My biggest driving pet peeve

First off, I hope everyone (and by everyone, I mean everyone that matters, ie: the USA) had a nice break for Thanksgiving. There was nothing to confess last Thursday because I simply refused to drive that day. =]

Now for more angry subjects.

I have driving pet peeves. Little things like slowly encroaching into another lane, people that leave their blinkers on, and slow accelerators really get to me.

But the worst by far is the smoker in front of you while in traffic.

The following is an excerpt I meant to post a while ago but didn't have a chance to until today.


"I never realized what my biggest driving pet peeve was until today. I suppose it's fairly impressive that I hadn't figured it out, but I probably could have done okay in life not knowing that this was my biggest irritant while driving.

As I sat somewhere between miles 150 and 140 on the Parkway waiting for traffic to move faster in the AWESOME RAIN (I LOVE RAIN and I LOVE TRAFFIC. I'm Lover, not a hater, yo.), I smelled something a little off. Now, I was going to save the "funny smells" entry for some other time, but I think I can make this one exception.

I smelled it again. It was a little like cigarette smoke. But alas, how would I be smelling this smoke in my own car with the windows down and while moving at a grand ol' speed of 2 miles an hour? Oh, but then a third stronger and longer whiff. This was definitely cigarette smoke. Where was it coming from, how could I avoid it, and most importantly, how could I rid my car from this smell?

Down a turn traffic goes, and out drops a cigarette from the car in front of me. Bitch! How dare you smoke in your own car in front of me!"


This was a little over a month ago. I only bring it up now because today, the person I encountered not only was a smoker, but was also a slow accelerator/big car gap person (as in, his myopic vision somehow leads him to believe that he should stop 4 car lengths behind the next car).

People: If this is you, my desire to ram my car into your fender to knock your cigarette onto the floor of your car increases on a logarithmic scale dependent on how slowly you accelerate.

Here are two graphs, depending on how logarithmically inclined you are:



Enjoy!

The awkward police encounter

Let me preface: No, I did not get a ticket.

Now that I don't have a juicy story to tell, I will go on to explain what the "awkward police encounter" is exactly. I'm sure you've experienced it before. I don't know what it was about it this week, but out of the 3 police encounters I had this week, 1 1/2 was awkward.

So first, what am I classifying as a "police encounter?" For this case, I will say "police encounters" include police cars driving on the road around you. This may or may not include cops that were momentarily stationary or will soon be stationary. However, this does not include an officer who has already decided on who they want to flag down/with another car with their blinky lights.

What makes a police encounter awkward? Well. Mostly the fact that they're driving and not still on the side of the road waiting for an idiot to speed past all the other cars that are braking "for some reason." But again, police cars to need to be driven first to get to these hiding places, so obviously they will be on the road. In most cases, cops are going much faster than the flow of traffic that has seen the cop and is scared to go anywhere near speed limit.

This is what happened first this week. I was in the left lane stuck in traffic after the Essex tolls. Suddenly I hear a siren bleep out at me out of nowhere, so I moved over to the middle lane so the cop that really didn't need to be anywhere could shuffle through traffic. "Asshat" was the first word that came to mind, but this is fairly standard fare.

But then there are those special cases. When the cop is driving in front of you. Or worse yet, when a cop is driving to the left of you. This is awkward. Do you slow down and go behind them? Do you speed up and go in front of them? Do you speed up but then wait for another car to go in front of the cop so you're not the car right in front of the cop? These decisions need to be made in the rare case that you see a police officer driving down the road at or below the speed limit. And I don't just mean when you're stuck in traffic.

To be really honest, I think that cop that I saw yesterday was causing more traffic by being in the middle lane than by moving people over while in the left lane. For a while, I was driving two cars behind him, but seriously, he wasn't going faster than 55. So I moved into the left lane and started to pass--which of course is the exact same time that he decided he didn't want to drive 55 mph anymore and bumped it up to a mild 60. Awesome. And awkward.

Today's encounter was a little bit different. I was further down on the Parkway later in the day, so there was less traffic on the road. While traveling at my cool 75 mph, I notice a dark car merging onto the highway. It could have easily been mistaken for a livery cab, but I knew deep in my gut it was an undercover cop. Boy was I right as it sped past me on my right, not caring that I was going 20 mph over the speed limit while looking like it was transmitting its own radio station from the back of the car.

The best part was that I knew exactly where he was going to go scope out cars. By the time I reached his spot, he had just pulled back to face us. Did I slow down? Well yes, but not to 55, and only because I probably would have crashed into the car in front of me otherwise. But seriously, he just spent all that work weaving around traffic to get to his place. I don't think he's going to come after me if he already knew I had been driving faster than that.

Anyone else feel like they've been stalked by cops this past week?

Catagorizing the driving lanes

So today, I'm going to try to simplify my assumptions on drivers in the various highway lanes. I really wanted terribly to use this picture, but unfortunately today, I won't be designating lanes by douchebaggery. I'll save that for another day.



No. Today, I will be designating generalizations of how people drive on the highway. It's actually fairly straightforward in theory.

In general, the rule is "Stay Right, Pass Left." This means faster traffic is supposedly in the left lane and slower in the right lanes, but this is difficult in high-traffic/high-speed situations, and traffic adjusts to compensate.

In 2-4 lane highways, this rule actually holds true (for the most part).

For a five lane-highway that is in full traffic use, things start to change. Let us say that fastest traffic travels in the left lane designated as "lane 1." This lane usually travels at 15 mph over the speed limit. The next lane over (lane 2) travels at 10 mph over the speed limit, which works with our "rule." The lane furthest right (lane 5) contains merging and exiting traffic, and as expected, they are going the speed limit or slower (boo-hiss). Lane 4 contains people trying to escape/enter lane 5 and so they are traveling somewhere around the speed limit if not 5 mph above.

The middle lane however contains a mix of traffic. Usually people stuck in the 2nd lane but cannot switch over the left lane become frustrated and start using the middle lane if there is open road. In a similar manner, people in lane 4 that think going 5 mph over the speed limit is not fast enough for the road warrior ways move over to the 3rd lane to speed ahead. The result is that the 3rd lane becomes another passing lane, containing high speed traffic. Unfortunately, this speedy little getaway is also normally broken up by a driver who is under the impression that they are perfectly fine driving in that middle lane slower than the traffic to the left but without any regard to how traffic flows to the right of them.

Note, this alternating fast-slow-fast-slow may also cause drivers to be extremely fast in the 5th lane (as a stupid-fast driver might).


And now that I've cleared all that up, I will confess: that's all BS.

I hope this isn't just me that does this, but I tend to not care about what the lanes are "supposed to do" based on the speed limit. I have what I call a "default speed" when I drive on highways. Currently, it's 72 mph ±3 for the GSP/I-287, 75 mph ±3 on the turnpike, and a measly 58 mph ±3 on US-1 (there are stop lights). When I drove it, I-76 was 72 mph ±3 (although it was 76 before my unfortunate ticket). You might think this is a little bit strange for me to distinguish speeds so meticulously, but it makes a big difference in how you travel relative to traffic around you.

So anyway, those are my default speeds. That means I am comfortable traveling at those speeds on those roads, and not too much faster or slower than that. For me, it doesn't really matter what lane I'm in to be going that comfortable speed. A lot of the time it is that left-most lane, but I'll switch over to the right if there's no traffic/I see a stupid-fast driver on his way to intercept my position. Sometimes, it means I use the right lane to pass your slow ass.

Well, there you have it! Highway theory 101 on how lane speeds are designated!

Playing loud music while driving

I never really understood the attractiveness of driving with your windows down driving really loud music except to intentionally piss people off (ie: driving around suburbs with Carmina blasting at 2am). Because really, when I see people driving around playing loud music with their music down I don't think, "oh wow, your speaker system is really sweet!" No, I think, "okay, you have to have your windows down because you don't want to have your a/c on and have to increase your music volume to compensate for the wind."

Today, was the first time I decided blasting music had a legitimate benefit (of which, was my own). And that brought a smile to my face.

I still haven't figured out whether these guys are my heroes or the biggest losers I've ever seen, but both make me laugh. These guys were definitely rocking out hardcore to the following songs:







and finally




So. You see these boys unabashedly dancing, pointing to people on the street, and generally having a party in their car to these songs. Are they your biggest heroes or losers?

Today

The cops are playing Pokemon. Gotta catch 'em all.

Womp wooomp.

Sorry I don't have anything more interesting to write about. I hope my corniness is more than enough for you to handle.

D-bags of the road: Part 4 - In traffic

Dear persons in lefter lanes,
Please decide you are going to pull into a gas station before you speed past me, brake hard, and then cut me off while I'm getting ready to take an exit.

mkthxbbai.

In other news I apologize to my reader(s??!) that I haven't ranted in a while. I promise I'll come up with bigger and better things this weekend. Without further ado though, let me introduce the d-bags of the road while you're stuck in traffic:

The zipper breaker
You've just gotten out of a toll booth and are facing massive amounts of traffic in front of you. As such, you feel like sheep or cattle being herded forward in various lines that must merge together. Finally, you approach the merge point, and what happens? The zipper breaker scoots on in front of you. What a douche move.

The guy who uses the breakdown lane as his own personal road
He thinks he can get away with using that far right lane to speed ahead of whatever is causing this traffic. Hehe. Let's not tell him about the cop that's up there.

The brake Tourrette's dude
Personally, I try to avoid using my brakes as much as possible when it comes to driving on the highway. Usually, just letting off the gas will slow you down enough. I use this same rule for Mario Kart (also like Mario Kart, I wish there was a star and jump ability in my car). Understandably, you must use your brakes while you're stuck in traffic. But woe to you if you are tapping your brakes 3 times/second in front of me at night. I will stare you down so passive-aggressively that your car may burst into flames in my imagination. Is it just me, or do some cars have EXTRAORDINARILY bright brake lights?

The infinite turn signaler
Okay. That was nice. You signaled to get in your lane. Now please turn it off. Please? This is just as bad as the brakes guy.

The slowest accelerator on the face of the earth
OH MY GOODNESS. YOU HAVE THE ENTIRE ROAD IN FRONT OF YOU TO GO BECAUSE YOU'RE MOVING SO SLOW. NO ONE IN THE OTHER TWO LANES IS SWITCHING OVER. HURRY UP BEFORE IT--...freaking a. The light turned red.

I'm a jerk, part 2

So today, I was driving home from church, which is usually done on two major local roads with speed limits that vary from 35 to 40 mph. There are two things I notice while driving on these roads:

1) I have a love/hate relationship with lights with two lanes of traffic that have no specific traffic designation. Usually, I try to be nice and stay in the left lane so that people can turn right unless I see someone with a left blinky light. What also usually happens is that people get into the right lane and then merge into traffic when the road turns back into a 1-lane road, beating out everyone that used to be in front of them. Today, I saw a left blinky light immediately in front of me but not at the front of the lane so I also joined the right lane. I felt like a jerk for passing all the people that got to the light before me because they obviously could not see the reason I decided to join the right lane to pass them.

2) You really can't drive too slow on a single lane road, even if it's a local road. Somewhere further along this road, I encountered a rather abrupt slow-down of traffic (abrupt meaning traveling speed moved from 36 mph to 27 mph). I identified the responsible car to be two cars in front of me with out-of-state-but-close-enough plates. I wasn't in a hurry so it wasn't SO excruciating, but that didn't keep me from accelerating down a large hill behind the car as the car in front of me went into a left-turn lane. I guess I spooked the poor fellow, because next thing I know, he pulled over to the side of the road and let me and the next car pass. I'm a jerk.

And then I felt better when I got to the next red light and I still saw him and a line of cars behind him a good distance off in my rearview mirror. Yep. A jerk, but now justified.

An addendum

So after posting the other night, I realized I was missing a key component of suburban drivers and why I decided to post in the first place. Allow me to introduce:

Terrible Tiffany, the texting turner twit
OK. I have to be fair. This doesn't exclusively belong to the suburban edition because terrible texters are found everywhere, but that's where the incident happened. Besides, I really like alliteration/consonance for some reason. Topsy turvy triangles tickle toes to twinkling trucks! ..Sorry.

Confession Thursday Tangent: I text when I'm bored and stuck in traffic. If you ever see "I LOVE TRAFFIC" or "I LOVE RAIN" as my twitter update at ~8:30 am, it means I've hit the Newark area on my morning commute. I exclude myself from the terrible texting tetrahedron (tetrahedrons are more exciting than circles) because I am not actually moving forward. It's more like a very busy parking lot.

ANYWAY. Terrible Tiffany texts in one hand and turns with the other. Terrible Tiffany does not have the necessary arm strength to turn her car from a stop very well while she is preoccupied with typing in her next "haha." Terrible Tiffany is about to get honked at for longer than necessary.

That is all

On people who don't realize what toll lane they belong to

I refuse to believe that people in New Jersey don't know how to choose a toll lane. That is why I think the car that went across 4 lanes from the left-most E-Z Pass to the next cash lane must have been a car thief from out of state. For shame! That huge ugly brown Ford Expedition did nothing special to be picked out from the other cars!

Honestly, now. If you live here, you need to know where your toll lanes are. The left lanes are designated as E-Z PASS. It means you don't need to have tokens or count change or interact with people and stop completely to pay your toll. It's been like that since before I could drive. Did you forget? Oh, I guess you didn't see the big "E-Z PASS ONLY" painted on the road below you. You must have been going too fast to see.

While we're at it, why don't we also address the guys who are in the left lane for the E-Z Pass Express lane and then cut off people to get into a regular toll lane on the right side? For those who have never experienced E-Z Pass Express, I give my condolences. It's spoiled me. Being able pay my toll at 70 mph feels wonderful. You, man-who-doesn't-realize-what-lane-he-belongs-to, should not be able to dampen my gladness by scaring the crap out of me and the poor grandmother in the right lane by cutting off both of us as you rumble across the white-striped part of the road to pay your toll the old-fashioned way. Guess what? All your speeding to get wherever means nothing when you have to stop to pay your toll.

And then I speed off smugly. I'm such a jerk.

D-bags of the road: Part 3 - Suburban Edition

For those who remain in the dark, I am born and raised as a suburbanite. Just because we can't drive over 40 mph on the road, doesn't mean we can't have our own terrible drivers. I am prejudiced against no one!

"The Pittsburgh Left" taker
"The Pittsburgh Left" simply refers to taking a left turn at an intersection before oncoming traffic can go straight. It happens to be a pretty common occurrence in Pittsburgh, and sometimes expected at certain intersections. For example, it's often in Pittsburgh to have a left-turn/straight lane and a right-turn only lane. We all agree this is stupid, right? Yes. And that's why people behind the left-turning car are in favor of that car taking a Pittsburgh left. Of course, if you get into an accident because you decide to turn left and the car going straight doesn't know of this "courtesy," then you can't use it as an excuse that you had the right of way. Similarly, in normal parts of the country, you probably don't want to do this because you will be faced with lots of horns in your right ear.

People who honk at people already walking in crosswalks
I'm still not over this one, and it's been a few months. WTF, DUDE. I'M ALREADY WALKING BRISKLY ACROSS THE CROSSWALK. NEXT TIME YOU HONK AT ME I'M GOING TO STOP, THROW MY HALF-EATEN APPLE AT YOUR WINDSHIELD, AND KICK IN YOUR FENDER. Seriously, go ahead and be the douche that doesn't let the mother with a stroller cross the road, but don't honk at the people already in the road that would have otherwise had enough traffic had you not been speeding down a residential road. mkthx.

The guy who runs at night wearing black
Ohhhh!! A trickster, I am! This guy isn't a driver, but rather a pedestrian! See, I told you I discriminate for no one! This is coming from someone that tries to run on a semi-regular basis when she's not recovering from her 384th sprained ankle: don't run at night unless you're wearing bright colors or better yet, a reflective vest. For those who are wondering: Yes, I did hit a pedestrian. Yes, I did actually see him running on the opposite side, and thought he turned before I made my own turn. Yes, it was because I was thinking how ironic it was that the cop at the stop light had his left light out. No, I did not injure him, because I could probably push him harder than I hit him (I think our Women's Flag Football team can attest to that). But I like to deflect blame. His fault! All his!

The Jerk who decides to be pro-active and cross into a left hand turn lane from a T-intersection blocking off the straight lane of a main road right before a set of railroad tracks.
Sorry about the long title. It's pretty self-explanatory, but the wording is a little difficult to wrap an image around. For your enjoyment:



I just realized, this isn't much of a "Suburban Edition" and more of a "Pittsburgh Edition" but that's okay. Over and out.