sorry, had to rant about bad drivers I saw today

Ayyyyuuuuupppp!!!

I related this before, but in my 47 mile commute, I go from 30mph village roads to a 55mph twisty mountain road to urban boulevard (45) to multilane freeway back to 25mph urban/residential.

Tailgating is elevated to an artform and most NASCAR drivers would hide in fear...

In one case, a certain red Dodge Ram full size pickup truck loves to tailgate everyone, passes and then nearly clips you, runs red lights, drives through from the left turn lane, and once past, is usually rinning at 20-25 mph over the posted limit. Then I regularly see the VANPOOL folks exceeding the posted by 10-15 mph and tailgating as well.

OTOH: in what one would call 'there is a God', I noted a person endorsing a check and deposit ticket whilst driving 60MPH down the freeway. You know what I mean, book on the wheel, hands holding the checkbook and writing down the data, ( steering with their knees, I guess) , when a breeze came up and....

out the window goes the check!!!


Ahhhh, the rightness of it all

 

I'm sure we all have stories of ridiculous drivers... my most recent one (a couple days ago) has me driving home after my roller hockey game around 9:30PM. I was on a major street on the far left lane when all of a sudden I notice someone on the right hand side. She had merged over two lanes and cut me off to get into the left turn lane.

To make matters worse her car was half way still in my lane so I had to swerve to the right, luckily the person directly to my right had slowed down considerably after she cut him off.

It's funny watching people do ridiculous driving manuevers to get a car length further or to get into a lane that they need to get in. I guess some people feel it is a matter of life or death... I just hate when their movements put us safe drivers in danger.

 

I'll never forget driving my new baby home from the dealership... this'll take a little setup to explain properly. when entering cleveland on 71, you end up merging with another highway as you get onto this big bridge, and you end up with 4 lanes. a little while later, the rightmost lane turns into exit only, and you start having exits every 2-3 city blocks. So anyways, i was coming in on the second to right most lane, and the rightmost lane goes exit only. no problems. i pass another exit, with my exit being the one after it. then there's this entrance ramp on the right that comes in at a pretty sharp angle, so you can't really see people coming up it until they're right next to you. well, some lady pops out onto the entrance ramp and imediately, without looking, starts to merge into me... i glance and quickly jerk the car to the left a lane laying on my horn as she goes on her merry way... missed my exit, but i also luckily missed this idiot.

 

After reading so many other stories I'm starting to remember more and more of my stories. Here are a couple more:

1. I was in the right lane of a major street (very light traffic) when someone to my left wanted to merge in. He signaled and I slowed down to let him in (I even waved him in to let him know that I knew he wanted in). We were approaching a red light so we were both slowing down. Everything was going well (we both were abiding by the rules of the road) when all of a sudden I hear a screetching of tires and then... a collision. The person who was merging into my lane was hit from behind by a guy going well over the speed limit. I got a call from the police a couple weeks later (I gave the victim my information just in case the other guy tried to say it was his fault) and asked them why the guy said he rear- ended the other guy. The cop replied, "He was looking for a place to eat and wasn't paying attention to anything in front of him." *sigh* Some people...

2. I let my sister drive my new car back home from her apartment (pre- prius period... I had a Nissan Altima that I loved... but not as much as my new Prius!). We were going speed limit on the freeway in the 2nd lane from the right when all of a sudden some guy almost rams into us. My sister honks the horn and the guy backs off. The guy pulls up alongside us and yells through his window, "What the hell! Why are you racing!" My sister quickly replies, "What are you talking about? I was going speed limit when your jerk nice person almost rams into me." It goes back and forth for a bit but we eventually got our justice. We saw traffic in his lane slowing up while he was still yelling so my sister sped up to get away from him while he had to slam on his brakes. The best thing about this experience was that his girlfriend just sat there looking scared and not saying a word (she didn't even look at us) because she knew it was her boyfriend's fault. We both waved bye to them as he had to wait to merge over because some guy's car had stalled in his lane =).

 

Here is another, older story:

1976, wife and I are in a top-down MG Midget (38MPG btw)and we were exiting the freeway in a classic cloverleaf. Some girls in what must have been their parents' car were rather close and my wife turned to wave them back (no obscene gesture, just a friendly wave-backwards). As we entered the street, we moved left to cross to the left lane and the girls proceeded straight on, yelling insults and arms out the windows, straight on ....in to the back of a stalled truck;-(

No one was injured, except egos and their car's nose was crinkled....

We drove on to our destination

 

Here's a "there is a God" story for you... http://wcco.com/iteam/local_story_181181055.html And the best part, two more SUV's are off the road :lol:

 

you want to talk about old stories... back before i was born, my parents were driving along one weekend morning around 10, when some guy came flying out of a parking lot of a pizza joint and smashed into the side of their car... not sure what he was doing, getting pizza at 10AM, but i can tell you one thing... they didn't have cell phones back then!

 

My best " There is a God" story was when I was traveling home on a four lane highway. Some guy came whipping by in a sports car, past me and then tailgated and whipped around the next car in front of me. Only thing he didn't notice was the cop sitting right there trying to pick up speeders. The cop pulled out of his U-turn space and pulled the guy over all right in front of me. That was sweet.

 

THEY are here in NJ & eastern PA too! Routinely people drive 65 and better in 50 & 55 MPH zones, 80 or better on the NJ turnpike which is 65....
NO RIGHT ON RED signs apparently are invisible to everyone except me....

I'm starting to wonder if the state just sends out licenses to people who call up and ask for one......

Using a handheld phone here is illegal but do you think that anyone pays attention to that?????

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Actorguy1 @ Jul 7 2006, 01:43 PM) [snapback]282641[/snapback]</div>

Reminds me of a time about 2 years ago when I was walking down the sidewalk and saw a car going probably 40-45 in a 25 zone.... through a red light... in the bus lane. How nice there was a cop sitting stopped at that red light to pull that person over for no fewer than 3 violations... ;-)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(barbaram @ Jul 7 2006, 09:46 PM) [snapback]282842[/snapback]</div>

Around here I usually go 65 in the 55 zones on the tollway, and it's all I can do to avoid being run over. The ambient traffic usually is going 75+. I would be endangering my life to go slower than 65. And the cops don't even blink at me at that speed.

 

what i hate are the drivers who are going 1 mph over the speed limit in the fast lane and ignore any attempt by you to alert them to move over... these are the same people who stare in wonder as the right lane becomes the "fast lane" anytime they're on the road...

typical in rural wi. deadly here in the triangle.

 

Hi All,

Here is my tale of a traffic delinquint getting his come-uppance. I coasted into a line of traffic at a four-way stop, with a left turn lane. I was about 50 yards from the left turn lane, and it was full of cars. I am guessing this slow coast angered the large SUV driver the second car behind me, even though there were like 8 cars in front of me stacked up at the stop sign! Anyway, he pulls left across the double yellow lines and proceeds in the oncomming lane, just as a cop makes a left turn into that lane! The SUV guy only made it halfway to the stop sign before he was nose to nose with the police car! The cop STORMED out of his car and read him the riot act right there in the street! Can you say shadenfreuda?