This one goes out to that guy last night, in the big shitty van that I can’t see around, who cut me off, and then proceeded to slam on his breaks in order to give himself the 100 yards of following distance that he seems to think is neccessary because it’s starting to sprinkle. And he doesn’t have any fucking break lights! Because of this, I don’t notice right away that he is breaking, which forces me to have to slam on my breaks at the last minute. This goes on for 15 minutes in stop & go traffic, each time with him breaking hard all of a sudden instead of breaking gradually like a normal person. which in turn makes me have to slam on my breaks AGAIN, causing me to barely be able to stop with the length of his meager pecker between our two vehicles… then he starts again.
When he finally moves his ass over I finally get the oppertunity to pass him, I go to shoot him my evil look, and he’s on a fuckin cell-phone. I don’t know why he has a cell phone and a shitty van, but this pissed me off more! Then, as I start to pass him, he starts to speed up. Not enough to get by me agian mind you, just enough so that he can hover in my blind spot, right where I can’t see him with my mirrors. Then, as he gradually starts to speed up some more, he starts drifting into my lane. I honk, he swerves back into his own lane. Then as I pass a semi, he nearly runs himself into the back of it, and proceeds to cut off the guy behind me. Went the rest of the way home hoping he wouldn’t rear-end me.
i saw some idiot the other day weaving around the road, unable to maintain a constant speed. as i cautiously passed him, i saw he was holding his cig in his left had, flicking ash out the window, had a cell phone pinched between his ear and shoulder and was dumping popcorn in his mouth with his right hand! i swear, if i was driving my old '65 ford pickup, i would have punted him into the desert!
(settle down, folks-- i really wouldn’t have, but i would have thought about it!)
I think we need to IQ test people before we give them driver’s licenses. For example, they must know left from right (ie-right lane = passing lane). They must know how to use turn signals (I’m beginning to think new cars don’t even come with turn signals, what with all the yuppie fucks swerving around in this part of town). Stupid people should not drive. I guarantee that if you IQ tested half of the goddamn drivers in and around Richmond, VA, they would turn out to be at least slightly retarded. I can’t tell if people are just inconsiderate or ignorant half of the time (but I flick them off anyway
If you are trying to turn left, and your turning lane has (or eventually will have) an arrow, don’t pull the old “wait in the middle of the road and then go real fast when the light turns red” trick, especially if you’re three different cars. In your simple, selfish nability to wait your turn, you delay the people whose turn it is and who now have to wait until your little parade is finished running the red light. You’ll get an arrow. You will have a turn. You can wait.
It has come to my attention that there are a lot of drivers out there who truly believe that they don’t need to signal lane changes. Hello, world! YOU HAVE TO SIGNAL EVERY TIME YOUR CAR DOES ANYTHING BUT MOVE IN A STRAIGHT LINE!!!* You know why? So people around you will know where your car is going. And don’t even bother flicking on the turn signal once you’re already halfway in the lane. You don’t need to let me know what you’re planning to do anymore.
*This include pulling into a parking space, and stopping to parallel park. Car’s not going in a straight line anymore, is it?
Nothing pisses me off more than “slow guy in the fast lane.” WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? GET THE FUCK OVER!! DO YOU SEE EVERYONE PASSING YOU ON THE RIGHT?? Take off the goddamn 72mph speed control, get off the fucking phone, and fucking pay attention.
Honorable Mention: Lost tourist, who realizes while in the fast lane that they have 1/4 mile to exit, then hits the brakes, going as slow as is necessary to change four lanes, while everyone else creates an instant traffic jam around this idiot. Hey - guess what: YOU MISSED IT. Eat some goddamn crow and turn around at the next goddamn exit.
(Coming up in our next installment - driver that goes through the crosswalk, b/c you’re not quite walking directly in front of their car but are in the crosswalk).
And there’s the idiot (sorry, calling them an idiot is degrading those those who really are idiots) who in order to merge onto the freeway, where the POSTED speedlimit is 70 MPH… They freakin’ STOP AT THE END OF THE ON RAMP! Aieeee! :mad: Or they try to merge onto the freeway doing… maybe 10 MPH, when traffic is zooming by at 80+ MPH. This is espically annoying when it’s a very short on-ramp, and you need to get up to freeway speed as fast as you can, else you’ll get a Mack Truck Enemasup[/sup].
And the people who do 10-15 MPH under the posted speed limit, for no apparent reason. Road is dry and clean, visibility couldn’t be better, no curves to slow down for, no stop signs or stop lights to prepare to stop for, no driveways to keep an eye on.
I swear, if the police had a division just for traffic law enforcement around here, and gave half of the profit from each ticket that gets paid to the public school system (I assume they get at least some profit from each paid ticket), we wouldn’t have any debates on needing lotteries to pay for education funding!
Let’s say you are going 100 miles. If you travel at 80mph, it will take you 1 1/4 hours (75 minutes). If you travel at 60 mph, it will take you 1 hour 40 minutes (100 minutes).
At 70 mph it will take you 12 1/2 minutes longer to go 100 miles than at 80 mph.
Are you in that big of a hurry? Let’s not forget that one traffic ticket stop takes a couple of hours and that blows your time right out of the water. Just slow down and do the speed limit. It seems like you are really going fast, etc., but you are not gaining much time, which I think is your excuse for trying to run this guy off the road.
Around here if you signal your intentions to change lanes it only invites people in that lane to slam on the gas in order to cut you off. Around here, you have to signal no more than a tenth of a second before you actually change lanes.
I can’t friggin stand the folks who won’t follow the “zipper” merging protocol. You know what I am talking about, two lanes are turning into one and it is pretty crowded and generally each lane takes turns forming the single lane. Everyone except for the asshole who can’t stand the thought of lettinga car in ahead of him. Congratu-fucking-lations, you have saved yourself one full fucking car length!
Well, it’s true that going the speed limit is safer, but that’s not really the point. No matter how fast you are going, if you are in the “fast” lane (in other words, the passing lane), and there is a car behind you that wants to go faster, the courteous thing to do is to get over into the other lane so they can pass you and go as fast as they want. You are not the state highway patrol, and it is not your job to control the speed of other drivers. If you’re in the left-hand lane and someone behind you wants to go faster, just move over and let them pass, it’s not that hard. Then you can continue driving along at the speed limit, if that’s your choice, and everyone is happy. (Except maybe the guy who passed you, if the staties pull him over half a mile up the road, but again, that’s his problem, not yours.)
My personal peeves are: 1) people who change lanes without signaling. People, if you put your damn turn signal on, I will happily back off and LET YOU IN. Wouldn’t that be easier than waiting for the slightest bit of space to open between me and the car and front of me and then swerving madly over into my lane, without signaling? I am not a mind reader. I cannot tell by telepathy that you want into my lane. I will gladly let you in, if you just signal! How hard is it?!
People who deliberately ignore “Lane ending, merge right” signs (or whatever), zoom all the way up until the point where the lane ends, and then sit there trying to merge. Um, why exactly did you think there was no more traffic in that lane? So you could go as fast as you wanted? No, because everyone else has half a brain cell and already merged! MrWhatsit, who is much more of a Type A driver than I am, will frequently handle these situations by pulling out into the lane that is about to end and driving verrrrry slowly, at the going speed of traffic in the other lane, thus preventing people from zooming up and passing everyone who already merged. I cannot say I condone this tactic, but it seems to make him really, really happy.
I didn’t say anything about safety. I’m assuming that someone going 10 mph over the speed limit doesn’t care about safety.
I am talking about saving time - you don’t save time - what is your hurry?? If you were driving 1,000 miles, you would save just over 2 hours by driving 80 mph vs. 70 mph. It’s a small gain and even less the shorter distance you go.
If driving fast isn’t to save time, and it isn’t for safety, what is it? You look “cool” driving fast? It gives you a thrill? A macho thing?? What’s the big deal?
And it’s even worse in the city, where people try to go 40-50 mph and they have to stop at least every other block. Why?
You’ll let them in front of you!? Don’t you know you LOSE A POINT whenever another car gets in front of you?
Oh I HATE this. I hate people who know their lane is ending and absolutely won’t move until they have to, at which point you MUST let them in RIGHT NOW.
I’d also like to add this. Maybe my car is special, but I find the gas pedal depresses quite easily, with very little muscular effort. So pardon me if I don’t find you particularly manly and impressive because you press it further than I do.
“I am talking about saving time - you don’t save time - what is your hurry?? If you were driving 1,000 miles, you would save just over 2 hours by driving 80 mph vs. 70 mph.”
I have 98k Miles on my car. If 60k of those are freeway miles, and 40 k of those were going 80 instead of 70, I have saved approximatly 3 days of my life. Besides, I have a Phantom II Radar Detector.
Ok, I’m going to sound like an asshole here, but that’s ok, it’s the pit.
I HATE slow, indecisive drivers. Besides that point… you say 80mph vs 70 doesn’t make a big difference? Experience from my last vacation as an example.
Drove from NB, Canada to NH, US. I have done this trip in 8 hours before. I was travelling in convoy with my parents, whose Jeep had suddenly started losing transmission fluid if we exceeded 55mph (on I-95 if anyone cares). The trip took 12 hours.
Drove back myself, I made it in 7.5 hours. (Dad still doesn’t believe me.)
I love driving fast. Maybe it is the thrill. Can women be macho? SORREE! However I do drive 45min-1.5 hours TWICE every day. No difference in distance, traffic makes up that extra 45 min each way. So this is an extra 1 1/2 hours I can lose per day. Do I miss this 1 1/2 hours? HELL YES.
Disclaimer: I do my very very best to be a courteous driver and will drive the limit, well behind any vehicles I am following, until I reach a safe passing zone. There are at least 3 zones between my work and home that I deem unsafe.
I get to watch the guy trying to show off to his girlfriend/buddies rubberneck when a woman driver beats him off the stop line?
I don’t drive that fast. Even if I wanted to, my poor little '85 Tercel hatchback wouldn’t be able to handle speeds in excess of around 65 mph or so. I was simply making the point that if you’re driving in the fast lane and somebody behind you wants to go faster than you, you should get over and let them pass. That’s all.
SORREE! However I do drive 45min-1.5 hours TWICE every day. No difference in distance, traffic makes up that extra 45 min each way. So this is an extra 1 1/2 hours I can lose per day. Do I miss this 1 1/2 hours? HELL YES.