If I am stopped in my car in the street, perhaps waiting for a light, and someone is pulling out of an adjacent parking lot onto the street, I often wave them in front of me, and it usually results in Good Driving Karma when I am trying to get out of a parking lot in that situation.
When I do this, many times, the other driver will waive and say “thank you” while pulling ahead. I politely wave back.
When I am trying to get out of a parking lot in that situation, I will wait my fucking turn until traffic clears or until some kind soul decides to yield the right of way to me, allowing me to proceed in front. I don’t expect it to happen, but it’s nice when it does.
However, I can’t stand the pricks who come out of the lot, stick the nose of the car out into the street in front of mine, while looking anywhere except at me, and practically force their way into traffic.
What I hate are the pricks in the MIDDLE of the driveway, who are too absorbed in thier cell phone conversation to see either my blinker, or my hand motions indicating that I am blocking traffic for them, so they can move out of the way, and I can turn into that same driveway.
Of course with one hand frozen to the phone they seem incapable of making a turn using only the single lane I am blocking, so I guess it’s silly of me.
The ones I’ve got no patience for are the ones who, leaving the parking lot, insist on turning LEFT* onto a very busy multilane thoroughfare, heedless of how many cars are stuck behind them while they wait for a break in the traffic.
*(that would be in America. Substitute RIGHT as appropriate for your country).
I’ll nominate the fuckers who, exiting a parking lot, pull all the way over to the right when they are going to be turning left, blocking anyone who might want to, oh, I don’t know, turn right to get out??? Especially when there is acres of room.
One main two lane highway into our formerly small town, now beginning to be another bedroom/ suburban community. Anytime between 3-6, horrible traffic, and the first stoplight into town gets way backed up. If you are on a sidestreet, almost impossible to get onto main highway. General etiquette says that if your are stopped 1/2 mile back from the stoplight, leave a space so the sidestreet people can either pull in front of you to wait for the light to change, or cross and go the other direction traffic permitting. GENERAL GOOD FUCKING MANNERS. You’re not going anywhere anytime soon, and the one or two cars you let in aren’t going to make that big of a difference. So, I am stopped letting a couple cars in. Three, yes count 'em, three fucking assholes, pass me on the shoulder on the right side and pull in front of me. By the time the third one is coming, I can see what’s happening. Over my dead body, and over my big ass 1993 15 passenger red van is this asshole cutting in front of me. You want to cut in front of me, bitch? Be my guest. This big 'ole hunk of steel that’s worth about $2500 is more than willing to crush your $40,000 piece of thin aluminum and plastic into smithereens. Won’t even leave a scratch on mine, and I’ll fucking run over that little fender you keep on trying to insinuate in front of me. I won’t even feel the bump. She figured out I wasn’t in the mood to deal with poor driving etiquette that day, and backed off. Or she realized how much damage I could inflict, and how desperately I wanted to do it.
I hate people that get pissed when I am sitting in the middle of the road waiting to turn left onto a side street, and the people trying to turn from the side street act pissed. I am the one in the middle of the road damnit, I need to turn first. I need to stop blocking traffic so you and everyone else can go.
I may not be some great driver or anything, but the older I get, the more I notice that most people are absolutely horrid drivers. Driving isn’t fucking brain surgery, all you have to do is pay attention and comply to a few laws!
And people need to turn on their fucking lights when it is rainy out! I can’t fucking see you when it’s misty and dark out and you’ve got your lights off! Can’t you see that EVERYONE ELSE HAS THEIR LIGHTS ON? Take a clue from them and turn them on! Unless they just flipped their switch on enough to light up their dash and not the lights, I have no clue how they can see their speedometer, I know I can’t when it is darkish out and my lights arent on. Or maybe my car is just old and all the new ones light up all the time. But it still makes me mad.
Oh one more thing that really pissed me off. I was driving home from class last week and it was rush hour and crappy out. Misting. I was on a 4 lane road 55 mph speed limit. I hear sirens, some cops and a fire truck start blaring the wrong way down our street. So, like the cars in front of me, I slow over to the nice sized shoulder. The flashing lights pass and it’s safe to go back on the road now - but all the assholes behind me decide to start going when the rest of us who were trying to be safe are stuck on the shoulder. And they sped up quick. Can’t you wait a fucking second? People are so goddamned impatient, like people that can’t wait for one or two more light changes to get to the right turn lane and instead floor it down the shoulder for a couple hundred yards. That is dangerous.
Sorry for taking over the rant, I have some pent up road rage.
The rules of the road regarding right-of-way have been so thoroughly abandoned in New England that you never know what is going to happen when you enter an intersection. Daily, I see a car in front of me stop on a green light, and wave through an oncoming car waiting to turn left. The oncoming car, expecting to yield, waves the first car to continue, lather, rinse, repeat until the light turns yellow, then they both hurry through the intersection on the red, leaving me honking my horn and doing my Donald Duck fit-of-apoplectic-rage impression.
My local post office’s parking lot is adjacent to an alley. (Meaning that you turn off of a city street, into the alley and can make an immediate left into the parking lot, the opening of which runs the entire length of the alley.) Unfortunately, there are only about 10 spaces in said parking lot.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to sit in the middle of the connecting street because some dumb shit turned into the alley, saw there was no parking spaces and decided to wait right there until one emptied. The car behind them, wanting to go down the alley is stuck because they cannot proceed forward and can’t back up because of all the traffic piling up behind them.
They could pull forward into the parking lot, leaving space for the cars in the alley to pass. They could drive thirty fucking feet forward and park in the bank’s parking lot on the opposite side. But no-- they sit there, utterly perplexed by this dillema, their brains unable to process this complex problem. “Want parking space. No parking space. Must sit here until I can have parking space.”
The fun part comes if the dumbshit’s car is actually blocking in a person who wants to surrender a space. The person gets in their car and tries to back up, but is blocked by the dumbshit, whose processor is still frozen in a loop. They will not move because they’re afraid that the person behind them might zoom into the spot if they surrender their “place in line.” The person in the space is then forced to back up and creep forward in incriments of millimeters, trying to wriggle their car out of a space in a scene akin to the one in Austin Powers when he gets the go-cart stuck in the narrow hallway.
Finally, dumbshit has his Moment of Triumph and soars into the vacated spot. Traffic unsnarls: those waiting to go down the alley finally manage to do so, and the cars which were at a standstill on the street finally get to proceed. Until the next dumbshit pulls into the alley and sees there aren’t any spots. Probably happens a dozen times a day.
Why is there space between your car and the one ahead of you for them to do that? If you are waiting for a light and you are not waving them in it, seems that you would be too close to the car ahead. Just wondering.
Fukc waiting my turn, especially when some gutless wonder sits and sits and ponders the ever growing line of traffic. IF the GW fails to make a move, fails to capitalize on a gap in traffic, fails to make his merging motives clear. Im pulling ahead and they can sit and stew and wait for the hand signal that gives them permission to go. I’m already gone!
It’s not “good karma.” You’re not doing anyone a favor by making the traffic behind you wait so that one yahoo can get out of the parking lot. You’re interrupting the flow of traffic.
Plus, it’s dangerous. If I’m trying to take a left, I can’t see around you to see if it’s safe to get out into traffic. If I’m taking a right, there might be someone in the other right lane who isn’t going to stop nicely and let me into traffic.
I’ve been hit once in this exact situation, and just 2 weeks ago I made the mistake of leaving my work parking lot when someone stopped to let me in (most of the time I refuse to go until there’s a real break in traffic.) I pull out, and just at that same time some yahoo behind the guy who stopped decided that HE didn’t need to stop and pulled out into the passing lane to pass the guy. He missed me by about an inch.
So please, quell your need to stop traffic to let the guy out of the parking lot. They’ll get out eventually.
A pet peeve of mine: I’m stopped at an intersection and don’t proceed through, even though I have a green light, because the traffic ahead is at a dead stop - and if I go forward, I’ll be blocking the intersection. “Don’t Block The Box” and all that.
So some bozo from the side street decides that this is a dandy opportunity to do a right turn on red, into the same backed up traffic (and can’t complete the turn for the same reason I couldn’t go through the intersection).
There isn’t much space. They just get the front corner of their car near the gap and punch it when the light changes. That way, if I push the issue by punching it myself, I will have nailed their front corner with my car, and the evidence will point to me being the one at fault for a broadside accident.