DSotF, i hope by now you’ve shaken off the yuckies that come from a close call like that.
if it’s any consolation, the day that i got my driver’s license i went over to my boyfriend’s house, utterly enamored of the idea that i no longer had to ask my parents’ permission to go anywhere…
and got so caught up in looking for a street sign that i looked up to realize that i was the only on the street going 45 mph still, and i was rapidly coming up on someone’s tail.
i stomped on the brakes (i mean STOMPED) and stalled the car (manual, doncha know) and came within an inch of a very, very bad accident. smoking tires, the whole bit. it was awful. i was terrified to go home…actually, i waited until after dark so i could go when there was less traffic.
anyway, it DOES get better as far as instincts go. i’ve been driving since i was 17, i’m 23 now and i haven’t been in an accident yet (a few close calls, but no accidents)…you just need to remember to watch your ass and not trust other people not to kill you.
AFA I’m concerned, double parkers deserve whatever befalls them due their their own selfishness, laziness, and general disregard for the most basic of societal expectations.
That’s not to say I hope she’d got hit or anything, but I certainly wouldn’t lose sleep over it if it was a result of such a bonehead move.
While I’m sure your ass is most delightfully perfumed and wiped only with finest silk, I confess that I’m still not sure this is the place for one with such a rarefied temperament as your good self. Perhaps this might offer more suitable environs for His Sensitiveness.
rorty, I think you need to read the OP again. Nowhere does it say the instructor yelled at her. The double-parked moron was the only one who yelled. At least blame the right people for acting like morons.
My first traumatic driving experience came about a year after I started driving on a regular basis, when I was nearly 19. I was driving along the road toward an intersection at 35mph (the speed limit). A big white van was in front of me, impeding my view. The light at the intersection was green, so I assumed I could just coast on through. The van, however, decided at the last second to turn right without signaling. I didn’t slow down very much. As the van turned, it revealed a family of people who had just started crossing the street across the intersection! I had to slam on the brakes and swerve into a bus stop lane to avoid them, and they had to scramble out of the way. I stopped and asked if they were alright. The old lady said something not nice to me, but I don’t remember what it was. I felt like I’d had a heart attack.
That was the experience that convinced me that I should drive with the assumption that everyone around me was an idiot. In that case, three cases of idiocy nearly caused death. The first was the white van that turned at the last second without signaling. The second was the family, who took the van’s turning as their cue to step into the street against the “don’t walk” signal. The third was me, who didn’t slow down enough when the van began to turn because I assumed no one would be enough of an idiot to step into a street against the signal when they couldn’t see if anyone else was coming.
You want fun? Rockaway, huh? Try Queens Boulevard. There’s a Dunkin Doughnuts nearby. You get the people parked.
You get the doughnut truck double-parked.
You get the fire-engine triple-parked.
And you get the cop cars quadruple-parked.
I’m guessing in your region, people have just routinely misinterpreted the phrase. Your posts have convinced me that the regional differences are so huge that many concepts probably just don’t translate.
Queens Boulevard. The reason why the city has fenced off medians to prevent people from jaywalking. :rolleyes: Fun, fun boulevard. How wide is it again? 9 lanes?
I remember crossing the street from the COMPUSA with my mother when I was about 10. My shoe fell off while I was crossing, and the cars made mincemeat out of it.
The woman was totally wrong-- did she not have side or rear view mirrors to check before opening the door? Then you peek your head out and check first, just in case. Of course, I personally wouldn’t expect anyone so self-centered as to double park, to think others might not anticipate and make allowances for their every action. Being in the right is small consolation when your car’s messed up or you hit someone, though. Better to be cautious.
I learned early on to keep an eye on the sidewalk and in the parked cars for any sign of people. Then I expect them to be complete idiots. If there are children present, or likely to be, I’m even more cautious. If it’s windy enough, doors can be pulled open, so take that into consideration when appropriate.
I also thought that double parked meant taking up two spaces at once. I’d never heard of it being used in what seems to be the “real” definition, thus lending to quite a bit of confusion on my part as to why the mention in the OP was relevant. Hrm.
As some have correctly pointed out. The Pit is the place for that kind of venting. My apologies for my comments about maturity. I still think you over reacted a bit and that’s just a thing for me. I know learning to drive can be stressful and from your description the lady was being an clueless self centered bitch.
I carelessly threw my door open on a narrow street {correctly parked} and a driver had to hit the brakes and swerve to miss me. I sincerely apologized which is what this lady should have done. Good luck with your driving. Peace.
DSotF, I can imagine how scary that experience was for you. Something similar happened to me about a year ago. I stopped at the gates of my apartment complex, checked traffic and started to pull into the main road when a bicyclist riding against the flow of traffic sped in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes and he shot me a dirty look over his shoulder as he rode away. It took me hours to calm down, and I kept replaying the incident in my head to see what I could have done differently.
If there’s an upside to your near-accident, it’s that you’ve learned firsthand what many drivers take years to discover: the roads are full of idiots. In my neighborhood, people regularly weave in and out of traffic at 60+ mph while pedestrians and cyclists dart into the streets without warning. I’ve seen one driver cut off an emergency vehicle to make a left turn on a red light and watched another make a right turn from the left turning lane – across four lanes of traffic. Once I saw a truck drive on the sidewalk to avoid a red light! When I drive, I assume that everyone around me will do the absolute stupidest thing possible. I’ve been right too many times.
I rambled a bit here, but my point is that you shouldn’t let this experience scare you away from driving. It was traumatic, sure, but you’ll be better prepared for something like this next time.
On Rockaway Blvd, and through most of Brooklyn (major assumption on my part that the Rockaway the OP is talking about is in Brooklyn), double parking is annoyingly common. Also, lanes are not very wide (let’s not even talk about side streets). Just as annoying is nimrods who will ignore traffic - nothing gets me into a homicidal rage more than a pedestrian who, absent right of way, will stare the car down knowing the car can stop. It should be legal to hit those dimwits - hell, you should get an insurance reduction! Morons flinging open doors are close behind on my homicidal range meter.*
*Granted, other people’s breathing is on my homicidal rage meter, so it is not a very hard list to get on. Just a matter of degree