American Drivers Suck

[FX86]

i seen one dude on a scooter going really slow and hunched over...thought he was drunk and it was evening...passed by him and he was looking down at his phone in his lap

WTF?!?!

[FX86]

Originally Posted by Ultramaroon

In high school driver's ed we were shown a movie in which one statement blew my mind. The narrator said that among other defensive driving techniques, it is actually safer to move slightly faster than the surrounding traffic.

That was in 1980. I have no idea what the accepted theory is today. I'm still torn about that assertion.

i'd say he is wrong...the corolla behind me one day decided to move slightly faster and overtake me on the right just to have a SUV pull out of a parking lot literally last second because the corolla was hidden behind my car and the corolla driver had to slam on brakes and swerve around the SUV ....after his butt finished clenching...he went slightly faster again

[pxtang]

Originally Posted by mav1178

Then you have people in parts of Asia who basically don't help injured parties in an accident, for fear of a liability lawsuit.

Yes, it's true.

Dunno if anyone else as mentioned this yet, but in some Asian countries, if you are at fault, you have to pay for recovery fees for someone you hurt. Some people choose to kill the injured party, because it's cheaper.

[mav1178]

Originally Posted by pxtang

Dunno if anyone else as mentioned this yet, but in some Asian countries, if you are at fault, you have to pay for recovery fees for someone you hurt. Some people choose to kill the injured party, because it's cheaper.

Pretty much the reason why I avoided crossing streets (in general) when I was in Shanghai in January.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by FX86

i'd say he is wrong...the corolla behind me one day decided to move slightly faster and overtake me on the right just to have a SUV pull out of a parking lot literally last second because the corolla was hidden behind my car and the corolla driver had to slam on brakes and swerve around the SUV ....after his butt finished clenching...he went slightly faster again

Oh, it's always dangerous to overtake on the right. I think the idea was that if going slightly faster, overtaking properly, the driver is more situationally aware and not trapped inside a chain of vehicles all moving together.

But yeah, I'm not convinced. I think it's more important to emphasize situational awareness and always seeking the safe exit. It struck me as careless to suggest a standard practice of overtaking traffic to an audience of teenagers.

[geezerbrzeezer]

Originally Posted by extrashaky

Maybe a little, but I see the same nonsense when I'm driving my beat up Jeep. People are just rude and stupid.

Maybe half to 70% of the tailgaters will back off when I hit my wig-wag strobes, but only because it confuses them. Whenever I get around to mounting my Supertones, I'm considering relocating the stock horns under the rear so I can honk backwards at them.

I agree with the desire and the righteousness of wanting to strike back (pun intended), but doing so risks unintentionally elevating yourself from a benign irritant treated as any other by these ultramaroons, to an active threat that demands focus and targeting.

Please don't do this, unless your car and life really don't matter to you and yours.

[krayzie]

Originally Posted by FX86

i seen one dude on a scooter going really slow and hunched over...thought he was drunk and it was evening...passed by him and he was looking down at his phone in his lap

WTF?!?!

I see kids now on skateboards bombing down the middle of the road texting on their smartphones.

Yesterday I was ready to turn left on a yellow light and the oncoming Lexus IS driver was too busy looking at the headunit and I had to honk for her to stop the car, and her car was leaning towards the adjacent lane wasn't even straight, the guy beside her had to brake early as she overstepped the lane divider.

You think Mainland China is crazy, try crossing the intersection in the middle of Athens it's just as scary.

[gravitylover]

Originally Posted by extrashaky

Maybe half to 70% of the tailgaters will back off when I hit my wig-wag strobes, but only because it confuses them.

I had a 1960 Willys CJ5 for a few years with rear facing aircraft landing lights so I didn't back of a cliff or something off road or in the snow. That thing had a max speed of ~58mph going downhill with a stiff tailwind so people would get really aggressive trying to make me go faster and run right up on my bumper. When it got really annoying I'd flip those puppies on. They would back off either because they were blinded, pissed off or because they left the road unexpectedly.

In the last few months I've seen some outrageous shit on the roads related to handheld device use. More than once I've seen people drive right off the road at highway speed and a bunch of accidents of varying degrees of intensity. Wednesday I watched a head on three cars in front of me when a woman was texting and came over the line. She lost badly to a dump truck. I feel terrible for the truck driver who most likely has that image implanted deep in his mind now

[nikitopo]

Originally Posted by ogrowup

We recently were able to drive on the German Autobon. Such disciplined drivers. Left lane= pass slower cars, then get the hell out of left lane. I would pass cars at 120mph, and couldn't get back into the right lane fast enough because I knew some big ass BMW was coming in hot. Never once saw a rolling roadblock,or any of the crap that US drivers do.

You probably didn't have the chance to drive on the German Autobahn for a long time. A driver's license never expires here, which means that you can be in your 80's or 90's and drive a car. Many families are losing every year their lives, because some old people don't know what they are doing with their cars ...

Try also to drive in rainy conditions and you'll see many funny situations. My daily driver is a Subaru Forester and in extreme weather conditions I am driving very conservative. I remember one time a young lady overtaking me with a small car like crazy and after 4-5 miles seeing her stopped because of an accident.

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by gravitylover

I had a 1960 Willys CJ5 for a few years with rear facing aircraft landing lights so I didn't back of a cliff or something off road or in the snow. That thing had a max speed of ~58mph going downhill with a stiff tailwind so people would get really aggressive trying to make me go faster and run right up on my bumper. When it got really annoying I'd flip those puppies on. They would back off either because they were blinded, pissed off or because they left the road unexpectedly.

I would never do that. That's incredibly dangerous.

To be clear, the strobes I mentioned above are just the LEDs in my tail lights, not bright flashing white strobes. They're no brighter than the normal tail lights. The TapTurn will strobe those red LEDs in various patterns when I turn on the hazard lights, including a back and forth wig-wag pattern. Since very few people have hazards with a wig-wag pattern, it confuses tailgaters. The car doesn't appear to be an emergency vehicle, but it's doing something that you normally only see on emergency vehicles or utility/construction trucks.

It helps in many cases, without causing someone to run off the road.

Originally Posted by geezerbrzeezer

I agree with the desire and the righteousness of wanting to strike back (pun intended), but doing so risks unintentionally elevating yourself from a benign irritant treated as any other by these ultramaroons, to an active threat that demands focus and targeting.

Please don't do this, unless your car and life really don't matter to you and yours.

A very strange response. If someone is tailgating me, I'm already in danger. I really don't see how a rear-facing horn would increase that danger. Like the strobes, it would more likely confuse the tailgater, since the horn would seem to be coming from the front of their own vehicle.

[justatroll]

Originally Posted by mdm

Another intersting things I've seen here is bus drivers in the travel lane who move their bus partially into the merge lane well before it ends to prevent people from merging late...

I have been known to move over to the right to block those people who think it is OK to "cut in line".
I completely block those people by stopping and then flagging the left lane to continue past us.
I have gotten applause for this and then they will let me right back in when I signal that I am ready to merge again.

[mdm]

Originally Posted by justatroll

I have been known to move over to the right to block those people who think it is OK to "cut in line".

I am not talking about "cutting in line", I am talking about properly executed zipper merge - do not merge early, go to the end of the merging lane, and there merge so that cars from the merging lane and those from the through lane alternate 1:1.

[justatroll]

Originally Posted by mdm

I am not talking about "cutting in line", I am talking about properly executed zipper merge - do not merge early, go to the end of the merging lane, and there merge so that cars from the merging lane and those from the through lane alternate 1:1.

I am talking about when "most" of the people are trying to merge correctly BEFORE the lane comes to a complete end, while others choose to NOT wait in line like the civilized drivers and try to drive right to the very end of the merge lane where they jam on the brakes and try to wedge themselves into traffic.


When those people decide they don't want to wait in line like the civilized people, I will block them and make them wait until all the people they chose to "blow right past" get by first.

[mdm]

Originally Posted by justatroll

I am talking about when "most" of the people are trying to merge correctly BEFORE the lane comes to a complete end, while others choose to NOT wait in line like the civilized drivers and try to drive right to the very end of the merge lane where they jam on the brakes and try to wedge themselves into traffic.

When those people decide they don't want to wait in line like the civilized people, I will block them and make them wait until all the people they chose to "blow right past" get by first.

The proper civilized technique when a lane ends and traffic is slow, is to create a single merging point at the end of the lane, and alternate there. You are not supposed to merge beyond the end by driving on shoulder, but you are not supposed to merge well not before the end either.


People who merge early are not doing it right. People from the through lane who block the merge lane are jerks and aggressive drivers. I hope that you are not a jerk, and that you only did not explain clearly what you meant.