Stupid Driver Stories

Saw a great one today. Was driving on this street, now its technically a residential street but there is a 1/4 mile stretch where its mostly mechanic shops, some industrial stuff and no traffic lights, its also two lanes in each direction so people general move pretty quick (40ish or so). So I was going around 45 or so all of a sudden a dude in an Infiniti SUV blows by me as if I'm standing still... he continued driving the same way for as long as I could see when the road stopped being empty......
 
Hbriz said:
I was told this but I quickly noticed that keeping up with the traffic usually meant going around 10km/h over the speed limit, which is instafail in your test.
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Yeah, two different schools of teaching my instructor had. One was the real world driving and one was the driving that had to be done for the examinor's sake.
 
IceBone said:
Yeah, two different schools of teaching my instructor had. One was the real world driving and one was the driving that had to be done for the examinor's sake.
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I like your instructor already. Mine was all like "drive as though you're always taking your test, that way you won't fail". Even though in the real world, nobody sticks to the speed limit, noboldy indicates left on leaving a roundabout, and you even fail if you coast up to an intersection in neutral. Even though now there is a whole section in the road users handbook on "green driving".
 
The thing about roundabouts, though... I was always taught to imagine it stretched out with 4 (or whatever) roads leading off to the right (or to the left, you damn upside down monkey). You do indicate when turning off onto one of those, don't you?
 
I indicate if its a large roundabout or one with several lanes. In that circumstance, it makes sense. But if its a small suburban roundabout, no bigger than a normal intersection, it's a bit pointless.
 
Roundabout behavior of some drivers annoy the shit out of me because the Law has been changed some years ago and a lot of drivers simply don?t learn when a rule was changed. The rule with roundabouts is that you have to indicate right when exiting (turning off). Makes perfect sense, it?s one way anyway and the people you want to communicate with by indicating are the people behind you and the people waiting to enter the roundabout when you approach an exit (I hate people who don?t indicate when they exit - that?s just lazy and might very well cost you the opportunity to enter the roundabout because you saw that person turn off too late). So inidacting anywhere else but at the exit is bullshit. Who?s that information supposed to help? Indicating is communicating. When you indicate before exiting you are saying "I?m turning off" so the guy behind you knows "he?s going to brake" and the people waiting ahead to enter the roundabout know "he?s exiting, so there will be space for me to enter".
You don?t have to signal when entering, but it used to be "indicate right when entering and exiting". Now across the border in Dutchie-land the rule is like it is in Germany ... but it WAS "treat the roundabout like a crossing" so you?ll often see Dutchies infront of you indicating LEFT when entering the roundabout (wich go "right" here, dear Brits, Aussies and Japanese) when they will leave the roundabout after more than half a turn ... wich used to freak me out because I always tought they were going to enter the roundabout in the wrong direction.
 
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Here you have to indicate upon entering the roundabout the direction in which you intend to be travelling. If you are going to the right, you indicate right:
https://pic.armedcats.net/h/hb/hbriz/2011/03/06/roundabout_right.jpg
At point 2, you will have to indicate left to exit. As this is a large roundabout, where a car on one side does not have vision of a car on another side, it makes sense and is easy to indicate when leaving.

If you are travelling straight, you do not indicate when entering. However, you still indicate when leaving, same principles as above.
https://pic.armedcats.net/h/hb/hbriz/2011/03/06/roundabout_straight.jpg

However, this is a typical suburban roundabout where I live:
https://pic.armedcats.net/h/hb/hbriz/2011/03/06/roundabout_small_right.jpg
Due to its small size, you have to steer, indicate and change gear usually all at the same time. This isn't possible unless you are a master of dexterity. Your left hand is changing gear but also expected to operate the indicators, while your right steers. Also, indicating upon leaving is not so important on this roundabout. Every other car at the roundabout will be aware of your intentions prior to you entering the roundabout, so there is no need to indicate when leaving. For example, a car coming out of the right hand side road will know I want to turn right, as they have seen my indicator. The only confusion may occur when that person believes I am doing a complete U-turn or thinks I'm turning right when I'm doing a U-turn. Even so, on a roundabout of this size, your intention of exiting will be apparent only a split second after it would have been had you indicated.
 
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Hbriz said:
Due to its small size, you have to steer, indicate and change gear usually all at the same time. This isn't possible unless you are a master of dexterity. Your left hand is changing gear but also expected to operate the indicators, while your right steers.
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This would not be a problem if you had the sense to sit on the correct side of the car (and drive on the correct side of the road)
 
Not realy, indicators are on the left in most LHD and RHD cars, so we can change gear with the right hand, and steer and indicate with the left.

*disclamer*
You do need big hands for that.
 
Cowboy said:
Not realy, indicators are on the left in most LHD and RHD cars, so we can change gear with the right hand, and steer and indicate with the left.
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Most RHD cars here have indicators on the right. Only European cars put them on the left.
 
Hbriz said:
Only European cars put them on the left.
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It's actually a conspiracy to make you feel inferior. :p

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However, if you have indicators on the right, then you should be able to operate everyhing at the same time (not easy though).
 
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Hbriz said:
Most RHD cars here have indicators on the right. Only European cars put them on the left.
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Oh my, what a daft thing to do :p
 
Just had a nice one in the city, at this crossing:

https://pic.armedcats.net/t/th/the_interceptor/2011/03/06/asshole.jpg

My direction is indicated in blue. So I am approaching a red light (red line), three cars in front of me: one already waiting at the light, two still slowing down. The light turns green, I'm still rolling, and the three cars in front of me all indicate to turn right. As they have to use my lane, I need to wait for them to turn, so I slowly roll forwards until they're all gone. And since it's sunday they're all creeping, so I consider misusing the lane to turn left (which was empty at the time, and there was no other car that might want to use it was behind me either) to overtake them. However, I decided to sit through this and wait for the grampa committee to be finished. Turns out it was a good decision.

The moment the road was clear and I started accelerating, I see a black SLK with a young-ish driver blast across the junction (indicated in green). He obviously had a red light (red line) as mine was green, so he decided he would circumvent that little obstacle by using the two small lanes to turn right when you come from the east or the north directions. Needless to say he crossed my lane at full blast, at least going 50 km/h.

Since there are houses all around you can not see into the roads you cross, therefore I am pretty sure we would have hit each other if I hadn't been waiting for the guys in front of me to finish their turns. So it was pure and simple luck, because hadn't those guys been there, I would have gone through the junction at 50-ish km/h. Could have been a very nasty crash, I guesstimate we missed each other by two seconds or so.
 
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65 year old white haired old lady you could wait like 2 seconds and go behind us, there were like no cars behind us, instead of cutting us off in your silver 98 Mercedes E320.

And dude in the gold Lincoln Continental, you are a douche, why couldn't you hit that big tractor trailer that you braked so hardly to avoid. You don't fly down the hwy at like 120 and cut in and out of small spots.
 
Oh, old people are so excellent at that. They just sit there and wait until you're close enough, pull out right in front of you, then don't get their car going although they all have big engines and even get mad at you when you honk or flash the lights. It's like "I've lived so much longer than you, so I have the right of doing whatever the hell I want.".
 
he guy behind you knows "he?s going to brake"
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Who the hell brakes getting off the roundabout?
ue to its small size, you have to steer, indicate and change gear usually all at the same time.
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How narrow are your gears? You could downshift prior to the roundabout and be free to use the hands for turning and indicating....
 
This is at one-half speed:


:blink:

You can't see in the video, but the Lexus had about 5 feet of rope dragging behind its front bumper; the truck was dragging about 20 feet of rope, both of the ends were badly frayed. I can only guess that without a proper tow strap they attempted to use cheap line from the hardware store, when it broke they had to... drive the Lexus backwards with an "escort."

I guess the transmission was broken.
Or alcohol was a factor.
Possibly both.
 
prizrak said:
How narrow are your gears? You could downshift prior to the roundabout and be free to use the hands for turning and indicating....
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I mean entering the roundabout from a standstill, so from first into second, which occurs about half way without wanting to overrev or go too slowly. Otherwise its usually not a problem.
 
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