Road-related pet peeves

[PHLBOS]

Why do gas prices go down to the thousandth of a dollar? There's no such thing technically right?

Such pricing notation dates back to at least the 1960s when gas prices were significantly lower (25 to 35 cents depending on area) and when so-called gas (price) wars had neighboring stations undercutting their competition by fractions of a cent-per-gallon ($0.XX5 per gallon vs. $0.XX9 per gallon).  Such price differences were more noticable for the trucks (semis/18-wheelers) that had much larger fuel tank capacities than passenger cars (even full-sizes).   

Even during the mid-to-late 1970s, I actually saw a gas station that priced at least one of its grades by the half-cent ($0.XX5) per gallon.

[silverback1065]

construction zones on highways where they split traffic the same direction of traffic, the left lane is usually shifted to the other side of the road, is way to small in width, borderline claustrophobic.  This also sometimes can act as an express lane skipping exits.  The right lane usually is on the normal side with a normal width.

[DaBigE]

construction zones on highways where they split traffic the same direction of traffic, the left lane is usually shifted to the other side of the road, is way to small in width, borderline claustrophobic.  This also sometimes can act as an express lane skipping exits.  The right lane usually is on the normal side with a normal width.

While it's not ideal, sometimes you gotta do it in order to get the work done while remaining open traffic.

[DaBigE]

How car manufacturers make changing light bulbs a seemingly more difficult task with each new model, and still insist on using incandescent bulbs in so many locations where LEDs would work better.

[empirestate]

Tell that to the people who drive on freeways in New York City. They never signal and it's a large guessing game of where to go next.

Nah, sure they do. Right after they've changed lanes.

[pderocco]

When the explicit left turn lane overflows, my peeve is when additional drivers who want to turn left refuse to line up in the center turn lane, and instead line up in the travel lane.

On the other hand, when the left turn lane is not overflowing, people two are turning left will move into the center turn lane and start to pass the line of traffic, often ending up in conflict with others who are turning left but are moving into the left turn lane where it begins.

Well, one shouldn't get into the center turn lane until it's obvious that no one in front of you is going to make a left turn, which is to say, when everyone in front of you has already passed the end of the line of cars already in the turn lane. If someone is using the turn lane to pass someone who might also want to get into the turn lane, then that would qualify as another pet peeve--or as an infraction worthy of a citation.

[KG909]

When a new left lane is created and then the right lane ends. That shit drives me up the fucking wall.

Yeah. SB CA-14 in Palmdale. The right lane ends, a quarter mile before the heavily used Palmdale Blvd. exit, at the same time that they add an HOV lane on the left.

IIRC there is a guideline or rule in CA that a general-purpose lane cannot "become" an HOV lane. Otherwise you could get "stuck" in one and have to suddenly merge out.

But the right lane should at least exit.
I also hate it when new left lanes are created and never end, or when they never needed to be created in the first place, also when the left lane just exits. Only thing that doesn't piss me off if it is created but is something like an exit lane, also if it was a carpool made.

HTC Desire 510

[BamaZeus]

gas stations that omit the last digit in the price on the sign outside

The fact that gas prices are still created to that many digits. Round up already!

Ha-ha I agree but I was referring to something like this $2.3_ I've seen this a few times.
Why do gas prices go down to the thousandth of a dollar? There's no such thing technically right?

I remember seeing that during the 1979 gas shortage.    Millls are still used for accounting purposes though there are no coins of that denomination.

Way back when, Andy Rooney did a segment on 60 Minutes about this.  He drove up to the pump and asked for exactly one gallon of gas.  He owed something like $.99-9 and handed the attendant a dollar bill.  He asked for his change back and the poor kid didn't know what to do.  He understood Rooney's issue with getting his 1/10 of a cent back in change, but had no idea how to handle such a situation.  The manager comes over and doesn't get anywhere either, since Rooney is intentionally being a dick to make his point, and Rooney leaves pretending to be frustrated.

I always figured the 9/10 of a cent was used for taxation purposes at a local/state level,  but other than that it just screams out an "Office Space" situation where someone is getting rich 9/10 of a cent at a time without anyone knowing it.

[roadman65]

When the explicit left turn lane overflows, my peeve is when additional drivers who want to turn left refuse to line up in the center turn lane, and instead line up in the travel lane.

On the other hand, when the left turn lane is not overflowing, people two are turning left will move into the center turn lane and start to pass the line of traffic, often ending up in conflict with others who are turning left but are moving into the left turn lane where it begins.

Well, one shouldn't get into the center turn lane until it's obvious that no one in front of you is going to make a left turn, which is to say, when everyone in front of you has already passed the end of the line of cars already in the turn lane. If someone is using the turn lane to pass someone who might also want to get into the turn lane, then that would qualify as another pet peeve--or as an infraction worthy of a citation.

Or purposely be a richard where they just like to drive the center turn lane as an extra lane.  Before Orange Blossom Trail got widened to six lanes from the previous four lanes plus center turn lane, some drivers looking to turn west on Central Florida Parkway would be "riding" that left turn suicide lane for about a quarter of a mile already with no cues that they needed to bypass or any kind of slowpokes in the general use lanes.  I used to have to look over my should when I would enter the left turn lane for Central Florida to avoid colliding with one of these center turn lane drivers.

Then if you want to get technical, the center turn lane leading up to Central Florida Parkway was not continuous either as the former Ford Dealer (now it moved a block away) had an exclusive left turn for southbound OBT in lieu of a bidirectional turn lane.  Yet NB cars would ride in the SB left turn lane for the 100 feet it was, as most drivers treat all left turn lanes unprotected by medians as bidirectional.

[doorknob60]

construction zones on highways where they split traffic the same direction of traffic, the left lane is usually shifted to the other side of the road, is way to small in width, borderline claustrophobic.  This also sometimes can act as an express lane skipping exits.  The right lane usually is on the normal side with a normal width.

They've been doing this a lot on the I-84 construction in Meridian, ID. The freeway is normally 4 lanes in each direction. What they'll do is work on half of one side of the roadway (2 lanes), make each direction 3 lanes, with one of the directions having 2 lanes, and then a third lane crossover to the other side. Much better alternative than forcing down to 2 lanes (which they almost ended up doing recently, but decided against it at the 11th hour, doing another crossover; 2 lanes would create brutal traffic). I like using the crossover lane, I can speed above the 55 MPH construction speed limit because there's no room for cops in there (median on both sides), and there is no work going on in the middle either. I also don't have to worry about merging traffic from interchanges.

[vtk]

I always figured the 9/10 of a cent was used for taxation purposes at a local/state level,  but other than that it just screams out an "Office Space" situation where someone is getting rich 9/10 of a cent at a time without anyone knowing it.

But you're typically not pumping exact whole numbers of gallons all the time.  Your gasoline volume is measured to the thousandth of a gallon.  So, really, the price a person owes for their gasoline purchase could technically be specified to the millionth of a dollar, or to the ten-thousandth of a cent.  Even if the price per gallon were always in whole cents, you could still owe an amount with odd thousandths of cents.

The next thing to argue about is rounding.  If the total purchase price on a transaction is rounded up or down to the nearest cent, nobody is "getting rich" from fractional cents.  It's just a random redistribution of fractional cents between customers.  On the other hand, if the purchase price on a transaction is rounded up to the next whole cent, as I suspect, still nobody is "getting rich" from those fractional cents.  It's essentially as if the real price of gasoline is "$2.59⁹/gal + ½¢ flat fee per transaction" and then rounded up or down to the nearest whole cent.  Since most gasoline purchases are around 10 gallons or more, that's typically about a twentieth of a cent per gallon upcharge; put another way, since most gasoline purchases are around $25 or more (varying seasonally, regionally, and with the oil market), that's roughly a .02% upcharge.  (By the way, I think this is how all other retail purchases are handled after calculating the sales tax, which should also typically result in fractional cents.)  Since that rounding up is essentially just a part of the price of the gasoline, these half cents aren't making anyone rich, they're just an extra drop in the bucket of the gross revenue of the gas station.  And then there's the random distribution of fractional cents between customers, which really nobody should be getting upset over.

PS – if you do somehow manage to pump exactly 10.000 gallons of gasoline, that 9/10¢ per gallon amounts to exactly 9¢ on your transaction, so there is no discrepancy and no fractional pennies to line anyone's pockets.

[roadman65]

US 192 in Kissimmee has in many cases motorists not distributing themselves evenly between three lanes of traffic on the six lane arterial.  I have missed many cues at the Poinciana Blvd. intersection because most of these exclusive left lane drivers are in a line going 30-35 mph on a 45 mph highway.  Then the light in the left turn pocket is green with the arrow for protected left turn and a chance to make the light before it turns, is blocked by a long cue in the left lane with absolutely no one in the remaining two lanes.

Ughhh! That is not only something that cause me to wait an extra cycle and emit more fumes into the air, but wonder how can so many people be so stupid and give up a chance to drive more freely using two other open lanes considering that many of these slowpoke lines have no one turning left for several miles!  Classic case of left lane richards, and most likely these slow drivers will be the ones making up the 85 percentile on our nation's interstates that like to travel at excessive speeds.

Even non road geeks were complaining about that at my work, about idiots who drive ridiculously slow in one specific lane for no apparent reason pissing off other vehicles in the process of just driving in groups for whatever reason.

[kphoger]

That post was making very little sense to me until I realized you meant 'queue' instead of 'cue'.

Yes, this is also a pet peeve of mine: driving slower than the flow of traffic in the left lane for no reason. On regular avenues with limits of 35 mph or less, I don't mind quite so much for some reason, but anything more arterial than that makes me expect drivers to keep right.

[roadman65]

That post was making very little sense to me until I realized you meant 'queue' instead of 'cue'.

Yes, this is also a pet peeve of mine: driving slower than the flow of traffic in the left lane for no reason. On regular avenues with limits of 35 mph or less, I don't mind quite so much for some reason, but anything more arterial than that makes me expect drivers to keep right.

I knew it was a queue but was not in the mood to look it up as I was unsure of how it is spelled.  Plus this kind of stuff makes certain trolls on here get upset. Not to be one as well, but it is amazing how some people on here have that insecurity complex that they need a spelling error as a booster to their own self confidence.  I figure give them a freebie as a public service

[1995hoo]

I found the misuse of the name "Richard" to be far more annoying than the misspelling. "Cue" instead of "queue" isn't all that uncommon.

Out of curiosity, roadman, do the people lining up in the left lane also leave way too much space between cars? I hate it when I'm trying to get into a turn lane and I can see people leaving gaps of a carlength or more such that if they pulled all the way up, I'd have plenty of room to get into the turn lane prior to the green arrow coming on.

[Brian556]

Quote from roadman65:

US 192 in Kissimmee has in many cases motorists not distributing themselves evenly between three lanes of traffic on the six lane arterial.  I have missed many cues at the Poinciana Blvd. intersection because most of these exclusive left lane drivers are in a line going 30-35 mph on a 45 mph highway.  Then the light in the left turn pocket is green with the arrow for protected left turn and a chance to make the light before it turns, is blocked by a long cue in the left lane with absolutely no one in the remaining two lanes.

Ughhh! That is not only something that cause me to wait an extra cycle and emit more fumes into the air, but wonder how can so many people be so stupid and give up a chance to drive more freely using two other open lanes considering that many of these slowpoke lines have no one turning left for several miles!  Classic case of left lane richards, and most likely these slow drivers will be the ones making up the 85 percentile on our nation's interstates that like to travel at excessive speeds.

Even non road geeks were complaining about that at my work, about idiots who drive ridiculously slow in one specific lane for no apparent reason pissing off other vehicles in the process of just driving in groups for whatever reason.

Surely this is more of a problem on US 192 due to the fact that a large percentage of the traffic is tourists, and they may be in the left lane because they know they need to turn left somewhere down the road, but are unsure of the distance to the turn. I have driven in this area, and can tell you that it is much harder to estimate distance and wait until absolutely necessary to get into the left lane in an unfamiliar, or in my case slightly familiar area.

It would help this problem if they would post signs with distances to the next 3 to 6  major intersections, like they do for exits on freeways.

As far as intentional rudeness goes in Florida, I suspect that it is the locals doing it way more than tourists. Florida has a way bigger speeding and reckless driving problem than anywhere else I have ever been, and it appears that it is at least in part due to lax law enforcement.

[roadman65]

I found the misuse of the name "Richard" to be far more annoying than the misspelling. "Cue" instead of "queue" isn't all that uncommon.

Out of curiosity, roadman, do the people lining up in the left lane also leave way too much space between cars? I hate it when I'm trying to get into a turn lane and I can see people leaving gaps of a carlength or more such that if they pulled all the way up, I'd have plenty of room to get into the turn lane prior to the green arrow coming on.

Oh yes about the left turn lanes.  Always you have people slow down usually 100 feet or more before a stop bar at an intersection, but when you yourself need to get into a queue they are then conservative slowing down way ahead of the intersection.  US 192, I cannot tell you how many times I have missed a protected turn lane due to a slowpoke preventing me from entering the left turn lane.

In many cases a sign notifying a motorists of the next three intersections won't help.  Heck dotted lines and an overhead EXIT ONLY cannot stop a person from being surprised in a lane drop onto an exit ramp, so this will not help either.

[kphoger]

That post was making very little sense to me until I realized you meant 'queue' instead of 'cue'.

Yes, this is also a pet peeve of mine: driving slower than the flow of traffic in the left lane for no reason. On regular avenues with limits of 35 mph or less, I don't mind quite so much for some reason, but anything more arterial than that makes me expect drivers to keep right.

I knew it was a queue but was not in the mood to look it up as I was unsure of how it is spelled.  Plus this kind of stuff makes certain trolls on here get upset. Not to be one as well, but it is amazing how some people on here have that insecurity complex that they need a spelling error as a booster to their own self confidence.  I figure give them a freebie as a public service

I didn't mean to be snarky, I was actually being serious. I kept trying to figure out what you meant by "missing many cues at the Poinciana Blvd. intersection". I was wracking my brain over that while continuing to read, and then it all clicked when I came to the second use of the word, which was more obvious. As you can see, I'm a little dense sometimes; just ask my wife.

Around here, the scenario you describe rarely prevents me from entering a left-turn lane as I wish. At one particular intersection, though, traffic in the left lane often stacks up to form a longer queue than than in the right lane, and there's a hard median; getting in the left turn lane there is often physically impossible.

[empirestate]

Quote from roadman65:

US 192 in Kissimmee has in many cases motorists not distributing themselves evenly between three lanes of traffic on the six lane arterial.  I have missed many cues at the Poinciana Blvd. intersection because most of these exclusive left lane drivers are in a line going 30-35 mph on a 45 mph highway.  Then the light in the left turn pocket is green with the arrow for protected left turn and a chance to make the light before it turns, is blocked by a long cue in the left lane with absolutely no one in the remaining two lanes.

Ughhh! That is not only something that cause me to wait an extra cycle and emit more fumes into the air, but wonder how can so many people be so stupid and give up a chance to drive more freely using two other open lanes considering that many of these slowpoke lines have no one turning left for several miles!  Classic case of left lane richards, and most likely these slow drivers will be the ones making up the 85 percentile on our nation's interstates that like to travel at excessive speeds.

Even non road geeks were complaining about that at my work, about idiots who drive ridiculously slow in one specific lane for no apparent reason pissing off other vehicles in the process of just driving in groups for whatever reason.

Surely this is more of a problem on US 192 due to the fact that a large percentage of the traffic is tourists, and they may be in the left lane because they know they need to turn left somewhere down the road, but are unsure of the distance to the turn. I have driven in this area, and can tell you that it is much harder to estimate distance and wait until absolutely necessary to get into the left lane in an unfamiliar, or in my case slightly familiar area.

It may be tourists in the case of US 192, but this accurately describes behavior I've seen all over Florida, mostly in non-tourist areas (to the extent that such exist in the state). And yes, it is very annoying, because now I have to get into the left lane line much earlier than should be necessary, making it a self-compounding problem.

[noelbotevera]

People drive at 6+ below the speed limit. Come on, we're all in a hurry!

[kphoger]

People drive at 6+ below the speed limit. Come on, we're all in a hurry!

Agreed. I almost always drive above the speed limit, but I'm rarely annoyed by slower drivers who at least do five under. Slower than five under, though, and my blood pressure does start to rise.

[Big John]

People who don't get into the left-turn lane to make the turn.

[kphoger]

People who don't get into the left-turn lane to make the turn.

Especially common in the presence of a TWLTL. And usually at 10 mph under the limit leading up to it. Grrrrr..

[roadman65]

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.

Yes tourists are such bad drivers.  Yes they are not familiar with roads, but obstructing traffic and not using common sense is not being a safe driver.  Turning left from one of the through lanes and waiting for the green arrow blocking the through lane queue ( I got it right) is very dumb especially on some other roads as well as US 192 where a median break exists 100 to 200 feet later with no signal to wait for and minimum inconvenience, yet they will be pricks and block a lane knowing full well that they do it.  Of course in Orange and Osceola County the cops are always scarce when the worst drivers are out (usually one bad driver ever 30 seconds of travel and in rush hours ever 10 seconds).  The moving violations alone if every cop did their jobs would pay for each officer's salary and keep the tax rate down in theory (as we all know that extra money in the treasury these days goes to pork spending, but that is for another forum someplace else on the mighty web).

[1995hoo]

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.)