Driving pet peeves or things that irritate h e double hockeys sticks outta you

[diachi]

Talking about hi-beams I encountered a pick-up truck that had mounted on it a led light bar. It was still daylight and painful to look even for a short amount of time. At night it must be blinding.

I'm pretty sure the rules of the road are the same down there as they are in my state. For example: if two cars arrive at an intersection at the same time and 1 car is to the right of the other the car to the right has the right of way. A perfect real life example I witnessed years ago. While stopped at a 4 way stop intersection with a car in front and 1 to my left, both cars proceeded to enter the intersection, the car to my left t-boned the other. Now a few days later the lawyer for the party that t-bone the other called me to ask if I would be a witness, I said to him this, your client was to the left and did not have the right of way. The lawyer promptly hung up. So even though it makes common sense, in a court of law it would not in the event of an accident.

What's a carriageway? Are horse drawn conveyances still used in merry ol' England on hiways? Why would you need such a lane, horses walk rather slow?

Nice triple post Steve...!

I get alot of people flash their brights at me in dusk or low light, but not usually at night. Since I have a jeep with the round headlights. I guess they are a tiny bit brighter than average headlights. Except those goddamned blue lights, those are silly bright. Always love flashing my brights back at them when I was just using my normal lights though. heheh :eg: And I never use my fog lights, since one is burned out and I havn't bothered replacing it, as it is not a necessity.

I too cant stand people who merge in front of me with no signal, or way too close. I use my horn A LOT. Or when I have thr right of way at a turn or roundabout and someone shoots in front of me. I speed up towards them horn blowing.

I imagine the blue lights you're talking about are HID lamps - they're usually fine, it's just that people install those lamps into regular halogen lamp housings which don't project the beam the way HID projector housings do. With the correct housings they're actually much better than regular halogen lamps.

Have my fog lights on most of the time when it's dark out, they're nice and low and do a good job of illuminating all of the holes in bumps on the roads here, my headlamps aren't so good for that.

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Didn't read the thread but figured I'd toss in my $0.02 since it's a lighthearted venting thread... I think :thinking:

I'm far more patient now days than I was when younger, so much harder to irritate, but my #1 pet peeve are people who drive slowly, and/or drive side by side with a car on their right creating a moving roadblock. (In the US the left lane is for passing.)

Other major annoyance is with people who hesitate at yield and stop signs. A yield sign doesn't mean you need to stop, and at a stop sign intersection, why is it do hard to obey common courtesy, and the law? Car that gets there first, goes first. cars get there at the same time, the one on the right gets to go first.

In more recent years I started wearing night driving glasses because of idiots who install HIDs in standard light housings. While I love light, :wtf: is it with generally guys in big SUVs or trucks trying to blind everyone?

Still, considering I live in one of the worst areas in the US in terms of traffic, I am very thankful for how good we actually have it compared to traffic in other countries which often amounts to a giant game of chicken.

 

[steve001]

Nice triple post Steve...!



I imagine the blue lights you're talking about are HID lamps - they're usually fine, it's just that people install those lamps into regular halogen lamp housings which don't project the beam the way HID projector housings do. With the correct housings they're actually much better than regular halogen lamps.

Have my fog lights on most of the time when it's dark out, they're nice and low and do a good job of illuminating all of the holes in bumps on the roads here, my headlamps aren't so good for that.

Most of my posts are via mobile. Posting that way is awkward with such a smaller viewing screen. Much easier using a pc.

 

[CynicalBrad]

I too cant stand people who merge in front of me with no signal, or way too close. I use my horn A LOT. Or when I have thr right of way at a turn or roundabout and someone shoots in front of me. I speed up towards them horn blowing.

LOL. I usually just pass them and then let off the gas or ease onto the brakes and refuse to let them pass me.

 

[Jhop]

LOL. I usually just pass them and then let off the gas or ease onto the brakes and refuse to let them pass me.

ive done that too, if we are going the same way. But the acceleration in my 10 year old jeep isn't what it used to be, and usually cannot compete with newer cars, so unless they are going really slow, I get stuck behind them. But where I work/live (Rochester Hills/Sterling Heights) there are alot of rich cocks driving far fancier cars than i and they take off like rockets.

 

[WizardG]

My pet peeve is aftermarket driving/fog lights. The ones you usually see mounted on or immediately below the front bumper. Most of them seem to have little or no effective beam shaping and are essentially naked 100W halogen bulbs in front of reflective metal with glass in front to keep dirt/water out. They're blinding from just about any angle. The law in Oregon states that these types of lights must be turned off in any situation when the driver is expected to turn off their high beams but just about every installation I've encountered has them wired to the markers so they're always on. The biggest burn is when I've been pulled over for something trivial like a "dim license plate light" (bored cop) and while the cop checks my paperwork a dozen pickups go by with very clearly illegal ($500 fine here in Oregon) driving lights.

Whew, that was cathartic. Thanks for the thread!

 

[dden4012]

Semi's on the turnpike in the 2 lane section where the one doing 65mph decides that the other semi they are gaining on that's doing 64.5mph is just way too slow and precedes to hold the pace and pass on the left they get head to head and hit the foot of the bridge and loose steam falling back. The mile of traffic behind this event sees the whats taking place and battle each other to get into the right lane but wait! The Semi on the left is gaining speed again and he's going to finally pass the slow one. A gap in traffic is revealed and the Land Rover takes it swerving around to make a break for it but there is a disturbance in the force and their cell phone rings they must answer the calling and can no longer manage the break neck speed decelling back to 60mph. The semi on the right passes them by and the cycle continues and a new battle is born.

 

[paul1598419]

You put far too much thought into this incident than it deserved. Not a psychiatrist, but if I were...

 

[Alaskan]

Driving pet peeves or things that irritate h e double hockeys sticks outta you

Fix your title, it is driving me nutz! the h e double hockeys sticks outta you

 

[Dr_Evil]

Semi's on the turnpike in the 2 lane section where the one doing 65mph decides that the other semi they are gaining on that's doing 64.5mph is just way too slow and precedes to hold the pace and pass on the left they get head to head and hit the foot of the bridge and loose steam falling back. The mile of traffic behind this event sees the whats taking place and battle each other to get into the right lane but wait! The Semi on the left is gaining speed again and he's going to finally pass the slow one. A gap in traffic is revealed and the Land Rover takes it swerving around to make a break for it but there is a disturbance in the force and their cell phone rings they must answer the calling and can no longer manage the break neck speed decelling back to 60mph. The semi on the right passes them by and the cycle continues and a new battle is born.

Now take that situation and imagine it in Germany. You're doing 160km/h (100 mph) in the left lane. You see 2 semis, which are most likely limited to 80 km/h, in the right lane up ahead. You think you'll easily pass them. Nope. The one at the back decides he can go 1 km/h faster than the other so he gets in the left lane. You proceed to slam on the brakes and wait 10 minutes for the one that thought he could go faster too finally pass the other.

That, traffic circles, and getting stuck behind semis going at a snail's pace on a busy 2 lane road were about the only things that ticked me off driving wise in Germany.

 

[lasersbee]

What peeeses me off is clowns that think they are
alone on the road and don't have the common sense
courtesy to signal their intentions to turn in front of
you.
The other thing is the morons that slam on their brakes
in the middle of a road and coming to a near stop BEFORE
signaling to make their turn.

Jerry

 

[Alaskan]

Human beings, you get a wide gamut of possible character and behaviour with this species. None other on earth has such a wide possible range of intelligence or ignorance, helpful caring or reckless selfishness in one similar appearing package.

 

[Benm]

Other major annoyance is with people who hesitate at yield and stop signs. A yield sign doesn't mean you need to stop, and at a stop sign intersection, why is it do hard to obey common courtesy, and the law?

Stop signs are very annoying if you want to obey the law and actually make a complete stop at every one of them.

In western europe these signs are very rare and only placed at the most dangerous intersections where you have to yield to traffic from many directions.

Last week i was in central europe (slovenia) where you see a lot more of them, mostly on places where in western europe a yield sign would suffice. Practically people don't actually make a full stop for them though, it's more a sign that you should proceed with extreme caution towards other traffic, not something you actually make a full stop for and start driving again.

Technically you need to make a full stop for such signs in europe as well, but this is rarely enforced. As I understand in the US you can get, realistically, fined for not making a full stop for such signs even when there is no other traffic around.

In europe this generally works a bit differently: technically you need to make a full stop, but this is never enforced as long as you make sure to yield to all other traffic, and you can run these signs at slow speed (say 10 km/h) with little to no chance of getting fined even f driving in front of a traffic police car.

 

[lasersbee]

You are to make a full stop on every Stop sign...
if not it would be a Slow Down sign....

Jerry

 

[Cyparagon]

You are to make a full stop on every Stop sign...
if not it would be a Slow Down sign....

There's the "letter of the law" and the "spirit of the law". In court, you are held to the former. The vast majority of drivers obey the latter. "stop" signs are treated as "yield" signs, as they should be in my opinion.

Assuming you have decent visibility, slowing down to 2kmph is no more dangerous than slowing down to 0kmph, and yet it saves quite a bit on fuel costs, time, and brake wear. I think it's just goofy that that 2kmph difference is potentially enough to land you a $300 fine. Luckily, the police (in my area anyway) agree with me.

 

[Benm]

Indeed, at least in europe stop signs are treated as yield signs mostly and only placed in dangerous intersections where you really need to slow down because the traffic you need to yield to is coming around a corner or otherwise hard to see.

One important thing is to understand we do not have any intersections that have stop signs for all incoming roads. Intersections either have one direction that has priority, or have no priority where you need to yield to traffic coming from the right (even if you are going straight across). Mostly visibility is good enough such that a complete stop makes to sence, though sometimes you need to slow down quite a bit.

Traffic laws are rarely enforced to the letter in europe though, with the exeption of speed limits where you will get an automated ticked for speeding if caught by a camera trap, even if you're just 5 km/h over the limit.

There is also traffic police driving around in cars that really don't give a damn about it and will not stop or fine you if you're driving 10 km/h over the limit as long as it is safe. They have discretion in how they act, and can ignore you or let you drive off with a warning if you do someting that is technically illegal but completely harmless.