So if one guy is waiting for your space, that means everyone else is obligated to do so as well?
When you make a left turn onto a two lane street, you enter into the left lane NOT the far right. TICKET!
The posted speed limit the the maximum speed allowed given all the right conditions. If it is raining hard or snowing, you need to slow down. TICKET!
A stop sign means you come to a complete stop. It does not mean slow down. Same goes for a red light right turn. TICKET!
Tailgaters will not be ticketed, they will be shot.
Anyone who has a “proud to be american” bumpersticker and can’t follow basic rules of the road will be beaten.
As for the debate about driving in the left lane and someone wants to pass to “go with the flow of traffic”. If the posted limit is 55 and everyone else is going 65 except for the one guy in the left lane who’s going 55 - everyone else gets the ticket and a clunk on the head with a night stick. The posted limit is 55. Period. Just because everyone else is jumping off the bridge doesn’t mean you should. Show some backbone and follow the rules of the road.
How do I know? I don’t. That’s the beauty part of free reign. I can do whatever I want. I can either give the benefit of the doubt or not.
Ugh, dude. If I’m given the go ahead by the person coming up to back out, and I do so, and someone else goes around them, doesn’t it seem quite possible that I will HIT the person going around and behind me, AS I’M BACKING UP?? The lane is not that wide. What’s wrong with the jerkoff waiting the five seconds it takes me to back up and go forward? Is he that important? Or should I just sit there and ignore the person indicating that I should go ahead and back out, because there might be some ass that decides to go around that person and I might hit them?
But does he have the authority to give you the “go ahead” when there are other people trying to get by? Does he speak for all other drivers as well as himself? Isn’t it your responsibility to make sure the way is clear before you back out?
Apparently it was wide enough for the guy to “go around the minivan and behind you”.
What’s wrong with you waiting the 5 seconds it takes him to drive past you?
No, but he does have the right-of-way. Are you that important?
How did he “indicate” that you should back out? If he did indeed give you a signal that the way was clear, he obviously did so irresponsibly, since the way was NOT clear. In general, I’d say that yes, if someone waves you through, but you can see that another car is coming, that you should indeed ignore the person waving you through.
The general rule in a parking lot is that those who are backing out of spaces should wait for through traffic to pass. Stopping and waiting for spaces is a bad practice, and causes congestion. If someone did that in front of me, I might be inclined to go around him as well.
One is required by law to be polite to police officers? I thought it was “drunk and disorderly”, not just “disorderly”.
Ticonderoga#2, you seem to be taking this little backing-out situation a little too seriously. I don’t know where you live, but in my town, it’s quite common to stop to let someone back out just to be nice. The space I was in wasn’t even a good one, as I don’t often feel the need to nab the great spaces, and I don’t even know if my benefactor was waiting for it or had just stopped to let me out. Wouldn’t be unheard of.
What kind of nervous Nellie would sit there and refuse the kindness on the off chance that some jackass would swing around and be in their path as they backed out? Most people would just back out, while of course still looking, which I did and that’s why I didn’t hit the guy that went around. Sure, you CAN go around the waiter, but don’t be surprised if you get backed into if you choose to do that.
If you get this excited in MPSIMS, I can’t wait to see you in The Pit.
I never suggested any differently. But as I said, one driver who wants to “let you back out just to be nice” does not speak for all drivers who might be trying to get by.
When you’re backing out of a space, you’re supposed to check to see if anyone’s coming. How does that make you a “nervous nellie”? I wouldn’t assume that just because you see a stopped car, that it means it’s impossible for another car to be coming. And I don’t know what you mean by “off chance”. You DID see the car coming. I wouldn’t expect you to do it on an “off chance”, only when an approaching car makes it neccessary.
So then what’s the problem?
Certainly, caution is always a good idea, but that doesn’t mean you should expect to be able to back out of a space without looking, as a birthright, and believe that everyone will automatically stop for you.
What lead you to believe I was excited? You have used a variant of the word “ass” in every post so far, have used all caps and multiple question marks (equivalent to shouting), and suggested you would brutalize people if you were a policeman. I don’t think I’m the one who’s excited. Don’t get upset just because someone happened to disagree with you.
I clearly didn’t back out of the space without looking. You must be the kind of person that would go around someone that was stopped to let someone back out, so I’ll let you have that. It’s just very uncommon for someone to do that here, so it kind of took me by surprise. Breathe already.
Nor did I say you did. Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I said you shouldn’t expect to be able to back out without looking, not that you actually did so. In other words, I disagree with your belief that seeing one person stop means that everyone must stop.
And in that assumption, you would be wrong. I said I might be inclined to go around, if someone were waiting for a space. Around here, sometimes people wait an interminably long time for a space when they think it might be opening up. The person coming to the space may not have even gotten into the car yet, or even put their groceries in the trunk yet. If it were obvious that it was going to be a long wait, then I would probably go around. But if they had simply stopped because someone was about to immediately back out, I would probably wait to be polite. But that doesn’t mean I expect the whole world to behave exactly as I do, and honk my horn in anger at them when they don’t.
I don’t know why it gives you pleasure to keep pretending I’m excited, when you are clearly the one who is excited. 
But hey, knock yourself out. 
Thought of a second choice: those who think they should inflict their choice of music on others from a distance. Use a dB meter, verify that it is indeed a nuisance, then hand the boom-boom boy an axe handle. He can break up his noise box or go to jail.
Not to mention that the person going around was almost certainly driving in the lane going in the other direction, and so was wrong.
I’m with you. Waiting ten minutes, blocking traffic starting with someone just getting in the car is stupid (unless there are no spaces at all.) Waiting for you when you have your backup lights on already is perfectly reasonable, and courteous.
Not sure where you got that idea.
Assuming facts not in evidence. 
Here’s why. I mentioned this in the Pit last week, but it is relevant. Last week, I was driving home from work down a four-lane road on which people routinely drive about 20 mph above the posted speed limit. I wound up two cars behind someone driving just above the posted speed limit in the left lane and it wasn’t worth passing them, so I followed the car ahead of me at a reasonable distance. While I was doing so, someone came roaring up behind me and started tailgating me, even though the person going about the speed limit was two cars ahead of me, three cars ahead of him. The person behind me got fed up that I wasn’t going faster, apparently thought that tailgating me would improve the situation, and flipped me the finger as he swung into the right land and passed me. The tailgater was driving a jacked-up pickup; I drive a compact car. In other words, the person driving the speed limit in the left lane indirectly endangered me and directly led to me being insulted.
Still, my first target would be tailgaters.
My second would be red-light runners. I understand the need to push making a left turn on yellow, especially at long lights, but if there’s a green light for traffic going at right angles to you, and you’re making a left turn across traffic, you won’t be able to convince me that the last time you saw the light it was yellow or green.
My third would be a toss up between people who flip lit cigarettes out of their car windows and people who park in fire lanes.
Drunk drivers and people who drive like idiots are also on the list somewhere; people who drive the speed limit in the left lane aren’t, although if there’s a long line of traffic behind them, I might try to alert them to the situation.
CJ
My biggies:
People who take more than one parking space. I do sympathize with them – my car was new once – but this is just unacceptably rude. When I see someone doing this, I’ll call in a flat-bed wrecker and have the car moved to a location at least a mile away. I’ll leave a little note at the old parking spot(s) giving precise directions to car’s new location.
Bicylists who ride in the street. Sooner or later, you’re going to get yourself killed. You exponentially increase the stress level of every driver who has to pass you. Use the freakin’ sidewalk. When I was a kid, we always rode our bikes on the sidewalk. Not once, ever, did the police yell at us for it, or even look at us twice
Anybody who drives before sun-up without their lights on, but especially those who speed whilst doing it.
Common on Bell Road here in Nashvegas, before dawn.
Being a long time walker, I would site:
People who park at a bus stop. The sentence would be having your car run over by a bus.
People who stop at a red light in the walkway. I always want to ask them if they expect me to crawl over their hood or go through their car’s interior (excuse me, excuse me).
Actually DRL (Daytime Running Lights) for cars (not just motorcycles) seem to prevent accidents (and are mandatory in Canada, Norway and Sweden). Cite and cite. I have often thought that I was able to see other cars much better in bad weather or in twilight (which lasts a looooooong time at our Nothern latitudes). This is definitely one thing where a ticket isn’t warranted.
Actually, I just realized you might be whooshing us all. Before sun-up? Isn’t that night when it’s dark, and you’re supposed to have your lights on? 
Oh shoot, I need some coffee badly. I just realized Bosda wrote without their lights on. Please ignore me, I’m an idiot.
[sub][sub]slinks off to hide[/sub][/sub]