What is your traffic flaw?

[Notthe7]

No people that drive and fucking TEXT.

Jesus christ, are you nuts?

 

[Rikter8]

I have a habit of braking quickly when somebody is tailgatng.

I know this one well too buddy.. but trust me... try to work on not doing this. I know that its harder than HELL to resist...but there are certain officers that will see it differently. I've done it, but it causes more grief than its worth, even for a road warrior myself.

Take for example - a guy stopped right in the middle of the highway, and my co-worker hit him. The cop asked the guy "Why'd you stop". The guy didn't have a viable answer (not even an animal story) and he got the ticket, not to mention had to pay for my co-workers damages.

I know its hard to resist...but trust me...I lived and learned this one.
C

 

[Rikter8]

above all the safety reason to drive slowly the price of gas as recently made me take it just a bit more easy on the pedal. Take a few more seconds to pick up speed and you'll save alot more then pennies.

This one has me split. I know everyone is trying to conserve fuel the best they can, but they never get up to speed, or if they do, they take a mile or more to do it.

The problem with slower than average accellerations is the traffic approaching from behind. There's no brake lights, so you don't know how fast theyre going until your right on top of them.
Then you have to hit your brakes... and the person behind you - hope they hit their brakes, otherwise WHAMO rear end accident.

I've been rear ended twice sitting at a light - I don't stick around to get hit anymore.

 

[ballsaplenty2156]

While that's a great story you are very lucky that she did not get your plate number. You would hve been in jail for Christmas.

Hpefully the lady learned a lesson. She is lucky that she did not run into a gang member who would have shot her in the face.

The best thing would have been to walk away calmly, wait for her to go into the mall and then let the air out of all of her tires.

I agree with you 100%. I should have just left and looked for another space. I was a fool to batter someone over a parking space despite their ignorance.
No excuses here, it was bad behavior on my part, for sure. I am more mature at this point in my life. Maybe, I'd just flatten her tires now!! :biggrin1:

 

[Rikter8]

That's why I carry a tow rope when i drive my pickup

 

[2322]

I can be impatient and sometimes find myself dangerously distracted.

 

[transformer_99]

above all the safety reason to drive slowly the price of gas as recently made me take it just a bit more easy on the pedal. Take a few more seconds to pick up speed and you'll save a lot more then pennies.

Not singling you out, but to a certain extent that works. But let's face it, the difference in a tank of gas between getting 18 & 19 mpg, is pennies on the dollar per mile depending upon your vehicle. And here's the real world math to prove it:

21 gallons @ $ 4.079 = $ 85.66, that's the same regardless of the fuel economy I get.

Scenario A: 18 mpg

18 mpg X 21 gallons = 378 miles

$ 85.66 / 378 miles = $ .2266 per mile

Scenario B: 19 mpg

19 mpg X 21 gallons = 399 miles

$ 85.66 / 399miles = $ .2146 per mile

That's just about a penny per mile, over 399 miles it's just shy of $ 4 @ $ 3.99 on the tank of gas. That's in a perfect world where I drive in a vacuum on a road with no traffic. With traffic the way it really is, I get just about that regardless of how hard I stomp on the throttle. My vehicle gets more like the difference between 18 and 18.5 mpg in a good week of stop and go traffic. So I might as well drive the speed limit constantly, rather than go into miser mode because traffic is stopping every 2-3 car lengths for about a 5 mile stretch of road on my 22 mile one way commute. When I'm on the road with virtually no traffic and all highway driving, I get 20 mpg and that's doing 78 with cruise control on. As you can see it really makes little difference for fuel economy for me. I can't imagine my vehicle being the only one behaving like this, but there might be some vehicles that the difference might be more noticeable ?

Now laying off the throttle usually costs me at least 10 more minutes of commute time each way with traffic stopping and starting. So over the course of a 5 day work week, the 20 more minutes each day is 100 minutes for the 5 days. that's over an hour and a half. So to save $ 3.99 per tank of gas in terms of fuel economy I waste an hour and a half more of my life each week sitting in traffic. I make a little more than $ 3.99 an hour. The solution is for everyone to keep moving and rarely, if ever hit their brakes or stop. It takes way more gas/energy to get your vehicle moving from a complete stop. So the community I live in, the DOT needs to synchronize lights to keep all of us moving, Every driver needs to pay attention and go when it's their turn. And everyone has to use their lanes efficiently. When we all leave plenty of room between cars, those who need to switch lanes can and then make their right turns. I don't mind someone getting in front of me, but when they do, they need to keep moving, not run up the next guys bumper and brake/stop. Traffic is just spastic when we're all in the great cattle drive to work. And what really irritates me is the 2nd, 3rd and 4th cars to make left turns after the light has turned red on them. And then there's others are in the middle of the intersection blocking it because they got caught in between. Every day, people use the same tolls too, have their money ready ! They know how much it is too ! Try planning their trip in advance and being responsible for it, for a change. When many people do it, it effects all of us.

And another point, the fact that a gallon of gas has gone up over $ 1/gallon, that's $ 20+ per tank, there's no way I can make up that difference no matter how easy I accelerate and drive, the $ 4 that I conserve, I'm already in such a deficit from the price of a gallon of gas. Again the solution is to not stop on the highway I use to commute to work everyday. That way I don't wear out my front suspension from the nose dive every vehicle makes in the physics of stopping, that and wearing out the brake pads required to stop.

 

[killerb]

my traffic flaw is "TWD" :guilty:
texting while driving

 

[Dorian_Gray]

Hit and run in the Wal-Mart parking lot..... that's all I'm saying, and I can already feel my blood pressure rising.

 

[transformer_99]

Hit and run in the Wal-Mart parking lot..... that's all I'm saying, and I can already feel my blood pressure rising.

Aaaahhhh, I've seen your victimization too often, even been equally as unfortunate as the victim. Shoppers that can't operate a grocery cart much else their own car. And if it's not the grocery cart they used, it's their own car door that they haven't quite figured out won't open fully after they've pulled into the parking spot. Not only does the door open faster than they drive thru the lot, but often times this retard uses their leg and side of their foot to kick open the door the rest of the way until it strikes a solid blow to the side of your car. Usually the perpetrator is a short, fat, middle-aged woman too.

 

[D_Pubert Stabbingpain]

I always speed, but not excessively. I've only gotten one speeding ticket.

I have a habit of braking quickly when somebody is tailgatng. I know this isn't safe, but neither is tailgating.

Had a friend once who was notorious for this. I was the passenger in his vehicle 1 day and we were going down a very steep moiuntainside highway. He too, could not stand to be tailgated. What he would do however, is *not* tap the breaks to attempt to warn them off. He would pull the emergency brake!

 

[Phil Ayesho]

I do not suffer from road rage.
I will drive faster than most folks... but not so fast as to draw undue attention to myself.

I will weave thru clots of slowpokes... but I do so without excessive tailgating, always signaling every move... its actually kind of a game... to look ahead on the road and see if I can plot the moves that will get me thru the clogs...

I always let anyone who signals a lane change in, I pull out of the fast lane if a car is coming up behind me much faster than I am going... I stop on THIS side of the intersection if there is not room on the other side for my car.... I render first aid at accidents..
and perhaps most importantly, I UNDERSTAND HOW A FOUR WAY STOP WORKS. ( FYI- two at a time... NOT 1,2,,3,4-- and left turners roll forward and turn BEHIND the oncoming car.)

But I do have my favorite story of road rage I have had to deal with...


Driving into Chicago in heavy traffic...
A woman behind me in a Caddy seville simply could not stand that I was allowing for a full car and a half space between me and the guy in front of me.

She was right on my bumper for about 12 miles... If I had pulled over ( if there had been a gap I could have pulled over into ) she could have gotten exactly 35 feet further down the road... before coming up on the guy who I was following... at the same dang speed...


As my exit came up, I had to cross over two lanes... but traffic was so dense... and Chicago drivers such pricks, that no one would let me in... I had to start slowing down, with my signal on... waiting for an opening or someone to be kind.... so the space in front of me got a bit longer...

Finally, I had a hole and slid out of the lane to my right...

This woman floored her throttle, all four barrels on that giant carburetor roaring, and ZOOMED past me...

As she passed, she turned her head toward me and leaned over so I could see her face mouthing the words " FUCK YOU!" while she gave me the finger...

Less than 60 feet past me she slammed full speed into the rear end of the car I had been following for 12 miles. He had hit his brakes because of the traffic and she didn't see it.

Well everything came to a near standstill... but within about 40 seconds or so my lane had caught up to her and I passed her wrecked car at a leisurely 1.2 miles per hour.

I looked over at her and smiled a smile of genuine pleasure, waving...

She was not happy to see me....

 

[transformer_99]

This AM, there were 4 cars/drivers in a pile up that I wouldn't have had any issue with the officer executing them at the side of the road. Unfortunately, they all survived, but they did manage to either destroy or ruin what I figure was in the neighborhood of at least $ 60K+ worth of newer model vehicles ? I figure one of them rams me, I'll need to get out of my car and phlog them with the breaker bar I have in the back ? An hour and twenty minutes of my life to drive 22 lousy miles over that one. And roughly 10 hours later, the retard in front of me rear ended the guy in front of him. Stopping on the left most lane of a highway and tailgating others. They'll never learn ? That one was actually kind of funny (in a pathetic kind of way) to watch unfold. I could see it close to 1/10 to 2/10 of a mile behind it, spacing my distance comfortably at about 70 mph. There was a herd of morons stopping across several lanes for no reason other than the road took a very long turn from northeast to east. The herd briefly stopped, started to lurch forward and then came to a grinding halt for no reason again other than the one in front of the line stopped again for no reason, that's when the village idiot of the evening commute failed to pay attention. Naturally when I drove by him, after having to wait for others to let me switch a lane. I rolled my window down long enough to call him a "stupid idiot". But that was redundant, if not futile, I don't think he was smart enough to have figured that out for himself, after he hit the other guy at what was less than 5 mph. Neither moved their vehicles to the emergency lane, rather they both stayed there blocking traffic as best they could. Hey, they figured they couldn't go, why not make the rest of us miserable by wasting our time and fuel ? I realize nobody wants to be in that accident, but these are self inflicted with their driving habits.

The early AM pileup, it rained the night before and the roads were still a little damp/wet, no puddles, but you could tell there was enough moisture to make the road slick in a panic stop. Again, tailgating is the problem and I have a hard time classifying that one as an accident.

 

[ClaireTalon]

Some say that I use road traffic to live out my fighter-flying ambitions. I guess that means I am an aggressive driver, well, yeah, maybe that's true. My flaw is that I do a lot of overdriving - late but hard braking, aggressive acceleration. On the other hand, I am very concentrated when driving and I never take this style into turns, so I'm also sensible. But I like probing the limits of these neat round instruments ;-)

Another flaw is that I have high expectations towards other traffic participants. Indecided and hesitant drivers are a horror to me, the same, however, goes for some airheads who think kicking scientific education out of their curricula renders the laws of science nonexistent to them. However, that is an anger that only occurrs when I see a car accident in the newspaper, usually recounting what's the result of this equation:

17-yo driver + 2-day-old driving license + 7 passengers in a car build for 3 (passengers) + sweeping curve + tree = ...

By the way: Is it environmentally sensible for two people to own four cars and a motorcycle?

 

[Rikter8]

And you HAVE to love how the Media can't even decifer the difference between Road Rage, Aggressive Driving, and a Plain Ol Accident.

This happened here this week. A 77 yr old man died, since a young driver rear ended a car, then tried to flee, hitting yet another car and then flipping over.

The first thing that the Police said - Road Rage.
Complete Idiots.

abc12.com: Accident survivor recalls details of deadly crash from hospital bed Friday 7/25/08

 

[transformer_99]

And you HAVE to love how the Media can't even decifer the difference between Road Rage, Aggressive Driving, and a Plain Ol Accident.

This happened here this week. A 77 yr old man died, since a young driver rear ended a car, then tried to flee, hitting yet another car and then flipping over.

The first thing that the Police said - Road Rage.
Complete Idiots.

abc12.com: Accident survivor recalls details of deadly crash from hospital bed Friday 7/25/08

Rikter8, I can understand the confusion in that particular case. Without an admission from the driver that originally caused the collision(s), it's all speculation whether there was road rage involved. I chose the word collision on purpose, there is no such thing as an accident, That driver's emotions at the particular moment prior and during the whole series of events is a big question mark. Any of us can be oblivious to lividly angry over any driving situation and that can change from moment to moment too. I've been anywhere from indifferent to frustrated to what might be considered road rage over the way traffic is flowing or more appropriately not flowing in the case of road rage. The mental state of any driver changes with conditions, even perceptions of those conditions.

 

[deleted213967]

above all the safety reason to drive slowly the price of gas as recently made me take it just a bit more easy on the pedal. Take a few more seconds to pick up speed and you'll save alot more then pennies.

Time is a resource too, far more precious than oil, certainly far more limited (unless you're immortal O Deno God).

 

[deleted213967]

They are known as Traffic Flow Interruptions

They exhibit an utter lack of discipline on interstate highways around large metropolitan areas, where there can be 4 lanes plus the the HOV lane.

Some apathic drivers will use the "fast" lane" regardless of their inability to maintain even the widely-exceeded speed limit, let alone general traffic speed.

In Europe they would have a whole train of vehicles up their rear [bumpers] flashing their headlights incessantly until they get out of the way.

 

[Principessa]

I'm not sure this is a flaw so much as a pet peeve.

If you have no where to go and plenty of time to get there, then you need to keep your butt home during rush hour.

 

[Rikter8]

Rikter8, I can understand the confusion in that particular case. Without an admission from the driver that originally caused the collision(s), it's all speculation whether there was road rage involved. I chose the word collision on purpose, there is no such thing as an accident, That driver's emotions at the particular moment prior and during the whole series of events is a big question mark. Any of us can be oblivious to lividly angry over any driving situation and that can change from moment to moment too. I've been anywhere from indifferent to frustrated to what might be considered road rage over the way traffic is flowing or more appropriately not flowing in the case of road rage. The mental state of any driver changes with conditions, even perceptions of those conditions.

T - but that's my point. The mass media is having a field day by Mis-Informing the public and confusing them with all bad driving classified as Road Rage. I understand your point, but If your not sure about something, Isn't it best to say "Im not sure at this point"? Shouldnt the police be saying "We are still investigating the scene of the crash"?
True on accidents. 90% of "Accidents" are caused by drivers not paying attention, or being pre-occupied with something other than the task at hand.

Any state employed officers on the board...feel free to chime in on this one.
Road Rage is where you stop in traffic, or block someone in, and literally get out of your car, and start screaming at them, banging on their windows or with an intent to create bodily harm. OR when you follow them to their destination, and perform the above. It can also be deliberately forcing a person off the road, or blocking traffic or creating an EXTREMELY hazardous condition for other drivers.

Aggressive driving is much more suttle. No hand gestures, no swearing out the window, close proximity driving, hard turns and passes cut short - borderlining on Spirited driving, but with an agenda and vengence.

Wreckless driving - which is what happened here in SagNasty, is driving at excessive speeds, weaving in and out of traffic with close calls everywhere the driver goes, running stop signs, causing near miss accidents.

The main issue that frustrates me to no end, is once the term Road Rage is coined by everybody...Suddenly ITS ALL road rage. Thus... the police and insurance companies have a FIELD DAY improperly fining citizens for crimes they didn't commit.

What they should have said is "There was a collision which we are still investigating involving 4 vehicles. It appears that driver A was driving at excessive speeds based on the damage to the vehicles, and one death has occurred. Driver A attempted to flee the scene of the accident, and collided with another driver. More details will be announced soon."