One thing I really like about driving in Northern Virginia is that it’s so much easier to change lanes there. In Texas or California if you’re going to change lanes on the freeway you’re actually expected to:
Put on your turn signal.
Look in your mirror to see if there are any cars where you’re about to be.
Turn your head and look in your blind spot to be sure.
Yeah, RIGHT! :rolleyes: Do you have any idea how long that takes? Besides, how many people can actually be expected to remember a complex sequence of tasks like that?
In Virginia, as soon as the idea comes into your head that you want to be in the next lane, you just jerk on your steering wheel and zip right over. If anyone is stupid enough to be in that spot already, it’s their problem to get out of your way.
I don’t really pay attention to ethnicities, but I do pay attention to the sex and apparent age. I also try to look at license plates to see what state/county people who piss me off are from.
When it comes to sex, I seem to notice (or am more likely to notice) women only slightly more than men. What I know for sure is that around here, the people who really drive like shit heads are young-professional-shirt-and-tie-but-no-jacket-cellphone-talkers and chubby-frosted-and-feathered-hair-wearing, massive-SUV-driving middle-aged women. They cut me off, ride my bumper, rebuke my attempts to merge (especially when my lane is about to end, forcing me on to the shoulder…if there is a shoulder, what with all the construction around here) and seem to get off on getting directly into the stopping space I leave between me and the car I’m following.
As for license plates, I used to believe that Ohio drivers were the worst anywhere. Then I visited Ohio and realized that things are far more laid back than in Nashville. I think driving in Tennessee, and Nashville in particular, makes you a terrible asshole on the road. Maybe it’s all the orange barrels.
Fair enough; FWIW I wouldn’t even necessarily argue that you’re wrong. My whole point was that your generalizations have no more or less basis than the OP’s.
The way you phrased it, I thought it you were conflating the two. On review I see I was misunderstanding you.
[Scott Plaid]I win![/SP]
Well, I don’t think that’s an unsupported generalization, though: there are mountains of data proving that very old and very young drivers are the worst. We don’t (AFAIK) have similar data on drivers by ethnicity and/or stock portfolio.
Nope. I don’t know that they are; I didn’t and wouldn’t make broad generalizations like the OP.* Again, my point was that in regards to BMW drivers, you were.
*I will agree with whoever it was that said that where you learn to drive does make a difference. Traffic laws are more along the lines of “suggestions” in much of Asia; but after a couple of years there, I had fully adapted … to the point where I had problems readjusting back to the states. Based on my experience, I wouldn’t be surprised if a study found that new immigrants were bad, aggressive and accident-prone.
It occurs to me that this might be a good question for General Questions. I’ll put a link there to this thread in case anyone wants to pursue this with anecdotal rather than statistical evidence.
I ever tell you guys about the middle-aged woman at the licensing bureau who wondered why her real license hadn’t arrived yet? And that she’d been driving around with this piece of paper for 9 months?
A piece of paper that says she passed her written exam, and was only allowed to drive while supervised.
There is one group of drivers which has been omitted from the debate. Teen to twenty-something males with their hats on backwards. Surely you’ve seen him. I say ‘him’ because the issue of driver stereotypes has been discussed at length in my car and we laughingly decided that it is pointless to stereotype. It amuses me to think that the hats-on-backwards guys that cut me off or refuse to signal are actually just the same guy that I keep seeing over and over again.
vroooom…squeal to stop…:: hip hop music boom boom ::vrooooom…stop…etc.
You are so right and I think I know why. We white people are always busy trying to see what race, sex, age and weight other people are so that we can stereotype them. Stereotyping is really important stuff! We get so involved in that that we forget to watch the road, mind the traffic, drive defensively and practice a little courtesy.
