Where did everyone learn to drive? Okay, maybe not everyone. Just the people I've encountered over the last several days. I am not the world's most cautious driver. I've had a couple fender benders, a speeding ticket and a failure to follow signage ticket. What I'm trying to say is that I've been known to break a rule or two. But seriously!!The turn lane is for TURNING. I really wish some people would try it sometime. As opposed to slowing down to five miles an hour before pulling halfway into the turn lane and stopping. Turning requires planning. Forethought. Perhaps it's a radical idea but why don't you try pulling into the lane BEFORE you slow your ass down so that you don't interrupt traffic? There's a reason the city planners put the lane in. Use it. Please.
Deceleration lanes are for the same purpose. When the tiny broken line to your right appears on the pavement and you intend to turn....get in the damn lane!! Don't wait until five feet before the turn and THEN decide you need to use the lane. I'm behind you idiot and I'm already in the lane because I know where I'm going.
Acceleration lanes should be used to get up to speed before entering traffic. You can't do that if you drive to the end of the lane and then have to stop because there isn't a hole. What? Did you think space would magically appear in between two lanes of speeding cars? I think not. Don't get upset with me because you can't wait thirty seconds and have now lost your spot in line.
And don't get me started on the drop off/pick up situation at my girl's school. We have a lane with a canopy that's used for dropping/picking up. However, I have 2 children (Baby Girl and my nephew) that require the use of a car seat. Rather than hold up car line while I buckle/unbuckle said children I prefer to pull out of traffic to accomplish this. Considerate, yes? We have a section in front of our flag pole that is designed for this precise purpose. It holds 2 large cars or 3 small cars if everyone pulls all the way forward. Do they do that? NO! Instead some soccer mom driving a sedan chooses to park smack dab in the middle so that no one else can get into the spot. What is wrong with these people?
This morning a guy ran a stop sign and almost hit me. My patience is almost out. I realize some of that is on me - patience is not a strong point on a good day. But I'm just not sure how much more I can take....if one more person cuts me off you may see me on the evening news.
Do you have any driving pet peeves?
Instigator
P.S. Congratulations to Catslady, yesterday's winner. Please email PM here with your snail mail and she'll get your prize out.
12 comments:
Congrats Catslady.
Pet Peeves - people talking on a cell phone in a restaurant - I am there to enjoy myself, not listen to their personal business. For that matter people talking loudly in a restaurant, not on a cell phone.
People in the P.O. with a million pkgs to mail and only one window open. God forbid the person says, why dont you go ahead of me. Our p.o. is in area with a lot of businesses and one man comes in every day with at least 50 pkgs. I drop the mail off from work so I see him there every day. If I have something that needs to use the clerk, I try to go when he is not there.
Sorry to rant. LOL.
Pat L.
Merging...argh. If everyone let one car in front of them instead of worrying about the 3 whole seconds they might lose by doing it, then the whole system wouldn't back up to hell and beyond.
Tailgaters. Folks going ten miles below the limit in the left lane and blocking those of us who want to drive the speed limit (or a wee bit higher :-D). Non-use of turn signals.
This is why I don't own a gun.
Oh, BABY!! I got stopped in my subdivision yesterday. The officer said I ran two stop signs. I wasn't going to argue with him but I beg to differ. I'm the one that puts on my stinking blinker to turn into my driveway. I walk in this subdivision. People fly through those stop signs without even slowing down. All I said was, "thank you" as he gave me a ticket for one and a verbal warning for the other. I now regret that. I wish I'd pulled a crazy act like that woman on cops the other day. I wish I'd gone all jiggy on him, made him pull out his taser. Maybe I'd have shown up an episode of cops. As it is, I'm just pissed with a ticket.
Jen getting jiggy...Jen getting Tasered. Hmm, sounds like an episode of COPS.
Slow people in the left lane. The left lane is for PASSING, not hogging while you drive 5 miles below the speed limit.
Talking on cell phones while driving. Honestly, how many studies do you need to read about cell phone drivers being more distracted than drunk drivers? Yes, I've been known to answer the phone while driving. But I don't dial numbers while keeping half an eye on traffic, I don't text message, and I don't spend miles and miles with the phone to my ear while I drive erratically because I'm only half paying attention. Sheesh!
People not wearing seat belts. Yeah, I know that has nothing to do with being a bad driver (necessarily) but if they have an accident, it's gonna be far worse. And the tragedy of lost lives that might have been saved if they'd had that belt on makes me sad. It's a metal tube hurtling at high speed down a strip of asphalt with other metal tubes driven by people with questionable skills. You think seatbelts are optional on the space shuttle?
People who cut across 4 lanes of traffic without using their turn signal even once.
Argh!
Was my car the only one built with turn signals? Not very many people here use them. They swerve into lanes over and over again never clicking on their blinker. I stay ready for evasive action whenever I drive because it's the norm around here.
Boom busters. I'm talking amps with the base so loud, I can't hear my own radio. Not to mention the fact my car is matching the pulsing beat beneath me.
Where's the fire? (My Mom used to always say that.) Why is it people who speed past me never get a ticket? If it had been me, a police officer would have me pulled over in a flash.
Hugs, Jen! Sorry about the ticket.
All of the above.
Yesterday I was on a four-lane road with a center turn lane. I was in the left lane and actually doing a few mph above the posted speed limit. There were cars to the right of me that I was passing and some jerkwad who was tailgating me. Suddenly he passed me in the turn lane! After passing, he swerved over to the right lane and a block later made a right turn. With a little patience he could have still made that right turn and not had me calling him a jerkwad. Where was a cop when there was a dangerous traffic violation?
The ATM lane at the bank: I'm short so I have to put my car in park and pull up the emergency brake and undo my seatbelt so I can hang out of the window to reach the machine. So I have to re-fasten my seatbelt and put the car back in gear. It takes a few moments but at least once a week there's some impatient witch behind me who honks her horn as soon as I've pulled my arm back in the window.
I also hate folks who talk loudly on their cell phones in public. I use mine in public but I try to keep my voice down and go over into a corner if possible. Honestly, hon, I don't want to hear about your cheating husband or why you think the world owes you happiness.
PM
Pet peeves about driving:
People who decide to turn without giving a turn signal.
People who speed up and then slow down repeatedly.
People who drive way under the speed limit causing a line of traffic to form behind them.
My biggest pet peeve while driving is when I glance out my window and there is an unrestrained infant in drivers lap or in passangers arm. Not to mention driving behind some on and seeing there toddlers walking around in the backseat. I'll agree it precious to see adorable little kids making faces, sticking there tongues out or just plain waving at me but give me a break kids should be buckled up in vehicles.
Sassy
Thank you! I just heard that my grocery store is suppose to sell those cloth bags for a dollar each so I'm at least buying two :)
My daughter was hit (car totaled but no major injuries) by a 16 yr. old girl who had her license less than a week, who ran a red light (and then denied it and thank goodness for witnesses), who was talking on a cell phone (also denied but proven) and was trying to get home for the 11 o'clock curfew (she had a minute to go and was not going to make it anyway). She wasn't killed because her air bag went off. The cop said her lip was cut but she made them cart her away in an ambulance in hysterics while lying to everyone because she didn't want her mother to "kill" her!!!
Jen, I think you should have raised hell! Can you fight the ticket in court? I'd make the officer testify and prove it.
Instigator
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