Driving in 2024
shailynn
They never tell you what you need to know.
Got on the interstate the other day, driving down the road in the right lane, look in my rear view and there’s a pickup truck so close to my bumper I can’t even see the headlights. Keep in mind I’m in the RIGHT lane probably going at least 80 in a 70. This guy whips around me and is flying around everyone in the left lane and then gets in front of them, slams his brakes on and flips them off. Does this for 10 miles, runs a guy in a Mercedes off the road. Insane. A few days later the EXACT same thing happens on the same road, same time, different driver.
…and people wonder why their insurance has skyrocketed. These days my head is always on a swivel because at least once a week someone pulls out in front of me where I have to slam on my brakes, people blowing through stop signs, etc.
During COVID it seems like you never saw an officer running radar, most municipalities suspended car registrations and inspections for a time period (its amazing how many cars I see on the road today with dead registration and inspection stickers - years out of date). How did driving turn into such a psychotic event? There came a time when I enjoyed driving or going on a “road trip” but not anymore. I know people of all ages can’t put their phone down while driving and that’s a piece of the problem but there is still more to it.
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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.
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.
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!!!
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.
^ Truest statement in the thread.
"an asshole in a beemer"
You don't need to repeat yourself.
I once lived in a complex where some cholo who looked like he made $50k/year max, walking with the pimp roll, drove a BMW X5 with a vanity plate that said "BIMMER". I thought to myself "is this the smallest penis in the tri state area?"
I'm a licensed concealed carrier and I've been road raged on by some pinhead in an SUV while carrying a legal 9mm pistol on my hip. Just imagine the next person you road rage on could be the same, and might be having a bad day.
the only answer is out call. :)
I’ve contemplated cameras after some of the stuff I’ve seen, but usually didn’t follow through once the rage passed.
And just watching driver complaints on YouTube, apparently Amazon drivers are the worst.
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.
@twentyfive - teenage girls and 50-something women in Mercedes SUVs might be the absolute worst.
They're the kind who would say "my husband is a partner at Sullivan Cromwell and therefore I'm better than you." They are allergic to turn signals, and how dare you not yield to her when she's making a left turn at a yellow-nearly-red light! If it's the teenage girl, she is DEFINITELY texting while driving.
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.
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
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ozG3EfPkXo…
Goofy's Freeway Troubles (1965)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UUrD0MEUMF…
In any case just drive safe, be alert and let’s be careful out there
:D
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?
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.
The slowest people to go on green aren’t the elderly but the god damn young people on their phones
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.