Regional driving behaviors

[tasdrouille]

I'm in Houston for work right now. I haven't driven yet, just took the bus from IAH to downtown and then a cab to my hotel, but boy will that be a nightmare tomorrow when I get my rental. Is it me or people just don't know you're supposed to pass on the left and signal when you change lanes. That and the cab ride was downright scary. Those guys must go through a set of pads every 6 months.

So far this place looks like an hypermiler's nightmare.

[RH77]

No offense to the fine people of Houston, Texas (or any other municipality in this post), but...

LOOK OUT! Houston is up there in my Top 10 US/Canada worst places to drive. Aside from constantly feeding the toll-road system, the drivers are at full-throttle, 24/7/365.

It's one of the only places I've been passed on the right shoulder -- on a 4-lane highway! It's pandemonium.

I'm going out on a limb here, but the hardest places to drive "efficiently" are...

1. Boston
2. Washington, D.C.
3. Chicago
4. Los Angeles
5. Vancouver, BC
6. Seattle / Tacoma
7. Houston
8. Dallas / Ft. Worth Metro
9. San Antonio and St. Louis (tie)
10. Denver

RH77

[blueflame]

What about placing one of those suction cap police type siren's on the roof.... and wear a police type cap?

[groar]

Originally Posted by tasdrouille

Is it me or people just don't know you're supposed to pass on the left and signal when you change lanes.

I quickly understood when I moved in Toulouse that people signaling when they are changing lane are at fault

The best is to smoke with the left hand, to phone with the right hand and to search something in a bag with the third hand. Everybody here has at least 4 hands and 3 brains to manage them

I got the more afraid in Morocco and Tunisia : they are driving at 80 km/h (50 mph) in city and they are using more their horn than their steering wheel. Except that these people are fantastic when you talk to them

Denis.

[Frank Lee]

We gots the opposite of that.

It's common for hicks in pickups to stop right in the middle of the street/road when they see a fellow hick they want to talk to. Yup- don't even pull over to the side- smack dab in the middle.

Stroll through a parking lot here in the winter. It is FILLED with running vehicles. They run for long periods of time. Gee it must be hard work to hand crank those big V8s. What? All you have to do is turn a key? Who knew!

Sometimes there is somebody sitting in them. Smokers on break from work run out to the parking lot and sit in their idling cars for the whole break. Lunch time too. Yeah.

Not that our drivers ain't healthy. They must eat a lot of carrots! Well I don't know, they must have exceptional night vision here; I've never seen a town where so many drive around at night with the lights off.

They're prescient too. No need to use the turn signals, ever. Well, maybe once in a while... after yer already haff-way into the turn.

Getting back to parking lots- gotta love the ones that have rows where the spots are somewhat diagonal. When the paint lines are covered with snow the lines of cars... er, I mean pickups and suvs- get pretty funky. Appears to me there is a serious mass depth perception problem here. Ain't a whole lot better in the summer when the lines are visible.

P.S. another classic maneuver is: when you go to yer friend's house, do not get out and ring the doorbell. Lay on the horn until they FINALLY come out.

[tasdrouille]

I just came back and I have a few things to add. It was not as bad as I first thought. But in three days of driving I've had things happened to me that I never saw elsewhere.

This one takes the cake. I'm waiting at a red light to turn left. Both leftmost lanes are turning. There's a big SUV on my right with just a lady in it (how surprising...sigh). Light turns green and she proceed to go around me and do a U-turn in my face!

I've never seen that many useless pickups and SUVs in a single place in my life. Small economy cars like the yaris are nonexistent.

The people are great though, some of the nicest people I ever met. I spent the weekend in Galveston. There was mardi gras festivities and we had a great time.

[Piwoslaw]

tasdrouille- try looking for the yaris and smart fortwos under the SUVs.
You guys are complaining about North American cities, but when I come to the US the driving seems soooo slooow. Compared to Poland, and especially Warsaw, Americans drive by the law. Sure, they think their GMC Yukon or H2 is a compact and fits in a parking slot with a "C", but they still don't deserve the name "kamikaze". In Warsaw I'm considered a slow driver so everyone honks at me, flashes their lights or even passes me on the sidewalk or grass! And I only drive 20-30km/h over the speed limit (now less, since I pay more attention to FE).

Originally Posted by groar

The best is to smoke with the left hand, to phone with the right hand and to search something in a bag with the third hand.

You forgot about the cup of coffee. Sounds like the soccer moms that drive American kids to school every morning. I had a few close encounters with those when biking in Berkeley

Originally Posted by groar

Everybody here has at least 4 hands and 3 brains to manage them

That's a lot of brains, Denis. Are you sure about that?

-- Adam

[MetroMPG]

I haven't been driving much here this winter, but as a pedestrian I can relate one suprising thing: drivers STOP and let you cross any road or intersection without having to play chicken first. They're unbelievably courteous to pedestrians.

And I don't mean just at intersections. Turn to cross a street in the middle of the block, and most drivers would stop and wave you across.

Not that there is a lot of traffic - this is in a small town (2k people), but I seem to recall the same thing last time I was in Halifax about 10 years ago (300k people). East coast thing?

I'm going to have to be very careful when I move back to Ontario or I'm going to get run down by accident. I wonder if maritimers think drivers elsewhere are rude...

[TestDrive]

Maybe it's a small town thing?
The behavior you describe would be pretty typical for 2K and smaller towns here in SD.
What's the size of the town you live in in Ontario?

[MetroMPG]

20k in Ontario.

But I've seen it happen in Halifax too, pop. 300k.