Poll: Things that drive you up the wall

[-Seraph-]

Oh god, the number of idiots on the road I deal with each day... Now I will admit that I am no saint and have probably been guilty of some shit in the past, but I try to be a good and considerate driver. But yea, all that above shit annoys me.

Tailgaters bug me a lot, doubly so at night. If I can't see you license plate in my rear view mirror, you're too fucking close dammit. I try to remain far enough away from whoever is in front of me by judging if I can see at least their rear bumper or wheels, I shouldn't be any closer than that.

Speaking of night driving, TURN YOUR FUCKING HIGH BEAMS OFF IN THE CITY!!! Jesus christ, I can't look in my rear view mirror at night without fear of being blinded by the asshole behind me whose got their high beams on in the damn city.

Serpentine drivers, you know the ones who drive faster than everyone else while constantly weaving between lanes regardless of how narrow the gap is. You are a menace to all you pass just to shave a few seconds off your damn drive only to more than likely still get stopped by that red light ahead. Good job!! you got 40 feet closer than you would have been!!

Slow/fast drivers only annoy me if their speed is of a major discrepancy of what the actual speed limit is. The other day I was in a single lane road where the limit was 60km/h, and the person in front of me was doing 30...god dammit. And this was a pretty straight and long road where you could clearly see there was fuck all cars in front of him. Would gladly have just overtaken him if it was legal to do so on that road.

I seem to be shouting this in my head a lot lately - "green light!!!". So the light goes front red to green, I'm maybe 1 or 2 cars behind the lead....why is the lead car taking like 10+ seconds to get moving? Pay attention to the road and signals please. Not asking you to floor it once it turns green, but don't be asleep at the wheel.

I also get rather paranoid when driving and seeing someone off to the side ready to turn onto the road I am on while I pass by. I've almost got sidelined a few times from people prematurely turning; I shouldn't be seeing your damn wheels rolling as I pass by, WAIT till it's clear!!

I think that covers the major bullshit I deal with most commonly.

 

[shootthebandit]

Slow/fast drivers only annoy me if their speed is of a major discrepancy of what the actual speed limit is. The other day I was in a single lane road where the limit was 60km/h, and the person in front of me was doing 30...god dammit. And this was a pretty straight and long road where you could clearly see there was fuck all cars in front of him. Would gladly have just overtaken him if it was legal to do so on that road.

I seem to be shouting this in my head a lot lately - "green light!!!". So the light goes front red to green, I'm maybe 1 or 2 cars behind the lead....why is the lead car taking like 10+ seconds to get moving? Pay attention to the road and signals please. Not asking you to floor it once it turns green, but don't be asleep at the wheel

Why is it illegal to overtake when you can clearly see whats coming? Ive coming down a hill stuck behind someone braking on the hill the other side of the road had an additional crawler lane for going up the hill. I knew i had enough of a gap so i went into the other lane (despite the big "no overtaking" sign). I know what i did was illegal but provided you can see far enough in front i really dont see why its a big deal. Having said that i would never dream of doing it if there was any doubt

I think a lot of people get to a traffic light and go into neutral and the lights change so they are flapping about trying to get into first. I leave my car in first with my foot on the clutch (which is essentially neutral) so i can pull away as soon as the light goes green

 

[Caiphus]

In New Zealand it seems like people have issues when merging lanes. Not only is it annoying but it is bloody dangerous. I've almost had two cars go into the side of me in the past month or so because they tried sneaking past me into the lane in which we were merging. Right up my blind spot. Assholes. Both times going ~80 km/h. So yeah.

That's probably the worst. Driving slowly is bad but at least it isn't liable to kill you without warning.

 

[Raikas]

I voted for leaving the indicator light on but on reading through the thread I probably could have gone for any of them - apparently I'm more easily annoyed than I like to think!

Ive seen that many a time all over the UK too. The UK police also have a habit of spawn camping literally on a speed limit sign. As a savvy motorist going from 60 to 30 you will try to maximise engine braking (assuming you are a real human being and drive a manual) and reduce wheel braking so your probably doing about 40-45 when you pass the sign gradually slowing to 30 and theres a cop sat literally on the sign waiting with a speed gun and they wonder why people lose respect for the police

I see that here too (in Canada) - I was driving through an area where the speed limit drops from 80 to 60 and then to 50 another 8km down the road, and there were a pair of cops right at the 60 point. At the 50 point I could understand, because at least that's less of a drop (and it's at the entry to a village and a sharp turn), but at the 60 it's just absurd since it's all but impossible to slow down fast enough to not be speeding there.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

People who tailgate. Especially when there are multiple lanes open. I've was driving a car with a piece of shit tail axle that would cause the car to shake around when exceeding 70-75 MPH and let me tell you, that experience taught me that there are a LOT of these people.

It's even more infuriating when after tailgating you for a good minute, they finally take advantage of one of the 3 other largely unoccupied lanes, and then end up driving next to you. I could understand the frustration if you wanted to get past me and speed up off into the distance, but that just pisses me off.

Oh and when they do that thing where they flash their brights at you while they're doing it, that's also fucking annoying.

I remember some lady that did all of the above, honked at me when changing lanes, and then went SLOWER than me. She caught up to me at the red light and when I noticed the carseat I screamed "I hope your baby gets cancer" at her. Now I REALLY hope her kid ended up getting cancer just so she remembers that forever. Sometimes I think about the offended look of complete shock on her face when I need a pick me up.

Oh and motorcyclists. With the number of times I've seen motorcyclists fling themselves into death and then end up graciously saved by people in cars valiantly risking accidents of their own to preserve some dickhead, I question why people still do it.

 

[bearlotz]

However, I do have a massive problem with (and I don't know if this is UK specific or area specific) people who see another driver they know and wind down the window to have a conversation with them. On the road. Most often I see this happen in school run traffic. I mean.... What?!

Oh that's far from UK-specific, happens over here too. I remember one particular incident where I was driving down the road and came to a Stop-sign at a "+" intersection intending to turn right. In front of me was a minivan, and across the street was an older lady. The minivan honked and the lady across the street looked up and waved, so I guess they knew each other. Then the lady starts running (hobbling? she wasn't too quick about it) across the street to talk to the minivan driver. The minivan completes a right turn...and then parks on the side of the damn road (like 20 feet from the turn, immediately after completing it), rolls down the driver-side window, and proceeds to begin a conversation with the old lady...who has now taken up a position in the road to talk through that window. This road was rather narrow to begin with, there are cars coming down the other side, and this is all happening during the lunch rush. I had to time my turn to not get hit by cars on either side while swerving into the wrong side of the road in order to avoid the old lady because they couldn't have waited a few minutes, gone to a parking lot (like 50 feet down the road, btw), or just had the lady stand on the sidewalk to have their conversation. From the bottom of my heart and until the end of time I curse thee, old conversation lady and minivan driver.

"By the beard of the All-Father. That's fantastic. Can I use that?

Since it's a fellow Jersey resident asking, sure

I was actually listening to something on the radio a week or two ago about how people seem to be smoking pot and then driving. People were calling in explaining that they do and why. It's actually pretty scary the number of people who do that. The one part that stuck out to me was that when one of the callers said that "It helps him focus and not crash". One of the talk shows host's couldn't have said it better, "Shouldn't you be able to not crash into things when you get your license?". People just infuriate me.

Honestly, it's probably no worse than people driving without adequate sleep, or while on prescription (you get a lot of that around here, middle-aged suburbanites with a doctor friend who writes them a renewable script), or just old people driving in general. Try to remember: blame the user, not he drug. That radio caller though...what the shit? I don't think that's how it works, guy.