What kind of driver are you?

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mrphil
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Re: What kind of driver are you?

Post by mrphil »

After over 40 years of driving, I've learned to wear all the hats well. I get it when people need to drive like jerks...and I let them, just not around me. And I realize that I can go a long way toward screwing someone over royally with just a 1/4" of up or down on my throttle foot. The only thing I want out of it all is my own little slice of the big open road, and the one thing I'll never understand is why people insist on driving in tightly packed clumps, climbing all over each other, like some safety in numbers concept that's anything but the reality. But my absolute favorite is having just driven 20 miles and realizing that I don't remember a second of it.
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Wandering Daisy
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Re: What kind of driver are you?

Post by Wandering Daisy »

OR- I am probably the one driving below the speed limit! Everyone has the right to drive the speed that they feel is safest for them. However, there is a way to do this without angering speedier drivers. Be aware of those behind you- slow down (do not speed up!) at big open hills were it is easy for those behind you to pass. Pull over often. My gripe are RVs who do not pull over or go slow as mud up a hill and then speed up downhill where I could actually pass them. Seems like the number of RVs on the road have exploded in the last ten years or so.

My husband tailgates, which drives me nuts. Yet, he is right that in California traffic, if you do not tailgate someone will just slide in ahead of you which can be just as unsafe. Compared to many other areas in the country, California drivers are VERY aggressive. I do not think I will ever get accustomed to this.

I HATE driving 99 to SEKI because of the heavy semi-truck traffic. To avoid these trucks I have to go out into the fast lane which goes too fast for my comfort zone, so I have to stay in the slower lanes with the trucks. 395 is actually pretty good to drive, now that they have put in several 4-lane sections.
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John Harper
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Re: What kind of driver are you?

Post by John Harper »

Cross Country wrote:Tell me John: approximently how many times did someone "cut you off" and you had to tap your brakes.
Enough times to notice it. However, after more than 40 years of street motorcycle riding, I am probably much more able to anticipate other vehicles possible threats to me. Like one of the other posters, I try to stay clear of "packs" of vehicles and always look several cars ahead to anticipate problems. I look at other cars as "sharks" out to get me when on my bike.

The one time I kissed the pavement, some jerk ran a red left turn light and slammed me in the middle of an intersection. Ouch!

John
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Re: What kind of driver are you?

Post by markskor »

Wandering Daisy wrote: My husband tailgates, which drives me nuts.
I hate tailgaters...anybody too close/ riding my ass when I'm doing the legal speed limit, especially if there is a string of cars ahead...IE 120 in Yosemite. Nowadays will tap the breaks a few times...if that doesn't work, will slow down - way down, and probably flip them off too when they go around.
RVers that refuse to use pull-outs...a close second. ](*,)
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oldranger
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Re: What kind of driver are you?

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Wandering Daisy wrote:OR- I am probably the one driving below the speed limit! Everyone has the right to drive the speed that they feel is safest for them. However, there is a way to do this without angering speedier drivers. Be aware of those behind you- slow down (do not speed up!) at big open hills were it is easy for those behind you to pass. Pull over often. My gripe are RVs who do not pull over or go slow as mud up a hill and then speed up downhill where I could actually pass them. Seems like the number of RVs on the road have exploded in the last ten years or so.

My husband tailgates, which drives me nuts. Yet, he is right that in California traffic, if you do not tailgate someone will just slide in ahead of you which can be just as unsafe. Compared to many other areas in the country, California drivers are VERY aggressive. I do not think I will ever get accustomed to this.

I HATE driving 99 to SEKI because of the heavy semi-truck traffic. To avoid these trucks I have to go out into the fast lane which goes too fast for my comfort zone, so I have to stay in the slower lanes with the trucks. 395 is actually pretty good to drive, now that they have put in several 4-lane sections.
Daisy, I have no issue with people driving slower than me. It is when they don't use turnouts or speed up when there are passing lanes or long straight aways that bothers me. Much rather have overly cautious drivers than over aggressive drivers. I figure that in terms of speed on the highway I'm at about the 90th percentile on freeways, probably slower than average on city streets, probably 95th percentile on mt roads. But when heading up to ski or traveling in Yosemite I have learned to go with the flow. When pulling our travel trailer it takes only one car behind me to take the first available turnout (actually even when not pulling a trailer on the rare occassion when someone catches up to me I do this) --unless I am traveling in behind a stream of traffic then the person behind me just needs to cool their jets, just like me. On the snow I probably am about in the middle of the pack in terms of the speed I travel. At night and when ever visibility is diminished I will drive considerably slower. Both Kathy and I have hit deer and have had so many close calls that if we are driving at night on highways in central oregon that we will drive as much as 10 mph below the speed limit. I try to never drive faster than my ability to spot a hazard in the road. When pulling my boat to local lakes at 0 dark 30 my speed is generally about 50 or less. On my return in the afternoon my speed will be about 62--my max comfort speed when towing.


Tailgating is another pisser. Nothing worse than a big Dodge pickup filling up your rearview mirror.

Heading between Oregon and the Sierra we avoid I-5 and 99 as much as possible--Much prefer 395--even if we are heading to the west side of the Sierra.
Mike

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zacjust32
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Re: What kind of driver are you?

Post by zacjust32 »

Regarding tailgaters and other extreme drivers: you don't know if their wife is giving birth or they are having an emergency. Just pull over and let them by. Those are usually the people who will continue to escalate a situation, and slowing down or making them angrier probably isn't going to help the situation.

I am a B driver. In SEKI I am a C minus the cussing and gestures. I know every curve in that road, where the wildlife tend to be, where to pass, and when to slow down. If you are in front of me I'm probably going to want to pass you. I'm not unsafe, but I know the limits of the road, my vehicle, and my abilities. I also NEVER cross a double yellow even if I can see far ahead. It's a bad habit and makes me a lazy/unsafe driver. I can cut 45 minutes off of a 2.5 hour drive to Lodgepole if there are no tourists in front of me.

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Dave_Ayers
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Re: What kind of driver are you?

Post by Dave_Ayers »

I'm in the 93% of US drivers that thinks they are above average drivers. :D
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Re: What kind of driver are you?

Post by SSSdave »

I've lived in the SF Bay Area for over 4 decades. I'm not the emotional type either in personal conversation, on the web, or in a driver's seat. Of course urban drivers on average have many more annoying, inconsiderate, impatient, emotional, stuporous, dangerous driving habits than small town, rural, and mountain folk. As a 3 decades snow skiing enthusiast I've also driven icy snowy roads each winter that are much more dangerous. And thus far have never ever had a serious accident though admittedly when young lucked out a few times then wisened up.

So what kind of driver am I? The kind that pi$$es off those annoying bully drivers that deserve it, teaching them a lesson they ought to think about.

Ok I admit to enjoying torturing some tailgaters as I have the process down...and like it. You know the type. There are a dozen vehicles ahead of you reasonably spaced on a traffic heavy urban multi-lane freeway thus no place to go. Yet some impatient driver with juvenile emotions and a low IQ is behind your vehicle tailgating closely apparently thinking if you do the same to the driver in front of you, and then that driver does the same etc all the way to the car behind whomever slowpoker, that said slowpoke will pull out of the lane. Thus my subtle wobble wobble game of slowly slowing up widening the space in front of me then speeding up to a tail gating position to the car in front of me, then slowing down again etc. And one should never look into one's rear mirror to see what the tail gater is doing because they expect you are going to want to look at them. Repeated just 3 times is enough to make any tailgater so frustrated they move right into slower lanes to pass.

Then there is the cut in weavers whose game on a high traffic four lane freeway is to slyly move into a position in the lane to your right so they can at the right moment quickly slide into whatever small space between you and the car ahead of you without any signalling. Now if they bother to signal, I do let them in. Like you are in the left lane along with 15 other closely spaced vehicles maybe trying to get ahead of a semitruck in the right lane. So the cut in weaver because they by nature are cheaters living by a dog eat dog philosophy, could have simply gotten behind the last car in the left lane chain but because they enjoy bullying others prefer to cut in and pi$$ others off. So when they pull up beside me I admittedly dangerously get so close to the car in front that they cannot slip in. The cut in weavers are then challenged and in a high state of emotion betting you cannot maintain at freeway speeds a short space long enough that will keep them out. If they do slip in it is in their twisted way a major emotional victory over those they hate most, the ones who don't allow them to bully. After a bit frustrated with David they then move away trying to annoy someone else.

Last Tuesday morning while driving to South Lake Tahoe for what would be 3 enjoyable days of skiing, about Tracy on 6 lane 70mph speed limit I580 going east, I at 75mph in the middle lane was passing 3 semitrucks going maybe 70mph in the right lane while a chain of cars in the left lane was bottled up behind a driver not doing the usual 85mph in front. Thus some guy in a huge pickup truck with headlamps on high beam instead of moving in behind the left lane chain decided to bully me into going faster to let them past the trucks. Like they were going to have no part in waiting modest seconds to eventually pass the semitrucks and instead because the driver was one of those impatient drivers with juvenile emotions and a low IQ, got up super close to my bumper. I totally ignored him after initially looking back into my rear view mirror and then carefully slowed down when he reached my bumper from 75mph to maybe 73mph. Enough that he would notice and become even more mad. After a bit I moved past the 3 semis and he immediately jammed in right in front of the trucks then sped off at 90mph towards the next group of vehicles not far up the road with more trucks where after a couple minutes he was still jumping from lane to lane in back of that clog unable to get by.

I could write a book on this stuff. The urban world is full of emotional bullying people that wear their emotions on their driving foot.
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Re: What kind of driver are you?

Post by LMBSGV »

I'm a B and with each passing year more of an A.
RVers that refuse to use pull-outs
On Tioga Road this is a perpetual annoyance. As for tailgators, I just take the next pull-out and let them annoy the person in front of me. If people want to risk their lives to save a few seconds of time, I prefer to avoid them as much as possible.
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Re: What kind of driver are you?

Post by Wandering Daisy »

Not all tailgaters are impatient. My husband is not. But he has an entirely different depth perception than me and grew up driving in heavy traffic. I spent so many years on empty roads, that I am very skittish about getting anywhere near another car. He thinks he has room to stop safely; I disagree. I have to admit he has never back-ended anyone. He also uses cruise control in traffic heavier than I would and I think this contributes to his tailgating. He is perfectly happy to roll along at the same speed as the car in front, oblivious to the fact that this annoys them.

Within Yosemite and SEKI, a lot of tourists are there to gawk out their windows at the scenery, not to get anywhere at any given time. That is OK with me.
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