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Mazda Mania
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This coming week's chat on Feb 10 is also going to include a set of trivia questions about the 2004 Mazda models, gleaned from the pages of Edmunds.com! So study up and join us on Tuesday evening!!
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We traveled at 15 mph for about two miles before he made a left turn on to a side road.
http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Feb/02072004/utah/136605.asp
If the link disappears, it's a story about an 88 year old man who got disoriented on his way to get a haircut and drove the wrong way on the freeway for 10 miles before smashing into another car head-on. Mandatory testing for elderly drivers, anyone? Oh yeah, not as long as the AARP goons have anything to say about it. I imagine a gang of septugenarians with canes and walkers beating down some poor legislator with the gall to introduce such a bill...
-Jason
to have accidents than the older drivers.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Hell I remember my dad's Pinto being pushed about 3 spots down in a parking lot by an old lady in a Caddy before she realized what was going on. (Although to be fair, she did my dad a favor by putting it out of its misery)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111024,00.html
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2015 Kia Soul, 2021 Subaru Forester (kirstie_h), 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 (mr. kirstie_h)
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After 75 or 80 years of age, drivers were slighly more dangerous per capita than 16-20 year olds. Only that there are fewer by far, so the total number of accidents they get into is low.
I drove in San Leandro once. Lots of retirees. Scariest prolonged driving experience of my life. Big old station wagon doing a three point turn that ended up on the sidewalk (more than half the car's width) and froze there after a few seconds of driving on it... big sedans stopping several car lenghts behind each other at red lights... the occasional senior citizen speed demon... someone needs to make a documentary there.
It's much more difficult for government to address this problem with elderly drivers. (One big reason - unless we are the victim of an unfortunate accident or illness, we are all going to be old.) Many elderly people I know have made the difficult decision to turn in their license. The few who refuse to admit that they should no longer be behind the wheel do cause serious problems.
6thbeatle: Did that happen to you?
life on the road is quite different for people of different backgrounds. where i live, people are treated quite differently behind the wheel of a car based on their gender and ethnicity. a casual driving error or misunderstanding that would normally be grounds for someone to simply mumble "watch the road" under their breath towards the driver of another vehicle, becomes a platform for unmitigated anger and agression when a person identifies the target of his or her driving frustration with other negative feelings or impressions associated with "that type" of person, whatever "that" may be.
I was out of town visiting a friend and I turned right onto a two-lane road, a typical small-town road with moderate traffic. I didn't realize it, but I needed to be on the left lane in the coming split. I paused by the split and signaled, waiting for the line of cars on the left to let me in. I started to merge into the lane as the light changed and traffic started moving, and the driver behind me on the left began to speed up to cut me off.
This sort of pushed the wrong button in me (I HATE it when people try to block you when they see your signal on), so I sped up a bit and worked my way into the lane. The driver behind me was FURIOUS.
NO WAY on earth was I to be ahead of him. He pulled AROUND me on the left (into the oncoming-traffic lane) and next to me to glare and shout, and then pulled ahead and passed me. I let him pass; no way I was gonna race him to make the situation worse. I could care less if one extra car was in front of me.
He was an older guy with white-hair and balding in a Neon, probably in his 40s or 50s.
-Jason
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As far as I could tell there was no logical reason whatsoever why he would have to cut in front of me with a 20 mph speed differential between us at that exact moment in time. Even if I had seen a shock of silver or white hair peaking up abvove above the headrest I would have let it slide, but as I passed it seemed like a relatively young upper middle-aged guy who should have had his witts about him.
So I hovered there leaving exactly the tiny gap he created when he got in front of me and hit him with both fogs and high beams, then move left, passed, and gave him a sort of "why?" look as I moved by. He just seemed to give back an annoyed stare like 'what the heck is this jerk bugging me for', like there was some perfect logic he saw to his move that meant I had no right at all to express any irritation. Go figure.
He's driving a Kia........'nuff said. ;-)
I think the first two points are valid, and I have received several tickets in my driving career for rolling through stop signs as well as for speeding. Fair enough, I deserved them. But I don't think the third point about the SUVs is really valid. I think any driver finds it frustrating, and even somewhat dangerous, when their view of the road ahead is blocked. SUVs are particularly annoying in parking lots, since you have to start backing out without really being able to see if anybody's coming.
I am generally a courteous driver. I signal all turns, am not overly aggressive and don't tailgate. My main vice is that I drive too fast at times, and I have to catch myself and slow down.
Two of the most annoying things on the road are rubberneckers and left lane campers. I think that serving as an impediment to the free flow of traffic is more dangerous than moderate speeding.
Here;s a good way to jedge if you should be in a passing lane: If you are passing somebody you have a right to be in a passing lane(as I said above 1st ,2nd, or 3rd lanes.) If you are not in the act of passing you should be in the right lane(4th lane of an interstate)so faster drivers can pass you.
I have trouble with the bias and discriminatory thinking shown in this statement. If the hair is gray, bad driving is a characteristic; if the hair is not gray, only good driving is expected? That kind of bias has no place in the forum!
People should be judged on the type of driving they actually do. They should not be stereotyped.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I thought the comment was perfectly valid. If a person is really old, more patience is warranted, because their skills have declined. It's a fact of life to acknowledge that, not bias or stereotyping.
Lighten up.
2. Drivers who can't (or won't) think far enough ahead to get into the proper lane before they get within 50 feet of an intersection where they need to turn and then cut across all the lanes of traffic to get into the proper lane.
3. Drivers who won't move over into an empty left lane to allow merging traffic to enter the highway.
4. Some semi drivers who speed and tailgate may not know just how dangerous they are. Those who do should be thrown in jail for wreckless endangerment.
5. Drivers who don't use their turn signals. I guess they think those are Christmas decorations?
One unrelated comment on rubber-necking...
You can not expect people NOT to rubber-neck. It is human nature. I would prefer people slow down to take a look then continue driving at speed and then be distracted by whatever is happening on the side of the road while driving at regular speeds.
If someone is impatient to pass and comes up fast behind me and then tailgaits and flashes lights, they can expect a heavy dose of brake lights. (Actually, I will usually just tap my brakes to give them the message to back off. If they do not get this message I will slow down to the speed of traffic on the right and, when it is safe, move over and let them pass.)
The right way to pass is to give a friendly "flash-to-pass" before you are on my tail. If there is not traffic on the right, I will happily move over. Otherwise just be patient and I will move over when traffic on the right clears. Does that make me a LLC? If yes, then so be it.
Hey, none of us are angels behind the wheel all the time. You're description of gunning it and then cutting back in doesn't sound like the safest maneuver.
If the right lane is open and I'm done passing, I'll move over when it's safe to do so, especially when I'm going 7 mph or more above the speed limit.
Let them merge in and out of the right lane if they're in such a hurry. And it would be nice to have a radar guided slingshot of some kind to zap their headlights when they flash them...
I saw a Plymouth back in the 70s that had driving lights aimed backwards and turned them on going down the interstate. It was so bright people were blinded at night. Apparently someone tailgated him or flashed their lights at him. Maybe that idea has merit. Flash brights at me and I turn on the flamethrower lights in your eyes.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
No, I didn't say that. If the hair is not gray, I still expect there might be bad driving. But PREDICTABLE bad driving... if the guy is tailgating me, he wants me to move over. IF he cuts me off, its because he had a sensible reason why he had to be in my lane. With younger bad drivers, they may make dangerous moves, but those moves are almost always predictable because they follow a certain pattern. Id much rather have you go 80 around me but be able to predict what moves you'll make than have you do 50 but be likely to do something completely and totally random at any given moment.
I expect aggressive, but logical driving if the hair is not gray. If the hair is gray, I expect passive, but completely illogical driving, due to senility and slow reflexes. This might include making a totally pointless lane change, or coming to a complete stop or hesitating in a situation where anything other than decisive action could get you killed, or puttering along at 50 in the far left lane while cars fly by you on the right, or stomping on the gas instead of the brakes and plowing into a crowd of pedestrians.
6h beatle... I am always careful to give motorcyclists an extra extra wide birth, yield to them even in situations where the law doesn't necessarily say I have to, and be aware of where they are at all times. After you know someone who nearly looses their life because a car driver wasn't paying enough attention, it can be enough to give you extra respect to bikers.
Using an elderly driver who plowed into a market group in California? as an example of elderly's driving is as irrational as using the 20-something in Cincinnati who did just as I described above as an example of 20-something's driving.
On a more serious note, I find many early-age drivers to be irrational in their driving. Moreso than with elderly drivers (most). Most of the 70s type elderly drivers are carefully traveling. They are aware they may not see something they should from their BMW, Volvo, Lexus. But many youthful drivers do the dumbest things just to get ahead 100 feet -- such as gunning it in the right lane. As I told one police dispatcher, the guy acts like he has too much testosterone...
On the other hand women drivers tend to be easily distracted by their cell conversation, slow down, hold up traffic, pull out in front of you with their hand to their ear at 15 under the limit, and change lanes for not reason other than they're at the intersection they meant to turn at...
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
The truth is that different age groups are usually involved in different types of accidents. If I read about an accident where the driver lost control on a back road and hit a tree because of excessive speed, if I guess that the driver is a young male, I'm correct about 99 percent of the time.
By the same token, when I read that a out-of-control car plowed into a crowd or though a plate glass window, I can usually correctly guess that the driver is collecting Social Security. I can even correctly guess the make of car - either a Buick or an Oldsmobile.
The problem is that it is much easier to take legislative action against young drivers, thanks to the AARP and the fact that everyone will someday be old.
Exactly...they drive slow because they know their reflexes are slow and they shouldn't even be out on the road in the first place. So they figure if they go 45 on the highway and make everybody else swerve around them if any accidents happen, itll always be someone else's fault.
And Im guessing the 20 year old who plowed through the crowd at Octoberfest was drunk. Elderly people do that type of thing without being under the influence of any foreign substance whatsoever. There are exceptions to every generalization but as a whole, I stand by my assertion. Older drivers are usually bad because they're too passive to a fault, or else more easily confused and prone to hesitate or stop at a dangerous time. Younger drivers are bad drivers because they're aggressive to a fault. As someone else said, only one group gets punished though, and it ain't the one who shows up to vote.
20 something running from police car he saw (not chasing him) hits telephone pole at high rate of speed on street at edge of town. Car burns. Don't see anyone over 60 involved in any of these this weekend. Better luck next time.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
"Older drivers are usually bad because they're PASSIVE to a fault, or else more easily confused and prone to hesitate or stop at a dangerous time. Younger drivers are bad drivers because they're AGGRESSIVE to a fault."
THe only difference between the two... when elderly drivers screw up, they're normally surrounded by people with good enough reflexes to avoid the accident.
Liven up your evening and join your fellow enthusiasts every Tuesday from 6-7pm PT/9-10pm ET for our Mazda Mania Chat!
We'll be testing your knowledge with some automotive trivia questions as well, so be prepared! Hope to see YOU there on Tuesday!
Mazda Mania Chat Room
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Child support doesn't stop ment from having umpteen kids by as many women they can find. That's a penalty.
Drunk driving may be down but it's not out. What are gonna do? Fry people on the first offense?
Wanna talk abput a penalty? You could kill yourself street racing. That's quite a penalty. Doesn't seem to keep folk from doing it though.