Driving home from work on Friday, I was almost hit by a driver switching lanes without even looking to see if there was a car there already. This got me to thinking, once again, about how stupid most people are, especially on the road. There are a ton of things I see fairly regularly that really irritate me while I'm driving. And every one of these things is a potential safety issue, not just for me, but for the idiot doing it (or not doing it) as well, so you would think that they would at least consider these things at least for their own life and safety. Of course, idiocy tends to breed idiocy, so maybe the world would be better if these people weren't around to dumb it up. But then again, the universe, being one huge, cosmic joke, would probably see to it that these morons are left unharmed, only causing damage to productive members of society.
So without further ado, in no particular order, are my top 6 stupid things I wish people would actually get stopped and ticketed for (or worse) on the road:
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Not signalling - Either when turning or changing lanes. It isn't just a courtesy. If you are slowing down for no apparent reason, someone may try to pass you. If you then turn left and they are accellerating to get around you, you are now the top bar of a t-bone. I know this can happen. In fact, it happened to a car I was riding in in high school because of bad weather and no signal on the driver's part.
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Signalling way too late - Signalling when you have come to a dead stop in the road so you can start your turn is incredibly stupid. I already know you are turning, you idiot. You should have signalled before you started slowing down, so I didn't have to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting you. The same thing goes for signalling as you are starting your merge into another lane. I don't care that some inconsiderate drivers out there will accelerate to try to prevent you from moving over in front of them if you give them a signal that you want to move over. There are probably just as many people out there that will slow down a little to let you in. And anyways, do you really want that aggressive jerk riding behind you if you do get in front of him. Does that single car-length matter that much? If so, you probably are too important to drive yourself anyways. Get a driver that understands how to drive.
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Tailgating - I hate it when people are two feet from my rear bumper. Okay, that's probably a slight exaggeration, but the point is still the same. If I'm in the left lane, going 10 over the speed limit, and you need to go that much faster, wait until there's an opening, and I'll move over. And if it isn't me, and the person won't move over, then you can use that same opening to get around them. Riding right on their backside isn't going to get them to go faster, all it's going to do is piss them off, and probably slow down to get back at you. I especially hate tailgating when the person behind me can clearly see there's another car in front of me causing things to move slower. You may want me to get closer to the car in front of me, to get them to move faster or move over, but I'm just not going to do that. In fact, I'm more prone to providing more space between me and the car in front of me if there is someont tailgating me, so I can have ample time to stop without getting rear-ended should the situation arise. Also, tailgating on a single-lane road is absolutely useless. There's nowhere for the person in front of you to go, and like I said, people aren't going to speed up just because you want them to, so get over yourself.
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Driving incredibly slowly in the left lane - If you are on a multi-lane road, and you are going the speed limit (or lower) in the left lane, you need to move over. I don't care if you are going to be turning left two miles down the road. You move over right before you need to turn. Unless traffic is incredibly heavy, you should be able to get over to the left lane less than a quarter of a mile before you turn without issue. And if traffic is heavy, I'm not really going to care that you're in the left lane, since all lanes are probably going equally slowly.
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Using multiple lanes to turn - If you are turning right, you turn into the far right lane. If you are turning left, you turn into the far left lane. Pretty simple, right? Then why do I always see people making a left turn onto a three-lane road ending up in the far right lane? Or worse, ending up in the far left lane after a right turn? I can (kind of) understand if you are trying to turn into a parking lot or something right after said turn, but most of the time, I see these people just keep driving straight down the road. In fact, many times, I see these people moving back over into the lane that they should have been after the turn anyways. Cars are quite capable of turning at the radius provided for almost all turns on major roads. These people are just too incompetent to drive that way. This is especially dangerous if there are two left turn lanes, like on the road that I drive every day to get to work. It seems like every time I am in the rightmost left turn lane, the person to the left of me tries to turn into the middle lane instead of the far left lane. The middle lane - the lane that I am currently driving in after my turn. Of course, they're expecting me to do the same thing as them, and end up in the far right lane after the turn, but I turn into the lane that I am supposed to be in. Once, I got a really dirty look from an annoying soccer mom because she had to swerve back into her lane since I was where she wanted to be after a turn like this. She almost ended up on the median with her big, gas-guzzling SUV. I would have loved to have seen that happen.
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Waiting for all lanes of traffic to clear before a right turn - Okay, there's nothing wrong with being cautious when driving, but this is just stupid. If you are at a stop sign, turning right onto a three-lane road, you do not need to wait for every car in the far left lane to be past before you turn. I can understand wanting to make sure that everyone in the middle lane is through, to make sure that someone doesn't try changing lanes at the intersection (illegal and incredibly dangerous as well, but still), but you aren't going to get hit by someone that is 100 feet from the intersection in the far left lane, should you start turning. Of course, all of this assumes that you aren't one of those idiots I mention above, needing all three lanes to make a simple right turn from a complete stop. I'm not including them in this group of people, since they are all up above.
Okay, so there you have, it - my top 6 annoying driver tactics. There are most definitely others; maybe I'll do a sequel should a list form in my head.
Posted
Sun, Mar 9 2008 8:24 PM
by
Charles Boyung