until I have moved; your signal does not make me disappear.

Furthermore, your paint job probably cost more than my car, but, face it, honey; I’m older and have more insurance.

69

The new “rule” here is that if you don’t actually stop, you get to go first. Argh.

It’s annoying in a manual transmission car, too. I usually just stay back (unless I’m blocking someone). I prefer to only come off the clutch once per light.

70

Ya know, we could just skip all these tips and drive in the new reckless driving lane…

71

I agree with all these points, but I have one request of pedestrians. If I stop for you - either because you are in a crosswalk or because you just stepped out in front of my car and I don’t feel like getting my paintjob bloody, please move it across the street. If you have a walker or are 95 years old, fine, but way too many hale and hearty people amble as if they are on a country road. I’m often a pedestrian also, and when I’m in a crosswalk I try to move it. It is good for the heart.

72

Semi rules apply to buses as well. Don’t buzz around, stop and expect them to be able to stop like a car can. It doesn’t work so well and you’re putting 30 to 50 people in danger who are not wearing seatbelts, you inconsiderate jackass.

When you are approaching the stoplight, that huge hulking thing in the lane in front of you is not a building, it’s a bus. Don’t try to squeeze past or create another lane, get into a wreck and then claim you didn’t see the damn bus, it just makes you look like an idiot.

73

These people make me want to scream. They do nothing but fuck up the flow of traffic, or worse, they stop on the highway to wave pedestrians across (yes, I’ve seen it here) and put people at risk of an accident who are coming from the other direction and who didn’t agree to stop for pedestrians in the middle of the goddamn highway.

I think it should be legal to shoot these people. :smiley:

I think it should be legal to shoot these people twice.

OMG! Where I live, we have a single highway that loops around the entire island. 1 lane going each direction, few passing zones, lots of curves. I hate those assholes who pull this crap, and there are a lot of them. There are no alternate routes, this 1 road is the only choice you have, so you are stuck.

Why is this so difficult? Oh yeah, because some idiot is busy waving people through. :smack:

For the love of all that is holy, don’t stop, look around and then decide to put on your turn signal, you jackass. It kind of defeats the purpose.

You guys have pretty much covered all my peeves. I wouldn’t advise coming to my town because everyone here does all of these and I think they’re incurable.

74

In Northern Virginia, some people seem to interpret this rule as “the person who reaches the white bar marking the stopping point at the intersection gets to go first, and for show, should brake as he rolls over it.” Folks, being first to reach the stop sign does not really mean you get to go first if, to do so, you had to drive fast enough that you now cannot come to a full, complete stop. If you have to race another driver to get there “first,” you probably do not actually deserve the right-of-way. It’s the first driver to reach that point and come to a full, complete stop who gets to go.

Sometimes another driver and I are reaching the intersection simultaneously, and, because I brake to a stop, the other driver concludes he got there “ahead of” me or “has momentum” or something, and that he now has earned right-of-way to go by virtue of his decision not to actually stop at the stop sign. What a sucker I am!

75

Ok, here’s one that only happened once, but it made a big impression on me.

I’m approaching an intersection, on the through street. The street crossing mine has stop signs. A guy is waiting at the stop sign on my right. Both directions are 25 mph speed limit, so we’re going pretty slowly.

I drive through the intersection (remember, I’m on the through street). Guy to my right goes apeshit, and roars into the intersection, tires squealing, acting like he’s going to ram me broadside, screaming “YOU HAVE TO STOP! YOU HAVE TO STOP!!!” and giving me the finger.

Apparently he assumed he was waiting at a 4-way intersection. He was infuriated that I “ran the stop sign” in front of him and that he had to wait, instead of my stopping and allowing him to proceed.

But it wasn’t a 4-way intersection – only his street had stop signs.

Moral of the story – before unleashing your righteous road rage, have some kind of vague clue what’s actually going on.

76

Don’t slow down dramatically halfway through a right turn. This mostly happens when people are turning into a driveway or a narrow street.

They will slow to maybe 15mph to make the turn, I’ll adjust my speed to let them finish the turn, then suddenly they’re going 2mph with the rear of their car still blocking my lane. Aghh!

The “Be predictable, not courteous” maxim is great.

When traffic is heavy, it can be very helpful to let people know you want to change lanes. Very often someone will slow down and blink their lights. That allows you to take the (correct) exit 500 feet ahead, instead of the next (wrong) exit in 3 miles.

And here’s another vote that not slowing down for rain is a bigger problem than drivers who slow down too much for it. I usually assume that the people who don’t slow down have just never experienced serious hydroplaning. It’s less of an issue with antilock brakes, but not everyone has them.