Stupid Driver Stories

Contact your local motorcycle dealers, they sometimes offer coupons or discounts on rider training, up to 50% or more off.

Also, motorcycles are dangerous, nobody can argue against that. They're just nowhere near as dangerous as most non-riding people think, and they can make even the most boring commute fun. Check out the General Moto thread here on FG, we've recently been having a discussion about various starter bikes; your instinct for something older and manageable is correct.
 
That is part of what is inspiring me more to actually look into the whole learning motorcycle things was looking at the general motorcycle thread. The area is also particularly more motorcycle friendly than other towns I've lived in, they dedicate parking spots all over and give pretty nice discounts for those who park motorcycles compared to cars.

I did see a listing of the various motorcycle dealers in the area (quite a lot, I saw at least 7 including a Ducati dealer) so I'll call them up also and see what I can do when it's a more appropriate time of the day.

I dunno, I'd say driving my car is dangerous. :lol: Last time I checked, Mirages don't exactly have very good crash test results. I mean, if a lady with a RAV4 could dent in the trunk lid so easily and only merely barely scratch the headlight on her Toyota in a parking lot... Well.
 
I need to get a camera mount or sommat for my car.

Driving on a 6-lane road (3 lanes on either side). Speed is 45 mph, and traffic is generally low to moderate. There's a hospital nearby one area and so there are tons of nurses, doctors, and patients crossing the major intersection to get to the parking lots/bus stop on the other side.

As a result the traffic was slowing down slightly as it approached the stop light, no big deal.

I'm on the right most lane, and there's an SUV on the leftmost lane. He's behind me slightly. He proceeds to speed up, come right alongside me, and then switch to my lane without even realizing that I'm there. Both his right tires are on my lane and I had to swerve into the bike lane to avoid him. I saw his stupid ass coming and I predicted that he would do it so I reacted and blasted the horn for a solid 20 seconds. He realizes his mistake at about 10 seconds into the horn blasting... and then moves back into the middle lane. After I speed up ahead of him so I don't have to encounter him again, he hits his right turn signal (which mind you he didn't even bother to do), and then comes into my lane and comes right behind me. We stop at that major intersection where I look in my rearview mirror and of course he's swearing at me and looking all mad like I did something wrong.

Funny enough a motorcyclist behind us just kept looking at that driver and laughing his ass off like "what a fucking idiot". Thank you random gentleman.
 
@Spectre, what tools....
If I ever do convince myself that I won't die on a motorcycle the first time out I am planning on taking the advanced riding course along with the required basic.
 
A main road, an ambulance with blues and twos in the bus lane, an X5 pulls over into the bus lane and stops. He did the reverse of what's normal. The ambulance had to use his horn.
 
prizrak said:
@Spectre, what tools....
If I ever do convince myself that I won't die on a motorcycle the first time out I am planning on taking the advanced riding course along with the required basic.
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I am not sure that you would get a lot out of the advanced course without some road time. You don't have to go out into bad traffic until you are comfortable.
 
Okaen said:
I am not sure that you would get a lot out of the advanced course without some road time. You don't have to go out into bad traffic until you are comfortable.
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Oh I didn't mean that I would do it in the same day. But after a bit of riding so that I would actually have an idea of how to use the advice.
I live in Brooklyn all traffic is bad traffic :)
 
Hello, I should be dead.

https://pic.armedcats.net/b/bl/blind_io/2011/09/15/Capture.PNG

My path is marked in yellow, partially because my bike is yellow and partially because I nearly pissed myself once I thought about how close I came to death.
The blue line is the path of a Toyota Camry.
Red dots mark braking on the part of the Toyota. I didn't brake until after everything happened.

As you can see, this is a three lane exit which leads to an interchange of two freeways. The Camry was in the far right lane, a lane that she had to move into and has been marked as EXIT ONLY for over a mile. This is a very well signed interchange. After she was committed to the exit, she decided that she wanted to stay on the freeway she had been on, slammed on her brakes and dropped to 35 mph while trying to cut across two lanes of traffic AND the gore separator. She had her car so sidways to the flow of traffic that I could not see her tail lights at all. She was positioned as if this was a city street and she was cross traffic.

I missed her front corner by less than 6 inches. Had we made contact, I would have ended up with a face full of concrete barrier and yellow sand barrels; likely killing me instantly, even with full gear.

She ended up freaking out and riding down the lane stripe for some ways before getting back into one lane of travel. She then exited at my exit. I had pulled off to let her catch up, something that was difficult since she was intentionally hanging back from me (the plethora of hand gestures I showed her to express what I thought of her driving might have had something to do with that. I pulled up next to her at the light and just lit into her through the closed window. Neither she nor her passenger would look at me until I shouted, "Yeah, ignore me. That nearly killed me a minute ago, at least look at the man you tried to murder, you stupid cunt!"

I probably shouldn't have yelled at her, but at one point this summer we were averaging one rider death a week in collisions with cars, mostly from inattentive cagers. I have my flame-suit on, so let me have it.

Last I saw her, she was trying to make an illegal U-Turn right under a "No U-Turn" sign to get back on the freeway.

That was yesterday. Today an old woman in a mile-long land-yacht ran a red light making a right turn and almost took me out.
 
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Fucking hell. I hope you got a plate number to give to the police.
 
Cops don't do shit for stuff like this. Unless you have video (I didn't have my camera at the time) or a cop witnesses the action the most they will get is a stern talking-to.
 
Blind_Io said:
Cops don't do shit for stuff like this. Unless you have video (I didn't have my camera at the time) or a cop witnesses the action the most they will get is a stern talking-to.
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That's why I constantly have the GoPro on top of my helmet while riding these days. I am told by officers that the look on their faces when they realize their denials won't work because they were caught on HD video is priceless.
 
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Wow that is insane, I wouldn't have said anything if you had murdered her on the spot, hell I'd come to help you hide the body....
 
Someone who has problems with reading anything, apparently.


Not really looking where she's going, either.
 
That's less bad than it could have been. At least she didn't just go straight through the light, and didn't back up with conflicting traffic. And for a reverse lane change, it was pretty well executed. Stupid for getting into the wrong lane in the first place, but not really being an imminent threat to others.
 
As much as I hate cyclists on the road and how they react sometimes I understand them.... As I posted before I picked up cycling as a way to excercize I tend to ride on the boardwalk but to get there I have to spend about 5 minutes on the streets. I posted in the cyclists thread how I ride, now here is the idiot driver part.

I'm at a red light let all the cars pass no one behind me, set off (obv not hugely fast) a car comes flying (at least 45) from behind and wants to make a right while I'm at the intersection going straight. The idiot proceeds to make a right in front of me, now that in itself is not a big deal but the moron part comes from him slowing down to like 5fucking MPH and almost taking me out with the rear 1/4 (I'm quick on the brakes and even got the whole sideways slide going). It's like really dude you are trying to make the turn fine at least fucking do it fast so you don't endanger anyone (in this situation he would have been raped by cops and insurance as I had the right of way and there were two other witnesses in the car behind me).
 
Was exiting soon on the way to work, so I moved to the rightmost lane. There wasn't a lot of traffic but there were a few cars in front of me. We approach a broken down 18 wheeler safely off in the break-down lane, and the car two in front slows down a bit unnecessarily, 70 mph to 45. Whatever, someone is being overly cautious. We move on.

Soon we approach an exit immediately before mine. The car in front signals to exit and moves over to the newly formed lane. The car two in front signals but doesn't move. They drive parallel for a while. Finally as the exiting car slows for the ramp, the car in my lane brakes HARD to tuck in behind (she is out of room). She only makes it halfway into the exit lane however, before suddenly swerving back in front of me. Luckily I had seen enough to not attempt to pass.

We proceed very slowly to the next ramp (traffic prevents me from overtaking safely in the short space). We both exit, the car now directly in front barely keeping it on the road as she hugs the outer curb around the 270 degree ramp. This leads directly to a ramp onto another highway, which she approaches very slowly. The highway's exit is directly in front of this on-ramp so she has to stop for an exiting 18 wheeler (stupid road design, I know, but she could easily have merged ahead of it). She then proceeds straight ahead and I move over onto the highway, finally a chance to pass. I'm expecting to see some old lady who can barely see over the wheel, but it's a young woman with her nose in her phone, not even pretending to look at the road :shakefist:

Suddenly, I am glad about the new MA texting laws. The fine needs to be much steeper.
 
Today I nominate: myself.

I was in the parking lot on campus, trying to snag a spot on the ground floor. Some guy was headed out and when I asked him if he was, he said yes. I said thanks and started reversing.

I didn't see anyone behind me and so I just reversed. Suddenly I'm hearing a horn, so I stop. I didn't give enough space for the dude to leave so I put it in reverse and proceed to move again.

I hear another horn and then I see this lady behind me. I stopped JUST before my bumper hits her front end. She's swearing at me like a sailor and I say sorry with my hand and wait for the spot to open. Meanwhile she goes to the left of me and drives off, yelling at me the entire time.

I park, get out, and I see her and I go "are you ok, I'm so sorry"

She rolls her eyes and goes "go to hell".
 
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Today I was out running errands, I was going to be turning right at the next light so I indicated and got into the beginning of the turn lane where the white line is not yet solid. The minivan in front of me decided she needed to turn ( white line was solid for at least 30ft by this point) rather than indicating or waiting until I passed her she goes to turn, right into me as my car is parallel to hers. I had to pretty much put my entire car on the shoulder to avoid a collision I give her a honk and the what the fuck were you thinking look and to my surprise the driver was a mid 50'sish woman talking on a cell phone. Pretty much ticked off every female driver stereotype in one event.
 
remizak said:
Today I was out running errands, I was going to be turning right at the next light so I indicated and got into the beginning of the turn lane where the white line is not yet solid. The minivan in front of me decided she needed to turn ( white line was solid for at least 30ft by this point) rather than indicating or waiting until I passed her she goes to turn, right into me as my car is parallel to hers. I had to pretty much put my entire car on the shoulder to avoid a collision I give her a honk and the what the fuck were you thinking look and to my surprise the driver was a mid 50'sish woman talking on a cell phone. Pretty much ticked off every female driver stereotype in one event.
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I had something along similar lines this morning on my commute to school.

For whatever reason (probably union contracts), Public Works decided morning rush hour was a good time to do work on the sewer line below Fifth Avenue, right by the Penn Avenue intersection. They closed the left lane, so all traffic had to merge to the right lane (where I was). Bear in mind that the road has no shoulder, the curb is rather high and I'm in my brother's somewhat-low-slung Datsun (my brother doesn't need it at the moment and if you had to pick between a P.O.S. Chevy and a decent Nissan, would you drive the Chevy?).

As we're approaching the work area, I'm parallel to a white Land Rover Discovery (one of the newer ones with the "bling" front end). The Honda ahead of the Disco signals and I let him in, but then I notice out of the corner of my eye the Disco trying to merge as well, right into the side of me. I have no room to maneuver, so all I could do is drop anchor and lay on the horn. The Disco swerves away and I floor it past it. Once I'm clear I look in my mirror and just as I suspected, the driver was a young pre-40s woman yapping away on her phone, not paying much attention to her surroundings (after I blasted past her, she just sat there for a few moments blocking traffic before continuing).

...and my friends wonder why I think women should be banned from driving S/CUVs (surprisingly, some of my female colleagues at work agree with me)...

- Dan
 
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