Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition


  • :belt_onion:

    A second pisser that happens to me -
    Near my turn off the 55mph highway there is a steep uphill with 2 lanes to allow passing slower vehicles. Slower people are supposed to move over to the right. There is a goddamn sign posted and everything. Of course some morons are too stupid (or illiterate) to obey the sign.

    Thing is, I have to make a right turn about 50 yards after the 2lanes condenses back down to 1 lane. If there is a slow person in front of me and they use the right lane as intended, then I get in the right lane behind them because I don't want to pass them and then immediately have to slow to a crawl to turn... that would be a total asshole move.

    But if I'm behind some jackass going 45mph in the 55mph, who then stays in the left lane going up that hill.... I will gun it to pass them in the right lane, cut back in front of them as the 2 lanes go back to 1, and then have to stomp the brakes in order to make my right turn.

    And the couple of times I've done that, it felt damn good seeing the look of irritation, fear, and/or disgust on their face in my rearview mirror.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @dcon said:

    what did they seriously expect me to do

    Expect you to have the same braking characteristics as him, no doubt.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @blakeyrat said:

    You know, you can just pull over and let him past.

    In this case, we were on a 4-lane road and I slowed down to let him pass me in the left lane, and he just started riding my ass like a fuckwit. In my capricious youth, I might have just slammed on the brakes. Now I am somewhat more mature and I vent my frustrations by sarcastic comments that make my wife think I am a serial killer of shitty drivers.

    I get the hatred of people who drive with their brights on from my father. When I was a kid I remember him knocking out someone's headlights with a hammer and telling him, "I bet you remember to turn off your brights next time!" and then getting in the car and driving off. In retrospect, it is a fucking wonder he did not end up in jail over that one...


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @tarunik said:

    ticking a cop on a school bus

    Lately the Dallas school busses have put up notifications that they have traffic cameras on board.

    Why anyone thinks that will work when the multiple red and yellow blinking lights, the two strobe lights on top (one foreward, one aft), the TWO fold-out stop-sign arms on the side, and the fold-out "kids, don't walk too close to the front of the bus as you cross in front of it" arm don't is beyond me.

    I expect bullhorns will come next.



  • @PleegWat said:

    Not sure about over there, but at least here typically your headlights are adjustable. If you think they may be too bright, park facing a wall and turn the lights on. Adjust up or down as necessary.

    They're adjustable but it takes a screwdriver and a lot more effort than the average American puts into their cars. We can't even get people to put fucking AIR in their tires here.

    @PleegWat said:

    Passing other cars on the right is illegal here, and although there's occasional noise to change it, I think it's far superior to the alternative.

    It's illegal on freeways here, it's fine on city streets and (I think?) state highways that aren't freeways.

    Speaking of bad car dash design, guess what the only control in my Ford Fusion that isn't softly lit by a LED when it's on with the lights off? That's right: it's also the only one you need to find at night, the switch to turn on the headlights (which also turns on the whole shebang of dash lighting including, ironically, a nice soft LED behind the headlight switch. AAAAARGH! What were they THINKING!)


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @mott555 said:

    I had to choose between constantly slipping the clutch or walking the bike. On the interstate. WTF.

    Couldn't lane share or ride in the breakdown? It woudl be understandable.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @tarunik said:

    jughandles

    TRWTF.



  • @Intercourse said:

    In my capricious youth, I might have just slammed on the brakes.

    That's not an attribute associated with youth, but one associated with having a shitty used car that already has some body damage.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Intercourse said:

    ople who stop at lights too far behind the line to trip the sensors so the light will change.

    AKA the streets I live on and that my work is on. sigh It's not unusual to sit for ten minutes at a red light in the morning.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Intercourse said:

    People who blow through lights well after they have changed.

    Southern Florida, where its' a team sport!



  • @blakeyrat said:

    It's illegal on freeways here, it's fine on city streets and (I think?) state highways that aren't freeways.

    In CT, you can pass on the right on any highway with 3 or more lanes.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @chubertdev said:

    I saw a douchecanoe taking up four spots

    I saw that at work once in the '90s, in a place with insufficient parking and that warned people the lot was patrolled. By the time I'd reported it, they were already well aware of it. The best part was that employees could actually get ticketed by the company--and my manager told me enough could affect your performance reviews. No, that was the second-best part. The best part was contractors were immune. Every so often I'd park nose-out instead of nose-in (yes, that was a rule, because to increase the number of spaces, they cut down the intra-row space, and made that rule to make it easier to get in and out) and line up all my previous tickets for doing that in a row on the dash in front of where they'd put the next ticket.



  • @chubertdev said:

    In CT, you can pass on the right on any highway with 3 or more lanes.

    3 total, or per-direction? Because the former would be a huge WTF.



  • Blakey, you seriously don't know how good you have it. I moved down to LA at the start of the year, and I find myself missing Seattle traffic on a freaking daily basis. Traffic may be bad there, but at least the drivers are civilized.

    Problems I run into regularly, in no particular order:

    • Blind spot sneak attack. I signal left. I look in my mirror, and see I'm clear. I try to pull over into the next lane, and all of a sudden there's a car there because the guy behind me sped up and drove up into my blind spot when he saw me signal, and I have to flinch back right to avoid being hit by him. It's disproportionately some luxury car brand, and disproportionately black. (The car's paint job, not the driver. For some reason, black cars seem to attract horrible, sociopathic drivers who think they own the road.) If a driver doing this ever hits me, I fully intend to press charges for vehicular assault. Grrr.
    • Of course, maybe I could avoid this by doing what approximately 70% of LA drivers do: Turning without signaling. Those blinkers are there for a reason, idiots! And it's illegal not to use them! I sure wish they'd start actually enforcing that.
    • Blocking intersections. Even when they've got a plainly visible KEEP CLEAR stenciled in the intersection. And then honking at me when I refuse to do the same.
    • Cyclists in the road. I don't care if the law says they belong there. Newton's Laws say oh no they don't, not if they can't go the speed limit. It's not safe for them, and it's not safe for me to be behind them, because I can't safely get out of that lane when the lane to the left of me is moving 25 MPH faster than the speed that the bike ahead of me is limiting me to.
    • Motorcyclists are a menace in LA, a danger to everyone on the road, themselves first and foremost. 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.
    • People who move most of the way over into a lane, but then stay about 10-15% in their original lane, because they started shifting over without enough space to get all the way over before they had to stop. And now they're blocking two lanes of traffic instead of just one.

    Honorable mention: The idiot civil engineers who designed the streets and didn't understand protected left turns. Maybe half the intersections in LA don't use protected left turns at all, (with a good fraction of them not even having a left turn lane to begin with!) and on maybe half of the ones that do, they only stay green long enough to let two cars through, even though the left turn lane is long enough to hold 6-8 cars.



  • @FrostCat said:

    Couldn't lane share

    Not all states permit lane sharing. In Arizona, for example, it is illegal.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    They're adjustable but it takes a screwdriver and a lot more effort than the average American puts into their cars. We can't even get people to put fucking AIR in their tires here.

    One more complaint to add for your car: my 2014 Mazda 3 has adjustable headlights. My former 2005 Subaru had them too.



  • @FrostCat said:

    Couldn't lane share or ride in the breakdown? It woudl be understandable.

    I refuse to lane share. Too many idiots in cages already, I don't want to make it even easier for them to kill me.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @blakeyrat said:

    That's not an attribute associated with youth, but one associated with having a shitty used car that already has some body damage.

    At the time, I mostly drove my pickup. I am one of those silly people who buy a pickup to actually do...work. I never really cared much what it looked like, or if some asshole would have hit me in the assend. It never happened, but my truck is a truck and meant to be used.

    @FrostCat said:

    AKA the streets I live on and that my work is on. sigh It's not unusual to sit for ten minutes at a red light in the morning.

    There is one light here in our city that I used to have to go through all the time and their sensors did not work very well. I tried all sorts of positioning and you still might have to wait 10 minutes or more. One night, I waited forever until I get annoyed enough to get out of the vehicle and hit the crosswalk button. All the cars started honking in appreciation. I felt like a hero for a brief moment in time.



  • Divided highway, so take a wild guess.



  • @abarker said:

    Not all states permit lane sharing. In Arizona, for example, it is illegal.

    I'm pretty sure only CA does, and thank you for calling it lane sharing, not lane splitting.



  • @Mason_Wheeler said:

    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.

    From what I understand talking to my friend who learned to ride motorcycle in Cali, this is (or was) legal there. So not only are they being stupid, they law is protecting their stupidity, which is something you wouldn't expect somewhere like California.



  • I was pleasantly surprised when I drove in LA a few years back. It's the only place I've ever experienced a traffic jam going 80 mph. I drove at least 50 miles a day for two weeks on the 405 and only stopped once.

    The 95 through Connecticut was a lot worse. I think the reason is that people in LA actually like cars. New York City area drivers drive like being in a car is a punishment that they want to be over as soon as possible.



  • @Mason_Wheeler said:

    Blind spot sneak attack. I signal left. I look in my mirror, and see I'm clear. I try to pull over into the next lane, and all of a sudden there's a car there because the guy behind me sped up and drove up into my blind spot when he saw me signal, and I have to flinch back right to avoid being hit by him. It's disproportionately some luxury car brand, and disproportionately black. (The car's paint job, not the driver. For some reason, black cars seem to attract horrible, sociopathic drivers who think they own the road.) If a driver doing this ever hits me, I fully intend to press charges for vehicular assault. Grrr.

    I usually don't give them enough time to react, but then again, I do drive a black luxury car.



  • @abarker said:

    From what I understand talking to my friend who learned to ride motorcycle in Cali, this is (or was) legal there. So not only are they being stupid, they law is protecting their stupidity, which is something you wouldn't expect somewhere like California.

    Nothing wrong with lane splitting as long as you don't do it too fast. The problem is that people get bent out of shape when they see someone getting somewhere while they're stuck. I wonder if the same people shake their fists at helicopters that aren't stuck in traffic.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Mason_Wheeler said:

    Motorcyclists are a menace in LA, a danger to everyone on the road, themselves first and foremost. 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.

    My understanding from my far too frequent visits to LA is that behavior is actually legal there. Back in the day, when most bikes were air-cooled and would overheat in very slow or stopped traffic, it was made legal to ride between lanes. They apparently did not put many restrictions on it, so it is supposedly legal to do. Even when traffic is flowing well.

    That was one of my first big shocks about LA (there are too many to list them all, that city is fucking psychotic), was driving on the 405 at 90mph, keeping up with traffic, and having a motorcycle ride between me and another car. I have nerves of steel when it comes to driving, but that always freaks me out.



  • @Mason_Wheeler said:

    Blakey, you seriously don't know how good you have it. I moved down to LA at the start of the year, and I find myself missing Seattle traffic on a freaking daily basis. Traffic may be bad there, but at least the drivers are civilized.

    Oh yeah, don't misunderstand, Seattle-area traffic is pretty good all-around.

    The best bit? People only use their horns in situations where horn use is warranted. 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?)

    We also don't have squeaky brakes like are endemic in London for some reason. What's with you English people and your squeaky brakes?

    @Mason_Wheeler said:

    Of course, maybe I could avoid this by doing what approximately 70% of LA drivers do: Turning without signaling. Those blinkers are there for a reason, idiots! And it's illegal not to use them! I sure wish they'd start actually enforcing that.

    I love the people who flick on their signal when they're like 75% into the other lane already. Hey douchebag: at that point you might as well just forget it.

    @Mason_Wheeler said:

    Blocking intersections. Even when they've got a plainly visible KEEP CLEAR stenciled in the intersection. And then honking at me when I refuse to do the same.

    One thing I was jealous about London drivers is they have it hammered into their brains never go enter an intersection unless they could also exit it.

    That's a huge problem in Bellevue, but not in Seattle or environs. For some reason.

    @Mason_Wheeler said:

    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.

    That's legal in CA. It's amazingly fucking stupid. Yet, legal.

    I have no sympathy for crazy cyclists, I just hope when they crash and die they don't hit my car in the process.

    @Jaime said:

    One more complaint to add for your car: my 2014 Mazda 3 has adjustable headlights. My former 2005 Subaru had them too.

    WTF? My car's headlights are adjustable. The post you quoted says so.

    "Hey my car can do X."

    "To add to your complaint about your car not doing X..."



  • @Jaime said:

    Nothing wrong with lane splitting as long as you don't do it too fast. The problem is that people get bent out of shape when they see someone getting somewhere while they're stuck. I wonder if the same people shake their fists at helicopters that aren't stuck in traffic.

    I don't care that they're moving when I'm not. I think it's unsafe and idiotic. Motorcycles are already hard enough to see, so why increase the odds that they'll be involved in an accident by letting them follow different road rules?

    Edit: Thinking about it some more, I also hate that they then come to AZ and don't bother to learn that it is illegal here. If you're travelling, learn how the laws differ where you're visiting!



  • @blakeyrat said:

    WTF? My car's headlights are adjustable. The post you quoted says so.

    "Hey my car can do X."

    "To add to your complaint about your car not doing X..."


    Without a screwdriver.



  • @Jaime said:

    Without a screwdriver.

    Turns out I'm not telepathic. Shocking, I know.



  • @abarker said:

    I don't care that they're moving when I'm not. I think it's unsafe and idiotic. Motorcycles are already hard enough to see, so why increase the odds that they'll be involved in an accident by letting them follow different road rules?

    Smog reduction. Reducing time spent idling makes a huge difference in both fuel consumption and emissions.


  • Java Dev

    @Intercourse said:

    that behavior is actually legal there.

    I know it's legal here, but only at 30 km/h and a difference of 15 km/h. Or something like that. They typically do it at higher speeds too, but nowhere near maximum speed and they'll usually turn on blinkers.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    You know, you can just pull over and let him past. Sure your trip is, what, 15 seconds longer, but it's worth it to save the aggravation.

    Back (way way back) when I first started driving I tried that. Idiot wouldn't pass me until I swerved onto the shoulder and came to a complete stop. This was in IL on a straight flat road. So it was very obvious no one was approaching. (as a newby driver, that was a little freaky)



  • @Intercourse said:

    it was made legal to ride between lanes.

    I guess that makes sense. My bike is watercooled but it has a tendency to run uncomfortably hot (like thinking my pants are on fire) if it's going under about 15 mph.

    EDIT: That was not the part of the post I quoted....


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Jaime said:

    Smog reduction. Reducing time spent idling makes a huge difference in both fuel consumption and emissions.

    How many idling motorcycles does it take to equal a single car?

    Honestly, it's not as big a problem when the cars are sitting still. "Lane sharing" is also a stupid name for "driving on the lane dividing lines." Especially since in SoCal there's no snow to worry about, so they have the bump reflectors everywhere (man, I miss those).


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    The following all happen to me in or around my workplace in Cleveland:
    @Mason_Wheeler said:

    Blind spot sneak attack

    @Mason_Wheeler said:

    Turning without signaling

    @Mason_Wheeler said:

    Blocking intersections

    (Though that's often me, it's hard to gauge if traffic's going to suddenly halt while we're backed up for 3-4 blocks from the freeway onramp due to bad traffic patterns)

    @Mason_Wheeler said:

    People who move most of the way over into a lane

    And the following happens where I live, near Akron:

    @Mason_Wheeler said:

    they only stay green long enough to let two cars through, even though the left turn lane is long enough to hold 6-8 cars.

    @Mason_Wheeler said:

    Cyclists in the road

    So my daily commute gets the best of both worlds! >.>


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @abarker said:

    Not all states permit lane sharing.

    Yeah, I know. What I didn't know was whether it was a viable alternative for him.

    Also, what's the odds that someone's going to ticket him even if wasn't legal? Remember, a stopped highway. A cop's gonna have a tough time catching him if he's not a motorcycle cop.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @mott555 said:

    I refuse to lane share. Too many idiots in cages already

    An excellent reason. Might not be as applicable if nobody else's moving.



  • @boomzilla said:

    How many idling motorcycles does it take to equal a single car?

    Apparently not many. My 250cc motorcycle is loaded down with legally-required emissions and smog controls, while the 6.6L V8 in my pickup has absolutely no pollution controls of any kind, nor are they legally required.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @FrostCat said:

    A cop's gonna have a tough time catching him if he's not a motorcycle cop.

    http://nerdreactor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/chips-cast.jpg


  • ♿ (Parody)

    I think a lot of pollution control is baked into the engine itself, though. But definitely fuel consumption-wise, it would take a lot.



  • @Jaime said:

    Smog reduction. Reducing time spent idling makes a huge difference in both fuel consumption and emissions.

    Here's a shocker: motorcycles have a minimal impact on smog generation, for a couple reasons:

    1. There's a hell of a lot more automobiles on the road. I wouldn't be surprised if semis outnumber motorcycles as well.
    2. Motorcycles tend to have significantly better fuel economy than traditional gas automobiles, so each motorcycle contributes less to a smog problem than a traditional gas auto.

    If you want to target motorcycles as a way to reduce smog emissions, why not just mandate that they shut off their engine when idling in traffic for more than 15 seconds?



  • @abarker said:

    If you want to target motorcycles as a way to reduce smog emissions, why not just mandate that they shut off their engine when idling in traffic for more than 15 seconds?

    I think they should mandate that for cars. It's so dumb that we're in a world with big batteries and reliable starters, and yet every car just sits there idling. All the fucking time.

    Except mine. I have a hybrid. JELLY???


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Intercourse said:

    I felt like a hero for a brief moment in time.

    BTW in my case, that ten minutes is an estimate. The actual measurement is four cycles. It's a four-way intersection. The major street is a 6-lane divided thoroughfare or whatever you call the main roads in Western American cities. The minor is a pair of roughly two-lane residential streets. What I'd see is that the other minor street would get to go every cycle, and mine would only get a green light every other cycle. The only things I can think of to explain that are buggy lights or people aren't tripping the sensor on my side.

    The alternative was to get out the other end of the street, which is a big U. Except that I need to make a left turn onto a six-lane divided road without a light...and the lights in the other direction are not synchronized so it's infrequent you get a gap in both directions at the same time. Or you could take a right turn and go an extra three miles, but at least that's mostly either on minor streets or not having to cross traffic.

    I tell myself the fact that it's only a 1.5-mile trip each way and that I can go home for lunch makes up for it.



  • @boomzilla said:

    I think a lot of pollution control is baked into the engine itself, though. But definitely fuel consumption-wise, it would take a lot.

    Well my bike has hoses and tubes and canisters and filters connecting everything to everything else, and my truck doesn't even have a catalytic converter, so idk...


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Meh.



  • @boomzilla said:

    How many idling motorcycles does it take to equal a single car?

    An idling vehicle produces almost as much CO2 as a slow moving vehicle. Motorcycles don't get a whole lot better fuel economy than cars anymore, maybe twice as many mpg on average.

    For every bike that is allowed to lane split, that's the equivalent of about half a car off the road. For every car driver that decides to ride to work, that's a whole car off the road. It's about the same benefit as convincing that person to use public transportation, but a lot more likely to actually happen.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    Bicycles should stay on the damned sidewalk with the rest of the foot powered traffic.

    Having actually ridden a bike in traffic on heavily-trafficked roads[1], I think that people who continue to do so are either suicidal, homicidal, or both.

    [1] I did it enough to realize it was dumb. I then got on the sidewalk and told myself if a cop stopped me I'd wave my hand at the traffic and ask if he'd seen the traffic.

    I find it disturbing that one reason I don't ride with a helmet is the studies that show drivers are more likely to give a wider berth to bicyclists that don't wear them.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @mott555 said:

    People routinely get so close behind me that I cannot see their cars at all

    Before I got tired of gently tapping my brakes as discouragement for that, followed by moving to where I don't need to commute on the highway, I came up with the idea of a switch that would engage the brake lights without tapping the pedal.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @FrostCat said:

    I find it disturbing that one reason I don't ride with a helmet is the studies that show drivers are more likely to give a wider berth to bicyclists that don't wear them.

    You do look like less of a douche when you don't wear it.



  • @FrostCat said:

    I find it disturbing that one reason I don't ride with a helmet is the studies that show drivers are more likely to give a wider berth to bicyclists that don't wear them.

    My motorcycle has a Rotopax mounting system on the back and I have a compatible 3-gallon gas can I sometimes carry there. I noticed that other cars are much more likely to keep their distance from me when I have that bright red and highly-visible fuel can on the back.


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