I’m a mountain driver. And I drive to Denver about 3 times a month. This is 100 miles each way.
I drive 2 lane mountain highways. I go the speed limit because they are reasonable for the roads I use. I have the correct car for this with snow tires (not all season tire BS) I’ve been driving this road for 30 years. I’ve seen LOTS of cars balled up like tin foil on the side of the road.
But these morons still freaking tailgate and try to pass when they really, really shouldn’t. They just can’t stand to have someone in front of them. I can’t stand to have these idiots behind me. When there is a safe place to pull over, I always do because I don’t want to be included in whatever accident these fools will cause.
It seems to be getting worse, and I partially blame the pandemic. People are tired of being locked up at home, and are getting out now. These people don’t know mountain driving, nor do they know the capabilities of their cars. Ya never know what kind of surprises may be around the next curve or hill. This isn’t 1-70 through Kansas, stop driving like it is.
Slow down folks. Pay attention to the terrain. Understand that speed limits are there for a reason and the 5 minutes you might save getting to your destination, is not worth your life. Or mine.
Yes there are a lot of topics like this, but I had to vent after my drive this weekend. There is zero reason for this behavior.
For some reason most people seem to think driving is a skill they mastered when they were a teenager, and assume they are SO good at it, they can do lots of other stuff at the same time. 100% of these people are wrong.
That is the reason I added a dash cam to my pickup. My biggest issue is when I am pulling my travel trailer, idiots think I can maneuver through traffic like a normal pickup. My pickup and trailer together is almost 53 feet long and together weighs close to 12,000 pounds.
I will take my all season tires over your snow tires any day. My pickup had snow tires on when I bought it. The first snow fall of the season resulted in roads covered in hard packed ice for a couple days. I could hardly get traction on the ice, even in 4 wheel drive. Changed those tires out for some Michelin all season tires and have 0 issues, whether deep snow or ice.
All of the vehicles I purchased came with ‘All Season’ tires. I gave the last set to a co-worker that could give them to his son in law.
We get 30 feet of snow a year at our house. They are changed over to real snow tires like Blizzaks or Nokian before fall.
I’ve a pickup with a plow and 10,000 pound winch mounted on the back. It is chained up on all four wheels. I gotten that stuck about 4 times. It’s my second plow truck. I also have a 4x4 Kubota loader, chained up on all 4 also to help around here (it’s my second tractor here).
Winter is here. I’m using 4x4 on my 4Runner now to manage our local roads. Winter will stay until late May. I admit it’s different than many experience.
But mostly I’m complaining about bad drivers that don’t know mountain roads.
Preach it. Just this morning I had the thought that there are more aggressive, entitled, selfish, STUPID drivers on the road now than ever before.
There was a driver to my right - and a car in front of him - as we approached a red light. He made a World Class Asshole move and zipped in front of me when there was very little room for him to do so in order to be first in line at the red light. He had to slam on his brakes in order to not enter the intersection. If I hadn’t been alert I would have rammed him from behind.
You won, man. You got in front of me. Congratulations.
I witnessed similar to that a few nights ago on my way home from work, but with frightening consequences:
Four lane undivided road ( two lanes each side ). I was in the left lane because I was approaching a left turn lane for a traffic light at the bottom of a hill. Though there were already 5 or 6 vehicles ahead of me in the turn lane, the car behind me decides he has to be in front of me, swings violently into the right lane, zooms around me in his 4-door Dodge Charger with a loud exhaust ( unsignalled of course ) and flies into the turn lane…just as the reverse domino effect slows traffic to a stop in the turn lane. Realizing this, said Asshole panics, slams on brakes, front end down, rear end up in a display of tire smoke and squealing. No way in hell will he stop before hitting the vehicle in front of him…a motorcyclist. I gasped in terror to what I’m about to witness, when Mr Asshole violently swings to the right out of the turn lane back into the left lane of the road ( luckily there was no approaching ), which prevented him from plowing into the motorcycle, but then nails it and goes straight ahead through the traffic light, which by now just turned green. Not that he could have stopped if it were still red, though I’m not sure he would’ve either.
I go to Denver to take care of my Mother a few times a month. She lives on a quiet residential road. I think that’s 25mph.
Lots of people walking dogs or riding bikes. Gotta be a little careful.
Twice now in the last month I have been passed by idiots that want to drive double the speed limit. I know this neighborhood, my mom has lived there since 1975. I have NEVER been passed on of these streets before. I mean, you just don’t. It’s nuts.
Preach it! I hate tailgating year round, but extra super fucking hate it in winter when the roads are slick. Slow the fuck down and give a large enough cushion between you and the car in front of you to safely stop. The worst part is when there is a safe passing zone and I slow down and move over to give good line of sight and those dipshits don’t pass.
There are drivers who are just trying to get somewhere and there are racers, people who feel like having anyone in front of them is an insult. They need to be first so they can win. I don’t know what they’re trying to win aside from the “Biggest Asshole on the Road” award but they seem to value it.
You will know them because they’re not actually in a hurry. They’re not trying to get anywhere quickly. Even a reckless speeder has a purpose; the shitbag is willing to risk everyone’s life to shave a minute off their time but they at least are trying to do something. (Generally I get over and let them by if at all possible so they can zip away to the horizon, never to be seen again.) A racer will tailgate you as you’re going 68, then zip around you, get in front of you, and then go 65.
I assume they are the hyper-competitive Type A personality people who see everything in life as an opportunity to beat everyone else. Fuck them.
On the main state road that I have to take from my neighborhood to, well, anywhere, there’s a stretch where the speed limit goes from 50 to 40 to 30 over about half a mile. The slowest stretch has no shoulders as it’s squeezed between a church and its cemetery. Plus it’s a hill and a curve - a trifecta of no-room-for-mistakes. I can’t count the number of times when, in the 40MPH stretch when I’m slowing down, some moron will pass me on the shoulder on the right so they can be ahead of me where there’s no shoulder, for whatever reason. After all, said driver can’t arrive at his destination ten whole seconds later than if he’d stayed behind me.
In fact, the idiot who pulled this stunt the other day ended up behind the line of traffic that was ahead of me and he remained in front of me all the way to my street, at which point he passed a car waiting to turn left before zooming away. And yes, he was all of 10 seconds ahead of me at that point.
I admit to some smirking satisfaction when I see someone pulled over by the sheriff or the state troopers along that little bit of road.
Something similar here. A limited access highway leading to the Beaches goes, within a quarter mile, from 65 to 55 to 45 to 25 on the yellow advisory sign before the cloverleaf to go N on the main Beaches drag. I am well aware that the Beaches cops love to lurk over the final hump, so always crest the top of the hill going no more than 50.
I cannot tell you the amount of times I have had people come SCREAMING over the hump at warp speed to glom onto my tail by the 45 if not the advisory sign. I even saw one guy throw his hands up in exasperation.
I have a sport suspension & tires to match tho and typically leave them behind going around the cloverleaf.
This hits a bit close to home. This past month, I lost an extended family member to a head-on collision with an 18 wheeler which occurred while he was trying to pass another 18-wheeler on a twisty two-lane in a no-passing zone (single passenger). He was all of 21 years old. The fact that he was the idiot doesn’t help. He was within 15 miles of his destination. Even if he had been forced to go 50 mph (55 Limit) instead of 65 for those 15 miles, it would have only saved 4 minutes. While I wasn’t there, I know the roads and it is almost a certainty that he would have been able to go faster than 50. It is also certain that he would not have been able to hold 65, meaning potential time saved would have been much less than 4 minutes.
Today’s cars are safer, more comfortable, and more enjoyable than those of my youth. Why do people drive as if they can’t stand to be riding in them?
Here’s some annoying shit I deal with daily: drivers who don’t have any clue how wide their car is. Everyone around here seems to think their piece of shit Toyota is like 12 feet wide. Inside my neighborhood, the streets are all at least 4 cars wide, but I regularly see people literally pull over just because there’s another car coming the other way.
I also regularly see parallel parked cars that have obviously been smashed into by one of these idiots, like this:
I’d guess the smashed in the photo goes a long way towards explaining people pulling over - they know there is a fair chance the clown coming at them has no concept of where the traffic lanes are.
I feel ya, @enipla. It’s not much better down here in flatland, except there’s not ravines teeming with bears just waiting for a car to come crashing down off the road. It’s like people don’t know there’s a law just for those deer trails you hill people call ‘roads’.
If I may be a smidgen contrarian here and present the state of mind of some people following–I regularly travel along some back roads that are a trifle challenging and I know them like the back of my hand and can zip along quite handily. Sometimes I get stuck behind someone who doesn’t know the road and is obviously scared shitless of it because they’re dabbing the brake pedal constantly and it looks like they’re trying to send me the entire works of Proust via Morse code. They randomly speed up when they should slow down and slow down when there’s absolutely no reason to do so. Getting stuck behind some of these idiots is stressful AF because I don’t know what the fuck they’re trying to do–are they driving, are they stopping, are they looking for a poorly marked side street or driveway, are they drunk? No way to tell, but trying to cope with them is super annoying and you betcha I’m going to get around them at the first opportunity (and no, the vast majority of these morons will NEVER pull over) so I can continue to blithely and happily zip along the well known road and they can do…whatever the fuck it is they’re doing, but behind me where I no longer have to think about it.
I feel you. It seems I’m the only one that wants to drive the speed limit on the feeder streets for my neighborhood. The speed limit is 30, and maybe it should be faster, but that’s what it is. If I go 30 I’m tailgated and build up a line of cars. I need to go 40 to NOT be tailgated, which is too fast for the road and well into ticket territory. I can’t win.
The other day I had somebody inches behind me (not exaggerating, I checked the backup camera) on a controlled entrance ramp. The traffic was rolling at about 15 MPH, but if he glanced at his phone for a second he would have hit me.
Once on the freeway he was weaving between lanes, and making people hit their brakes as he cut in front of them. I just cruised in the right lane with autopilot. 10 miles later he was one car ahead of me at the light on the exit ramp. I guess he beat me, so it was worth it!
Texas is notorious for 75mph back roads which drop to 30 or 25 when entering small towns, with cops waiting to give you a 30 over ticket. You need to be going the speed limit at the speed limit sign. On my summer road trip I had a few people get upset and flap their arms as I slowed. At least one I saved from a certain speeding ticket.
Get around at the first safe opportunity, I’m sure. Also, no need to tailgate while waiting for that safe opportunity.
The thing that gets me are the people who want to pass, but want to do it by me slowing way down, instead of them speeding up. Many of the two lane mountain roads in Colorado will have passing areas where another lane opens in the uphill direction. I’ll stay to the right in the passing zone, and somebody will ride just behind me in the left lane, but never manage to pass. Sometimes they’re far enough behind that I’m in front again when we merge. Other times they’ll be next to me, so I can’t merge back without greatly slowing down. For the record, I’m not “racing” them. I’ve probably got the cruise control set at a fixed speed.
Simple rule: if you want to be in front of me, you need to go faster than me.
When I was living in San Jose, Palo Alto had its speed limits set 5 to 10mph slower than was usual and I would drive strictly at that limit, line behind me be damned. I’ll admit I was amused at all the angry drivers of yuppiemobiles behind me but also, since I was driving a 15-year old VW Bug, I was obviously Not PA Material and wanted to give the cops no excuse to haul me over.
