Road-related pet peeves

[noelbotevera]

The term "Richard" is being polite unlike some users who use the nicknamed famous for the male body part ....

I'm aware he thinks he's being nice by censoring a word some people consider a vulgarity. All I meant is that some of us named "Richard" don't particularly like seeing our name used as a vulgarity!

(My father once said people of my generation don't use the nickname "Dick" because we have sick minds. He's partly right, although another reason I don't use it is because he does and when I was growing up I didn't want to go by the same nickname my father did. I knew a girl in high school who tried to call me "Dick" because of its other meaning, so finally I told her I'd call her "Cunt" if she did it again. Of course she tried it in front of the assistant principal, but that didn't stop me from keeping my promise. I didn't get in any trouble, either, when I explained why I said it.)

Phillip K. Dick

[hbelkins]

The term "Richard" is being polite unlike some users who use the nicknamed famous for the male body part, except for Sean Hannity's best friend in Florida, Governor Scott who the talk show host says we got the best economy and that Scott changed our state for the better which is an absolute lie!  I have no problem calling Rick Scott: Dick Scott in any public domain.  He is the exception and not the norm.  That is another story as the thought of that bald headed idiot makes my blood boil and I could continue on with it into a 500 page book.

Wow, you and NE2 have something in common after all! 

Scott was here in Kentucky recently, recruiting businesses to move from here to Florida, touting Florida's lack of an income tax as a business-friendly environment. I would trade your governor for ours in a heartbeat.



"I know this guy named Richard, he's my redneck friend." Go listen to the song "Dick In The Dirt" by Sammy Hagar.

I knew a guy one time who everyone called "Richard Cranium." I think he finally started answering to it because people used that moniker more often than his real name.

[1995hoo]

Returning to road-related pet peeves:

I suppose this is more traffic- or driver-related, but I'll list it anyway: People who block the box, and also people who honk at you when you don't block the box.

(The latter: On the way to the Caps game last night I couldn't clear the intersection at 15th & H, so I stopped. The cabbie behind me went ballistic honking. Didn't do him any good, of course. When some space eventually opened and I went, he then got over and charged down the left-turn lane and forced his way back into the straight-thru lane maybe two cars ahead of me.)


Last February it took us half an hour to go half a mile downtown due to box-blockers....

[kurumi]

Tempting, though I won't ever really do it: once a week, take the morning off work, go to a notorious intersection with a rented bulldozer, and keep the box unblocked.

[dmr37]

Thanks to some fucking dickbag who didn't signal, the person in front of my sisters car had to slam on her brakes and swerve to avoid hitting the car while they abruptly slammed on their brakes to turn while another car pulled out into traffic.  My sister and I didn't have anywhere to go and, despite jamming the brakes, the momentum was too great and we ended up plowing into the back of the car ahead of us. The damage to our car was horrific, while the other person escaped relatively unscathed. The person who caused this bullshit drove off and acted like he didn't do anything. We weren't even tailgating or going more than 3 mph over the speed limit (40).

Thankfully the girl we hit was super nice and didn't even want to hold us liable.

Please people, even if it's the last minute just flick your fucking wrist to signal. It's not hard, and it's fucking helpful so we can slow down and you can turn in even if you have to fucking stop to let another car pass.

why you swear so much?

[Rothman]

Thanks to some fucking dickbag who didn't signal, the person in front of my sisters car had to slam on her brakes and swerve to avoid hitting the car while they abruptly slammed on their brakes to turn while another car pulled out into traffic.  My sister and I didn't have anywhere to go and, despite jamming the brakes, the momentum was too great and we ended up plowing into the back of the car ahead of us. The damage to our car was horrific, while the other person escaped relatively unscathed. The person who caused this bullshit drove off and acted like he didn't do anything. We weren't even tailgating or going more than 3 mph over the speed limit (40).

Thankfully the girl we hit was super nice and didn't even want to hold us liable.

Please people, even if it's the last minute just flick your fucking wrist to signal. It's not hard, and it's fucking helpful so we can slow down and you can turn in even if you have to fucking stop to let another car pass.

why you swear so much?

Do you have to use so many cuss words?

What the **** you talking about?

Okay, Dude, have it your way.

[odditude]

Tempting, though I won't ever really do it: once a week, take the morning off work, go to a notorious intersection with a rented bulldozer, and keep the box unblocked.

oh, how I would love to do this to all the cars that block intersections along Broad St in Philly - not cars crossing Broad St, but the cars on Broad St itself at Arch, Race, Vine, Callowhill...

[corco]

Thanks to some fucking dickbag who didn't signal, the person in front of my sisters car had to slam on her brakes and swerve to avoid hitting the car while they abruptly slammed on their brakes to turn while another car pulled out into traffic.  My sister and I didn't have anywhere to go and, despite jamming the brakes, the momentum was too great and we ended up plowing into the back of the car ahead of us. The damage to our car was horrific, while the other person escaped relatively unscathed. The person who caused this bullshit drove off and acted like he didn't do anything. We weren't even tailgating or going more than 3 mph over the speed limit (40).

Thankfully the girl we hit was super nice and didn't even want to hold us liable.

Please people, even if it's the last minute just flick your fucking wrist to signal. It's not hard, and it's fucking helpful so we can slow down and you can turn in even if you have to fucking stop to let another car pass.

My pet peeve is people who tailgate and will rear end me if I have to slam my brakes because a deer runs out our a refrigerator falls off the flatbed truck in front of me.

I use my signal, but I have ZERO sympatgy for people that rear end. If you rear end one of three things are ALWAYS the case:

1. You were tailgating
2. You aren't keeping your brakes in good enough condition for driving (it's absolutely terrifying how bad a lot of people's brakes are- even if they aren't squeaking, those cheap aftermarket Chinese pads people use are just awful at stopping cars)
3. You aren't paying attention

[Katavia]

–Traffic lights located on the near side of an intersection such that you either have to stop well back of the stop line or else bend your head down to see the light.

–"Slower Traffic Keep Right" signs. Use "Keep Right Except to Pass." People don't like to think they're "slow," and too many people think driving the speed limit means you're not "slower."

–"Reduced Speed Ahead" signs. I much prefer the style telling you what the reduced speed limit will be. But if you must use the generic sign, it should say "Reduce Speed Ahead" because it's the speed limit that is reduced and the sign is telling you to prepare to slow down to conform with that. In other words, whether any "speed" is actually reduced depends on the individual driver.

–The annoying American predilection for stop signs when yield signs would do.

–Traffic lights that don't have the very nice combined red/yellow phase used in the UK and many other places in Europe that tells you when the light is about to turn green. I've never understood why this isn't used everywhere.

It should be "Reduced Speed Limit Ahead" to me....

[Rushmeister]

1.  Left lane hogs have already been mentioned here, so let's include center lane hogs.  I'm referring specifically to the center lane of 3-lane sections of freeways, not surface streets.  I wonder if the truckers who complain about 4-wheelers passing them on the right are the same ones hogging the center lane.  I pass on the right only when there is traffic that's faster than me already in the left lane.  Man, I wish the Indiana State Police would enforce the "slower traffic must keep to the right" law.  (And, no, I'm not bashing truckers or trying to bait anyone into a rebuttal that includes a lengthy list of justifications of why it's okay to hang out in the center lane at 55 or 60 mph when most of the traffic is going around you on both sides at 70 to 75 mph.)

2.  Adding "the" in front of highway numbers.   Grrrrr.  Sorry, but this one drives me insane.   Enough said.  I don't want to be that guy.  I'm just sayin...

[empirestate]

1.  Left lane hogs have already been mentioned here, so let's include center lane hogs.  I'm referring specifically to the center lane of 3-lane sections of freeways, not surface streets.  I wonder if the truckers who complain about 4-wheelers passing them on the right are the same ones hogging the center lane.  I pass on the right only when there is traffic that's faster than me already in the left lane.

I do likewise, although I don't refer to it as "passing". To me, passing is something you do to vehicles in front of you, not the ones next to you. So if I come up behind somebody in my own lane, and I move over to get by him, that's passing. But if I'm in one lane all along, and I just happen to drive by somebody who's in a different lane and is going slower than I am, that's not passing.* While this usually happens to me while I'm in the right lane, it also applies to those who stay in the left lane, going faster than the vehicles beside them but not purposely passing any specific vehicle or group of vehicles.

*To be more precise, that is "passing", while moving over to get around somebody would be "overtaking". But in the U.S. we say "passing" to mean "overtaking", so I make a distinction between "passing" in the sense of overtaking, and just happening to go past something.

[Bruce]

2.  Adding "the" in front of highway numbers.   Grrrrr.  Sorry, but this one drives me insane.   Enough said.  I don't want to be that guy.  I'm just sayin...

It's the sure sign of a Southern Californian who refuses to assimilate. Up here in Seattle, that's a trigger for us to make fun of you in a light-hearted manner.

[UCFKnights]

From our roadway designers:
- Traffic signals hung diagonally across the road. Its ugly and hard to see.
- Signs attempted to be mounted at angles. If you don't want traffic entering from the left, the correct sign is no left turn. Angling a do not enter sign slightly towards the left turning vehicle is just confusing. I know its not prohibited entering the roadway, I see the arrow on the pavement and a right lane going down that road. And then suddenly, with a truck tapping the sign or a strong wind, it twisted 10 degrees and is now facing the wrong direction.
- Lack of right turn lanes. Even if they're real short, having one or two vehicles going straight causing me to have to wait 4 minutes to make a right at a light is very frustrating. I think engineers seriously underestimate the traffic flow improvements provided by right turn lanes not just to turning traffic, but thru traffic and total roadway capacity as well.
- Lanes ending right before an intersection. Lanes should end AT (by becoming turn only) or AFTER intersections. Reducing the size of the road for a red light is never a good idea.
For the drivers:
- People keeping the local roadways unbalanced. In suburban/urban areas, all lanes should have approximately the same number of vehicles in them during any sort of congestion. One road near me, the right lane has probably 40% the people trying to turn right onto the highway 2 miles down, 40% trying to turn at one o of the 20+ intersections before the highway and 20% driving straight thru (which makes 0 sense as the left lane nearly never has congestion, why wouldn't you use the lane with no congestion if thats the one where you need where you are going anyways?!?). I always have to use the left lane and cut over to the right last second to make any of the turns before the highway to avoid waiting on the line for the highway. The highway ramp is also free flowing, so its real easy to merge over with all the people making the other rights to get onto the highway after the last signal.
- People who merge way too early. When a lane does end, you should merge near the end of the lane. It is really bad to impede traffic to try to get out of the lane 1000s of feet before it ends, and you're hurting traffic, as you're going to make the people trying to enter the turn lanes on that side of the street not have room to do so. In South Florida, people mostly do this right... going north of it... not so much.
- People who act like its the end of the world when there is an emergency vehicle behind them trying to get out to the way, causing more roadway problems. I know when I am in a certain "small town" that claims they're really smart, an awfully large amount of people do the following:
1) stop in the middle of the road without regard for where everyone else is stopping. If you're stopping the right lane when everyone else has cleared the path for on the right and the emergency vehicle is on the right, you're impeding its path.
2) popping the curb. everyone here seems to love emergency vehicles as an excuse to pop the curb. A lot of people do it awfully slowly, or because multiple people from multiple lanes are trying to do it, they end up parking with the 2 front tires over the curb and the entire back of the vehicle is still blocking the lane that you were supposedly trying to clear
3) getting out of the wrong lane. there were a bunch of us in the left turn lane and an ambulance was coming by. thru traffic has a green light and is mostly clear. what should the vehicles safely stopped on the left side of the road do? clearly block all of the other lanes of traffic that were empty
4) not paying attention to surroundings. I notice the emergency vehicle way back, and see 5 cars in the left lane at the traffic light in front of me and 1 car to the right who is trying to make a right turn anyways. I of course utilize the left lane so by the time its here, the right lane is clear. Of course, as soon as the other people hear the sirens, the person right in front of me decides to pull over to the right, blocking the clear path. Then they start looking at everyone else of why they aren't doing the same as them instead of getting out of the way. Its a hell of a lot easier for you to move your one vehicle instead of 20 people needing to move to get out the way.
5) not knowing they can proceed at the green light with an emergency vehicle behind them. The signal pre-emption is partly to help clear out the congestion in front of emergency. If you're trying to turn off the road anyways, go ahead and do it, you don't need to park on the side of the road. If its faster and easier for you to pull over after the intersection because there is not already 20 people trying to do so right where you are, do that. You have a green light.
6) and the award winners: people who do all of the above on the wrong side of the divided road. On divided roadways, emergency vehicles do not typically turn randomly and jump over curbs or jersey barriers... all you need to do is not proceed through intersections where the emergency vehicle could potentially be turning. I got it, by doing all these other dangerous things completely unexpected and for no reason, maybe we can make an accident on the other side of the road that requires their attention, so that the emergency vehicle can be on scene already and not need to continue traversing the road!

[vdeane]

Wow, I thought that behavior was reserved for SimCity 4's U Drive It mode.

[jas]

Three things -

1)  People who make right-hand turns from the actually lane, as opposed to using the shoulder to get off the highway and turn.  It is complete;y inconsiderate to the flow of traffic behind you.  Get off the road and don't be an impediment to the traffic behind you.

2) People do no know how to make left-handed turns at intersections.  Modern vehicles handle better than the ever have, and yet people still feel the need to cut corners hard at intersections, and usually end up entering the turning lane for that portion of the intersection.  God forbid someone is approaching that turning lane when someone is making that kind of hard turn.  In the age of power steering, there is no reason to have to cut the wheel so hard.

3)  People who cut out in front of you when there is no one behind you and then proceed to 1) go 10 MPH below the speed limit or 2) immediately exit within the next few locations.  You couldn't wait until I passed, when it was obviously clear behind me, or was it your sole intention to be inconsiderate?

[wanderer2575]

My peeve is drivers who don't turn their turn signal off. My brother turned in front of a vehicle with its left signal on & crashed, bro got the ticket, failure to yield.

People who put their right turn signal on when the turn they intend to make is two streets up, and I'm waiting to pull out of the first street. You shouldn't turn you signal on until you're going to turn into the next street.

Too bad.  If there's someone behind me, I want him to have more than a couple hundred feet' notice that I'll be slowing down to turn.  Obviously depends on traffic speed and how closely the streets are spaced.

[empirestate]

1)  People who make right-hand turns from the actually lane, as opposed to using the shoulder to get off the highway and turn.  It is complete;y inconsiderate to the flow of traffic behind you.  Get off the road and don't be an impediment to the traffic behind you.

Do you still consider this inconsiderate in those jurisdictions where it's the required method?

[pianocello]

Passing lanes at rural intersections at stoplights (example). This is on SR-130 just northwest of Valparaiso, IN. I'm not sure if many more of these exist.

Now, I'm all for this kind of lane when there isn't a stoplight; I, like many other drivers in the Midwest, will simply stay in the left lane unless someone in front of me is turning, in which case I would pass them in the right lane. When there is a stoplight, though, it makes things more difficult. If I'm stopped at the red light going straight, I'll usually hang out in the left lane, especially if I'm first or second in line. Then, supposedly, I would be out of the way for people who approach the intersection just as the light turns green so they don't have to wait for me to accelerate.

The problem is that people tend to form a queue for both lanes, effectively screwing everyone over when the two lanes instantly funnel into one. What they should do here instead is simply mark the left lane as a turn-only lane.

[empirestate]

How about, when giving directions, people often say that one road "dead ends" at another road. Clearly, if a road ends at another road, it ain't a dead end!

(I know, it's a heck of a necro, but this is the right thread for it, and it's not important enough for a new topic, so...)

[kurumi]

In my mind, this is the subject of the recent movie It Follows:

Me: "The restaurant's right off I-95. You take 9 south, then get on I-95 south toward-"

Other driver: "Oh no, that's too complicated. Tell you what, we'll just follow you!"

Proceeds to drive 5 MPH below speed limit, braking for yellow lights, pulling in behind a truck, stopping at Starbucks, etc.

Other passenger in my car: "OMG we can't seeee them, they're going to get losssst, slow down and let them catch up..." I swear I could come to a complete stop and the following person would start driving backwards.

Fortunately smartphones and GPS have mitigated a lot of this: text the address, meet you there. But some still get upset if they lose visual on the other car.

[frankenroad]

How about, when giving directions, people often say that one road "dead ends" at another road. Clearly, if a road ends at another road, it ain't a dead end!

(I know, it's a heck of a necro, but this is the right thread for it, and it's not important enough for a new topic, so...)

.

I hate that, too!

[Roadgeekteen]

Some big rig truck blocking a road sign.

[Max Rockatansky]

VMS signs that say "Construction Zone X Miles Ahead" followed by "Caution, Caution, Caution."  I get that the three "cautions" are probably meant simply to fill the VMS but it sounds absolutely terrible when verbalized.  Imagine if you went into an area of a building being mopped and there was two signs; one saying "wet floor ahead" followed by "caution, caution, caution."

[1995hoo]

....

Fortunately smartphones and GPS have mitigated a lot of this: text the address, meet you there. But some still get upset if they lose visual on the other car.

What drives me nuts is if you do agree to follow someone and that person then fails to use his blinkers.

[webny99]

I'm taking the opportunity to move this here so it doesn't continue to overrun the "Minor Things that Bother You" thread.

Here is the original list of "Things That Deliberately Waste Other Drivers' Time and Make The Road Network Less Efficient™", with some slight modifications to expand and/or clarify:

• Not using the shoulder to pass left turning vehicles when it's wide enough to do so
• Not using the shoulder to turn right when it's wide enough to do so, including passing others and allowing them to pass you, depending on the context
• Blocking Using the right lane to queue at a red light when the left lane is open if right turning traffic is approaching and the shoulder is too narrow to accommodate right turns
• Slowing down when approaching a stale green light or stopping for a yellow light
• Not noticing when a signal has turned green, especially missing half the length of a protected left turn phase due to inattentiveness
• Excessive hesitancy to pass in legal passing zones on two-lane roads, including lack of speed differential awareness (i.e. if someone is going 35 mph, overtaking them is not a high-stress, intense affair and is in fact, a calm, casual, everyday maneuver that does not require exceeding 50 mph)
• Hesitancy or outright unwillingness to pass cops, even when they're traveling at or below the speed limit
• Left lane camping
• Brake checking

And here are some additions to the list, summarized from discussion in the other thread:

• Hesitancy to change lanes
• Middle lane camping/tailgating when there's an open passing lane
• Leaving gaps when stopped at a signal, blocking access to turn lanes/channelized turns
• Poor lane positioning that blocks through traffic
• Not turning right on red during opposing protected arrow phase
• When turning left, waiting behind the stop line/not completing the turn when the light changes

And finally, a couple more I thought of today:

• Braking just because someone merges into your lane front of you on the freeway, even if they're driving faster than you and/or a safe distance in front

• Braking for speed bumps/speed humps. It's wearing on your brakes, creates a jerky experience for passengers, creates a chain reaction for drivers behind you, is never necessary if you're driving an appropriate speed, and worst of all, it could be interpreted as justifying their existence. So unless you actually like speed bumps and want to encourage planners to install more of them.. don't brake for them [/rant]