Pet Peeves

[dr wogz]

My questions for the older, more experienced drivers is this: Is this a common maneuver, what they were doing/trying to do? I had never seen it before and I don’t recall seeing it in any of my drivers’ ed classes (which, admittedly, were about 8 or 9 years ago now), but obviously those two knew of it and tried to do it. Could it just be a regional thing that’s uncommon in SoCal?

Personal experience: if you are going to pass someone, pass them!! don't slowly cruise pass them.. left blinker, merge, speed up, right blinker, merge back (and only when you see them in the rear view mirror, not the right side mirror - "objects are closer than they appear") then resume your original speed.

this is likely what they are 'angry' at, that you were passing the line of truck at about 2 or 4 miles faster then them.

that, or they were coming up pretty fast, and you just decided to merge to pass, essentially cutting them off.. I've had that a happen a number of times, cruising along, and someone just pops in front of me to pass.. I have to slow to match them (ride their bumper). Had they waited a second or two, I would have been past them..

driving rule #4: the gap in front of you should be smaller than the gap behind you. if you have people riding your bumper, speed up or move over. speed up to catch the guy in front of you; don't leave 17 car lengths between you & the guy ahead of you..


and to quote the late George Carlin:
Ever notice.. Idiots driver fast than you & a.. holes drive slower than you?!

 

[smstachwick]

Personal experience: if you are going to pass someone, pass them!! don't slowly cruise pass them.. left blinker, merge, speed up, right blinker, merge back (and only when you see them in the rear view mirror, not the right side mirror - "objects are closer than they appear") then resume your original speed.

this is likely what they are 'angry' at, that you were passing the line of truck at about 2 or 4 miles faster then them.

Based on my own habits and memory, I would say that this is the more likely explanation. I generally am pretty cautious about merging and allowing others to merge, I wouldn’t think that’s the issue.

When somebody puts on a blinker, I generally act as if they’re already in my lane and either match speed or back off where their bumper would be. That’s my “go ahead” and I’ve found that it gets the message across. If that goes unanswered for any more than 3-5 seconds I assume it’s an old fart that can’t hear the blinker clicking and I go for the pass.

Generally I find it a bit confusing when a faster car slows down but still creeps up on the spot I want, as if trying to cruise-pass. Sometimes they do, sometimes they match speed or back off, very occasionally I’ll get a headlight flash meaning “move already!”, but I’d rather have that than be rear-ended by somebody who’s not paying attention. I don’t cut somebody off unless I have needed to merge out of an exit or split lane for quite a while and I’m running out of road.

Still, correct as your guess and instruction may be, it’s a dusty highway between Las Vegas and Barstow, not 12-lane monsters where one typically commutes or otherwise gets in a big hurry. In that specific situation I’d say the impetus is more on the tailgater to either be more patient or communicate more effectively, and be safe either way. Like, there’s two-and-a half hours between two major settlements, if you’ve got ground to make up, you’ve got plenty of space to do that over. And if you truly need the speed right now, you’ve got a lot of options to say that unambiguously and I’d be happy to give you that room if at all possible. Definitely the kind of person that needs a chill pill IMO.

 

[KC3KNM]

Personal experience: if you are going to pass someone, pass them!! don't slowly cruise pass them.. left blinker, merge, speed up, right blinker, merge back (and only when you see them in the rear view mirror, not the right side mirror - "objects are closer than they appear") then resume your original speed.

this is likely what they are 'angry' at, that you were passing the line of truck at about 2 or 4 miles faster then them.

that, or they were coming up pretty fast, and you just decided to merge to pass, essentially cutting them off.. I've had that a happen a number of times, cruising along, and someone just pops in front of me to pass.. I have to slow to match them (ride their bumper). Had they waited a second or two, I would have been past them..

driving rule #4: the gap in front of you should be smaller than the gap behind you. if you have people riding your bumper, speed up or move over. speed up to catch the guy in front of you; don't leave 17 car lengths between you & the guy ahead of you..


and to quote the late George Carlin:
Ever notice.. Idiots driver fast than you & a.. holes drive slower than you?!

Do you lose your mind when you come down here? Perhaps it’s a Burlington area thing, but the folks pulling out way too late in front of you and doing 30 in a 40 are plentiful here. It’s even worse when there’s no one behind you and they still jump out. The gap is another huge thing I see here a lot. You don’t need to tailgate, but when someone is in a line of traffic with 45 car lengths ahead of them and lets everyone and their mother in it hurts my soul. Had someone jam the brakes out of nowhere to let a car in in the middle of a 40mph zone on my way home today. Pure insanity.

 

[KC3KNM]

Based on my own habits and memory, I would say that this is the more likely explanation. I generally am pretty cautious about merging and allowing others to merge, I wouldn’t think that’s the issue.

When somebody puts on a blinker, I generally act as if they’re already in my lane and either match speed or back off where their bumper would be. That’s my “go ahead” and I’ve found that it gets the message across. If that goes unanswered for any more than 3-5 seconds I assume it’s an old fart that can’t hear the blinker clicking and I go for the pass.

Generally I find it a bit confusing when a faster car slows down but still creeps up on the spot I want, as if trying to cruise-pass. Sometimes they do, sometimes they match speed or back off, very occasionally I’ll get a headlight flash meaning “move already!”, but I’d rather have that than be rear-ended by somebody who’s not paying attention. I don’t cut somebody off unless I have needed to merge out of an exit or split lane for quite a while and I’m running out of road.

Still, correct as your guess and instruction may be, it’s a dusty highway between Las Vegas and Barstow, not 12-lane monsters where one typically commutes or otherwise gets in a big hurry. In that specific situation I’d say the impetus is more on the tailgater to either be more patient or communicate more effectively, and be safe either way. Like, there’s two-and-a half hours between two major settlements, if you’ve got ground to make up, you’ve got plenty of space to do that over. And if you truly need the speed right now, you’ve got a lot of options to say that unambiguously and I’d be happy to give you that room if at all possible. Definitely the kind of person that needs a chill pill IMO.

To be fair, I headlight flash whenever I’m letting anyone in and sometimes when I come up on a slower car in the passing lane. Window glare/lighting conditions can make hand signals hard to see and assuming someone is on the same page as you can be dangerous. Tailgating normally results in them going even slower. I’ve never assumed it to come off as rude or aggressive, it seems to me a more clear way of communicating to other drivers.

 

[smstachwick]

To be fair, I headlight flash whenever I’m letting anyone in. Window glare/lighting conditions can make hand signals hard to see and assuming someone is on the same page is you can be dangerous. I’ve never assumed it to come off as rude or aggressive, it seems to me a more clear way of communicating to other drivers.

Interesting. I try to think positively of others on the road, it’s a highly unregulated environment where people have to communicate and get along to be safe, but I’d never considered that before. Thanks!

 

[boatgeek]

Google Maps can say Hawaiian names a lot better in French. Go figure...

Seattle buses have an automated voice that announces stops. For some reason, "Aloha St" is announced as "Allo-ha" It seems like that word is common enough that it should have been caught at the AI stage, if not the system testing phase.

 

[dr wogz]

Google or Garmin pronunciations in Quebec is hilarious!

 

[John Kemker]

Current Pet Peeve:

Getting chewed out for following company policy. /smh

(It's why I'm not a supervisor any more and just count stuff. The only thing I run these days is my mouth.)

 

[jqavins]

Story and questions for everyone more generally... My questions for the older, more experienced drivers is this: Is this a common maneuver, what they were doing/trying to do? I had never seen it before and I don’t recall seeing it in any of my drivers’ ed classes (which, admittedly, were about 8 or 9 years ago now), but obviously those two knew of it and tried to do it. Could it just be a regional thing that’s uncommon in SoCal?

As for the Tacoma driver, I'd say he was behaving properly and communicating effectively and that was all good. The usual signal between drivers when one wants to pass is to flash one's headlights. But since the Tacoma driver succeeded in sending you the message, what he did was clearly OK.

The lady in the SUV may have thought she was doing the same thing, but that would be in addition to driving badly, not instead of it.

What you should have done (I don't know that you didn't) was to put on your right turn signal when you were half way through passing the last truck, so as to signal the driver behind that you understand and will get out of the way as soon as you can. Maybe the SUV driver would then have waited, but given her other behavior that you've described, there's no knowing.

Personal experience: if you are going to pass someone, pass them!! don't slowly cruise pass them.. left blinker, merge, speed up, right blinker, merge back (and only when you see them in the rear view mirror, not the right side mirror - "objects are closer than they appear") then resume your original speed.

this is likely what they are 'angry' at, that you were passing the line of truck at about 2 or 4 miles faster then them.

that, or they were coming up pretty fast, and you just decided to merge to pass, essentially cutting them off.. I've had that a happen a number of times, cruising along, and someone just pops in front of me to pass.. I have to slow to match them (ride their bumper). Had they waited a second or two, I would have been past them..

driving rule #4: the gap in front of you should be smaller than the gap behind you. if you have people riding your bumper, speed up or move over. speed up to catch the guy in front of you; don't leave 17 car lengths between you & the guy ahead of you..


and to quote the late George Carlin:
Ever notice.. Idiots driver fast than you & a.. holes drive slower than you?!

While I agree with all of that, If I read your story correctly, smstachwick, you were already in the left lane, already well along the line of trucks and driving at your comfortable speed, when the second car pulled up behind you. You have every right to do that. If there were already another driver in a position like yours when you pulled into the left lane, likely to want to pass the trucks just like you wanted to, then by all means you should have stepped on it. If not, accelerating once someone comes up on you is a courtesy you would have done well to provide, but not someone else's right to expect. Merely being on the truck's left does not obligate you to go fast.

Part of the problem is that there are very limited ways for drivers to communicate. We all do the best we can. Most of us do the best we can.

 

[dr wogz]

One thing I would add to the drivers / passing portion:
I feel a lot of people can't judge distances when looking in the rear view mirror. Nor can they judge the speed of the person coming up behind them. I believe, rarely do people look, then look again a second or two later, and then make a mental judgement / assessment / calculation as to the speed / how quickly the car behind them is approaching. "The car in the mirror is behind me, and will be behind me. I have time to pass.. Why is he now riding my bumper?!?"

 

[dr wogz]

No volume adjust on individual windows in your Zoom / Webex / online meeting. If only each person had a volume slider, so you could adjust each person's volume on your online meeting session!

Regardless of the online meeting / number of people, etc.. There is always one person who is loud, louder than the others. (A good microphone, a good strong speaker, etc.. and there is always one person who is quiet.. ether just a quiet talker, is far enough away from their microphone, etc...

So, you are franticly turning up / down your speaker / headset volume depending on who is speaking!

I figured with Covid, and the acceptance of online meetings, this would've become a standard feature..

 

[smstachwick]

Current Pet Peeve:

Getting chewed out for following company policy. /smh

(It's why I'm not a supervisor any more and just count stuff. The only thing I run these days is my mouth.)

Company policy isn’t there to actually be followed, it’s there to cover the owners’ butts when they pressure employees into violating it in the name of profit.

 

[jqavins]

No volume adjust on individual windows in your Zoom / Webex / online meeting...

Oh, thanks a million. I'd never thought of that, and now I have a new pet.

 

[dr wogz]

Oh, thanks a million. I'd never thought of that, and now I have a new pet.

A college is having an online meeting, so it's fresh in my mind.

and to add to my comment:

To also have a VU meter on your window, to see your volume level!! to know if you are talking too loud or too softly. We mostly have headsets, and some don't allow for you to hear yourself. I find we tend to talk louder if we don't have that audio feed back. Earbud type headsets seem to be the worst for this (and their mics tend to pick up everything within a 10' radius!)


And sadly, the "smarter" the person, the less likely they are to realize their audio footprint during these meetings. They seems somewhat clueless to their loudness, and that they should mute themselves when not talking (tend to do 'other things' while on the meetings..)

 

[boatgeek]

I know that I'm a loud talker (because of the earbuds) and it would be nice to have a way to either get visual feedback for when I'm blowing people out of the water or (better yet) adjust my outgoing volume.

Here's a new one. I was at a street festival last weekend to see a band that my wife likes. Note that this is a free festival. A person came out of the beer garden three sheets to the wind and started dancing in the middle back, a little ahead of where we were sitting. So far, so good. The band lead said they wanted a dance party, so it's all good. Then the person started complaining about how jazz was fine, but the band really needed to pick it up a notch. Incidentally, this was shortly after the lead made a joke about being a funk band and also while they were playing the song they are most famous for. The complaining went on for a little while, then the person starting getting right in my face to tell me that the band sucked and also I should stand up and dance. I thought about calling security, but it was nearly the end of the concert so we just moved to another area.

Yikes. If you don't like the free concert, go ahead and leave! Also, don't bring beer out of the beer garden.

 

[jqavins]

In short, your pet peeve is loud, obnoxious drunks. Or loud, obnoxious people, whatever causes them to be that way. Or, simply put, a-holes.

 

[DeeRoc29]

When people replace clusters with single mmt's. Chumps!

 

[bjphoenix]

Personal experience: if you are going to pass someone, pass them!!

I've noticed this with trucks- one truck will try to pass another truck that is going 1/4 mph slower, then they drive side by side for 5 miles before either the passing is successful or the passing truck gives up and pulls back in behind the other truck.

I live in a big metropolitan area, you can find every form of annoying driving here. Sometimes you just have to think to yourself that maybe they can't help it and try to be patient.

One thing that bugs me a lot is people paying to drive in the toll lanes but driving slower than the traffic on the free side, and getting stuck behind them on long stretches that don't have exits.

 

[cerving]

How about motorcyclists who split lanes and weave in and out of traffic like they're racing in a Moto GP? I saw some guy in a Harley doing that last month in my rear view mirror, he cut in front of my truck while pulling my trailer, and he clipped my bumper and cracked the bumper cap. He took off like a shot, of course... what a putz.

 

[gdjsky01]

Pet peeve? ANYONE. ANYWHERE. That can't understand the science is how we know TRUTH.
Peeve? Who thinks there are 'alternative facts'

 

[lakeroadster]

Rub strips cut into the center of a 2-lane highway. They're cutting those in on a lot of roads here in Colorado. I'm pretty sure they are paid for by "The Windshield Manufacturers of America". I drive the speed limit... and therefore get passed... a lot. And every time I get passed, my truck gets pelted by all the dirt and crud that's laying in those cut-down-into-the-pavement rub strips.

Back in the day they used to cut a rectangle and glue in a reflector. Somehow, they devolved into the current method.

I know, I know... they are there to prevent the people that are on their phones from drifting into oncoming traffic... that's the next pet peeve.

 

[gdjsky01]

People on forums that suck up to vendors that make stupid remarks so they don't have to pay out warranty claims but think they are endearing them to the vendor... and who knows? They probably are.

 

[gdjsky01]

Drivers who see you are signaling a lane change and speed up to stop you from making that change, only to be just ahead of you at the next traffic light.

 

[teepot]

Daylight savings time. After we fall back the Sun sets about 4:30 pm this time of year. We are at the extreme edge of the Pacific time zone. North of us it's Mountain time and South of us is Arizona time. I'm near Vegas.

 

[gdjsky01]

Daylight savings time. After we fall back the Sun sets about 4:30 pm this time of year. We are at the extreme edge of the Pacific time zone. North of us it's Mountain time and South of us is Arizona time. I'm near Vegas.

HUZZAH!!!

DST is a sham. Darkness Squandering Time. Alas we are a minority. I could not agree more. DST is SUPER DUMB!!! We are (for the MOST part), not an agrarian society anymore. Harvesting happens at ALL hours. And children can go to school in the morning just fine... because most don't even have WALK to school anymore! Yes, I walked, in the rain, snow, dark, light, warm, cold 1.2 miles to school. No it was not uphill both ways. But it was at 43 degrees North Latitude and sometimes in the dark. Somehow most of us lived.

Standard time is THAT. STANDARD. Leave it alone. No more spring forward. Just leave it alone!!

 

[dr wogz]

Old Indian proverb: (In regards to DST)

"Only a white man can cut off a foot from the bottom of his blanket, and then sew it to the top, thinking he now has a longer blanket.."

 

[bjphoenix]

Daylight savings time. After we fall back the Sun sets about 4:30 pm this time of year. We are at the extreme edge of the Pacific time zone. North of us it's Mountain time and South of us is Arizona time. I'm near Vegas.

I like savings time.
I think it depends on whether you are a morning person or a night person. I get up and I'm on the road to work in 15 minutes, and it doesn't matter if it is dark. When I leave work to go home I like for it to be light so when I get home I can do things outside if need be.
I've known people who would get up at 5, go to the gym, have breakfast, then go to work. Those people would probably prefer for it to be light earlier in the morning.
I don't have to drive to my office every day of the week, on days that I don't drive to work it doesn't really matter if it is savings time or not, I can get up whatever time I want.

 

[smstachwick]

Well I just renewed my car registration. Total pain in the , so here’s a couple more entries for the list.

Automated phone lines that require voice selections. Just….give me numbers to push on the keypad. I don’t even mind pressing 1 for English if the rest of the menu is well thought-out.

Also bogus credit card fees, it doesn’t cost anywhere near $4 for anybody between me and Visa to process 28 digits worth of data and send it off. Whoever is doing that is a scam artist.

 

[PayLoad]

Facebook

 

[gdjsky01]

Facebook

I respectfully disagree. Never EVER have I been as connected and in touch with my family, especially my extended family, as I have on Facebook. Of course I was on the 'net' in the 80's already on ARPANET and USENET, so to me the net is a old friend. yeah, it is all a commercial money making machine, but heck, it is how I make a GOOD living. So if you don't mind, a pet peeve, people who hate social media, but do nothing to get off the web. (And I do as I say: As soon as Musk took over, I left twitter).
Again: In a respectful tone of voice