Your worst traffic annoyances

American TG Man said:
* Drivers who ignore the red lights on a school bus, then ignore the horn from the bus (wrinklie woman driver) or give some bullshit excuse as to why they're in the clear (some 25-30 something woman in a Caravan gave this excuse: "the lights weren't red when the bus was moving") The flashing lights mean STOP, no matter what the bus is doing! No exceptions for you. Idiots.
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Around here even emergency vehicles need to stop even if they have their lights and siren on.
 
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1 - The Left Lane Hog
Usually this is either a woman, an Asian (sorry, it's true), or a motherfucking Prius. They go right over to the passing lane and squat there door-to-door with another driver doing the same thing in lane #2. Get the fuck out of the way and let traffic flow! The typical pace is about 75 mph and they back the freeway up for miles by trying to pass another vehicle by going .5 miles per hour faster. Another version of this I hate is the Drag-racing Trucks.

2 - The Crowder
This one is especially dangerous to us bikers. These are the people with no respect for bikers' safety and will intentionally try to cause a crash to "teach us a lesson." These drivers will drive halfway into the next lane to keep bikers from passing in traffic, they will dive into spaces occupied by other vehicles and drive halfway into the lane with a rider so they can wedge out the cars behind and force their way into the lane. These drivers should be executed on site and burned in their cars. They put people's lives at risk for their own selfish gains.

3 - The Weaver
You know the one, that guy in an import car weaving madly between lanes trying to get just the slightest bit ahead. They never do, but still manage to cut off everyone in sight at least twice.

4 - The Jabbermouth
Usually women, but not always, this driver is so absorbed in conversation (either in person or on the phone) that they are totally oblivious to the world around them. They are driving on autopilot, just going through the motions and leaving a trail of discord and confusion in their wake. They have no idea that they just nearly caused a 7 car pile-up with that lane change because they are busy shouting "Oh, my gawd, she did what to her hair?! Doesn't she know that color is so last week? So did you see 'The Young and the Stupid' yesterday? Yah, I know! What was she thinking having his baby?"

5 - The Hardley Ableson lane splitter
If you want to lane split, buy a bike that is smaller than a car. I will move over to let you by as soon as I can, but you are riding an 800 lb. bike with custom wide bars and a touring fairing. You are not a CBR, you are not a Ducati 1098. If you expect to lane share with me get a bike that is narrow enough to fit in my lane with me, otherwise, stop reving your straight piped noisemaker at me.
 
Sometimes when I overtake someone with my mum with with, I'll give it the beans (either out of necessity or because I can), and rev above like 4000krpm. She'll be like, "Was that necessary?" Drives me nuts, but when she asks that now, I respond, "Yes, absolutely."
 
Blind_Io said:
2 - The Crowder
This one is especially dangerous to us bikers. These are the people with no respect for bikers' safety and will intentionally try to cause a crash to "teach us a lesson." These drivers will drive halfway into the next lane to keep bikers from passing in traffic, they will dive into spaces occupied by other vehicles and drive halfway into the lane with a rider so they can wedge out the cars behind and force their way into the lane.
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I've had that happen to me a few times. I don't know really what to do or say about it, it's about the most stupid thing someone can do on the road, and i agree with your way of dealing with offenders :) but it's really hard to react to such behaviour appropreately.


Another thing that happend to me - you may not believe this, but i give you my word it happened - was, i was driving in the street where i live (30kph limit, but since it's a narrow street with cobbled with stone you would normally find on the pavement, lot's of people think it's a traffic-reducing zone (the speed limit for those would be 7kph, or thereabout). Anyways, this women stopped me by jumping in front of the bike, i had to brake fairly hard to come to a halt in time because i was doing about 60. She then shouted at me as if i was a rapist, and finally called the police, i stayed calm, when she finished the call i asked her what she's going to tell the police, she said something along the lines of "that you drove like a maniac". I said "you didnt measure my speed, did you? and the police won't be able to anything, youre going to get into trouble and i live three houses down, if you need me, just drop by", and i drove away. I never heard from her again (it was last summer) so she must've called them off.

Ten minutes after the incident i felt really good about it, for some reason...

(i just want to say that i don't have any points on my license and was never cought speeding, never caused or even was involved in an accident, i think i'm a fairly good driver, and the road was completely empty, it was late in the evening, i recognise that i shouldn't have driven so fast, but thinking back to it, i'm fairly confident the situation was quite safe)
 
I wish I could find the story I read about that, but a lawyer driving his classic Mustang had the same thing happen to him. A busybody woman jumped in front of his car and shouted at him for speeding (he wasn't); he tried to reason with her and ended up getting out of the car. The woman flagged down a passing cop to sort it out, much to the amusement of the driver. He asked how fast he was going and she didn't know so she started trying to find fault with his car - exhaust pipes, tires, etc (all were legal). The cop was getting annoyed at this point so the driver asked for her to be cited on about 6 different infractions including, "unlawful detention" "causing a public nussiance" and some others that included jaywalking (jumping in front of his car). The driver even knew all the codes for the citation.

You never know who you are fucking with.
 
I live in Los Angeles, merely leaving the driveway is a traffic annoyance.
 
Stefano1337 said:
i thought people who ride without a license plate only existed on swedish dvds.
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You'd be surprised if you knew how many bikers there are here that doesn't bother with the license plate.
 
The Chad said:
Sometimes when I overtake someone with my mum with with, I'll give it the beans (either out of necessity or because I can), and rev above like 4000krpm. She'll be like, "Was that necessary?" Drives me nuts, but when she asks that now, I respond, "Yes, absolutely."
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4,000 krpm? Isnt that like 4000,000 rpm?

I know Hondas rev high but that's insane!
 
Stefano1337 said:
I've had that happen to me a few times. I don't know really what to do or say about it, it's about the most stupid thing someone can do on the road, and i agree with your way of dealing with offenders :) but it's really hard to react to such behaviour appropreately.


Another thing that happend to me - you may not believe this, but i give you my word it happened - was, i was driving in the street where i live (30kph limit, but since it's a narrow street with cobbled with stone you would normally find on the pavement, lot's of people think it's a traffic-reducing zone (the speed limit for those would be 7kph, or thereabout). Anyways, this women stopped me by jumping in front of the bike, i had to brake fairly hard to come to a halt in time because i was doing about 60. She then shouted at me as if i was a rapist, and finally called the police, i stayed calm, when she finished the call i asked her what she's going to tell the police, she said something along the lines of "that you drove like a maniac". I said "you didnt measure my speed, did you? and the police won't be able to anything, youre going to get into trouble and i live three houses down, if you need me, just drop by", and i drove away. I never heard from her again (it was last summer) so she must've called them off.

Ten minutes after the incident i felt really good about it, for some reason...

(i just want to say that i don't have any points on my license and was never cought speeding, never caused or even was involved in an accident, i think i'm a fairly good driver, and the road was completely empty, it was late in the evening, i recognise that i shouldn't have driven so fast, but thinking back to it, i'm fairly confident the situation was quite safe)
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Something along those lines happened to me a while ago. I was pulling out of a parking spot (parallel parked) in a one way residential street. That was when I used to drive my parents Buick (not a performer by any means) so obviosly not really going all that fast maybe 15mph. Some woman with a kid decides to cross in the middle of the street so I stop (mind you no panic braking or tire squeel just a normal stop) and the woman turns and goes "slow down" IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING ROAD WHERE SHE WASN'T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE CROSSING. Her kids learned some new things about their mom that day :)

P.S. My ex lives in Baltimore and she been telling me that there if a pedestrian is hit by a car and the pedistrian was doing something wrong he/she gets the blame not the driver. Wish they would do that in NYC.
 
It is aggravating when people in Massachusetts duck in front of you on the interstate without using turn signals.
 
prizrak said:
Something along those lines happened to me a while ago. I was pulling out of a parking spot (parallel parked) in a one way residential street. That was when I used to drive my parents Buick (not a performer by any means) so obviosly not really going all that fast maybe 15mph. Some woman with a kid decides to cross in the middle of the street so I stop (mind you no panic braking or tire squeel just a normal stop) and the woman turns and goes "slow down" IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING ROAD WHERE SHE WASN'T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE CROSSING. Her kids learned some new things about their mom that day :)

P.S. My ex lives in Baltimore and she been telling me that there if a pedestrian is hit by a car and the pedistrian was doing something wrong he/she gets the blame not the driver. Wish they would do that in NYC.
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I had a similar occurrence in my neighborhood with this old man. I was driving my Jeep which is quite loud just because of the open element air filter and zero sound deadening and I was in second at about 2700rpm (hey its a lot when the limiter kicks in a 5200) so it sounded like I was hauling even when I was going 31 and as I go by, he gives me the worst glare ever and wildly gestures for me to slow down. A few months later I am driving up the same street and I got on it a bit coming around a corner and dropped it into third. I think I was going 33 and he did the same damn thing. I hate people who think they street is theirs <_<
 
I just thought of yet another annoyance: the Unbelievably Lucky Traffic Bandit. This guy shamelessly tailgates, cuts you off, goes at least 15mph over the speed limit in town, never signals, and swerves back and forth between lanes like he's having muscle spasms in his arms. His list of moving violations within one mile would fill a volume that would rival the length of War and Peace, the unabridged edition. And that's not even the worse part. The worse part is he makes it through every green light in town while me, Mr. sensible 'Christian motorist' who plays by the rules gets stopped at every damn light. Every time. There is no justice in this world.
 
Traffic lights that are red for me while the road they are green for has no cars in sight. It annoys me to no end when I have to wait 10-15 seconds for the thing to turn green so I can go, and by that time, the other road has populated just at the time the light turns red for them. We need smarter traffic lights- as they are they cause major slowdowns and waste gas from all the unnecessary idling.

People who, while I am traveling at speed in a lane decide they can't wait 5 seconds for me to pass before pulling from a side road out in front of me and proceed to accelerate to speed at a very slow pace, causing me to have to slow down to half the speed I was going.

People who impede the general flow of traffic.

People with large vehicles, who insist on parking as close to corners as possible, thereby causing everyone else to have to pull halfway out into an intersection to see if anyone is coming.

Oh, and policeman who think they're so smart in telling me I need new brakes in my mustang after pulling my friend over for "running a yellow light" after the thing turned yellow while we were too close to stop without screeching to a halt sideways in the intersection.
 
KaJuN said:
I just thought of yet another annoyance: the Unbelievably Lucky Traffic Bandit. This guy shamelessly tailgates, cuts you off, goes at least 15mph over the speed limit in town, never signals, and swerves back and forth between lanes like he's having muscle spasms in his arms. His list of moving violations within one mile would fill a volume that would rival the length of War and Peace, the unabridged edition. And that's not even the worse part. The worse part is he makes it through every green light in town while me, Mr. sensible 'Christian motorist' who plays by the rules gets stopped at every damn light. Every time. There is no justice in this world.
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Oh, how you'd hate Nashville. You can usually tell out-of-towners because they stick to the speed limits, use their signals, and are generally good drivers. It does get better out here in the suburbs, but that's not saying much.
 
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