Words cannot describe the limitless fury that is filling me, directed at the worthless specimen of humanity who felt it neccesary to drive-
35 in a 50.
On dry roads.
With no wind.
I'm trying to get up a freaking mountainside to troubleshoot a radio at 9pm on my freaking day off, and this BELGIAN bastard has to turtle down on a road
that I could easily handle at 90 (the road in question is arrow-straight). RAAAAAAAAAAAAGRH.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
I feel your pain. Really. The drivers in my area are idiots, and that's on a good day.
Okay, basically doing 60 in a 80kph zone. Ya, they're annoying. Mainly see 'em any day that ends in 'day'.
Of cause we've a cure for some of those drivers, especially if they're still doing it in a 100/110kph zone. It's big, usually has a chromed piece
of fence bolted to the front and headlights that are the equivalent of daylight - on any setting. It's called a semi-trailer aka a truck or
OHMYAAAAAAAAHHHHHG!WTF! by sleepy drivers after being overtaken by one, at night.
--Rod.H
Howsabout the hatred for "that jerk" who travels at the posted speed limit when there's no cops around? Or is that disdain a
Massachusetts/Southern NH thing?
*Is "that jerk" IRL* and referencing the common habit of drivers on I-93 to keep bombing along at 70+mph when the speed limit drops to 55 for a
metropolitan area...
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
I have no problems with people traveling -5 to +10 of the posted speed limit, but 15 under?
if you want to go slow and look at/for something, at least have the decency to pull into a cut-off and let others pass.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
I have a problem with the ones who can't seem to acknowledge merging traffic, especially at highway on-ramps.
Funny thing is these are the ones who complain the most when I go from 25mph to 75mph in the space of 100 ft.
_____
DEATH is Certain. The hour, Uncertain...
There's a line in a John Ringo novel about people like that.
The terrorists (in a stolen street-cleaner) are stuck behind a little old lady who drives like she was taught to when she was a teenager - slow enough that a
full glass of soda sitting on the floor of the car won't spill when you make a turn.
Needless to say, there were some pretty upset tangoes in that street-cleaner.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make
anything explode.
If that's the scene I'm recalling, it was also mentioned that the little old lady in question had been taught to drive by her mother, who in turn had
been taught to drive when horse and buggys were still common, with rules like 'keep to the inside lane unless you're making a right turn (so that the
horse and Buggys could use the outside lane)'. 8P
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin
There are two fundamental constants in driving:
1) Anyone going slower than you is an idiot.
2) Anyone going faster than you is a maniac.
It amazes me how we manage to get around with all the idiots and maniacs driving.
---
The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."
>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
Quote: Foxboy wrote:
Howsabout the hatred for "that jerk" who travels at the posted speed limit when there's no cops around? Or is that disdain a
Massachusetts/Southern NH thing?
*Is "that jerk" IRL* and referencing the common habit of drivers on I-93 to keep bombing along at 70+mph when the speed limit drops to 55 for a
metropolitan area...
nope. I'm that jerk IRL too. it just plain amazes me how many people drive like the traffic laws only apply to someone else...
One q tho Wired... if the road was that flat n straight, why couldnt you just pass him? too much opposing traffic?
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by
Echo's Children
Quote: Ankhani wrote:
There are two fundamental constants in driving:
1) Anyone going slower than you is an idiot.
2) Anyone going faster than you is a maniac.
It amazes me how we manage to get around with all the idiots and maniacs driving.
"No one's driving your speed. The CORRECT speed." - George Carlin
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com
"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."
Quote:if the road was that flat n straight, why couldnt you just pass him? too much opposing traffic?
double yellows for most of the road - with good reason, it's very hilly.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
And no lax state laws on passing over double yellows like Vermont, frex. It's almost Darwinian really.... (Pardon my Maine Visual Accent: Old Vermontah is
hard to get *right*)
Ayuh, flatlandah, go righ' ta-head and cross them lines with ya fancy, city-folk cah when ya feel like it; enjoy meetin' Darrel in his new
Peterbilt....
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
Quote: Foxboy wrote:
And no lax state laws on passing over double yellows like Vermont, frex. It's almost Darwinian really.... (Pardon my Maine Visual Accent: Old Vermontah
is hard to get *right*)
Ayuh, flatlandah, go righ' ta-head and cross them lines with ya fancy, city-folk cah when ya feel like it; enjoy meetin' Darrel in his new
Peterbilt....
After living in Vermont for several years, I've noticed a bizarre trend: people here are either really good drivers, or really
bad
drivers. People generally know all the rules of the road, have proper courtesy and don't dawdle around. But then you get the ones who seem to have lost all
sense in their heads.
Anyways, I feel your pain, Wired.
I'm currently driving a Ford Explorer, which I think has tempered me somewhat. I used to drive a Mustang (and I'd like to again someday) and that
tended to encourage my lead foot.
But around here, I'd almost consider having a lead foot a survival trait.
I know all about the faster = crazy, slower = idiot "equation".
I'd add that for where I live and drive, if all the people around me are doing the same speed, I get paranoid - "Get me OUT of here!"
Around Dallas/Fort Worth, the drivers are STUPENDOUSLY BAD. It didn't used to be this way. It really didn't. 25 years ago or so, you'd actually see
people politely waving other people ahead, hanging back to let people from the on-ramp onto the freeway. Signaling turns. Just generally being decent and even
polite if not expert drivers.
Not anymore. Putting on your turn signal in this town anymore is considered an invitation for the guy behind you in the other lane to SPEED UP to cut you off!
As if you pulling ahead of him WHEN YOU ARE ALREADY AHEAD OF HIM is an affront!
Speed limits are either treated as suggestions only or enforced ruthlessly. Figuring out which area is which is absolutely a non-trivial aspect of life around
here.
I'd be more upset with all the damn traffic light cameras and the implications of same if they weren't ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO KEEP THE MORONS FROM
SMASHING INTO EACH OTHER.
I blame emigration and immigration, of the legal and illegal types both. North-easterners from incredibly aggressive and hellish places to drive like New
Jersey/New York, clashing with the more laid-back, but still lead-footed ways of Texas natives, and then layer that with illegal immigrants who barely know the
rules of the road at all...
Oh yeah, it's always an adventure around here.
Quote:North-easterners from incredibly aggressive and hellish places to drive like New Jersey/New York
New Jersey drivers aren't that bad in general -- despite the media image and the population density, NJ manages to be 50% rural and the average driver seems to reflect that. It's the NY and Pennsylvania drivers who are traveling our roads who make it bad for everyone else.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Good answer, Bob... I hail from your area and I definitely agree with you. It was especially bad during the summer and winter in my area with the
out-of-staters.
_____
DEATH is Certain. The hour, Uncertain...
Is troo. My comment about I-93 has a healthy dose of Boston drivers/Commuters.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
OK. I can amend my opinion. No biggie. I always figured it was more the New York Drivers anyway.
Quote: Foxboy wrote:
Is troo. My comment about I-93 has a healthy dose of Boston drivers/Commuters.
Oh man, one of the best things about moving away from Boston-area Mass is not having to deal with I-93.
Wire: I find this a little amusing, since one of the DirecTV stations (I forget which; National Geographic, maybe?) has been playing "Alaska State
Troopers" fairly often recently. And every time I've tuned into it, I've caught Joe Trooper lamenting to the camera how bad conditions are,
because *everybody* speeds on the nasty, horrible, ice-encrusted, 1.5-lane-wide Alaskan highways (this is my conclusion based on the highway in the described
scene; YMMV), and *everybody* carries a gun.
... I'm not sure what the second point has to do with the first, but anyway.
--sofaspud
--
"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs
Quote: Sofaspud wrote:
... I'm not sure what the second point has to do with the first, but anyway.
Maybe the creators of the show don't like guns?
Anyway, Pacific Northwest drivers don't seem quite that bad. A lot of people speed, but a much smaller number (10% or less, I'd guess) go more than
10mph over the limit. The worst part of driving over here are the people who take five seconds to go when stoplights change color, the people who can't
merge to save their lives, and the people who slow down (or stop) in the middle of a turn.
...yes, a lot of them are either on a cellphone or old. What's your point?
My
Unitarian Jihad Name is:
Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate.
Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.
I've been watching occasional eps of a cable reality show called Canada's Worst Driver. The contestants are nominated by friends and family. As the season goes on, the contestants (hopefully) improve their driving skills and one by one 'graduate' and are allowed to leave.
The scary part of the current (5th) season is that two of them are from my hometown.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin