Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @delfinom said:

    Of course I pointed at the sign and just flipped her off as she continued to explode.

    You know what turns out to be a shit-ton of fun? Smile and wave at people like that. They HATE it that they don't get you mad, too.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    All the ones they install here put a little blue LED on the ass-side of the light, indicating whether the left-turner was turning on a green or a red.

    Ah, so that's what that's for.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @chubertdev said:

    I don't even know WTF those mean, I hadn't seen one until I was in Michigan last year.

    Here in Dallas, some of the towns are replacing the sensible[1] green circle with flashing yellow arrows. Based on this thread, I assume it's to appease furriners.

    [1] If you don't like that word, substitute "standard." That's the way it's alwasy been done everywhere I've ever driven until now.



  • @Buddy said:

    At intersections where oncoming directions go green simultaneously you'll sometimes see the first person in the turn lane try to gun it through the intersection before the straight lane from the opposite direction starts moving.

    Don't see that very often, but yeah.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    How timely, look what I ran in to tonight:

    The big question is: Does he drive like this because he is handicapped, or is he handicapped because he drives like this?



  • I only see old people drive new Cadillacs like that, so I figure he's not only physically handicapped due to age, he's probably battling Alzheimer's too and can't remember what the lines are for. And I bet it took him half an hour to park like that.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    My homeward commute involves making at right turn at a (usually) red light where it would be illegal (no sign, but red arrow) in the state I used to live in. I'm not sure if it's legal here, but everybody, including transit buses, does it.

    Unforunately, where I live the signs are wisely placed, generally when the cross-traffic is large and high speed, it's unwise to ignore them and if retards want to, then it's their problem and they will lose any insurance battle because they did not have the right of way.



  • Right. Flashing yellow is basically, "hey this is a stop light but you can go if it's safe whynot".



  • @FrostCat said:

    Ah, so that's what that's for.

    Yeah took me awhile to work it out also. If there's some other purpose to the blue LED, I have no idea what.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Years ago, some places experimented with an ancillary light that seemed to mean "this light goes green next."



  • The blue LED is on the BACK of the light.


  • BINNED

    @Intercourse said:

    I frequently joke with my wife that I am going to get a stack of bricks and set them on the passenger seat with "TURN YOUR FUCKING BRIGHTS OFF!" written on them and throw them at oncoming cars who never turn their brights off. I would never do it, but it is fucking cathartic to dream of it.

    I dream of either James Bond style rocket launchers, or Star Trek phasers ( fore and aft ); depending on how much wreckage I'd like to see.

    @Intercourse said:

    Yes, I occasionally have anger issues.

    Maybe we've been to the same Anger Mgmt. classes ? LOL…



  • @M_Adams said:

    I dream of either James Bond style rocket launchers, or Star Trek phasers ( fore and aft ); depending on how much wreckage I'd like to see.

    I sometimes think of an SF story I read a long time ago (probably back in the 70's, although the story itself may be older, and whose name and author I have forgotten) in which road rage has become a competitive sport, and even family sedans are equipped with at least defensive weaponry.

    Or else I dream of having a tank and just driving over them.


  • BINNED

    @HardwareGeek said:

    Or else I dream of having a tank and just driving over them.

    Ooooh Yeeees! Do you know what an Abrams M-1 can do to one of those little eurotrash shoe-cars?


  • :belt_onion:

    @Intercourse said:

    Does he drive like this because he is handicapped,

    his handicap IS parking.


  • :belt_onion:

    Also, try on this load of fail:

    Both of those trucks are parked across 2+ spots each. One is sitting directly on the parking space dividing line (it's harder to see that), the other is pointing the wrong direction entirely. It's like they were having a contest to see who is the shittiest at parking.



  • People who see a pedestrian at the intersection they are approaching and stop just after the third line - the first being the one they're supposed to stop at, the second and third being the crosswalk.



  • @darkmatter said:

    It's like they were having a contest to see who is the shittiest at parking.

    I think the blue truck won.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    I'm not sure how much it's used in Seattle, proper, since I don't go there often. I do see it in the suburbs where Blakey and I live.

    I really only went as far as SeaTac/Tukwila



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    I sometimes think of an SF story I read a long time ago (probably back in the 70's, although the story itself may be older, and whose name and author I have forgotten) in which road rage has become a competitive sport, and even family sedans are equipped with at least defensive weaponry.

    Or else I dream of having a tank and just driving over them.

    Snow Crash?


  • BINNED

    @chubertdev said:

    I really only went as far as SeaTac/Tukwila

    I was posted at Ft. Lewis for awhile and drove all around Seattle often ( lived in Tacoma ). I don't recall whether or not they used that signal method at that time…



  • My win for tonight:

    Coming home, there's an intersection with 3 lanes: left turn, straight, and right turn.

    I go through the straight lane, just like the Jeep Liberty in front of me. The Liberty decides to go in the right lane on the other side of the intersection (there are 2 on that side, the straight lane feeds the left lane), so when I see this red Mercedes in the right turn lane go straight, I of course get next to the Liberty that isn't moving all that fast, and pace it, leaving the Mercedes to ponder why he was such a nitwit.


  • BINNED

    +Ü

    Adding to my need-to-re-read list.



  • I should re-read my signed copy. :)


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @chubertdev said:

    leaving the Mercedes to ponder why he was such a nitwit

    Mercedes drivers aren't that self-introspective.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @HardwareGeek said:

    What you think I look like is your problem, not mine.

    That's a dangerous way for a douche to think when he's invading the road with his bike.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @FrostCat said:

    I don't know whether he saw 'em or not, or whether he understood the semi-in-joke by way of the Ace of Spades blog or not[1], is what I meant.

    Yes, and it was clear to the rest of us what he was doing. Wear the badge with pride (assuming @PJH agrees). I've missed things far worse and haven't gotten the badge.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Buddy said:

    At intersections where oncoming directions go green simultaneously you'll sometimes see the first person in the turn lane try to gun it through the intersection before the straight lane from the opposite direction starts moving.

    I hate the people who obviously run the red light after the green arrow goes away, and your green light going straight comes on so you have to wait for them to finish turning. Back when I drove a 1988 Caprice Classic (which was a POS when I had it) it was obvious that my car would win and that I didn't have much to lose. I used to start driving right at those people. I didn't hit anyone, but I probably ruined some underwear.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    3) People who follow the speed limit (the one law everybody agrees has some flex to it-- even cops) to the letter, but violate every single other driving law: drift outside their lane, don't use blinkers, etc.

    This is definitely one of the most obnoxious things I've experienced, too. People that drive slowly tend to be as dangerous and unpredictable as some of the people that drive like a bat out of Hell.



  • This intersection (north is up):

    80% of people driving north and turning right go so far off the road that all four tires are over on the wrong side of the white line. That big puddle is from people driving off the road.


  • :belt_onion:

    @boomzilla said:

    Wear the badge with pride (assuming @PJH agrees). I've missed things far worse and haven't gotten the badge.

    You're usually safe from the badge unless you miss a joke PJH is in on
    👈


  • :belt_onion:

    @Jaime said:

    That big puddle is from people semis driving off the road. with poor turn radii

    Though I don't doubt it, I'd probably cut that one off at least a little (though not clear off the road, that's silly), the angle is pretty crappy.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @FrostCat said:

    @tarunik said:
    jughandles

    TRWTF.

    Having never come across the term, I googled it and ended up on Urban Dictionary. I presume #2 and #3 are closer to what y'all talking about rather than #1?

    @Mason_Wheeler said:

    Remember back in Driver's Ed where they taught you that a motorcycle must always be treated as if it is as wide as a car and takes up an entire lane, no matter how thin it actually is? Well, apparently someone forgot to tell them that, because they routinely drive between two lanes of traffic, going twice as fast as the cars on either side. And I won't shed a single tear for any of them when the inevitable finally happens.

    @dkf said:

    I think it was in the Netherlands. The UK's far too fond of signs to ever consider reducing the number…

    Netherlands did it first, but there are some places in the UK:

    http://www.brake.org.uk/info-resources/info-research/road-safety-factsheets/15-facts-a-resources/facts/472-naked-roads



  • @PJH said:

    Having never come across the term, I googled it and ended up on Urban Dictionary. I presume #2 and #3 are closer to what y'all talking about rather than #1?

    Dunno about Urban Dictionary, but as usual, Wikipedia has a suitable definition



  • This is impossible to narrow down. A new one.

    Parking, no, not in the handicapped spot,.. in the hashed area BETWEEN the handicapped spots.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Right. Flashing yellow is basically, "hey this is a stop light but you can go if it's safe whynot".

    A flashing red light is a stop sign

    @darkmatter said:

    Also, try on this load of fail:
    Pasted image1022x435 886 KB

    Both of those trucks are parked across 2+ spots each. One is sitting directly on the parking space dividing line

    . Flashing yellow is equivalent to a yield sign. (That is assuming the West Coast isn't doing really weird things with their traffic laws compared to us in the Midwest.)

    Holy hell Discourse. Not only did it fail to quote the image I wanted to re-post, it stuck the second quote in the middle of my post. I'm leaving that for posterity. In any case, what I meant to post was that that silver truck looks identical to mine (except that mine isn't a dually). A lot of parking lots were not designed for trucks and don't have enough room to maneuver. I often have to swing my front end all the way through an adjacent spot during the turn if I want to end between the lines. If there is no adjacent spot, it isn't happening. No excuse for the blue one though since it's a standard cab 1500.

    @Jaime said:

    80% of people driving north and turning right go so far off the road that all four tires are over on the wrong side of the white line. That big puddle is from people driving off the road.

    (Hey this quote actually went at the end!) There are a few intersections in my city where there are big signs saying "Stop behind the white line!" But if you do, you can't see traffic coming from the left because someone thought it would be great to put some bushes and trees on the corner. Cross traffic has no light or stop signs, so if you don't want to get smashed you literally have to break the law so you can see traffic and know when it's safe to go.



  • Yeah that's what I mean about people cutting corners. Maybe I'm just being delusional geezer, but I don't think people did that 20 years ago, at least not as much.



  • Here's one I see all the time here in MA:

    I'm waiting to make a left turn out of a side street or parking lot, and there's a lot of traffic. Someone in the road I'm waiting to turn onto will stop to let me make the turn, even though traffic is moving steadily on the road. If I don't make the turn, they flash their lights, honk, or just generally get pissed at me.

    OK, they get points for trying to be nice, but:

    • Often, there's traffic in the other lane, so it's not physically possible for me to make the turn. Do they think I'm going to defy physics?
    • Often, it's the last car in a long line. If they hadn't slowed down and stopped, they'd already be through the intersection, and I'd have made my turn already.
    • Often, it's one car in a long line, but not the last. Now, to be "nice" to me, they're being an asshole to everyone behind them. If I make the turn, I look like the asshole.

    Here's a clue, folks - the best way to be nice to another driver is to follow the gorram rules of the road!!!!!!!!!!!!



  • @darkmatter said:

    @Jaime said:
    That big puddle is from [s]people[/s] semis [s]driving off the road.[/s] with poor turn radii

    Though I don't doubt it, I'd probably cut that one off at least a little (though not clear off the road, that's silly), the angle is pretty crappy.

    I make that turn every day. It's cars, not trucks. That road only goes to a bunch of subdivisions and farms, so there is very little truck traffic.



  • Here's one I saw this morning: 4-lane road in a residential area, 2 lanes each way. Someone on my side is waiting to turn left, except he's straddling the white line between our lanes! There was no shoulder since it's a residential area and not a major road. Cars were popping the curb on the right to get past him.



  • And a story:

    Topside of the Outer Loop of the DC beltway, a snaking nightmare of 4-lane highway. Non-work day with very light traffic[1] , driving with my son in the car.

    It was dim and foggy morning...it had been dry for days, and overnight rained enough to lift the oil off the road... slick enough that I backed off to around 50 - and I still felt a little sliding going on.

    Get past the Mormon Temple curve. Oh look, red-lights, firetrucks, ah, a spin-out involving three cars...

    Back to highway speed, taking the left split in the road and whoosh... guy whips past me, a mile from the curve with the 20' high 50 MPH sign...

    I tell my son: "Man, I know I'm going too fast... what's he doing... he's not going to make this..."

    He come's loose, somehow hits the inside barrier first, outside barrier, inside barrier, and back to the outside... spinning the whole time.

    "Dad, you are AWESOME!!"


    [1] by any standard, not just DC-beltway standards

    This is by far not the worst thing I've seen, just on this stretch of road - just the best story.

    And...people wonder why if I'm up at 3am, I go ahead and go to work.



  • And an extra +1.


    I should look around for a whole entire cake to give you, too.



  • @ijij said:

    It was dim and foggy morning...it had been dry for days, and overnight rained enough to lift the oil off the road... slick enough that I backed off to around 50 - and I still felt a little sliding going on.

    I don't get this, because here in Seattle it rains all the fucking time in all possible variations of rain imaginable. Our roads don't get nearly that slick. (Sure, wet roads are slicker, but like oil?)

    Is it the way they've paved in Washington D.C.? I mean, you say "lift the oil from the road", do they literally put oil down on their freeways? I do not get it.



  • I was wondering about that, a lot of the country highways out here are made of gravel and oil yet still looks and feels about like asphalt. I've never seen one turn slick due to rain and I know there's a ton of oil in those surfaces.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    None of that "47 people are all stuck in the same place, and number 48 honks his horn" bullshit you get on the East Coast. (WTF is up with that, anyway? Does number 48 think everybody else was just waiting for a reminder that roads are for driving on?)

    In my experience, at least on my part of the east coast, horns are used for three things while driving (so I'm not including "oops I banged the horn with my elbow trying to get out of the car with stuff in my hands"). In descending order by frequency:

    1. Getting the attention of someone you know so you can wave
    2. Expressing irritation over something that already happened and nothing can be done about (such as being stuck traffic that has nowhere to go or someone having blown past you at ludicrous speed)
    3. Alerting other drivers to something they seem not to have noticed (such as "Hey I'm driving in this lane you're trying to switch into" or "the light has been green for four seconds..." according to a coworker who moved here from Arizona, most drivers here allow at least eight times as long before honking in that last situation)

    @blakeyrat said:

    all of these protected left lights now have a red left turn signal when when the straight lanes are green instead of a flashing yellow like the older ones did.

    I just saw the kind with the flashing yellow instead of a red in that situation for the first time within the last several months. The first three times I encountered that, I was trying to figure out how they had managed to make something go wrong with ONLY the left turn lane's signal and not the rest of the intersection. Pretty sure every other time I'd seen an intersection regulated that way it was like what Buddy and Frostcat described: you get an arrow if the oncoming straight lanes are stopped, and a regular green circle if they aren't.

    Now that I've seen it explained, I acknowledge that in the context of what a flashing yellow signal normally means, it makes sense. However, in the context of what a green light means at an intersection where you can turn left but it isn't protected, so does the green circle...I wonder which is more common.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @ijij said:

    Topside of the Outer Loop of the DC beltway, a snaking nightmare of 4-lane highway.

    I like to call this the Montgomery County Slalom Course.



  • @RobFreundlich said:

    Someone in the road I'm waiting to turn onto will stop to let me make the turn, even though traffic is moving steadily on the road.

    I was a passenger in a car that got hit after being waived through. The car in the right lane was OK with him going, but the cars in the left lane weren't in on the plan.



  • See, unlike in Seattle, we actually have long stretches, where there is NO rain.

    So the minor oil dripping/oozing from cars builds up, and then when you get that first rain, there's this ultra-slick oil-water layer on the road. Happens especially when that first rain is light.

    I knew that before, and was driving carefully that day, but now, I KNOW it for sure .


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said:

    I don't get this, because here in Seattle it rains all the fucking time in all possible variations of rain imaginable. Our roads don't get nearly that slick. (Sure, wet roads are slicker, but like oil?)

    Stuff builds up on the roads if it doesn't rain. You should be able to figure out why this isn't a problem in Seattle. Try driving on a SoCal freeway right after the rain.

    http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/buses/updatedweb/topic_8/page5.html

    The first 10 minutes after light rain begins are the most dangerous
    The rain mixes with oil from motor vehicles and oil from new asphalt
    The result is a slippery roadway
    If it rains hard and long enough, the rain washes off the oil and the slippery conditions are reduced



  • @Mason_Wheeler said:

    But probably the dumbest thing I've seen someone do on the road came one time when I was riding the bus, and we were about to go through an intersection (green for us) and this idiot (in a black car) suddenly turned right on red directly into our path. The driver had to slam on the brakes, and if his reflexes had been just a little bit slower, we'd have splattered that guy and his fancy luxury car all over the road.

    PSA for everyone: YOU. WILL. NOT. WIN. A. FIGHT. WITH. A. BUS.

    EVER.

    They're made from very heavy steel construction, to keep the passengers inside safe at all costs. A semi truck would not win a fight with a bus. A loaded dump truck might, but anything less solid than that is going to end up mangled beyond help in a collision. So wait the extra 3 seconds and let the bus go by.

    Yeah. We once did a trip to Spain and our 60 seat bus had to stop at a red light. Suddenly the bus twitched a bit, sort of like the driver accidentally stalled the motor.

    Turned out that a Mercedes had failed to engage his brakes and plowed into the back of our bus at ca. 30 km/h.

    The Mercedes was 1 meter shorter. The bus? Some scratches and dings to the back.


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