Inconsiderate Drivers (share your stories, etc.)

redmaxx

or in PHX traffic might be crawling at 10 MPH if it's in the thick of rush hour.... But most of the time you are correct, but in Mesa getting onto the 60 I have seen traffic back up all the way to the lights and beyond on to the surface streets with people trying to get onto the freeway. This morning was no exception... at 8:30 I was half a block down down Gilbert Rd in a line of cars that lined up all the way to the end of the ramp, plus those that were in line at the light coming the opposite direction. Traffic on the freeway by then was flowing at about 60 MPH.... but the ramp was crawling at 2 MPH

Yep, I know exactly what you are talking about. The lights just move the congestion on to the streets. Which isn't entirely bad, because if you have a commute of any distance then you can appreciate not going 65->35->25->45->65 over and over again for each on ramp. Then there are those peak times at rush hour when everything is slow and they don't do much of anything. They should just build another deck on each highway and give each direction 8 lanes!

snakeweasel

They should just build another deck on each highway and give each direction 8 lanes!

The Dan Ryan Expressway (I-90/94) in Chicago has 7 lanes in each direction at times and it still isn't enough.

xwesx

Oh, that makes more sense.... I was thinking of it in terms of just a standard lane marker.... is the separator between standard and HOV lanes the only place it is allowed? Still seems dangerous to some extent, unless lane changes into and out of HOV are restricted....

xwesx

Wow.... lights at the END of the ramp? E-gads, those would only work if traffic was extremely congested and the flow of traffic was moving very slow. I think I would obey the light any time traffic was bumper to bumper (and moving slow), or, of course, if somebody was stopped at it in front of me! Any other time, I would zipper it just as I should.

xwesx

They should just build another deck on each highway and give each direction 8 lanes!

Hahah.... that would just create twice as much congestion. Drivers are really good at creating gridlock.....

euphonium

and in an emergency response time is critical. Whether a heart attack or house fire, roundabouts are obstacles.

fintail

I'd hope there's usually an alternate route...

Given the perpetual inability of cities in this area to deal with traffic issues (or simply read up on properly sequencing their lights...), roundabouts can provide a lot of good with minimal effort.

Oh, and we have those awful on-ramp lights here too. Luckily I avoid the highways when they are in use. Speaking of on-ramps, the Bellevue way of merging is becoming a disease. That would be to take the on-ramp at 35 and accelerate once you are out on the highway. Prime offenders - SUVs and minivans.

snakeweasel

Oh man I strongly dislike those people, I hate it when I get up to highway speeds on the on ramp only to have to hit the brakes for some idiot doing 30-35 at the end looking for a break in the traffic.

What I hate more is those that do that the merge all the way over to the left. A while back I got behind someone who not only entered the highway at 40 MPH (normal speeds at that time are around 70) but crossed over three lanes to get into the left lane. :confuse:

fintail

Sounds like a typical LLC finding his place on the road.

Here the slow mergers usually keep right, so it is easy to pass them on the merge and be ahead of them by the time they are out of the on ramp.

redmaxx

Oh, that makes more sense.... I was thinking of it in terms of just a standard lane marker.... is the separator between standard and HOV lanes the only place it is allowed? Still seems dangerous to some extent, unless lane changes into and out of HOV are restricted....

Sorry, wasn't clear, passing is not allowed in that gap between the lanes. So, now reimagine it, with slow traffic in the next lane and a small opening in that lane. The Excursion straddles the lanes and nearly causes a huge pileup. :surprise:

redmaxx

Oh, and we have those awful on-ramp lights here too. Luckily I avoid the highways when they are in use. Speaking of on-ramps, the Bellevue way of merging is becoming a disease. That would be to take the on-ramp at 35 and accelerate once you are out on the highway. Prime offenders - SUVs and minivans.

So that is where our drivers that do that are coming from!

redmaxx

What I hate more is those that do that the merge all the way over to the left. A while back I got behind someone who not only entered the highway at 40 MPH (normal speeds at that time are around 70) but crossed over three lanes to get into the left lane.

I see that occasionally around here. They are totally oblivous to traffic behind them. Luckily I've never been along side them when they make the change, although I did come very close to rear-ending one. When I pass them I usually see:

- A cellphone glued to one ear.
- A blank/empty stare (this one is even more scary than the cellphone).
- An angry look like I did something wrong.

The place it usually happens (for those in AZ: Where Pecos Rd merges with I-10 West) is an on-ramp where people coming from a more "expensive" section of Phoenix. They seem to think they have the right of way to the entire highway when they get on.

snakeweasel

The place it usually happens (for those in AZ: Where Pecos Rd merges with I-10 West) is an on-ramp where people coming from a more "expensive" section of Phoenix. They seem to think they have the right of way to the entire highway when they get on.

There is one place in Chicago where Congress (a downtown street) turns into the Eisenhower Expressway. Traffic coming out of the old Post Office (the street goes right through the building) onto the Eisenhower usually is up to normal highway speed. But right after that point there is a single entrance lane funneling traffic off of the North/South expressways that it crosses. This entrance lane has a constant flow of traffic entering at maybe 30 MPH and many times you get a bunch of cars where the second car wants to pass the first and gets into the second lane, the third wants to pass the two in front of him and cuts across two lane of traffic to the third lane and the fourth wants to pass all of them and cuts all the way to the far left lane. So you have a rolling roadblock doing half the speed as the traffic on the road.

I am amazed that there isn't a ton of accidents there.

euphonium

"They seem to think they have the right of way to the entire highway when they get on."

Well, after paying their 2nd 1/4ly Estimated income tax bill, due tomorrow, I can understand how they could think that way.

fintail

Today's dope of the day...a guy in an Acura TL fiddling with the navi as he pretended to drive down a crowded suburban road. He kept up with the flow, but would slowly but surely wander over to the right, going over the line. I flashed my lights a couple times (as I was lucky enough to be directly behind him), and he actually woke up, straightened out, and turned off at the next street.

euphonium

according to the second-annual "Allstate America's Best Drivers Report."

Sioux Falls, S.D. ranks first in the top 10 cities with the Safest Drivers.

"Insurance Journal"-West Region/ June 5, 2006 Vol. 84 No. 11.

thegraduate

Sheesh, he should've used the voice-recognition!

imidazol97

I was tailgated through much of Cinci I-75 yesterday morn by a stereotype I've come to believe. 20s-30s woman driving her trendy foreign car on the cellphone tailgating whatever is inthe left lane in front of her at whatever speed. If I went 70 she was 8 feet off my tail; if I went 50 she was 8 feet off my tail. She paid NO attention to what was in front of her other than peripheral vision input. She was looking at her cellphone.

She was an accident waiting to happen. She was much worse than the man in white shirt going 55 in right lane on cellphone apparently writing on something.

carlisimo

She probably wanted to go 75-80, pretty normal for a left lane.

fintail

It was the old TL, I don't know if it had that.

Pretty funny no less...I was kind of hoping he'd go off the road, but with my luck I'd have been hit by shrapnel

210delray

Downtown Cincy's freeways are mostly old and are not safe for 75-80 mph travel. Speed limit is still 55 mph, FWIW (maybe even 50 closest to downtown).

xwesx

She was much worse than the man in white shirt going 55 in right lane on cellphone apparently writing on something.

Hahah... that reminds me of the phone conversation I had with my father yesterday. I called him up to give him some medical information he'd requested and he said, "hang on, I have to get a pen and paper." After a bit of silence, I thought to ask if he was driving. He said, "Yep." I said, okay, well, find a place to pull over because I am not saying another word until you are stopped. He did not give me too much of a hard time before actually stopping. I hate it anytime I know someone is driving while talking to me on the phone, but writing?! No way - I will have no part of that. :surprise:

xwesx

Pretty funny no less...I was kind of hoping he'd go off the road, but with my luck I'd have been hit by shrapnel

Hahaha... yeah, you need to look out for yourself out there! :P

imidazol97

The car 100 feet in front of me was going 58-60 and the 20 cars ahead of him were going about the same in morning "rush" hour. She wasn't going to go anywhere faster. She just wanted to tailgate with no sense of physics.

Does anyone know of a source of cell phone jammers to turn on to disrupt cellphone conversations just to see their reactions? Yeah, speeding's illegal too.

snakeweasel

Does anyone know of a source of cell phone jammers to turn on to disrupt cellphone conversations just to see their reactions? Yeah, speeding's illegal too.

Speeding is a misdermeaner that is punishable by a small fine. Jamming radio signals is a federal crime a felony punishable by a rather large fine and time in jail.

imidazol97

Don't they have them in other countries?

snakeweasel

Don't they have what in other countries?

carlisimo

women drivers and cellphones?

albert6

In Saint Louis it is acceptable to kill people who are stopped on the highway, especially using a commercial vehicle.

A few years back a trucker crushed a number of people to death who were stopped on the highway at the left-lane exit to an overpass for the usual rush-hour back up. The sun was at his back, there was no rain and he had at least a mile of straight roadway to see the brake lights. Still, he just plowed into the line. There was one car that was unidentified as a car until the wreckage was being cleared away. It was a little one between two SUVs.

Last year a dump truck driver, with his ride-along son, around noon time, dry, sunny, after about a mile of straight road, plowed into a line of right lane-exit cars who were going to the local amusement park. The minivan he hit immediately burst into flames, but was so badly crushed none of the doors could open. Witnesses say the people screamed for a while, but no one could approach due to the fire. The dump truck driver was shaken, as was his ride-along son.

Just a few days ago a semi driver slammed into a line of vehicles backed up in the right lane exit onto another highway, killing the initial vehicle's driver outright, damaging a second enough it burst into flames, swerved across two lanes of traffic an slammed into the concrete divider, punching a 60 pound chunk of concrete into an on-coming car. A woman stopped the concrete with her ribs and (punctured) lung. Truck also hit another car that just avoided a head-on. "I'm still shaking and I don't have no cigarettes."

The weather was clear, sun at their backs, about a mile of visibility. The trucker's ride-along wife seemed most worried about the impact when hopping the concrete barrier. I guess until then her life was not endangered.

No jail time so far.

After all, they were all accidents due to inattention, and who has not been mindlessly inattentive on the road for a full mile or so? Why would people stop on the highway anyhow? They deserve to be killed. They were in the way of bigger, faster vehicles, driven by far more skilled drivers than they apparently were.

The sickening thing is that this sort of crash can't be limited to Saint Louis, so it must happen hundreds of times every year, spread across the US.

carlisimo

Damn, I was about to complain about some really slow drivers I had come across today (on surface streets), but I can't after a post like that!

magnette

In UK talking on a hand-held mobile phone while driving is illegal, but is a widely ignored rule. Writing while driving is probaby illegal too (driving while insane?). But until everybody gets sat-nav I suppose the worst in my neck of the woods is driving while trying to read a map - especially the really detailed street atlases like A-Z London, which has about 20 streets to the square inch in tiny type. I must confess to a few near-misses when trying to find a particular street, as the traffic always moves off when you have just found the right page, and so on....

ruking1

Your scenario is a graphic example of why the rule said any number of ways: Keep Right Except to Pass, Slower Traffic Keep Right, WORKS! Being as how you did, you really have no need to feel funny or apologize.

imidazol97

Cellphone jammers.

snakeweasel

Well not sure and really not part of this conversation unless the person wanting to jam other peoples cell phones are in those other countries. But in the U.S. (and you have Old Glory as your flag) that is illegal and far more serious than speeding.

fintail

The phone jammer issue is that if it is proven that your jammer interfered with an emergency call and someone came into harm or worse because of it, you better prepare to kiss goodbye everything you own and will ever own, as your life will be wrecked.

Otherwise, I suppose it is only illegal if you get caught.

imidazol97

I would think it's like speeding. Terrible crime, but few are caught that area dangerous, obnoxious speeders.

It's like northbound into Louisville: speed limit 65/55. But the 80 mph crowd is many and few get caught. Saw a Camaro and Crown Vic with a poor victim or two stopped. Apparently they sneaked up on them and paced them. Everyone had been running 80 as it opens up into 4 or more lanes before dropping to 55.

euphonium

Would not a 100 watt linear amp be effective next to a cell 'phone?

snakeweasel

Would not a 100 watt linear amp be effective next to a cell 'phone?

What?

fintail

Or just a loud exhaust. Get a tuned Harley...they seem to be immune from any exhaust noise regulations, at least around here. Or maybe a big truck that is exempt from real world responsibility. Drown out the yappers.

"I would think it's like speeding. Terrible crime, but few are caught that area dangerous, obnoxious speeders. "

Speeding in and of itself isn't a huge crime....going 5 or 10 over is no big deal. Going 100 in a 60 is insane if there is other traffic, but 70 in a 60 is usually reasonable.

xwesx

Hmm... that reminds me of the last 1000 miles I drove during the last time I drove my van to Alaska. Other than no brakes, it was an uneventful trip.

xwesx

I hear you though, Al. The down hills are downright nerve-wracking when you know that above X speed you have next to no control over the vehicle. I have had to do that a few times and that is when you learn the word "patience." Driving the Parks highway that trip (the Alaska road between Anchorage and Fairbanks), I took advantage of the shoulder many a time to let folks around me - anything from a Miata to a tractor pulling doubles. I was the slowest thing on the road, but we all made it safely.

Well done. I hope you enjoy your new home!

albert6

Why do you renew your license?

If breaking driving laws is A-OK with you, then what reason do you have to waste time and money on paperwork?

If you go 10 over 60, then the guy in front of you should go ten over and the next one up, 4th car, is going 100, which you think is insane.

Be gutsy. Don't renew your license. Make your actions match your beliefs.

fintail

A license is more of a form of ID than anything else, in my eyes. It's cheaper than a passport.

Laws are not just in and of themselves. If it was really about safety we wouldn't even be going 60 or even 50. But it's just a revenue generation scheme, a speed tax. I'll break it as I please. I generally go about 5 over in the city, up to 10 over on the highway unless it is deserted. I've never had a cop so much as turn his head at me, so I'm doing something right...believe me, I'm the least of your worries.

"If you go 10 over 60, then the guy in front of you should go ten over and the next one up"

There's no logic in that.

Let's see the lawmakers prove their legislation. They can put up or shut up.

xrunner2

Anyway, back to my original point, when does a cop deem it necassary to pull someone over?

If it is a red car, especially if it is sports or sporty.

Many years ago, had a red car. That was first and last red car. Was pulled over by various cops for minor infractions at different times. Got warnings mostly, two tickets of which only one stuck. Fought the other ticket in court with a lawyer and won.

There is something that attracts cops to red cars. Had the red car (sporty) for about ten years and had one or two other cars (sporty not red) at same time and never had problem with cops with non-red.

snakeweasel

I once had a red Mustang when I was in the service and with the exception of one $%#@ in base security I really don't think I had that much of a problem with being pulled over in it.

fintail

"Actually I wonder when a cop deems it necassary to pull someone over for speeding."

Probably depends on their mood, their quota, your car, etc. I know someone who got a ticket for going 65 in a 60...I didn't believe it til she showed me the ticket. It's really pretty random. For the most part the revenue collectors are reasonably fair-minded here, they won't get people unless they are going 10+ over. Maybe that's why I've never had a problem...that and the speed traps here are rarely very hidden. They cherry pick the inattentive...I don't have a big problem with that.

grbeck

Under Pennsylvania law, if a police officer is using radar, the readout must show that the driver is exceeding the limit by at least 6 mph before he or she can be stopped.

On most rural limited access highways, if the speed limit is 65 mph, police won't pull you over for a speed up to 75 mph, provided the weather is good and you aren't doing anything stupid (changing lanes too much, tailgating, etc.).

xwesx

That, and I imagine it also has something to do with traffic density at the time. For example, if you are on a "deserted" road, meaning traffic is extremely light, you might get stopped for 60 in a 55 just because the officer is bored and you were *technically* speeding. Around where I grew up, that one was fairly common.

My one speeding ticket was about 3 weeks after I received my license when I was 16. In retrospect, it was the best thing that could have happened that night because while I did not intend to speed, I was falling asleep at the wheel (and foot just kept pressing the gas as it relaxed) and probably would have killed me and my occupants had I not been jolted awake by the car riding my tail.... The last thing I had recalled was driving in the right lane at 69. The next thing I knew I was at 82 in the very far side of the left lane. The officer said he clocked me at 88, and while I was adamant that I saw only 82, I really could not argue.

I learned my lesson there, though. That transition from being a passenger to being the driver was rough.

euphonium

On a moonless night the radar gun didn't know she was driving a Red T Bird. Ticketed for 55 in a 35. Paid the fine + $5 and was issued a return check for $5. Haven't cashed the check and the ticket has yet to appear on her MVR. Process is stalled until the check clears.

snakeweasel

http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/ticket.asp