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American Drivers

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Post  TuxTshirt Sun Feb 19, 2012 3:38 am

Ok. I couldn't restrain myself from starting this. I was driving to dinner tonight and my route took me on a two-lane highway. Guess what happened 3 times on my 5-mile trip. I had to pass in the right lane. Then, one of the mouth breathers in front of me was first in line at a light. The light turned green.......still green.........well, maybe it wasn't the right shade of green, there we go! He finally hit the pedal on the right, yay! When we got to the destination, just after that light, I noticed that this person didn't have his headlights on. It was 7PM. Need I say more?
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Post  Avanti 63r1025 Sun Feb 19, 2012 3:49 am

After our post-race chat I was wondering how long before you posted a thread like this. Completely agree with the subject title, we are amongst the worst ones in the world.

We need to wipe the board clean in this regard and start over. We could have autobahn-esque roads in America but it all starts with the people we put on the road, to get the most out of the road.
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Post  Ex US Squid Sun Feb 19, 2012 5:04 am

Mouth breather eh? As opposed to a...........breather?
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Post  Remaggib Sun Feb 19, 2012 9:44 am

Hey now, I'm a mouth breather and part cat and can see in the dark while driving... Well, not the 2nd part but mouth breather yes lol. But that's a medical issue for me, not lazy like this guy probably was. Tux, did you mutter something like "I'm not gonna end his race I'm gonna end his life"?
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Post  TuxTshirt Sun Feb 19, 2012 2:20 pm

Ex US Squid wrote:Mouth breather eh? As opposed to a...........breather?

"Mouth breather" refers to someone that has their mouth open with a blank stare on their face. They're breathing out of their gaping mouth as they continue to not pay attention. Moron is another term for these folks. Rem may have issues breathing from his nose, so he breathes from his mouth, this is ok as long as he's paying attention.
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Post  Remaggib Sun Feb 19, 2012 2:35 pm

Wait, what's going on now?
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Post  TuxTshirt Sun Feb 19, 2012 2:47 pm

Remaggib wrote:Wait, what's going on now?
You're not a "mouth breather" in the sense that I implied unless you're also not paying attention to what you should be doing.
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Post  Remaggib Sun Feb 19, 2012 3:31 pm

TuxTshirt wrote:
Remaggib wrote:Wait, what's going on now?
You're not a "mouth breather" in the sense that I implied unless you're also not paying attention to what you should be doing.

Sorry, I wasn't paying attention scratch
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Post  TuxTshirt Sun Feb 19, 2012 3:37 pm

Remaggib wrote:
TuxTshirt wrote:
Remaggib wrote:Wait, what's going on now?
You're not a "mouth breather" in the sense that I implied unless you're also not paying attention to what you should be doing.

Sorry, I wasn't paying attention scratch

What a joke....
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Post  Ex US Squid Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:37 pm

Huh? ***mouth agape with a distant stare into the void of space...***
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Post  Avanti 63r1025 Wed Feb 22, 2012 6:50 pm

Anti-carpool lane folks have their say here:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mr-roadshow/ci_19983397

Pro-carpool lane folks have their say here:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mr-roadshow/ci_19983572

I am incredibly anti-carpool (High-Occupancy Vehicle) lanes (No, I'm not one of the contributors). I do concede the greater Los Angeles area can benefit from them. There H.O.V. rules are in effect twenty-four hours a day, every day. In fact they have their own lanes (complete with lane entry and exit locations) in place. I can accept that because it's not a half-ass thought. Having said that, I would still like to see L.A. area carpool lanes eliminated, which I'll get to.

I'm in the bay area where we don't have as many drivers though we also don't have as many freeways as the L.A. basin. It's difficult to equal them since there's a body of water in the middle of this geographic area. Here, carpool lanes aren't in effect on weekends and are only in effect four hours during morning commute and four hours during the evening commute. Northern California carpool hours are in effect weekdays between 5am and 9am, and again between 3pm and 7pm. It used to be: 6a - 9a and 3p – 6p. Weekends and hours not in those ranges, all lanes are open to use. Try that in Los Angeles and you’ll be ticket bait.

Within San Francisco city limits a carpool is three or more occupants per vehicle, unless in a two-seat car, then two is legal. On virtually every other bay area road (some expressways have carpool lanes) a carpool is two or more occupants per vehicle. My step-mom owned a '92 Corvette from '92 - '99. When she’d take the vanpool to work my dad would take the ‘Vette to pick her from her job in S.F.

My dad inadvertently had a driver pulled over as he and my step-mom were on their way home. This other driver saw two people in the carpool lane so they followed the 'Vette. Highway Patrol pulled over the offending (trailing) car. I heard this story when they arrived home and I had a laugh. The trailing car didn’t read the print at the bottom of the carpool sign.

Carpool lanes are a "Band-aid" fix, they don't attack the root of the problem. I'm with Tux. The root of the problem is sub-standard American driving. Department of Motor Vehicles will practically give a person a driver's license if they come to D.M.V. with three proofs of purchase from Kellogg's cereal! We're almost to the point where wiping the roads clean and starting over would be the simpler solution.

Carpool lanes are not the solution, teaching better road etiquette is the solution. I don’t buy the “Too many cars on the road” reason. That is the problem though I see excluded words. It should read, “Too many stupid people are driving cars on the road.” There is enough room for cars to drive nose-to-tail at 65 miles per hour in every lane as long as people understand and follow the rules of the road.

That was part one.
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Post  Avanti 63r1025 Wed Feb 22, 2012 8:04 pm

I would categorize my driving as cautiously aggressive. I take calculated risks, meaning I will stick out my neck in places though at the same time I don’t want to get hit. I drive well in cities like S.F. where you sometimes have to simply take what you want. Those are the times I’ll forgo my car’s turn indicator and will use the bicycle method (sticking out my arm) to signal a left turn. An arm sticking out of a window gives me the attention I require from other drivers.

How many drivers could we eliminate from our roads if we removed those who can't drive a manual transmission? This would nix my sister, other members of my extended family and a few of my friends. Jalopnik articles are proving would-be carjackers can't drive manual transmissions, too. This suggests to me the stick shift is an anti-theft device and I should have lower insurance rates for my Miata because of it. Hell, people with column shifted automatics should mount a faux manual shifter in their center console. I bet it would deter would-be thieves.

Freeway merging, I love it! Too many people around here don’t know how to properly execute the maneuver. What they don’t understand, it is much easier to work with gravity and friction than to fight them. Slowing to 65 requires less distance than accelerating to 65. By the end of the ramp I’m often at 70 miles per hour and am still accelerating, even when I’ve just encountered a cloverleaf.

In the Miata or my previous Rabbits, cloverleaves were a non-event. If cloverleaves were wider I’d be passing fools there. The Volvo wagon with I.R.S. and a near 50/50 bias does pretty well for what it is though the economical tires suck. If the Volvo had the Falken Azenis that the Miata wears it’d do a lot better.

Since I know bay area folks can’t drive well, I’ll leave a lot of room in front of me before getting to the merging stage. Then I’ll put my foot in it and eat up that real estate. If I’ve timed it correctly I can slide into my chosen freeway gap as I’m flying past them. Admittedly sometimes I will use the gore point to pull off the pass. That should look familiar; it’s the preferred method of passing on a two-lane road. Give yourself extra real estate in your own lane. Then if you’ve got to shut it down you’re working with gravity and friction.

If I had a GoPro camera, I’d mount it to my dash and fill my YouTube channel with humorous clips.
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Post  C4PT41N SL0W Wed Feb 22, 2012 10:14 pm

Hey, I can't drive manual..... well not that great anyways. And while the Bay is bad, Sacramento has less people and it's still a pain in the ass drivin' around here
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Post  Remaggib Thu Feb 23, 2012 12:20 am

Regarding what you said Avanti, I had a feeling for a while that in Illinois all you had to do was ask nicely and they'd give you your license. Then I met some Illinois drivers, and doubt that some of them could pass the 'nice' category. Though I do have some friends in Illinois and they drive fine, so it's just a majority that suck. I tell my wife anytime we go anywhere that the world's worst thousand drivers are hired specifically to follow me around and piss me off. Our last trip to Kansas kind of solidified it, as they're usually passive sheep that do everything by the book and don't speed. This last time I had to go into 'Chicago mode' to drive safely around them. And by safely I mean I saved my car.

Point of mention, my wife scratched the passenger side mirror on our car because some numbnuts was passing her on the shoulder and she turned into him. Just enough for contact, to make a point. She told me and was afraid I'd get mad. I laughed. While not insanely safe, let the guy lose control. It's illegal to pass on gravel, or at least that's what the cop told me when I passed someone in gravel once.
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Post  Ex US Squid Thu Feb 23, 2012 2:01 am

Try I-5 rush hour in Portland Or.... That crap is retarded even more than me. Half a million people plus the couple hundred thousand from Vancouver that may frequent Or for work and the Interstate is mostly 2 lanes and was meant for a population of around 60k. Basically you get to sit and idle your way through a 15 mile journey for an hour or two. Lol so dumb.
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Post  Avanti 63r1025 Thu Feb 23, 2012 3:47 am

Definitely feel your pain in Sacramento. It's a booming locale and the infrastructure isn't up to the task.

Keys I wish more driving schools would emphasize in their teaching:

  • Relax behind the wheel. Like Nic. Cage's character Memphis Raines says, "Be one with the car." I see too many drivers who simply look uptight while driving. That's just not good.
  • Know your car's dimensions. I'm sure we've all seen this: drivers wanting to make a right turn at a light, there is 8' of room between the curb and the row of cars but the person wanting to turn acts like their 6' wide car won't fit. If I'm in the Miata, I loosen my belt, push myself higher against the seat back, stare at them, and then look at the vast space in front of them like, "Go genius! You'll fit."
  • Keep R. except to pass.

I don't know what became of it, I heard CA legislature speaking of the "Left Lane Law." Someone in Sac. has balls (yes, that's a pun) to bring this up, or they're as frustrated as I am with retarded drivers. I'd like to see further development here. It sucks that it may have to be a law, as I hate unnecessary laws and it should just be common sense.

United States licensed drivers may not be as hotly a contested debate as who we allow in this country, or what a woman wants to do with her unborn child, though I bet many people's eyes Shocked at the thought they wouldn't be allowed to drive because they were told they suck at it.

Picture yourself in the left turn lane at a four-way intersection. You are first at the light, the concrete curb median next to you. You're on an 8-lane expressway and the crossroad is a fairly major 4-lane street. I have been this far sideways in my Miata numerous times. If I'm not comfortable in a car I own, I find places to learn how to get comfortable.

And this is what it would look like if you were on the sidewalk to the car's four o'clock position.
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