Pajiba

It took a while for me to come to this conclusion, as I had to experience the joys of driving in Orlando first.

I-4 was the bane of my existence when I lived in Orlando.

Like you, I hate hate HATE people who don't accelerate when getting on the highway. If you're too timid to merge, hand in your driver's license and get a bus pass, asshat.

Also, if you're turning right but you're at a stoplight behind someone going straight, you can't just make an extra lane next to them and turn when you want. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people make their own lanes and almost hit a car coming from the left that they can't see.

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a leisurely 50km an hour

I'd love to get worked up about traffic miscreants (no shortage of rage there), but, just for a change of pace, I think I'll get worked up about damn furriners and their "logical decimal-based measurement systems" instead.

Metrics, how does it work?

There is a nightmarish intersection near one of the schools I work for. It's a two-lane road that in less than 200 feet has five entrances/exits. It's also connected to a highway and the overpass for the highway. The easiest way for me to go home is to go straight past four of these entrances/exits and turn left at a stop sign. Every single time I try to go home, some asshole comes blazing past me with their horn blaring to suggest I, the driver going straight on a road, do not have the right of way. I know NJ is fucked up, but I'm pretty sure the car not making a turn always has the right of way over the car crossing traffic only to make an illegal u-turn because--FUCK!--it missed the highway on-ramp.

No one in Jacksonville understands the concept of merging. These motherfuckers will STOP in the middle OF THE FREEWAY and wait for someone to let them in to the next lane.

We don't have a lot of traffic where I am from but during peak hours it picks up and this is when people take the opportunity to display all their terrible driving skills. During peak hours I break drivers into 3 categories:

1) Normal driver. Drive with the traffic, don't speed but don't panic and drive too slow, maintains safe distance between other cars.

2) Douchebag I gotta get somewhere fast driver. Speed, weave in and out of traffic and generally drive dangerously.

3) The fuck you douchebag driver. This type of driver is a normal driver at most times however they see the douchebags on the road so they take defensive measures. They intentionally tail gate other cares so the douchebag doesn't cut in, slow down when douchebag is stuck behind them.

I generally fall somewhere between 1 and 3. The thing that gets me really angry is when I see a 3 outside of peak hours. Two lane highway, twp cars infront of me and the second is right up their ass. SLOW DOWN AND GET SOME DISTANCE AND THEN MAINTAIN SPEED, YOU DON'T NEED TO LOOK AT THE BACK OF THEIR HEADS THE WHOLE WAY.

Tip: When I'm on a single lane road and someone is tail gating me I go into full on fuck you mode. I go atleast 10/20 below the speed limit and as soon as I hit a corner I speed up, floor it around the corner and then there's a nice healthy gap.

So many things.... The people who can't merge drive me batty. And it's not helped by the parkways around here (NY--well all over the tri-state area, really) where they actually place fucking stop signs at entrances to the parkway when they could just let people merge.

Major pet peeve is when I'm turning left and there 2 left turn lanes and someone turns into my lane. And it happens ALL THE DAMN TIME. Why do people not get which lane is theirs when they turn?

I recently moved closer to my kids' school so I no longer get bus service but it's still a bit too far to walk (at least with the current crazy piles of snow when I need a stroller for the baby), so I'm having to drive the kids. It is a nightmare getting away from the school again once I get the kids in the car. Today was especially bad as some asshole parked on the side of the street where they weren't supposed to park and the street was down to one narrow lanel. Agony.

My newest pet peeve (it has happened to me SO often since I moved to Austin) is like this:
The person driving in front of me on a quasi-residential (narrowish, 2-lane) road will pull off to the right as if they're going to park on the curb. So I start to drive around them (or really, in a straight line because they've pulled out of my way). But OH NO. What they really intend to do is make a U-turn. Right in front of me, and the pulling to the right was just their way of preparing. Because god KNOWS they can't, I don't know, wait until I'm not behind them. Or use a left turn signal as they kind of veer sharply to the right so I know what the fuck is going on.

I'm a seriously defensive driver (I expect that everyone is retarded and out to kill me) and I've never been in an accident. But one of these days, I'm going to let the right accident happen and maybe get some body work out of it.

At the risk of being a traitor to my gender and socioeconomic class, the worst drivers I see are men in pickups trucks.

Bitches, please. Until you've driven in Honduras, where the concept of stop signs is unheard of and the rules of the road pretty much amount to "Get the fuck over there as fast as you fucking can" and "each man for his own!", you have nothing to complain about.

I grew up in HELL.

If there's snow on the ground, don't come to a complete stop on an incline.

@ mint.jane
I leave at least a car length in front of my car at red lights, because if some asshole slams into the back of me, I don't want to in turn slam into the car in front of me because I only left a few inches. Rear damage is fixable, front end damage, not so much. So I'm sorry if you have to wait an extra 3 to 5 minutes for the lights to cycle through, I'd rather save on my car not being totaled.

My pet peeve is when people don't turn their lights on when it's raining. I have had several close calls because I couldn't see someone in the rain. Your car is gray, the rain makes everything gray, I CAN'T SEE YOU.

Can't believe I haven't seen anyone complain about the snails driving in the passing lane...

I'm a faster-than-average driver so I spend a majority of my freeway commute trying to pass people, properly, in the left lane. WTF is with the douchebags tooling along, usually at or below the speed limit, NOT PASSING ANYBODY, holding up progress!?

I mean, shit or get off the pot, right? Yes, even if you're going a few mph OVER the posted speed and you see me coming up behind you AND YOU'RE NOT PASSING ANYBODY, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE PASSING LANE!!!

Then these people try to make you feel like you are the asshole for weaving in and out of traffic... shit, I'd prefer to just pass you on one side if you just knew what fucking lane to drive in!

I generally love Chicago drivers. Unless it rains. 6 inches of snow on the ground and everyone still goes 10 over the speed limit, but a light fucking rain shower and people go 25 mph. In all lanes of traffic. Drives me crazy.

People in Austin have this crazy "hurry up and stop" thing they do. I don't understand how anyone has transmission or brakes left. Like people burn rubber to beat the guy next to him . . . to a red light.

I'm a fiendishly fast driver, but I weave responsibly, if that makes sense. I used to commute to New Orleans from Slidell for school and work. That will make you AWESOME at weaving because it's all a race about passing everyone in front of you. But I'm still kind of polite about it.

mint.jane, do you live in baltimore?? that happens to me all the time!

to the poster who responded to mint.jane: what you are doing is reasonable. I think what mint.jane was trying to say (if it's the same thing that happens to me) is that some cars will literally stay back 5-10 car lengths at a red light, which mucks up the whole process. one car length is certainly reasonable, but anything over three is ridiculous.

And then, inevitably, they don't realize traffic has started moving, and they take a minute to get going, so it takes even longer for everyone to get through the light. I sit through three and four light cycles at a shopping center that is on my way to work nearly every single day due to this BS.

I too wrote a post about this "MERGE MUTHER Fer MERGE"

To Recap: MERGE, STOP TALKING, BUY A DIFFERENT CAR, SPEED THE F up and slow the F down!

Reading this post immediately makes me think of Long Island. Some of the worst traffic I've ever encountered. No turn signals, EVER. People cutting each other off all the time, aggressive drivers in every lane. I almost half expect someone to lean out the side of their car and wave a gun at me it's that scary.

I should mention that while people in Orlando didn't use turn signals for lane changes, they immediately let you in if you flipped yours on. You could almost hear them think, "Holy Shit! This guy must be serious. I'd better back the fuck off."

Here in farm country, I routinely drive around in a 6,000 lb F350 pulling either a 30 ft, 14,000 lb gooseneck horse trailer or a lighter weight, but still large and usually full of cattle, bumper-pull stock trailer. I get up to road speed as quickly as I can without endangering the animals I'm hauling and once there, prefer to stay there. Usually I run about 5 mph over the speed limit. The truck preferes that crusing range for optimal non-fuel suckage, which is about 9-12 pmg. Awesome.

Anyway, slamming on the brakes is not an option - they don't make seat belts for my horses. Or seats, for that matter. Also, it takes room to slow that much wieght down.

But practically every time I'm out, some douchebag sees me coming, thinks 'Oh no! Big trailer! Must be driving slow!' And pulls out RIGHT in front of me. I brake as well as I can, but this manuever usally results in their entire rearview being taken up with my giant truck grill.

And then, of course, they are turning off a mile down the road anyway, or proceed to drive 5-20 mph slower than I had been going. Or flip me off, like I forced them to pull out in front of me. This happens often also when there is no one coming behind me for miles.

And it's always some old person in a minivan or soccer mom in an eco-mobile or suv. Learn to drive! I swear, one of these days, Ima just gonna let my 20,000 pounds of steel run a bitch over.

You deserve it for tailgating. Just pass on the right if you have to, dipshit. Your head won't explode. Sadly.

Tracer and kargoyle,
If you are in the left lane, there is an open lane to your right, and someone is over taking you, you need to move over. Period. People going faster than you shouldn't have to weave thru traffic because you refuse to pay attention/ be a terrible douche bag. You don't "punish" someone for getting angry at you when you ARE DOING SOMETHING WRONG. Good lord people, does no one learn common road manners any more?

A few decades ago, I cut my teeth on the highways in the DC Metro area: 495, i95, i270, i70, Rt 66---that's where I learned to drive a 1973 Ford station wagon and I'm only 5' tall, so learning to merge/yield, etc., was a genuine adventure. My daily commutes have always been over an hour (1 way) and involved one or more of the aforementioned interstates. My pet peeve, the one that on a bad day I may possibly try to kill you for, is REFUSING TO GET OVER.

You, telling me to go around because you just LIKE the fast lane, is the most aggressive, asshat, ought-to-be-beaten-bloody offense. It's not a simple matter of, "oh, just go around!" Instead, it's YOU who are failing to be courteous on the road, AND you are forcing me to make a maneuver that is dangerous. What about the other vehicle a few car-lengths ahead of you in the slow lane that, after I've passed your sorry, aggressively slow ass, I have to change lanes again to avoid? Huh? And you suggest that I AM WRONG? Yeeesh, refusing to move out of someone's way when you have a clear opportunity to do so is the MOST AGGRESSIVE form of driving out there.

Grow up and move over: it's not your job to tell me how to drive. And guess what? You let me by and then you are free to drive how you want. It's a win-win situation. My *favorite* thing about these aggressive jerks is that once I've passed them, I look in my rearview mirror and 9 times out of 10, I note that they're usually on the phone... IN THE FAST LANE! aaaaaarrrrgggg it make me NUTS

On another note about tailgating, I have had many SUV drivers play "the brake game" because they think my small sedan is too close (dangerous assholes: you try to deliberately cause an accident because you think I'm too close? WTF logic is THAT?) I'M NOT: your rear window is at least 3 feet higher than the hood of my car -- I'm a full car length behind you but since you can't see my hood, you decide that clearly, I'm tailgating. Nope. You just don't realize the profile distance in play.

Sigh. Sorry, I really needed that vent! I try not to be a jerk on the highway, and I think that more people ought to try that tact sometime. We have to SHARE the road.