The most common driver mistake that you see where you live?

[Laura]

My bigger peeves are (1) drivers not using their turn signals even with other traffic present, and (2) drivers speeding up, rather than maintaining speed or slowing down, when I signal my intention to move into their lane.  The D.C. area is notorious for (2), which in turn makes (1) worse.

Yep! When I was first learning how to drive, my dad had me drive to DC and taught me these rules:

- if you want to get in front of someone, don't Signal.
- if you want to get someone out of your way, signal so that they speed up and open the lane for you.

In Baltimore City, the most common errors:

Unintentional: people trying to turn left on the wrong one-way street ( I see this most with the 28th/29th street pair of streets)

Intentional: turning left on streets clearly marked as no left turn during rush hour. Lol at some intersections there are two signs posted - old faded, one new, because the people tried to complain about the poor signage when trying to get out of a ticket.

Intentional: there's always that one car who didn't move out of the convertible rush hour driving/parking the rest of the time lane.

[US 41]

One day the flashing yellow arrow is going to be on here.

[roadman65]

One day the flashing yellow arrow is going to be on here.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=2983.0

It already is.

[kphoger]

Stopping within the crosswalk at a stop sign or stoplight.

I will admit that I do this pretty frequently, but due to design issues.  If I stop behind the actual stop line at some intersections, I have absolutely no hope of seeing beyond the parked cars to the actual travel lane.

Quite understandable.  And I do that too...after stopping in advance of the crosswalk to make sure there are no pedestrians close enough for me to block while waiting for a gap.  Only then do I make a second "creep" out into the crosswalk.

Another unrelated one: people who accelerate very... slowly... but have a high top speed, particularly on suburban arterials with widely spaced stop lights.

I do this one, to some extent.  Save a bundle on gasoline.

I had a roommate who did nothing but suburban driving in Chicagoland, yet he got more than 10 mpg better than his car's rating.  He did it by accelerating slowly, driving in a high gear (5th gear in a 35 zone was common for him), and immediately putting it in neutral when the next light turned red.  I used to experiment with acceleration and top speed on arterials with widely spaced stoplights in DuPage County, and found that neither one had very much effect at all on my overall trip time.  In fact, I would frequently pass drivers who had passed me minutes earlier.  I'd say accelerating quickly does the most good on urban roads with closely spaced stoplights, and the least good the farther apart the signals are.

I didn't say slow acceleration didn't make sense from a practical standpoint, only that it was a pet peeve of mine I'm sure folks like you get just as annoyed at people like me who race away when the light turns green only to top out at around 5 over the limit. We'll just keep passing each other over and over again for miles!

I'm less annoyed by that behavior, probably, then you are by mine.  And I've found that those who totally gun it at a green light either top out at exactly the speed limit or roughly 600 mph over the speed limit.  Few actually stick to 5 mph (which is generally what I go).

[jeffandnicole]

One of my pet peeves that I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Drivers in the right lane of a highway that slow down to let someone merge into the highway.  WRONG!  The motorist coming onto the highway have to merge in around the vehicle already on the highway. 

This is especially bad considering the motorist in the right lane is going about 65 mph or so.  The motorist coming up the on-ramp is doing, maybe, 40 mph max.  So if the motorist in the right lane just continued at his present speed, he'd pass the entering car with no problem.  Instead, that car slows down.  The entering car is speeding up, but unsure what the car in the right lane is doing. 

One that bothers me is people who have the right-of-way and don't try to wave it off.  When approaching a stop sign wanting to turn left, I hate when the driver across, with no turn signal and presumably going straight, wants me to go first.  Instead of us both waiting for each others, he should go first...

Very annoying if the incoming car is waiting for a line of cars to go past, and the very last car in that line is going to be the "nice" guy to let someone out.  I know I'm paying attention to the huge gap behind that last vehicle, and not expecting the last vehicle to slow down or stop.

* Yield (you can keep moving if no conflicts - especially when you're on a ramp with an added lane)

do added-lane on ramps even have YIELD signs?  I don't think I've explicitly noticed one way or the other.

It generally depends on any possible conflicting merging up ahead.  If the added-lane on doesn't have an immediate need for the traffic in the general (faster) lanes to move into that lane to get to an exit, then there generally won't be a Yield sign.  But if there's a fairly close exit, then there is a Yield sign.  But, like in my example above, more often than not motorists will fly thru the Yield sign, and the vehicle in the general lanes is the one that slows down to move over.

[Brandon]

One of the biggest driving mistakes I see on the freeways downstate, and even in Chicagoland is entering the freeway ay a low rate of speed instead of getting up to speed and entering at the flow speed of the freeway.  These folks seem to think it's OK to enter a freeway at 40 mph.    The ramp is for getting up to speed, folks, say like 70 mph.

[1995hoo]

Where to begin? I could go on for days!

For the moment I'll cite the following. But a lot of these aren't really "mistakes" because people do a lot of them intentionally. Also, one of the weird dynamics of driving in the DC area is that there are so many vehicles with non-local plates that are driven by people who do live here (military, Congress, etc.). In many places, some people are often inclined to cut a tourist a break because he may not know where he's going. I think some of the people here with the non-local plates try to take advantage of that.

–I frequently see cars being driven at night with no headlights on, or with just the parking lights.

–Staying to the left until the last possible instant and then trying to force one's way across three or four lanes to exit. I don't necessarily mean left-lane hogs, either–just people who seem to have a complete terror of ever being in the right lane. This "wait to the last instant to try to exit" behavior seems more common in Maryland than in Virginia.

–The flip side of the above: Long line of cars waiting to exit a highway and somebody drives down the thru lane and stops on the striped area at the gore point trying to shove his way in. (Alternatively, I often see this on a street where the left lane becomes left-turn-only onto I-495 and only the other two lanes are thru; people use the left-turn lane to cut ahead.)

–In stopped or very slow traffic, some people persist in getting over a mile in advance and then declaring war on the people who go to the end and alternate-merge. The problem with getting over in advance in slow/stopped traffic is two-fold. First, you're effectively wasting that lane–what's the point of having it at all if you're suddenly saying nobody is allowed to use it? Second, you're creating a thousand designated merge points as each driver comes up with a different spot where he feels people should get over. (Let me emphasize that I'm only referring to slow/stopped traffic. If traffic is moving freely I agree you get over in a way that lets you do so without hitting the brakes.)

–Turning out of whatever lane one is in instead of going around the block. (This includes turning right from the left-turn-only lane, turning from a straight-only lane, etc.)

–Pulling out into the intersection to wait for a gap to turn left such that nobody wanting to turn left from the other direction can see anything. SUV drivers are really bad about this. It's not unusual in some places for people to pull out to wait to turn, perhaps clearing the intersection after the light goes red (this is technically illegal in some places). But it's damn obnoxious to do it in a way that prevents people on the other side of the intersection from seeing whether it's clear to make their own left turn. I find that as a general matter a lot more people DO NOT pull out than was the case back in the late 1980s when I first got my driver's license, and I know I often don't pull out at all nowadays, and the reason is that frankly it's often easier to see if you stay behind the line–you have a wider field of vision to see around large SUVs or minivans. (It's similar to the concept behind why a goalie sometimes skates out to challenge the shooter instead of staying in the crease.)

–People leaving a full car length between vehicles when stopped at a red light. I understand the theory of leaving yourself room to get out, or of not being too close lest you get rear-ended. But it's damn annoying when you're trying to get into the turn lane and you can't only because people are leaving such excessive amounts of space and are so engrossed in their mobile phones that they don't see you trying to get into the turn lane (even more so when it's a left-turn lane without a permissive green).

–In my neighborhood, the speed limit is 25 mph and the street leading in and out has a double yellow line. I regularly see people driving half over the double yellow line because they want to go 35 to 40 mph. The other day I was close to the double yellow so as to avoid a squirrel and a guy coming the other way partially over the line blew the horn at me as though I was somehow in his way.


Finally, this morning I was stopped waiting for this school bus and I found myself wondering about the "stop for school bus" rules for the cars coming the other way (see the blurry car in the distance). Normally in Virginia if there is a median you need not stop, but if a school bus stops at an intersection, all traffic coming from all directions must stop. The guy coming the other way here didn't stop; neither did the guy in that black Toyota to the left (nor a couple of other people ahead of him). I suspect they think the median means they need not stop. But based on my recollection of the DMV manual, the fact that it's an intersection trumps. If the school bus driver stopped about two bus lanes further back (like to the right of where I'm stopped in this picture), then there would be no issue–he wouldn't be at the intersection and people could go. I suspect the reason the bus stop is not further back like that is that there is another, much more important intersection just behind me and they quite rightly don't want the bus stopped in a place where someone coming around the blind corner will be startled by it.

[US 41]

In the Terre Haute area everyone speeds, they don't do complete stops at stop signs, they don't stop at red lights when they don't turn right. Nothing serious and the same stuff probably goes on everywhere. I guess TH people are decent drivers. I have seen a few knuckleheads.

[empirestate]

I am just curious, as everyday we see other idiots on the road doing crazy driving maneuvers.  Some drive us crazy at times, and some even we yell mostly at the other individual with our windows closed to vent.  There is no end to it and we could write a 2000 page book on every incident another driver does something stupid or unethical.  However, I am interested in knowing what driver mistake that you each see in your local area on a regular basis takes place the most.  I basically want to see if bad driving habits are the same everyplace around or not.

New York City: by far the most common error has to be violating "Keep Right Except to Pass". Close seconds must be: not signalling, failure to yield to pedestrians (except grudgingly), and of course mis-use of the horn. Oh, and then there are parking errors, also on-topic since they are committed by drivers as well.

EDIT: How could I forget...merging into a spot where there is a vehicle, rather than where there isn't. This violates such basic logic that I can't understand it. Do these people walk into the walls of their house to get to other rooms, because it's the shortest path?

Actually, would you mind if I just leave to your imagination what the common mistakes of NYC drivers are? My own brain hurts just trying to list them all. :-) ...although it is interesting that the raft of errors typically made in NYC seems to be a different raft from that in Chicagoland, LA, or other major cities.

(the fact that cars come with blind spots is pretty damn silly in and of itself.)

They don't. Blind spots come with mis-aligned mirrors. (I suppose that counts as a driver mistake in most areas of the country, huh?)

Very common errors in Wichita (in addition to not signalling lane changes, which I think Kphoger mentioned above):

*  Using a TWLTL to stage left turns out of driveways

Not an error in New York; rather, it's the legal and proper way to use such a lane, as discussed lengthily in another recent thread. In fact, I'd count not-knowing-that-this-is-how-those-lanes-are-to-be-used as a common driver mistake itself.

So if you're at an intersection with a camera, you're supposed to just take the ticket?

I have not been in NYC in a while, but I have not seen an intersection with a camera.  perhaps traffic patterns have changed since ~2009.

Still a common behavior in outer boroughs where speeds are higher and vehicles outnumber pedestrians. In Manhattan, there is typically too much density of traffic for any great number of red light streamers to get through.

[kphoger]

–People leaving a full car length between vehicles when stopped at a red light. I understand the theory of leaving yourself room to get out, or of not being too close lest you get rear-ended. But it's damn annoying when you're trying to get into the turn lane and you can't only because people are leaving such excessive amounts of space and are so engrossed in their mobile phones that they don't see you trying to get into the turn lane (even more so when it's a left-turn lane without a permissive green).

Speaking from past personal experience here, some people leave extra room at a red light so they're aren't breathing in a bunch of exhaust from the vehicle in front of them.  Especially when there's a baby in the car.

One of the biggest driving mistakes I see on the freeways downstate, and even in Chicagoland is entering the freeway ay a low rate of speed instead of getting up to speed and entering at the flow speed of the freeway.  These folks seem to think it's OK to enter a freeway at 40 mph.    The ramp is for getting up to speed, folks, say like 70 mph.

I don't recall the minimum speed limit on Illinois interstates, but here in Kansas it's 40 mph–which means that entering a highway at 40 mph is "up to speed".  I usually aim for at least 45 mph, and preferably closer to 55 mph, but I hardly ever aim to be at full cruising speed at the merge point.  I've found that keeping the tach needle under 2200 rpm upon entering the highway saves about 3 or 4 mpg in our van.

One of my pet peeves that I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Drivers in the right lane of a highway that slow down to let someone merge into the highway.  WRONG!  The motorist coming onto the highway have to merge in around the vehicle already on the highway. 

This is especially bad considering the motorist in the right lane is going about 65 mph or so.  The motorist coming up the on-ramp is doing, maybe, 40 mph max.  So if the motorist in the right lane just continued at his present speed, he'd pass the entering car with no problem.  Instead, that car slows down.  The entering car is speeding up, but unsure what the car in the right lane is doing. 

In much of the country, slowing down some to allow a vehicle to enter is common courtesy.  The problem is that many drivers are quite bad at judging relative speeds–whether it's better to continue their course, slow down, or move over into the other lane.  The worst is when the entering car and travelling car are going about the same speed and each one slows down for the other.  I've found that a good rule of thumb is to not slow down by more than 5 mph to let a car enter, but to be very willing to give up that 5 mph.  Within that window, the entering car has plenty of room to either speed up and merge in front, or slow down slightly and merge behind.

[Brandon]

–People leaving a full car length between vehicles when stopped at a red light. I understand the theory of leaving yourself room to get out, or of not being too close lest you get rear-ended. But it's damn annoying when you're trying to get into the turn lane and you can't only because people are leaving such excessive amounts of space and are so engrossed in their mobile phones that they don't see you trying to get into the turn lane (even more so when it's a left-turn lane without a permissive green).

Speaking from past personal experience here, some people leave extra room at a red light so they're aren't breathing in a bunch of exhaust from the vehicle in front of them.  Especially when there's a baby in the car.

Just enough room to see the bottom of the tires on the pavement should be sufficient.  It's just enough room to get around them should they stall on the green.

One of the biggest driving mistakes I see on the freeways downstate, and even in Chicagoland is entering the freeway ay a low rate of speed instead of getting up to speed and entering at the flow speed of the freeway.  These folks seem to think it's OK to enter a freeway at 40 mph.    The ramp is for getting up to speed, folks, say like 70 mph.

I don't recall the minimum speed limit on Illinois interstates, but here in Kansas it's 40 mph–which means that entering a highway at 40 mph is "up to speed".  I usually aim for at least 45 mph, and preferably closer to 55 mph, but I hardly ever aim to be at full cruising speed at the merge point.  I've found that keeping the tach needle under 2200 rpm upon entering the highway saves about 3 or 4 mpg in our van.

No, you should be up to the flow speed when entering, otherwise you will create an issue with traffic already on the freeway.  If you do not enter the freeway at the flow speed, you deserve to be run over by the vehicles already on the freeway.  Maybe that's a major difference between the Illinois way of entering a freeway and the Detroit way of entering a freeway (which is the way I learned).

One of my pet peeves that I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Drivers in the right lane of a highway that slow down to let someone merge into the highway.  WRONG!  The motorist coming onto the highway have to merge in around the vehicle already on the highway. 

This is especially bad considering the motorist in the right lane is going about 65 mph or so.  The motorist coming up the on-ramp is doing, maybe, 40 mph max.  So if the motorist in the right lane just continued at his present speed, he'd pass the entering car with no problem.  Instead, that car slows down.  The entering car is speeding up, but unsure what the car in the right lane is doing. 

In much of the country, slowing down some to allow a vehicle to enter is common courtesy.  The problem is that many drivers are quite bad at judging relative speeds–whether it's better to continue their course, slow down, or move over into the other lane.  The worst is when the entering car and travelling car are going about the same speed and each one slows down for the other.  I've found that a good rule of thumb is to not slow down by more than 5 mph to let a car enter, but to be very willing to give up that 5 mph.  Within that window, the entering car has plenty of room to either speed up and merge in front, or slow down slightly and merge behind.

You do not slow down for them.  If anything, you move over to let them in.  Otherwise, they are on their own as they are ones merging and must adjust their speed accordingly.  It's easy to adjust your speed when you are near the flow speed of the freeway.  If not, then you will cause an issue with the traffic on the freeway.

[jeffandnicole]

One of my pet peeves that I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Drivers in the right lane of a highway that slow down to let someone merge into the highway.  WRONG!  The motorist coming onto the highway have to merge in around the vehicle already on the highway. 

This is especially bad considering the motorist in the right lane is going about 65 mph or so.  The motorist coming up the on-ramp is doing, maybe, 40 mph max.  So if the motorist in the right lane just continued at his present speed, he'd pass the entering car with no problem.  Instead, that car slows down.  The entering car is speeding up, but unsure what the car in the right lane is doing. 

In much of the country, slowing down some to allow a vehicle to enter is common courtesy.  The problem is that many drivers are quite bad at judging relative speeds–whether it's better to continue their course, slow down, or move over into the other lane.  The worst is when the entering car and travelling car are going about the same speed and each one slows down for the other.  I've found that a good rule of thumb is to not slow down by more than 5 mph to let a car enter, but to be very willing to give up that 5 mph.  Within that window, the entering car has plenty of room to either speed up and merge in front, or slow down slightly and merge behind.

The person on the highway has the right-of-way, not the person entering the highway.  If the person on the highway slows down, then the person behind them has to slow down, and the person behind that person slows down, and omg...you have the beginning of a traffic jam.

It's no different than entering a roundabout - the person entering yields to those already there.

It's very rare for someone on an onramp to be going the speed of traffic on the highway.  And even if that happens, it's still the driver of the vehicle entering the highway's responsibility to adjust for others, not the other way around.

[agentsteel53]

Another unrelated one: people who accelerate very... slowly... but have a high top speed, particularly on suburban arterials with widely spaced stop lights.

I do this one, to some extent.  Save a bundle on gasoline.

I had a roommate who did nothing but suburban driving in Chicagoland, yet he got more than 10 mpg better than his car's rating.  He did it by accelerating slowly, driving in a high gear (5th gear in a 35 zone was common for him), and immediately putting it in neutral when the next light turned red.  I used to experiment with acceleration and top speed on arterials with widely spaced stoplights in DuPage County, and found that neither one had very much effect at all on my overall trip time.  In fact, I would frequently pass drivers who had passed me minutes earlier.  I'd say accelerating quickly does the most good on urban roads with closely spaced stoplights, and the least good the farther apart the signals are.

yep, that's about how I got 44mpg out of an '89 Escort.  lots of coasting out of gear.

[agentsteel53]

one thing I have not noticed mentioned here, but seems to be a pretty serious problem in California is lane discipline in multilane turns.

there is an intersection near my work that has a triple right turn, southbound to westbound.  see here:

http://goo.gl/maps/6zOGq

in fact, see the vehicle in the rightmost lane, about to encroach upon the middle turn lane!  I drive this road every day to get home from work, and I would say that about 25% of the time, if I am in the middle turn lane, I need to explicitly move into the leftmost turn lane to avoid someone in the right turn lane about to hit me!

this is equivalent to "do not change lanes into someone" except, while people have a moderately good grasp of this going straight, they seem to lose their shit completely when going around a corner.

[agentsteel53]

and one more: that damn "move over or slow down" law.  I have been run into the median on multiple occasions by trucks who think it means "move over, regardless of who is in the left lane".

[J N Winkler]

Changing lanes within an intersection - quite innocuous unless someone is waiting for a break in traffic to turn into the unoccupied lane (see Cutting someone off by turning into... above).

In most cases it may be innocuous, but it is de jure illegal and a person can be ticketed for it.  I generally avoid changing lanes within intersections for this reason.  It has the side effect of ensuring that I don't confuse anyone waiting at the intersection whom I cannot see but who can see my turn signal (I always signal lane changes) and misinterpret it to our mutual disadvantage.

Since when was this illegal on a multilane street?  On a two-lane, yes, but I've never seen where it is illegal when you have multiple lanes in your direction.  You wait for traffic to clear all lanes before moving out into traffic, otherwise the accident is your fault.

Wait.... Are you saying you didn't think it was illegal, but you assumed any accident resulting from doing so would be your fault?  I guess both of those can be true, but it seemed strange to read it.

Some casual Web searching confirms that Brandon is correct in that a ticket can be issued to the right-turning driver who, by failing to anticipate another vehicle changing lane to put itself on a conflicting path, contributes to an accident.  But actually a ticket can be issued to the lane-changing driver for making an unsafe lane change.  In other words, both drivers get ticketed (as, I would argue, is proper, since both drivers have failed to drive defensively).

http://www.lacantdrive.com/2008/05/30/is-it-legal-to-change-lanes-in-an-intersection/

The above website is oriented at Southern California drivers, so the California Vehicle Code is cited as authority.  However, the relevant provisions of CVC are mirrored in Kansas law.

For what it's worth, I can similarly find no vehicle code in Kansas law which prohibits changing lanes within an intersection–even though I was told in driver's ed that it's prohibited.  J N Winkler, can you provide a code reference?

I checked and it appears there is no provision in law which bans changing lane in intersections as such.  However, KSA § 8-1522 ("Driving on roadways laned for traffic") is the equivalent of CVC 21658 in California--most tickets for changing lane in intersections in California cite CVC 21658(a), which prohibits a driver from changing lane until he or she has first ascertained that the maneuver is safe.  In addition, KSA § 8-1519 prohibits a driver from being on the left side of the roadway within 100 feet of an intersection or railroad grade crossing, otherwise than on a one-way roadway or in preparation for an upcoming left turn.

We definitely have different driving habits!  I can't imagine driving such that I would drop my speed and wait to pass a truck just because I was approaching some gravel cross road, or that I would "hog" the left lane with someone wanting to pass me for the same reason.

Neither situation arises often.  On expressways in Kansas, it is not uncommon to stop up gravel cross roads (example from expressway perspective; another example, from side-road perspective; both on K-96 between Maize and Hutchinson).  On two-lane state highways, you can't be in the middle of an intersection anyway when you are on the left side of the road to execute an overtaking maneuver--this is explicitly prohibited by KSA § 8-1519.

Also, the roads I drive 45 mph on generally aren't signed for 45.  A good example would be Ridge Road between Maple and Central:  nine intersections within one mile, and I'm typically driving somewhere around 45—48 mph (40 zone).  Ain't no way I'm going to try and time my lane changes to fit neatly within those intersections.

I drive that length of Ridge from time to time, setting my cruise control within 2 MPH of the posted 40 limit, and I have no problem timing lane changes to avoid intersections.  I accept the point that by speeding 5-8 MPH over the limit, you are matching the usual operating speeds on this segment, but I have good reasons for choosing not to do so.  There are many apartment complexes in the area, which translates into a surfeit of young, impulsive drivers waiting on side roads who have to be helped not to make bad decisions.  If that means I have to drive like a blue-rinse old lady, so be it.  There is also a lot of congestion on this stretch (apartment complexes imply higher densities than SFRs), so I keep my task loading to manageable levels by not watching for police running radar.

How about these fairly universal ones:

Stopping within the crosswalk at a stop sign or stoplight.

You can also include fouling the stop bar, which is upstream of the crosswalk.  I try to avoid doing this but often cannot.

Parking in a driveway with your car blocking the sidewalk.

I try to avoid this, if necessary by parking in the street, though I question whether it is an obstruction in the legal sense--it depends on whether the driveway apron is considered open to public travel.  (The obstruction is more of a problem for cyclists, who arguably should not be on the sidewalk in the first place.)

Very common errors in Wichita (in addition to not signalling lane changes, which I think Kphoger mentioned above):

*  Using a TWLTL to stage left turns out of driveways

Not an error in New York; rather, it's the legal and proper way to use such a lane, as discussed lengthily in another recent thread. In fact, I'd count not-knowing-that-this-is-how-those-lanes-are-to-be-used as a common driver mistake itself.

Legal, yes; proper, no.  Because of the line-of-sight issues described upthread, it is a very unsafe maneuver and is to be avoided whenever possible.  It really should not be legal in the first place, and banning it would give highway agencies an incentive to implement proper access management.

[elsmere241]

Finally, this morning I was stopped waiting for this school bus and I found myself wondering about the "stop for school bus" rules for the cars coming the other way (see the blurry car in the distance). Normally in Virginia if there is a median you need not stop, but if a school bus stops at an intersection, all traffic coming from all directions must stop. The guy coming the other way here didn't stop; neither did the guy in that black Toyota to the left (nor a couple of other people ahead of him). I suspect they think the median means they need not stop. But based on my recollection of the DMV manual, the fact that it's an intersection trumps. If the school bus driver stopped about two bus lanes further back (like to the right of where I'm stopped in this picture), then there would be no issue–he wouldn't be at the intersection and people could go. I suspect the reason the bus stop is not further back like that is that there is another, much more important intersection just behind me and they quite rightly don't want the bus stopped in a place where someone coming around the blind corner will be startled by it.

In Delaware if a road has four lanes or more, traffic going the other way need not stop.

On my former commute (I used to park on the street in front of my house, now I park in the alley in the back) I would invariably come to a corner where a school bus was stopped in the other direction to pick up a handicapped child.  Since I was turning right, the driver would give me the "Delaware wave" and let me go by.  (That wave is common courtesy around here - often given when one car would otherwise have to wait forever to turn into traffic.)

[J N Winkler]

and one more: that damn "move over or slow down" law.  I have been run into the median on multiple occasions by trucks who think it means "move over, regardless of who is in the left lane".

Personally, I have long felt that move-over laws should DIAF.  But I can see that they came about as the line-of-least-resistance approach toward ensuring officer safety at the highway shoulder.  The alternative of creating a duty on the driver being pulled over to drive to a ramp or intersecting low-volume road, or at minimum to wait until he or she encounters a full-width shoulder and then pull onto it so that the right-hand tires are on the shoulder edge, etc. would make it difficult to prosecute flee/elude LEO cases.

[agentsteel53]

also, while changing lanes on a freeway: putting on a turn signal, waiting several seconds, and then verrrrry slowlllly creeping over into the target lane.

dude, I see what you're trying to do.  get it done already.

[texaskdog]

One of my pet peeves that I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Drivers in the right lane of a highway that slow down to let someone merge into the highway

Worse yet, the ones who let people in driveways turn in in front of them when the light is green, causing me to miss the way-too-short green light.

[djsinco]

* Emergency flashers on in the rain or in fog. Flashers are for stopped cars ONLY and driving with them on is a significant safety hazard. FHP will ticket for it. But do turn in your headlights. Cars with hazards on but not headlights = double fail.

this must be different than in California, because here trucks use their flashers - in good weather and bad - when they're chugging up a hill doing 25 in a 65.

I've used the flashers myself when I had a flat tire and was crawling to the next exit, and also in the fog when I'm going 10 in a 65 (oh that was a fun one, over Siskiyou Pass).

I think flashers as "driver going abnormally slow" is a fairly good universal rule.

Many states REQUIRE 4-way flashers for any vehicle going under a certain speed on a grade, or due to other circumstances.

[djsinco]

This is a great thread, thanks for starting it, roadman65!

In the Denver Metro, where I do most of my driving, I find the string of left-turners platooning through the left red arrow very annoying. It is common to see 6-8 "extra"  vehicles doing so. I wonder why I NEVER see a ticket written for this. I slowly start to drift start into the intersection (if going straight through,) with a continuous horn blast. My goal is to at least draw attention to them, but better if there is a cop around; of course, there never is.

Next, those who choose to relinquish their right-of-way (ROW) to me. They might have been clearly at the 4-way stop 5 seconds before me, but will wait until I stop, figure out their plan, and then go, or maybe not. I would have been there less time in the first place if they just fully stopped and went on as they should have in the first place. Sometimes I feel as if it could be a bait and switch and they will ram me if I take them up on their offer. The camera would show me in the wrong; their little hand wave would never show upon tape to defend my action.

Straying from the topic a bit, when I first started driving in Downtown Denver (in the 1980's,) it was the first time I had seen legal "left turn on red,"  in the case of two one-way streets intersecting in the correct alignment. It makes perfect sense, but to this day I do not think I have ever seen a sign noting is acceptability.

Clueless freeway merging — drivers who think they have the ROW upon entering the highway, or those who are well under an appropriate speed to merge, and I have to do likewise behind them. Also, merging drivers who merge into the left lane of 3 lanes or more immediately, usually with no regard for whom they interfere with or inconvenience. I have even seen tractor trailer drivers do this. Having driven class 8 trucks, I have been the recipient of these multi-lane mergers, and some of these freaks are lucky to have driven away from their stupidity.

Why is it so often the driver of a gray colored vehicle who refuses to "burn" their headlights (tip of the hat, NC!) in a torrential downpour?

Drivers who leave too little or too much room between them and the car in front of them while waiting for a green light.

Drivers who will not pull up a foot or two to allow you to get into an available left or right turn lane. Usually they are oblivious to the outside world, as so many seem to be.

Turn signals implemented after the lane change or turn is occurring, or those who think one or two blinks is sufficient. Of course, many do both of these in one fell swoop.

[kphoger]

It seems that the common opinion on here holds two things about merging traffic that don't jive very well in my driving experience:

(1) Entering traffic should be at full cruising speed by the time they get on the highway; and
(2) Through traffic should not alter its speed for merging traffic, rather merging traffic should alter its speed.

Too many times, this has put me side-by-side with a vehicle (sometimes an 18-wheeler) mere yards from the end of my acceleration lane.  I, as entering traffic find it much easier to find a gap in traffic if there is at least 5 mph difference between my speed and the prevailing speed of through traffic.  Since the through traffic in question is usually in the slow lane (most on-ramps come from the right), which means it is moving at the slower end of the speed continuum, I actually find it easier to merge at 5—10 mph under the posted speed limit.

A case in point is my daily commute home from work, where I merge from SB I-135 to EB Kellogg.  Traffic speeds on Kellogg vary greatly at rush hour, especially in the right lane.  Sometimes it's flowing at 65 mph, sometimes it's at a dead standstill.  The interchange being a turban  turbine  whirlpool interchange, there is plenty of room to accelerate to cruising speed on the ramp, but the length of the actual acceleration lane (from gore to taper) is very short.  If I accelerate to 60 mph (the speed limit) and traffic is moving at 42 mph, then I end up having to hit my brakes again, and what was the point of speeding up that much in the first place?  If I accelerate to 60 mph and traffic is moving at 60 mph, then there's a good chance I'll be neck and neck with a truck and no wiggle room.  If I accelerate to 60 mph and traffic is moving at 6 mph, then things get hairy.  Instead, I find it much easier to approach the merge at about 45 mph–still slow enough to slam on my brakes if need be, but fast enough to accelerate to 55 or 60 by the time anyone else would have to hit their brakes–or at least do anything more than tap them.

[agentsteel53]

a 5-10 mph difference in speed is indeed very helpful.

if the fast lane is moving 77, and the slow lane 67, then you can merge at one of two speeds:

1) 57mph.  staid but respectable.
2) 77mph.  it is elegantly also the speed of the fast lane.

under no circumstances is merging at slower than 57mph acceptable.

also, it helps to know the speed of traffic of the freeway being joined.  if you are anticipating 6mph traffic, then accelerating even to 40mph may be incautious.  usually, in this case, the onramp is backed up as well - at least in my experience.

[kphoger]

Next, those who choose to relinquish their right-of-way (ROW) to me. They might have been clearly at the 4-way stop 5 seconds before me, but will wait until I stop, figure out their plan, and then go, or maybe not. I would have been there less time in the first place if they just fully stopped and went on as they should have in the first place.

Quite common around here too.  Especially annoying, since I work right by a four-way where this happens all the time.  I've gotten to the point that I just don't feel like waiting for them to figure out the situation.  Have you ever rolled up to a four-way, and found vehicles on all three other approaches trying to figure out who should go first?  When I roll up to that situation, I just go first, even though I got there last.  I'm not going to waste my time, and everyone's behind me, waiting for them to figure out how stop signs work.

Also, merging drivers who merge into the left lane of 3 lanes or more immediately, usually with no regard for whom they interfere with or inconvenience.

Also very common here.  I've even seen drivers do that, putting themselves directly behind another car in the center lane, then change lanes back to the right again to go around.  Would have been much simpler to just stay in the right lane.