UPDATE: 1a. Failure to yield for emergency vehicles. Jake brought this one up in comments. Folks who don't pull over for fire trucks or ambulances deserve to be battered out of the way and then surcharged to fix the truck in question. They rarely do it to cops because they know the cops will give them a ticket at the least.
1. Not stopping at stop signs. If blowing through the stop sign is the only way you're going to get in front of me, then maybe you ought to wait the extra three seconds until I go by. I guarantee you whatever you're late for is less important than not having a three ton truck crush you like a bug.
2. Proceeding through the intersection through a yellow light even though traffic is backed up into the intersection already. It should be legal to shoot anyone that does this. If traffic is backed up to the intersection and you pull into the intersection as the light turns yellow, you're asking for a tire iron beating at the least.
3. Traveling 10+ MPH below the speed limit. Speed limits are, for the most part, arbitrarily applied and designed to maximize the money flowing into the city/town setting them. There's simply no reason to go slower than advised.
4. Matching the speed of the guy next to you on the highway. The left lane is for passing. PASSING. It is not for sitting in and matching the speed of the car next to you. You are not responsible for traffic speed control. Either pass the guy or don't; don't impede traffic, dunce.
5. Sitting in my blind spot on the highway. This is especially maddening when I'm pulling the camper - it's usually some little compact that barely registers on the mirrors anyways, and for some infuriating reason they INSIST on sitting right at the junction of the truck and the camper - right where it's hardest to see.
6. Stopping in the middle of a rotary. Traffic in the circle (also known as roundabout) has the right of way. It's posted at every rotary. If you get halfway around and stop, you're unnecessarily blocking traffic for each and every road entering the traffic circle. And you stand a very good chance of getting rear-ended, as stopping in the rotary is the same as randomly jamming on your brakes in the middle of the street.
7. Cutting me off when there's no one behind me. This goes beyond "irk" and well into "hate" - pulling out in front of me to the point of me having to slam on my brakes when there's not a single car behind me. For that extra two seconds, you've just gained the undying enmity of a dude driving a three ton truck. Not smart...
8. Tailgating, especially when I'm stuck behind someone else. Look, I usually travel at or above the speed limit. If there's someone in front of me, there's little I can do except start pushing. Getting on *my* ass ain't gonna move the guy in front of me, and is only going to make me hate you more...
9. Going straight in a left-turn only lane. There are signs preceding the intersection by a good 500+ feet. You know how the lanes work. You just didn't want to wait in the long line of cars going straight, so you pulled into the left-turn only lane and then plan on cutting in after the light turns green. I've got 345 horsepower and 5,700 pounds of truck that says you don't make it.
10. Not using your directionals. Yeah, I know, it's MA; we're not expected to use the turn signals, etc. Look, when you randomly stomp on your brakes, it'd be good to know if you're turning, stopping to avoid something in the street, or just randomly hitting your brakes in response to the voices from Planet Weembo beamed there from the Zooboni Nebula. Common courtesy: in this case, not just a good idea, but also the law.
So there you have my Top Ten list of things that other drivers do to piss me off on the road. I've covered the more egregious examples; some are locational (rotaries) but most are generally applicable anywhere around the country. Idiots are idiots, they abound and flourish despite all of Darwin's best guesses; somehow some of them even manage to secure licenses to drive an automobile...
I'm guessing that most of y'all have your own personal pet motoring peeves, so let's hear 'em!
That is all.
30 comments:
They just installed a roundabout in my Indiana town......Few folks have ever SEEN a roundabout, much less know the rules for one.
3 out of 10 drivers fail to enter the roundabout without stopping. The rest of us slam on our brakes to keep from rear-ending them and consider if violence is an appropriate response....It would be comic if it were not so terribly aggravating.
Great list Jay. I have another one. I hate that asshole who realizes he is passing his turn and instead of driving on and turning around he slams on his breaks causing everyone behind him to slam on his breaks. It is especially infuriating when everyone was going at least fifty and this idiot does when you are all going down hill in the rain. This frickin' jerk almost got me killed once and I regret swerving into a ravine instead plowing into the ass end of his luxury sedan and destroying both of our vehicles instead of just mine.
Stupidegotisticalselfimportantmoron.......
I'm pulling my 5th wheel trailer on the highway. There's a vehicle coming down the ramp to merge, so I pull over into the left lane to let him/her merge. They come onto the highway right alongside me, then match my speed. I have to speed up or slow down to get back into the right lane. ASSHOLES!!!
Mine has to be the assbags that see the signs advising a lane is closing ahead for construction, see everybody merging to the first open lane, and run all the way down to the barricades, then attempt to force their way into traffic. I'm sorry, you've seen the advisory signs for a mile, now you want in in front of me and the War Machine? I don't think so, Skippy!
Leaving your lights off in bad weather. There was a VERY nice black BMW 5-series that almost went four-wheeling on Cape Cod during a thunderstorm because with his lights off I sure as hell couldn't see him!
In Maine we have a law, if your wipers are on, your lights must also be on. It's a pretty good rule of thumb.
Anonymous, you nailed that one! Another big one out here is MO is some idiot will come down the 1/2 mile long entrance ramp, get to the end and come to a dead stop to look over his shoulder to see if the lane is clear.... and this is on a 70MPH interstate ramp.....
That one's a close cousin to #9, loki...
Not knowing how to merge. You go, then I go, then the guy behind you goes, then the guy behind me goes. 42 people crowding in front of one car is NOT a merge, it's qualifying for Talladega.
Re. ten under the limit. Guilty, because our residential streets have a relatively high speed limit. I'll go slower, usually at night or when I know that kids and pets are on the loose (after school, weekends, summer). I'd rather get rammed by a tailgater than kill a rugrat. Especially on icy/wet roads. Under the limit on the main drag or highway? Not me, ossifer, but on residential streets? Yup, that'd be me.
The guys who decide bad traffic is not for them and the shoulder/emergency vehicle area is their own personal extra lane. Happily the other week I saw someone do that and a few cars ahead was an MSP who pulled him right over.
People beat me to my two main ones: running to the end of a closing lane and then jumping into the line of bumper to bumper traffic; and stopping on the interstate on-ramp.
So I mention one that is particular to Hampton Roads:
Slowing down for the tunnels.
The lanes inside the tunnel are exactly the same width as they are outside the tunnel. The tunnel doesn't bite and there are lights in there so it's not like you're venturing into the dark unknown.
There's no reason to slow down to 30 (or less) before entering and your unexpected deceleration causes a chain reaction...every driver behind you has to slow down a little more than the one in front of them because they're reacting to the unexpected, with the end result being the traffic a mile back comes to a complete stop for no apparent reason.
This is especially frustrating during rush hour, when you creep along in bumper to bumper traffic for five miles on approach to the tunnel and then, magically, half-way through the tunnel, traffic speeds back up to the normal ten over the limit.
It often takes over an hour for what should be a ten minute trip because people are afraid to drive into a freaking highway tunnel.
GAAAAHHHH!
Slowing down or flat out stopping in a lane before moving over to the center turn lane -- when there is no traffic in the turn lane!!
None.
People stopping in right hand turn lanes at intersections when the light has been green for 30 seconds and they are the 3rd or 4th car to turn.
Pulling over for an ambulance, then continuing to drive along on the edge of the road at just under the limit. You don't know where I might need to turn in front of you, and I don't know when you might do something (else) stupid and get in my way. If you are stopped, I know exactly where you are going to go.
Also, when you finally see the bazillion flashing lights in your mirror and then notice the siren over your 1000 decibel thumpa-thump music, don't stomp on the brakes in the middle of the road and block the whole lane!
My top two are the left-lane obliviots and the acceleration/merge lane road-blocks.
In re roundabout - in NJ there is no standard for yielding; some are yield to traffic in, some are yield to traffic entering, and some are BOTH (!) depending on position. Usually it's signed...
NJ DOT has something like a 20-year plan to wipe out all of them, thankfully. They just turned one near my from a circle (which had the aforementioned change in yield pattern) into an h-pattern interchange; in other places they have just run the main drag through or done other mildly bizzare things
I have a couple:
To the girl on JTButler Blvd on Friday morning,
Honey-
Put the %$@*ing make-up on at home, before you leave for work.
Seriously...
You just aren't good at multitasking.
You're applying eyeliner while driving your BMW SUV at 50 miles per... The speed limit is 60 and people are usually going 65 or 70...
Someone is going to rear-end you (and not in the good way IYKWIM wink-wink) and that eyeliner applicator is going to be a permanent part of your left eye.
(This will probably necessitate a completely different kind of makeup, and perhaps you will refrain from putting it on while you are heading to work...)
And I don't know if you were singing, talking to someone hands-free, or just in a heated conversation with the voices in your head, but knock it off- it looked like you were going into a full-goose-bozo hissyfit as I was passing you... It was frightening.
Don't do that, it scares the rest of us that are trying to get to work in one piece, unscathed by psychotic eye-makeup-applying American Idol Wannabes.
Oh, and lose the PeTA sticker in the back window, it clashes with your leather seats.
--------------
Second-
To the Dumbasses on I-95 outside Smithfield NC:
Hey you Idjits,
If the cop is doing 65mph in a 70mph zone...
PASS HIM!
Really...
It's okay.
-----------
Wow... I have 3, actually...
Y’know what really pisses me off…
It’s people who are making themselves feel good at my expense.
You people know who you are.
You are the do-gooders that stop and let a car or five that is waiting to
enter the stream of traffic in, holding up that long string behind you.
Guess what? If you idiots didn’t do it, that long line of traffic would move a hell of a lot faster, and there probably wouldn't be a traffic tie-up.
Then those folks could get out of their parking lot or side street just fine.
But no, Miss Goodie-two-shoes thinks to herself, I'’ll just motion two or
three cars out of that parking lot, holding up the twenty people behind me.
It gives me a warm and happy feeling.
Honey- If we were standing in line at a bank and you did that, you’'d get to hold your teeth in your pocket during the trip to the emergency room. God help you if pull that crap while waiting to go on a ride at Disney World.
What makes you think you can get away with the crap on the highway?
And the ones that really make me wish for some changes in the laws concerning the possession and utilization of handguns in motor vehicles, the yahoos that hold up traffic for folks wanting to make the turn across the lane and head the other direction. They hold up traffic until a break coming the other way. Meanwhile, we could've all gone through the traffic light by now, on our way to a happy and productive life. Instead, this happy asshole has held up all of us, missing the cycle of traffic lights. He feels better, doing his part for the planet. In the eight cars stacked up behind him, people are visualizing how he would look as the centerpiece of a funeral service.
Preferably closed-casket.
Drive the car, Jerkwad.
-
Wow... I feel so much better.
TBG
Old people in land yachts.
Just In general, I fucking hate them. They can't pick a lane, never signal, and usually do this variable speed that goes between 5 and 15 MPH BELOW THE DAMNED SPEED LIMIT! It's bad enough you have to creep down the road, granny, but for the love of all that's holy, pick a fucking speed and stick with it.
The elderly need to stay the hell off the road when they become that much of a nuisance and hazard to everyone else.
I drive a pair of boots these days, so I don't see most of these. On the other hand, I do get to see an awful lot of asshattery at intersections.
Suppose you're a dumbfuck. You're sitting in your dumbfuckmobile waiting to turn left at an intersection, doing whatever it is dumbfucks do instead of paying attention. You notice that there's a break in traffic, so you start to turn left through the intersection, and OH MY GOD WHERE'D THAT PEDESTRIAN COME FROM?
From the SIDEWALK? Crossing with the PED SIGNAL? We HAVE THOSE in this country? Unpossible!
Being a dumbfuck but not a sociopath, you slam on the brakes -- and fortunately for you (and me!) your dumbfuckmobile is equipped with antilock brakes. You skitter to a halt in the middle of the opposing lane and gape open-mouthed at me, wondering what sort of magic powers I have that allow me to perambulate outside of a shopping mall.
I give you the finger.
Now you're at a dead stop across two or more lanes of traffic, at the tail end of an adrenaline rush. Twelve angry drivers are honking and swearing at you as your brain reboots.
...
Aren't you glad you're not a dumbfuck? That must be humiliating.
I do a lot of driving on two lane highways....my "favorite" (in a "I'd like to jam a sharp piece of broken glass up their asses, sideways" way) are the jackasses who will pass you, then start going slower than you were going in the first place, forcing you to either slow down or pass them.
Then there are the fuckfaces who go 5 mph under the already tediously slow 55mph limit, but when you try to pass them, they speed up to prevent you from doing so. On a two lane highway, where you need to pass as quickly as possible to prevent a head on collision from traffic in the other lane.
The absolute worst are the demon spawn that combine the two maneuvers. My Ford Explorer is 14 years old, on its last legs and wouldn't be all that expensive to replace; ramming it into your sorry ass might just be a fitting end to it's life. Don't tempt me.
RUBBERNECKERS!
Just drive by the mayhem, dammit, or I'll make you a part of it!
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
My pet hate is when I carefully stop before the intersection knowing the light will soon turn and I don't want to be the guy tht blocks it, and some jerk pulls around me and blocks it. There is an intersection near my home which I pass every day. It has a street join the street I approach on just about 10 yards from the intersection. It has a cross hatched painted box meaning DO NOT BLOCK INTERSECTION, but NOOOOOOOO, idiots do this to me all the time.
I hate roundabouts. Those entering are supposed to give way to those already on it, but many simply blow right through. Had many close calls this way.
And then there was the time I was on I-91, almost the only car on the highway. Some idiot blew past me a near sonic speed then cut in front of me and down the exit ramp. Why he didn't clip my bumper and spin the both of us out is beyond me.
"4. Matching the speed of the guy next to you on the highway."
Happens a lot on I-75 in KY. Almost always someone with OH tags. What is it about Buckeyes?
On the backroads that are only 1.8 carwidths apart to begin with, and that have steep ditches, folks like to drive straight down the middle and do 20 mph more than the posted limit. Which would be ok if the roads weren't windy and hilly and didn't have me as your oncoming traffic.
-----
Residential streets where cars are parked along the curb, or some delivery truck is double parked, and the driver assumes that whatever space left is two-ways. My lane is open buddy, yours is blocked. I have right-of-way. Yes, I realize that the only way you can get by is to drive in my lane but I'm oncoming traffic. My lane doesn't magically become your lane just because you need it.
One of mine is sort of a combination event. The person who speeds like a madman to catch up and then fly formation in my blind spot.
I have always thought that there ought to be a stupid-jail - a place where people could be sentenced to serve a short period of time for committing gross stupidity. However, on reflection, I realize that in my 40 plus years of driving, I have committed my own share of stupid blunders - some on purpose due to youthful ignorance, and some just because I was suffering a short term bout of the head-up-ass virus. So if there was such a thing as a stupid-jail, I would be an ex-con.
Anonymous said...
"4. Matching the speed of the guy next to you on the highway."
Happens a lot on I-75 in KY. Almost always someone with OH tags. What is it about Buckeyes?
We're stunned you aren't all in cars like the "Beverly Hillbillies"?
Actually, I have seen examples of everything listed in Jay's post and the comments in Ohio. We surely don't know how to drive, unless it's the SECOND day of snow.
(Episode 1) I was on a 2-lane entrance ramp to a freeway.
Said ramp is about 1/4-mile long, and at the bottom has one lane merge, and the other lane become a new additional lane for a short period (1/4-mile).
Anyway, I was stuck behind an 18-wheeler on one of the two lanes in the ramp, and in my mirrors I spot an approaching gap in traffic in the other lane. We were 60% of the way through the ramp, and I signal to switch lanes.
The driver behind me jumps into the open lane right as I'm beginning to move over into the empty spot. Then he accelerates right into my spot, forcing me to reverse the half-completed lane-change. Never used a turn signal during the whole maneuver.
(Episode 2) Same week, different day. I'm at the other end of the same highway trip, where another two-lane ramp splits from one highway and merges to another right before giving me the exit I need. I'm in the right lane of the two-lane ramp. Left lane of the ramp is clear.
Someone on the second highway does a lane shift, across both lanes of the just-merged ramp, to get right in front of me. At 10mph below my speed, and close enough that he almost smashed his rear bumper into the side of my front bumper.
Both episodes happened with me inside of a bright-red Jeep, on days without heavy precipitation. Both times, the offending vehicle was some variety of small sedan.
My motorcycle's invisibility suit must occasionally manifest around the Jeep, or something. (You know, the special suit that makes motorcycles invisible to people in cars? I've got one of those, too.)
Our small town is in love with four way stop signs. It is their favorite form of traffic control. In a town of about 25,000 people we probably have close to 100 4-way stop signs. The problem is that only about 5 percent of the drivers in this town have any idea how to navigate a four way stop sign. You will find four types of idiots at our intersections:
1 - the moron who pulled up to the intersection without paying any attention to what is going on around them, they stop, then start looking around to see got there first and who gets to go next. Since they can't tell any of that from looking at a stopped vehicle they just sit there looking confused until everyone else at the intersection is yelling at them to move their bloody arse.
2 - The idiot who is afraid that they can't tell if a car that is decelerating is going to stop or not. So they do not cross the intersection when it is their turn, until every car that is within a half a block of the intersection has come to a complete stop. These good folks seem to have a latent desire to be performers since they are incapable of crossing the street without an audience.
3 - the friendly neighbor who is actually a number one in disguise but they are at least clever enough to disguise their ignorance by pretending to be polite. They sit and wave everyone else through the intersection until they, and all the poor slobs behind them are the only ones left at the intersection, then they finally drive across the street.
4 - Me. I'm probably the biggest jerk of the bunch. I'm so sick and tired of sitting and waiting for clueless drivers to have their engraved invitations from the governor to cross the street to be delivered that I pull up to the intersection, watching the traffic so that i know exactly who's turn it is to go next. Then I come to a complete stop to wait my turn to cross the street. However, once I stop, if no one else at the intersection is moving to enter the intersection - I assume that they have all seceded their turn in line to me and I go.
I'd say this annoys me, but it IS a source of entertainment: pulling over to let me (in my emergency vehicle) go by, then pulling in right behind me and riding my ass, so as to skip all that nasty tunnel traffic. What's funny is what happens when I slam on the brakes. We call it "Tunnel Tag".
My pet peeve when I drove an emergency tow truck for the CHP: There is a section of 280 in San Jose that does not have a full lane width of shoulder on either inside or outside. When they have a crash at the usual spot, it can take forever to reach it. So, along comes a CHP unit along the inside, and people move over a bit for them. I swing out behind them, and some moron will jump in front of me to deliberately block me from passing them. (we didn't have red roof lights-politics). And then will flash me a finger out their window! So, I get to stare at this idiot for at least a half-hour before we reach the scene of the crash. Once, I explained over the PA that due to their blocking me, they and everyone else were going to have a loonnng wait in stalled traffic, because I WAS GOING TO BE THE FIRST TOW TRUCK THAT COULD REACH THE CRASH! (I already knew the patrol car couldn't push the mess out of the way) The attitude of the other drivers around us was obvious, and I decided I'd better not incite a potential riot in the future.
Funny how each highway has its own personality, as expressed by commuters.
Post a Comment