People who want to pass another vehicle but refuse to break the speed limit to do so. On a highway with two lanes each way, this becomes a “Great Wall of Idiot” and the rest of us have to just wait for Idiot A to ssssslooooooooooowwwwwwwwly work his way past Idiot B at like 0.01 relative-miles-per-hour, who is not helping at all by obliviously maintaining his own speed. What the fuck is wrong with these people?!
Another one: people ahead of you who seemingly didn’t think to pass the vehicle in front of them until you are about to pass both of them. This also happens to me constantly. A driver is seemingly perfectly content behind another vehicle for miles and miles, but as soon as I roll up on them and are 5-10 seconds from passing them both, it suddenly occurs to the trailing driver that he wants to pass and pulls out in front of me and inevitably proceeds to do ^^^what I just described in the previous paragraph^^^. What the fuck is wrong with these people?!
Yeah, I’ve got a lot of issues with peoples’ passing behavior.
Argh. This reminds me of wanting to punch two drivers in the face last week. There’s an intersection on the way to work where just past a light people are expected to merge from two lanes to one. Most of the time this works okay as most people understand the whole zipper thing. On this particular day traffic had come to a dead stop about 100 feet beyond where the right lane petered out.
We sat there a good five minutes, and I could see that the issue was that there was a car traveling from the opposite direction that had apparently gotten into an accident with someone in the driveway on my right that he was trying to turn left into as the other person departed the driveway.
But wait! No, they hadn’t actually collided at all and were really 3 or 4 feet apart. Somehow the person leaving the driveway managed to angle their car in such a way that the driver trying to enter couldn’t. And that driver in turn stopped mid-turn, across our lane.
And it took them FIVE MINUTES TO REALIZE ONE OF THEM NEEDED TO BACK UP. Literally five minutes, while they managed to effectively completely stop traffic in the only lane in that direction.
If this had been another state, someone probably would’ve shot one of them.
Semi’s are the worst offenders here. For some reason the old fashioned convoys are pretty much a thing of the past (unless they all belong to the same company), and it’s every trucker for himself. But they just gotta pass the other guy at a 1 MPH difference in speed, can’t just remain tucked in (and hey get a bit of a drafting benefit too).
Got reminded of another one today: people who get on the ramp to the I-495 express lane and have no concept of getting up to speed before the merge. They can’t possibly all have no clue that they will be getting dumped into the passing lane of a road with a 65mph speed limit.
And then there are the ones who refuse to get up to to speed before the merge, continue to go below the speed limit in the passing lane, and — when they don’t move over as soon as it is safe to do so — get pissed when I pass them on the right.
There are some special, special people in this area.
This is probably my #1. On my most commonly used local routes I take measures to ensure I am not stuck behind one of those bozos while trying to merge into traffic at a 20+ MPH differential (and your 65 isn’t really relevant when most are actually going 75).
We have light enough traffic most of the time that it’s polite and almost *de rigueur *to move into the passing lane (if it is clear, obviously) when someone is entering the highway. I get slightly miffed at those (usually Massholes) who don’t.
Oh, this one irritates me. You can’t go until the light changes, anyway! At least, not in my state. There’s no advantage to pulling forward like that on a red if you are going straight or turning left.
Also, people who pull up well past the line and over the crosswalk. Now, I can’t walk across without getting in the road. Though some will put it in reverse when they see pedestrians. I can sorta almost forgive it for a right turn (they can turn on red and we aren’t a pedestrian heavy area except at arrival time, lunchtime, and leave time), but again, there’s no advantage to doing so when going straight or turning left.
No offence, but traffic laws are state-by-state, so “U.S. drivers” not knowing something varies by location. In both Nevada and California, it is illegal to enter an intersection (pass the line) to make a left turn unless you KNOW you can complete the turn BEFORE the light changes. I’ve had a ticket for that in each state.
As far as my personal pet peeve, it’s people who think that they are expert drivers in “X” condition. I’ve driven in snow storms, after blizzards, during ridiculous rain, and (once) through a So-Cal wild fire. I’m an OK driver. I take extra care in adverse conditions because I know I’m not an expert. Neither are they. The difference is that I know it.
At my college, there is very limited parking. There are no marked bays. Apparently, a substantial proportion of ‘Other Drivers’ genuinely require marked bays, in order to park in a halfway sane manner. They park diagonally. They leave a gap between their car and the neighbour’s that’s almost, but not quite, big enough to fit another car in. Sometimes you get a whole row of them, so there are 5 cars in a space that could have easily fit 8, if the 5 had paid any attention at all.
Alternative parking is over 15 minutes walk away. By the time I’ve walked back up someone’s bound to have moved.
Oh, and I’m not breaking the speed limit to pass. If my choices are going slightly slower than I would like and below the limit for an extended period, risking a ticket for going over (and police have no mercy round here, fines and losing licence points for just a few mph over), or pissing off someone who wants to go faster than the limit? Well, guess it sucks to be you, Mr. Speedy Gonzales.
