What are your driving pet peeves?

[steve20]

I have driven in 47 states (missing Hawaii Alaska and North Dakota), and have never seen this any where except NJ:

braking when coming up to a green light----apparently---? because it's been green too long

combine that with a consistent 10-15 mph UNDER the speed limit on back roads makes for a joyful drive

Steve

 

[timish]

Originally Posted By: steve20


combine that with a consistent 10-15 mph UNDER the speed limit on back roads makes for a joyful drive

Steve


I guess you've never driven in Burbank, California.

More traffic lights than any other city I have lived/driven in.

Regardless of your proximity to your destination within the town, it will take you 30 - 45 minutes to get there.

Town has citizens that drive 25 - 30 mph in 35mph zones (Olive ave) along with an over enthusiastic police force (yes the town has it's own instead of relying on LAPD)

Traffic lights are programmed to turn green, then the next one you "almost" get thru turns red....rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.

It's like this on all the main roads in the town and impossibly frustrating to traverse the roads because of the maddening light programming and "ham & egger" populace.

 

[AuthorEditor]

Most common danger: People who don't signal before turning.
Less common, but worse danger: They signal one way, then abruptly turn the other way.

 

[CROWNVIC4LIFE]

Originally Posted By: steve20
I have driven in 47 states (missing Hawaii Alaska and North Dakota), and have never seen this any where except NJ:

braking when coming up to a green light----apparently---? because it's been green too long

combine that with a consistent 10-15 mph UNDER the speed limit on back roads makes for a joyful drive

Steve


I guess you have never driven in Broward County...Its a million times worse when the snowbirds are here like right now.

 

[Paul56]

Originally Posted By: steve20


braking when coming up to a green light----apparently---? because it's been green too long



They are called stale greens and those drivers are smart.

I'd watch the green lights from a distance as approaching and if I thought they were stale and about to turn I would not go through the intersection with a 53' trailer behind me.

 

[CROWNVIC4LIFE]

Originally Posted By: Paul56
Originally Posted By: steve20


braking when coming up to a green light----apparently---? because it's been green too long



They are called stale greens and those drivers are smart.

I'd watch the green lights from a distance as approaching and if I thought they were stale and about to turn I would not go through the intersection with a 53' trailer behind me.


In Miami Beach the walk signs flash the seconds so you know exactly know when the light is going to turn red...It should be like that everywhere!...Everywhere else I generally look to see if the walk signs are in their flashing mode yet to give me a idea if the light might change on me quickly.

In Florida traffic lights are generally timed so you get every light red.

 

[rationull]

Originally Posted By: CROWNVIC4LIFE

In Miami Beach the walk signs flash the seconds so you know exactly know when the light is going to turn red...It should be like that everywhere!...


Agreed! We've got a few of those here and I love them. Unfortunately we only have a few, downtown, where there are a lot of pedestrians.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: Paul56

They are called stale greens and those drivers are smart.

I'd watch the green lights from a distance as approaching and if I thought they were stale and about to turn I would not go through the intersection with a 53' trailer behind me.


Many traffic signals are designed to cycle when there's a gap in traffic. If you slow down for one of these while it's still green, guess what, it's more likely to turn red due to that gap you created by slowing down.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: CROWNVIC4LIFE

In Florida traffic lights are generally timed so you get every light red.


They probably aren't timed at all and are instead set in free-running mode with gap detection, like I described above. They probably also have a very small minimum-green time setting which should be increased.

The city that owns them is probably just happy that they change colors in the proper sequence.

 

[R2d2]

Originally Posted By: timish
Originally Posted By: css9450
Originally Posted By: timish
24. Here is another one......People who are so [censored] selfish and have entitlement issues to put MY LIFE AT RISK by ACTIVELY BLOCKING my legal lane splitting on my motorcycle by moving their cars into the path of my moving motorcycle because they are stuck in traffic.


That's LEGAL?

It sure is and that is one of the benefits of living in California as a motorcyclist.

Read this:

""Lane splitting" is what someone does when he or she rides their motorcycle in between slow-moving cars on a freeway. The article says that this practice goes way back to the days when all motorcycles had air-cooled engines, and needed to keep moving to prevent overheating.

I suppose there's some truth to that, though today, many air-cooled motorcycles don't overheat when stopped on freeways.

The reason why California remains as the only state in the union to allow lane-splitting is because of safety.

Several years ago, lawmakers in Sacramento drafted a bill to make lane-splitting illegal, thinking it would save more lives. However, the California Highway Patrol lobbied against the bill, on grounds that it cause more bikers to die.

That is, if motorcyclists were forced to wait behind slow moving or stopped vehicles, they run the risk of getting rear-ended by other vehicles. This happens all too often on freeways, where drivers fail to pay attention to stopped traffic up ahead. Rear ending a motorcycle is almost always fatal for the biker.

That's why the CHP wants bikers to split lanes, to protect them from drivers not paying attention.

The CHP used accident fatality data compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to show that a frequent cause of deaths in motorcycle accidents in other states are car drivers rear-ending motorcycles.

That's why the California State Legislature changed its mind and allowed lane-splitting to remain legal.

I put about 30,000 miles each year on my two motorcycles. I've witnessed many "rear-end" accidents between two cars on the freeway. When a car gets rear-ended, the driver usually survives. But when it happens to a motorcycle, the biker almost always dies. If lane-splitting were legal in all 50 states, a lot more people would be alive today."

Taken from: http://www.menifee247.com/labels/Motorcycles.htm




Come try that in New York, Id love to write you a slew of summonses. More then half the people I stop on Motorcycles end up being unlicensed, uninsured, suspended.

 

[milwaukee]

braking before using turn signal

failure to maintain a constant speed

driving with no regard to speed limits(not what you think example to follow)
10 mile stretch of two lane highway speed limit 55mph. Every single idiot on the road drives 50mph. Speed limit drops to 35mph when entering city limits. Every single moron still drives 50 mph.

 

[opus1]

Originally Posted By: Paul56
Originally Posted By: steve20


braking when coming up to a green light----apparently---? because it's been green too long



They are called stale greens and those drivers are smart.

I'd watch the green lights from a distance as approaching and if I thought they were stale and about to turn I would not go through the intersection with a 53' trailer behind me.


Partial credit There's a difference between observing the stale green and being ready to brake vs. actually braking despite the green light, though.

I'm starting to see that happen more here due to the red-light cameras that my city and neighboring cities have slapped up in the last year.

 

[PeteTheFarmer]

People who don't maintain lights.

People whose attitude when backing out of driveways is 'If there's anyone coming, I'm sure they'll blow the horn then I'll stop'

People constantly stepping on the brake pedal. I'm not talking about stop and go traffic, I'm talking about the idiot who reaches the car ahead, has to slow down, backs off a bit, and then does the same thing over and over again instead of keeping a constance distance.

People whose knowledge of their SUV's four wheel drive system is limited to the misconception that it's invincible in snow.

 

[Paul56]

Originally Posted By: opus1
Originally Posted By: Paul56
Originally Posted By: steve20


braking when coming up to a green light----apparently---? because it's been green too long



They are called stale greens and those drivers are smart.

I'd watch the green lights from a distance as approaching and if I thought they were stale and about to turn I would not go through the intersection with a 53' trailer behind me.


Partial credit There's a difference between observing the stale green and being ready to brake vs. actually braking despite the green light, though.

I'm starting to see that happen more here due to the red-light cameras that my city and neighboring cities have slapped up in the last year.


There are two main issues that I was alluding to with respect to a operating a semi and stale greens...

-you don't want to be dragging 53 feet of trailer behind you through the intersection just as the light turns red

-being ready to brake is fine and good operational behavior however with very heavy loads one must try to anticipate when possible

 

[opus1]

Originally Posted By: Paul56
.... rest of quote edited to save bandwidth....

There are two main issues that I was alluding to with respect to a operating a semi and stale greens...

-you don't want to be dragging 53 feet of trailer behind you through the intersection just as the light turns red

-being ready to brake is fine and good operational behavior however with very heavy loads one must try to anticipate when possible


Understood. I never drove a semi, but understand that you have to account for things that I would never dream of.

Unfortunately, at least around here, most of the people I see exhibiting the behavior are car drivers. And when all is said and done, they wind up gunning it and making the light, but causing me to get caught by it....

 

[Gary Allan]

Quote:
driving with no regard to speed limits(not what you think example to follow)
10 mile stretch of two lane highway speed limit 55mph. Every single idiot on the road drives 50mph. Speed limit drops to 35mph when entering city limits. Every single moron still drives 50 mph.


If the road is "full", then it may just be a matter of how the line backs up. I was a passenger with my wife driving one morning where she was flying out of town on a group work trip. The 4 lane inbound was 75mph bumper to bumper (sorta) and had the usual slow downs for the on ramps. Near the end of the expressway she grabs the left lane (road splits in about a mile) and slows to 65mph. All kinds of irate types passing her on the left (no problem at that point in the road) and I asked her what she was doing. She says, "Watch". We ended up right behind the passing cars crawling @ 25mph. So the first car gained all of 100' for the extra effort.

In many cases you're racing to a premature finish line ..a staging area for the next intermediate race.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: milwaukee

10 mile stretch of two lane highway speed limit 55mph. Every single idiot on the road drives 50mph. Speed limit drops to 35mph when entering city limits. Every single moron still drives 50 mph.


What I've noticed are the morons who drive 35MPH everywhere. Doesn't matter if the speed limit is 25 or 45, they still drive 35MPH. This really screws up traffic when the lights are synched for 45MPH traffic.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: Paul56


-you don't want to be dragging 53 feet of trailer behind you through the intersection just as the light turns red


That's why they've implemented a (usually) 2-second all-red clearance interval on most every traffic signal, at least in the USA. I don't know about Canada.

 

[ShiningArcanine]

1. People who do not signal or signal while changing lanes as opposed to putting it on before and taking it off after.

2. The speed limits are too low. A police officer I know told me that a certain road which has a 55 mph speed limit was really designed for a 85 mph speed limit. The reason it is 55 mph is because of legislation and not any actual safety concern. Accidents on it usually occur when people are driving over 100 mph, which is hard to imagine considering how many cars are driving on it at a mean speed of 70 mph.

 

[LS2JSTS]

People who when driving on a three lane road with a center left turn lane come to an almost complete stop as they ever so slowly work their way over into the left turn lane.

Get into the left turn lane and THEN apply the brakes people, it's what that lane is for instead of slowing traffic on the main lanes.