Driving in 2024

Well said. My thoughts exactly. During my morning and evening commute I have a choice of taking the interstate (faster) or back country roads. Unless it’s snowing I almost always choose the slower route.

People are so impatient. Lately, merging is my pet peeve. People have lost total patience and awareness when merging properly.

And in-town driving isn’t much better. Running red lights is the new normal. And I’m not talking about ducking in under the yellow. I’m talking 4 or 5 cars screaming thru the intersection after the light turns red.

Yup. Everyone got used to driving in empty streets during Covid and forgot about other people. Then they kept driving like they were the only ones on the road even now. I also am seeing more accidents involving drivers who don’t know how to get high responsibly.

I just drive with the mindset, dude just go ahead, I don't need any bullshit, any accidents I'm good, you got it dude, you win. And I hang in the slow lane and let craziness drive ahead. And if your in or around a fucked up area, do you really even want to honk too much? You want to piss off some 30 IQ fucking retard gangbanger (aka liberal angel) packing heat in the car in front of you because he was a little slow at light change?

One thing about this discussion it really has to get political because when you let in the third world wholesale, you get third world driving. That it is a huge part of all of this that of course the mainstream media gonna try to their very best cover all that up.

To be fair, driving like a frickin’ manic is frickin’ fun.

There are days where I grab my drivin’ whiskey, engage rick mode on my Tesla autopilot, and get me some shits and giggles. Maybe others are doing the same. ROAR!!!

Just last night I was on a service road and a guy pulls out from Target right in front of me. I have a new car - less than 6 months old and I couldn’t find the horn. In hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t blow my horn. Is getting shot worth the price of some moron’s stupid driving

On our last ski trip in March, my wife and I, on 2 lane backroads in Maine were treated to the oncoming spectacle of a car passing another car and coming head on straight at us, with barely any room to spare. In my entire life up until March I had never had to jack up on my brakes to avoid an oncoming car and it happened 3 times between Bethel and Portland. When we got back to Massachusetts we were in 2 lanes of stopped traffic with stores all over the place and through the breakdown lane comes an asshole in a beemer at about90 miles and hour. The fuck was going so fast the wind as he passed caused my car to rock back and forth. Since the pandemic people are all in a rage and it is coming out on the roads.

I'm really debating putting a rear and front dashcam system in my car. On the one hand, its something.else to monitor and maintain; on the other hand it is beginning to feel like I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Peoples' recklessness and aggression are not how we should behave in a civilized society. Although, looking at the whole board, I no longer believe we are a civilized society.

^ yeah I definitely need front and back dashcams.

Muddy is right - let it go, I’m over in the right lane chilling out, if I come up on a moron in the left going 60 in a 70 playing on their phone with nobody around, I calmly put my blinker on, get in the right lane and pass them and go about my business.

"I no longer believe we are a civilized society" ^ Truest statement in the thread.

^ do they even make dash cams to fit Fisher-Price pedal cars?

In my world - easily the most asshole type of driver drives a 4-door Jeep Wrangler. I see more women than men in these vehicles driving like jerks. Second place would go to full size pickups, mostly men driving those.

^ In this area too a lot of women driving large SUVs and Jeeps, and a lot of kids in BMWs driving on heavily congested roads and in a rush, I drive past at least 2 crashes every day. Most caused by lack of courtesy.

The worst part of this situation is that it effects getting to the strip club. I have to pick the day, time and route based on vehicle traffic, Never go on Friday and leave the club by 3PM to avoid the traffic. Maybe I could put up with the idiots but all it takes is one fender bender and I'm stuck in a mess for an hour or more.

the only answer is out call. :)

I drive less than 10k miles a year so I’ve gotten pretty patient, but we teach driving incorrectly in this country. We teach “right lane is the slow lane, center medium, left fast.” That’s wrong. We should teach to keep right unless passing. That’s the law in every state I can think of, but very rarely do cops ticket failure to keep right. Too many jackasses thinking if they are going 10mph over the limit that they have a claim to the left lane, forcing me to pass them on the right.

I’ve contemplated cameras after some of the stuff I’ve seen, but usually didn’t follow through once the rage passed.

Totally agree, crazy aggressive driving is completely out of control. I drive the 110 miles between Tucson and Phoenix regularly, and it is mostly a complete shitshow, especially on the last remaining 20 miles of 2 lanes per side. To quote another recent thread I’ve definitely transitioned into a “cranky old man”, and I just have no patience for assholes anymore. When I see headlights crawling up my ass, I take my foot off the gas if for no other reason than to maximize my following distance to the vehicle in front of me. What REALLY pisses me off are the 18-wheelers that insist on passing each other at a speed of maybe 1 mph faster than the truck they are passing. Traffic behind these fucktards turns into a parking lot moving at 65-70 mph.

Seems the days of 18-wheelers having “professional” drivers has passed.

And just watching driver complaints on YouTube, apparently Amazon drivers are the worst.

Just this past Friday (Memorial Day weekend), a guy in a pickup pulling a boat passed me and another guy at the same time on a two lane state highway, and came within inches of a head-on collision with a car coming in the other lane. And that's after the two of us slammed on our brakes to let him back in. People are stupid, and getting dumber by the day.

You can definitely stereotype certain vehicles with having bad drivers….but if it’s true, is it a stereotype?

As mentioned, women in large SVU’s seem particularly aggressive as do men in large pick ups.

I’ve never been a cigarette smoker, so I don’t understand the appeal or the affect on the brain. But I’ve noticed smokers are among the most aggressive drivers out there. And if you ever see a vehicle pulled up past a crosswalk and the driver is all fidgety and anxious to go, I bet 90% of the time it’s a guy with a cigarette

“ @shailynn - seems like men in Wranglers are OK, but women in Wranglers are horrible. Like they want to look "sporty" but I doubt that Wrangler has ever touched a dirt road.”

I can take my theory even further - JUST 4 door Jeep Wranglers - I see plenty of 2 door Wranglers and 4 door Wrangler trucks (the ones with the truck bed in the back) and they drive fine for the most part.

@shailynn

I will play along and comment on your discussions.

If you witnessed “crazy stuff” that is happening and it can cause you or others deadly harm, why didn’t you behave as a “first responder/hero” and reported to the authorities?

In any case this type of behavior is nothing new, it happens when there is too many people under tons of “stress/pressure”, the “rat race” is real and/or imaginary.

There are a couple of videos from the 1960’s that should be mandatory viewing in order to get and renew your driver's license.

Goofy in Freewayphobia

m.youtube.com

Goofy's Freeway Troubles (1965)

m.youtube.com

In any case just drive safe, be alert and let’s be careful out there

:D

I recall driving north on Eddy St on my way to Club Desire. The traffic on Eddy St and the exit from Eddy St was slow due to a traffic problem at Allens and Globe. Rather than keeping in line and moving slowly, some idiot decided to drive his BMW (not an SUV) with two wheels on the shoulder and two wheels on the sidewalk and cut back in line when there was an obstacle, such as a street light. It would be a miracle if he didn't damage the car. And this was on a sunny afternoon.

I drive 20-30K per year for work alone and have done so for decades. My approach has mellowed to “go ahead, dude, for all I know you’re rushing to the hospital to see a dying relative.” There are still things that piss me off, but given that everyone is on a hair trigger these days and so many are armed, it just ain’t worth it. I’ll get there when I get there and if you want to have an accident, go right ahead and do so. I’ll wave when I go past.

IMO it's part of the breakdown of civil society. People haven't grown up with the notion that cooperation is a civic duty. Somehow they get the idea, instead, that because "it's a free country" that means they get to "do what I want" regardless of its impact on other people. Ask the woman who is blocking the checkout line while she stands around to talk on her phone, could she move over so the rest of us can get to the cash register, please, but she replies, "I know my rights" and doesn't budge. No, lady, you DON'T know your rights, that's just an expression you use for, "I intend to be selfish." This thread identifies the problem in terms of driving but I see it all over. I think Right and Left are equally guilty, in different ways -- MAGA idiots wanting to break the law and overturn the Constitution because it's "good for the country" to have a violent insurrection (what country? the one you eliminated in the name of improving it?) and Woke idiots wanting to command everyone to be just like them because it's "good for the country" to increase supposed-"tolerance" (what tolerance? of the people you were just now intolerant toward?).

The social contract, abstractly speaking, gathers together the traditions of Western democracies into a simple idea. You can't engage in whatever action you want, if that action infringes on OTHER people's right to engage in whatever action THEY want. You have to COMPROMISE. Otherwise you don't get to live in civilized society. Often we have laws that lay out the specific preferred manner of compromise -- upholding your end of a contract, keeping right on the road when you're going slow, not shooting others in the head even though they may piss you off -- but even in the absence of explicit rules, it's still our duty to infer the implicit rules and abide by them.

I remember being told all of this, in pretty clear terms, several times over, during the course of my schooling. I had grade-school religion class, which wasn't really about religion, it was about doing the right thing. I had junior-high level general history, and full-fledged US history in high school, in both of which we read smatterings of Locke and Rousseau and talked about this or that obvious concept. I had a Civics class, where we were supposed to be indoctrinated into the wonders of a Bicameral Legislature and of Separation of Powers, and a lot of that was all about civil society. It wasn't all that high-falutin', since I didn't really attend very good schools, mostly; they were just run-of-the-mill. My experience was typical, though -- everybody my age knows about this Social Contract thing. Not any more.

Who let these idiots out of Middle School?

This is going to offend many, but the worst drivers are the elderly. 35 on a 50. Can't maintain their lane. Back up or make turns without looking (maybe they just don't care). Slow as hell going when the light turns green, especially in a turn lane. Annual driver's tests should begin at 65 and be strictly scored. They are slow and dangerous behind the wheel.

^^ and for all that schooling, you never learned that brevity is the soul of wit?

Im 37 so not an old man not a young kid and I agree that societal norms and behavior have changed dramatically and rapidly in the last 5 years and not for the better. Our driving habits reflect this too and have worsened noticeably since the pandemic. Thats part of the problem, people are objectively more obnoxious than they were ten years ago. Sociologists largely agree (agreeableness down, narcissism up, etc.) Another part of the problem is that vehicles have gotten much faster, larger and more powerful but the typical driver is still just some douchebag trying to get to a shitter or some douchette to starbucks. Plus they keep loading the vehicles with more and more “features” that distract drivers more and more. Plus smartphones are ubiquitous in all their distracting glory which is a dangerous situation in a country where 90-95% of personal vehicles are automatic. In short the advances in vehicles themselves have greatly outpaced the drivers that operate them and the infrastructure that carries them. Your average driver is probably LESS technically skilled and knowledgeable about their vehicles operation, maintenance and traffic laws than twenty or thirty years ago but driving a much faster and overall more powerful machine. They are also driving them on, in many places, physically shittier and more congested roads.
Muddys comment about third world driving becoming prevalent here is also a factor in the general decline.

Gamm- - disagree with some of your points.

The slowest people to go on green aren’t the elderly but the god damn young people on their phones

you think it's bad in usa... it's KrAzY overseas (thailand for one...)

Well, Boston drivers do have a reputation. Just yesterday I watched some moron pull an an insane U-turn in the middle of traffic on a major street full of traffic in the downtown of a suburb south of Boston and I had to ask myself how a person actually convinces themselves that it's okay to do that.

On multiple occasions at a major intersection at an entrance to the highway near me, I have had drivers make a left hand turn from the right lane with no turn signal right across the front of my car. There's also a five way stop intersection near where I live that is like the Wild West.

Don’t make eye contact with another driver.

gammanu95: Your comment on the driving skills of us seniors enraged me! If I ever catch up to you, I will smite thee with my cane, if I can see you through my Coke bottle lenses!

Cross is that 5-way intersection you're referring to the old one in Worcester they remodeled recently. The two worst groups of drivers are young men and the elderly, with young women rapidly catching up. If you look at number of crashes, both groups of young people are by far the worst. If you add in crashes per mile driven old people suck just as bad. Statistics don't lie, people do.

Everyone is such tough guy in their car it's amazing. You know they wouldn't act like in person.

^ just like the internet