Does the driving style of "normal" people flip YOU out?

[ChewChewTrain]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Too many complaints to bother listing them all.

One of my biggest complaints is when people pass me on a straight section of road, and then brake hard for corners. I don't brake for corners, but am often forced to because of traffic ahead of me.

It seems most people are not looking ahead and anticipating what traffic is doing. I had a coworker tell me that she almost honked in rage at me when she was behind my car accelerating onto an onramp. It always slows down at the merge point, so I allowed a gap to initially form so that I didn't have to brake, but she thought it was crazy that I didn't just fill the space with my car and then later brake when it slows down.

My friend treats the throttle like an on-off switch. His speed fluctuates by 10 MPH on the freeway as he goes above the speed limit, takes his foot off the gas, goes below the speed limit, and then accelerates hard past the speed limit again. The transmission downshifts at each one of these acceleration cycles. He has gone through at least 1 transmission in every vehicle he owns. Lexus ES 350, Acura MDX, Ford Ranger... he says they all have poorly built transmissions. Meanwhile I've never had a transmission fail on me.

I once experimented in stop and go Portland traffic with driving the average speed of traffic. This means when traffic speeds up, I allow a gap to develop between the car in front of me. When traffic slows down the gap closes. This minimizes braking and allows me to get better fuel economy in stop and go traffic than on the freeway. My assumption was that it would take me significantly longer to arrive at my destination due to people cutting in to fill the gap. I kept a tally of cars, adding 1 to the total every time a car moved in to the gap, and subtracted 1 every time the car directly ahead of me moved out of my lane. In 1 hour of driving, only 9 more cars moved into the gap as moved out of it. In other words, my commute was likely only 30 seconds longer than if I had driven bumper to bumper. It also improved the fuel economy of everyone behind me since they too drove at the average speed instead of accelerating and braking all of the time.

Yep. I've known people JUST like that, too.

My favorite dumb person happens in very heavy freeway traffic. In certain freeway elevations you can obviously see bump-to-bumper traffic far into the freeway distane.

But the person behind me gets annoyed at the gap I leave between me and my lead car. So they pull out behind me, go around, and fill the gap in front of me ONLY to brake on and off for the duration of the traffic jam.

I can tell I made them blow their cork, due to the aggressive twist of their steering wheel, rapid acceleration, and nearly clipping my car as they cut back into my lane. But somehow, I'm not bothered. In fact, I'm somewhat amused. Does this make me a bad person? Do you guys think I should seek therapy help? Perhaps I have borderline sadistic tendencies. I love my mother, BTW.

Doug in California

[gone-ot]

Driving a car economically is like flying a plane: no sudden starts...or stops!

[Xist]

You do not EoC in a plane?

I feel that people just like criticizing others' driving and handwriting, or do people just criticize mine (constantly)?

I certainly make a concerted effort with both...

My elder sister just moved from California at age forty-one and Grandmother once commented how scared she was to ride with my sister. I was shocked that my sibling did not give Grandmother special treatment. I was not comfortable with my sister's driving until after I deployed, and Charlie, we had local nationals going under armored trucks due to their driving choices. An Afghan National Soldier gave the thumbs-up and died. The LHS was worse for wear, but the U.S. Soldiers were unharmed.

My other sister is bossy and controlling, never having her husband drive. One time, she asked for a ride, and when I arrived, I started to get into my own back seat, so that she would drive. She ordered me to resume the wheel and then complained the whole way to her house.

Once again I will mention my friend that was stopped for DUI just because she was a bad driver. She once drove myself and two other men in her 1990 Civic 20 MPH over the speed limit.

That is a great amount of cargo and she outweighed each of us.

Her check engine light came on and she did not even look spare it any attention from her phone.

As for seemingly everyone else on the road, driving seems to be a binary affair--either they are using the accelerator or the brakes, and they prefer the former.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by Xist

You do not EoC in a plane?

Uh, not intentionally...especially with jet engines.

[ChewChewTrain]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

Uh, not intentionally...especially with jet engines.

Oh, yeah? Challenge accepted. I bet I can do it. Just show me what all those knobs do.

BTW, did you know it takes 5 gallons for a 747 to travel one mile? That may seem like a lot, but when you amortize that fuel over the number of people traveling on that 5 gallons, the passenger miles per gallon is quite thrifty.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Xist

You do not EoC in a plane?

Hey, I've spent quite a bit of time flying planes that don't even have engines!

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Hey, I've spent quite a bit of time flying planes that don't even have engines!

Gliders or rocks?