3. You cut me off and slow down. 4. You make a left turn before my going straight. 5. You stop in a merging lane, mother fucker it's designed so we merge at speed. 6. You have a breast cancer awareness plate or frame, a Texas plate or Washington plate because inevitably you will do something stupid that deserves it.
7. (maybe not enough to garner a honk, but . . . ) A person at a four-lane intersection who's going straight but who stays in the far right-hand lane, thus constipating those who mean to turn right-on-red.
Argh, this drives me nuts. It's not illegal, but it stops traffic flow and inconveniences others. I always make sure that if nobody else is going straight, I don't end up at the light in the far right lane. Unfortunately, 95% of people on the road are barely aware they're even driving a vehicle, much less thinking about others driving their vehicles. You'd think that operating a ~3000lb object moving at 45, 50, 60mph capable of killing yourself and others easily would be enough cause for someone to be alert and focused on the task at hand, but that's not the case. I know this is fucking ironic coming from me, as younger Nidex drove like quite a shithead. I still do from time to time I guess, but not with others near me and not often anymore. I just like going fast My defense though is that when I am driving, I am driving. My brain is focused on driving 100%. Even when I was 16-21 or so and regularly would be traversing at triple-digit speeds, I was always completely focused on driving. The problem is with everybody else thinking about the shit they took that morning, or their late Netflix bill instead of the road. Fuckers.
TBH, I don't think it's all that complicated. I listen to podcasts and audiobooks, and I actually talk out loud to myself while driving. None of this stuff is rocket science-- taken with what we mentioned in the "mirroring" thread, this is maybe a dozen commonly recurring situations that just call for a little bit of common sense. It's mostly just pattern-recognition and the Golden Rule applied to driving. But you do have to pay attention at least some. Oh, and if I'm the one with the head-ass moment, I try to own it and let the other driver know it with a deferential shrug or forehead-slap.
That's fine, as long as you are paying attention to traffic. I listen to music all the time, that's not what I was saying, I guess I worded it wrong.
I see what you mean. I think I heard that when they started to put radios in cars some people said it would be too distracting and the end of driving-as-we-know-it. Obviously not true. I guess some people have assholes that can't keep from sucking in the head once in a while, no matter what's going on around them.
Texting drivers, texting pedestrians, militant bicyclists, wild animals run amok: no wonder there's a push for autonomous cars.
That's more along the lines of what I meant. I can only imagine how bad the militant bicyclists are in Oregon, being the general liberal atmosphere there I would have to guess that it's militant cyclist central. I always make way for cyclists, but the ones who ride (literally) in the middle of the lane drive me nuts. You are not a car, get the hell out of the way. Then when you go around them they give you the stare of death, as if all of the traffic should flex to accommodate them and their maximum-of-20mph riding down the middle of a 40mph road.
The clash is much greater here than say Portland. Here we have ultra conservatives as well as ultra liberals sharing the roads at the same time. The concept of "share the road" is a two sided proposition. Bikes as well as cars need to share.
You're probably being punished for being a "polluter", but fuck those people. Around here we get the Amish and their horse-drawn carriages. I don't hate them, per se, but I have little respect for them on GP. At least they don't drive down the middle of the road-that-was-paved-with-modern-machinery-they-avoided-paying-taxes-for-because-it's-a-business-masquerading-as-a-cult/religion. [goes to change out tampon]
I hear you. The more militant the bike rider the more likely they are to use the middle of the road even though everyone else's road tax dollars were spent putting in expensive bike lanes.
There's Amish around here too, they have their own neighborhood which is like 10 blocks x 6 blocks. The main street through there looks absolutely nuts - it's pretty much just a market in the middle of the street with people everywhere, good luck driving through.
