Do you ever watch “America’s Worst Driver”? I watch “Canada’s Worst Driver,” and I learned that they get their driver’s licenses by flirting with the tester and wearing low-cut blouses. The guys get them mail order from Sears, is all I can figure.
I voted ‘Following too closely’, but I’ve the typical caveat of ‘If I don’t, everyone just cuts me off’. I prefer to be several car lengths behind, and do so if traffic LETS ME!!. Stupid drivers.
You guys, nobody is forcing you to keep hugging the bumper of the asshole who cuts in front. When that happens, the only safe and responsible thing to do is suck it up, and fall back to a safe following distance. This ain’t rocket science.
“But then assholes will keep cutting in ahead of me!”
I’m so sorry. That’s tough. But safety does not cater to drivers’ egos. Instead, it depends on sober intelligence and alertness, and constantly leaving a margin of safety. Ideally, we ought to trust the system to work, so that cops will bust the habitual offenders who cut off other drivers leading them to get their licenses suspended or revoked. I know that’s scant consolation when in the thick of it, though, and it seems there’s no justice in the world. But remember that if there’s a rear-end collision and the judge decides you were following too close, it’s your ass that will get the points slapped onto it. Not causing such liability is consolation enough for me.
Edit— Also, keep in mind that front ends are designed to crumple, so in a rear-ender, the asshole’s car may get a few scratches on the bumper while yours gets f***in’ totaled. Look out for #1.
If you go slow enough on a 2-lane road that people pile up behind you, kindly find a place to pull off to the side from time to time and let people pass you. If you want to go slower than others, fine, but let them go faster than you.
And so long as you keep right on a 4 (or more) lane road, you can go as slow as you want. Just don’t clutter up the passing lane.
In traffic is no place to play games. I don’t care what the other driver did.
I go the speed limit. I go even slower in bad weather. I. Do. Not. Care. if jackholes behind me want to go faster, nor do I care if I’m “holding up” the traffic behind me. If the douchebag behind me rides my bumper in an obvious rage because he’s late for happy hour, I sometimes will leisurely pull over and let him rattle by, though.
That’s not entirely correct either, though - you can’t drive 20kph on a 110 kph highway - you’re a traffic hazard then. One of the main highways here in town (Deerfoot, of course) has signs on it stipulating that no slow traffic is allowed, and I’m sure it’s not the only one in North America.
As a rule, I set my cruise control at precisely the speed limit whatever road I’m on. Figure I just can’t go wrong that way. Ninety-eight percent of drivers must consider me a damned slowpoke. Hey, if they want to drive up their stress levels, whatever. Just leave me out of it, please. I wonder if I can convey the sense of relief and inner tranquility that I discovered when I decided that the speed limit was fast enough, so that I finally slowed down and took things easier. Kicked that compulsion to always hurry and since then life has been mellow and pleasant. 
I chalk it up to maturity. I really like maturity. I am not competing with anyone else on the road. There’s plenty for all to share. With this relaxed new mindset it has become so easy to be courteous and thoughtful to all my fellow beings out there, which in turn leaves me even more peaceful inside, and it really feels good.
As long as you’re Zenning out in the rightmost lane, that’s cool.
What other driver? It’s just me and the jackhole
Seriously? This is what you got so upset that you carried it over to another thread? I’m sure glad I figured out how to Google this thread. (I googled the following: “originally posted by mhendo” “BigT” and chose the “Current” search option in the sidebar. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before I responded in the other thread.)
Look, I am genuinely sorry for my mistake. I thought the first poster was you. You didn’t backpedal. And I am genuinely sorry that I upset you. I have you in my mental list as someone who prefers rather harsh responses.
That said I still stand by my position that your post was a bad one. However, without that part, my previous post falls apart, so I will have to start again.
The guy claimed to only tailgate when the person violated the intent of the left lane. You, rather than pointing out a problem with that, made up a strawman version of the post, one where he claims to tailgate everyone. And then you tore down that strawman brilliantly.
And I still can’t believe you used “people like you” in a real argument. That’s a textbook ad hominem argument using guilt by association.
You have no way of knowing if UncleRojelio does what you claim he does. And unfair accusations happen to be one of my pet peeves. Combined with the poorness of your response, this was enough that I couldn’t just not say anything.
None of them, and I don’t have wrecks! Nor do I cause wrecks.
I do, however, take the speed limit as a recommendation, not as an absolute.
Harshness i can live with. Lies are what annoy me.
As I said, speed limit in the rightmost lane as a rule. The phrase as a rule has an implied meaning of ‘most of the time but not necessarily all of the time’. I follow the principle of plan ahead so that I can leave early enough to not need to hurry. “As a rule” means I follow that rule as the default but do allow for occasional exceptions. The exceptions I make are when I have an appointment to get to and am inadvertently running late. What I do then is move into the leftmost lane on the highway and match my velocity to the flow of traffic. Which is generally 70 in a 55 in these parts. One principle I follow is ironclad, though: I don’t obstruct the flow of traffic in either mode. Nor do I hassle anyone else. Ever.
I live in the country. While I am rarely guilty of doing this, it’s fairly common for people to drive right down the center of the road. Then they overcompensate when they see someone else coming and swerve over to the side so far they almost drive off the road.
I chose “Left Turn Into Path of Oncoming Vehicle” even though in my case it was “Right Turn Into Path of Oncoming Vehicle,” and it was only one time, and it was because I was still getting used to driving in a country where they all drive on the wrong side of the road. Yeah, I was embarrassed.
None of the above. I too am old but I have not had an urge to drive fast for many years. It makes a difference of a couple minutes and greatly enhances the danger. It is a poor payoff.
I was a little confused about the left turn in front of an oncoming vehicle one. Sure, I can see that it’s dumb if the other driver is the only one in sight and you zip out in front of them, but in many places you’re SOL during daylight hours if you want to wait to turn left until there is no one coming. Hell, even turning RIGHT out of my parent’s neighborhood during busy times (about 8 AM to 8 PM) requires that you wait for a reasonably sized gap, then gun it because there’s a 50% chance some asshole is going to turn right at the nearest intersection, then come riding up your tailpipe at 45+ mph in a 30 mph zone. That asshole was even a cop once - he almost rear-ended me as I was accelerating up to speed, and I was already going 15-20 mph. A bit farther out from the city, traffic lights, let alone protected left turn signals, are few and far between, and you still have commuter traffic - if you want to get where you’re going before the cows come home, you have to pick your hole and then suck it up and go for it. Sometimes that even means that the person who is now behind you will have to slow down a little from going 15 mph over the speed limit - the horror of it all. Of course, then there’s the issue of intersections where you don’t have a chance regardless of which way you turn because you can’t see a thing, it’s a commuter route with decent traffic, and no one has felt the need to put up a traffic signal or even enforce the speed limit now and then.
I’ll admit, I’m a speeder - usually 5-10 mph over (unless it’s under 30, and then I try to be good). When I was a new driver, I was obedient and even a bit sanctimonious about the speed limit (going a little under in the left lane), but then I became an impatient commuter going 50 miles each way. My personal opinion, which may or may not have any bearing on reality, is that I am a safer driver on crowded interstates now that I have the balls to keep up with traffic. When everybody is going 5-10 over, someone going the speed limit or under like I used to do becomes a rock in the middle of the stream, and it is virtually impossible to safely merge onto such a road unless you are going the same speed as the cars already on the road. Of course, I am a safer driver in general due to better instincts/reflexes since I have driven 80K miles since learning to drive.
I have pissed off an untold number of people by actually stopping (or at least almost stopping) before making a right on red instead of treating the turn lane as an exit ramp. I also obey signs that forbid right on red. I have, however, rolled through stop signs out in rural areas with good visibility where one doesn’t have to stop to see that there are no cars, pedestrians, cops, fuzzy animals, robots, zombies, etc., in the vicinity of the intersection. I do stop in residential/urban areas where there is an actual safety issue.
BTW, I find it interesting that around here the cops have some of the worst habits. There’s the aforementioned incident, other instances I have seen of cops tailgating cars (without lights or sirens) at high speeds, and whenever I drive on the highway and there’s a cop around they generally pass me, even if I’m going 10 mph over. I don’t care about that, but the tailgating pisses me off because it’s dangerous - cops are still human and still have human reaction times. It was a bit of a weird situation, but friend of mine even witnessed a cop actually rear-end someone whom they had pulled over for a traffic violation after that other car was parked.
The left tun in front of oncoming vehicles IS weird, I think, yet people keep doing it. I’m not sure what goes on there - I think basically poor judgement (“I can make it!{Crunch} Oh, I guess I couldn’t.”) which stems from poor training. As far as I’m concerned, almost ALL driving mistakes stem from poor training, but you can pass an easy test and be a legally licensed driver in North America with almost no training, so I guess this is how we want it.
Both behaviors are bad, but tailgating is definitely worse.
You don’t own the road, nor do you have the right to endanger others because of your own impatience and sense of entitlement.