Driving pet peeves

Honking kills me

 

When a bunch of jibronis jump on your hood and roof to hitch a ride

 

I've gotten more liberal with mine. People keep trying to hit me for some reason. Unintentionally and intentionally. I've had three near misses with stop-and-squatters since summer started. Luckily I pay attention but I'm thinking it's about time for a dash cam.

It's mostly people on their phones that annoy me the most.

For example, this has been happening a lot more to me and sure as shit they get the horn. The light turns green and the idiot up front is too damn busy on their freaking phone to notice. If I can lazily get my foot off the brake, into the clutch, the truck in gear and count to three before they move they're getting the horn. Depending on their reaction, possibly a finger.

I also dislike people who drive with their high beams on in the city or around others in general. My pet peeve is when they have one headlight out so they use their brights to compensate.

 

@ALI3N_123
@booted
@ChadsPride
@Gr8fl
@Jamesboy2233
@Plain Jane Taco
@scottalot
@wilcam47

"Hall monitors"...

I think it is perfectly acceptable to photograph a poorly parked vehicle for the "Asshole Parking" thread on this forum. However, one thing I cannot stand are "Hall Monitors" who think they are cops or parking enforcement, regardless of whether or not they take pictures!

The first confrontation I ever had after I got my license occurred in the summer of 2011, about a month and a half or so after I actually I got it...

I had just left my gym after an hour-long workout, and was driving home. Just a few hundred feet from the gym, there was a flea market of sorts going on in the parking lot of another building. The guy running the flea market had a white early 1990s Chevrolet Astro van that was in good condition, and I needed photos of decent Chevy vans for a project I was doing (will explain later). I unknowingly parked in a very poorly marked handicapped space. There was no sign or anything, just a faded white handicap symbol painted onto the beat-up asphalt.

I got out of the Tacoma (then less than two years old with maybe 20K on the clock), approached this guy with my camera in hand, and flatout asked if I could take pictures of his van for a "Chevrolet truck tribute video on YouTube." He said yes, and I was ecstatic.

I also saw THIS BOOK among the items he was selling and just had to have it (I LOVE Bond!). I paid a ridiculously low amount of money for the book, and brought it back to my truck so I could have my hands free to take pictures of the van. My driver's window was cracked, so I just slid the book through the window.

As I was doing this, a middle-aged fatass walks by and quite vocally expresses his annoyance at the fact that I'd apparently parked in a handicapped spot. He called me "totally rude" and kept walking. I could not see any visible sign that this was a handicapped spot, and I honestly wanted to tell this guy to go fuck himself. I then knelt down and looked underneath the truck. This was more than 7 years ago, so I don't remember if I saw the faded white "person in a wheelchair" symbol and realized my mistake, or if I honestly did not see it and thought this guy was getting his panties in a bunch over nothing. Either way, I was determined to take pictures of that Astro van, and I wasn't going to go through the trouble of moving my truck for this asshole (there were no free spots nearby), when I was leaving in a few minutes.

I started taking pictures of the van, and then this fat guy reappears; This time he's driving a Subaru Legacy Outback that must have been parked somewhere else in the parking lot. Fatty begins screaming at me basically about how I'm worse than Hitler (he did not specifically compare me to Hitler or make any other "Nazi" references, but that's how it came across) for unknowingly parking in a very poorly marked handicapped spot for maybe ten minutes.

Again, I may have known it was a handicapped spot at this point or I may have just figured it out. Either way, it does not excuse his behavior. He started screaming at me, a few profanities were exchanged, and he said he was going to call the cops and I would get a $200 ticket if I didn't move my truck before driving off.

At least half a dozen people plus the guy who owned the Astro van saw the whole thing, and everyone sided with me. The van owner/flea market manager said something like "Don't take it personally, man. He probably didn't get any from his wife last night..."

I thought I was going to die laughing when he said that. This guy was pretty awesome! He let me photograph his 1993 Chevy Astro, sold me a cool book at a good price, and took my side when fatso got all hormonal!

I was not finished taking pictures of the van, and another spot did open up (ironically the one fatso was in), so I moved the truck in case he'd been serious about calling the cops. Moments later, while I was taking more pictures of the van, a guy in a late model black Infiniti pulled into the same poorly marked handicapped spot that I'd just vacated. He clearly did not look handicapped, but I could just tell he was like me and not some jerk who didn't care about the disabled. I approached his car and said something like "Dude, I was just parked in this same spot, it turns out it's a handicapped spot, and some guy just went apeshit on me for parking here. He threatened to call the cops to ticket my truck before he left, and I don't know if he was serious, but just to be safe I'd move your car." The man in the Infiniti thanked me and parked elsewhere...

The fat guy with the Subaru was also quite short in addition to being morbidly obese. My best guess what he was suffering from Napoleon Complex...

 

Aside from the pictures of the white 1993 Astro van that were taken with permission from the owner, no photos were taken at the time of my first confrontation back in 2011...

However, the reason I referenced the photography of poorly parked vehicles for "Asshole Parking" here on TW, because my boss once caught a guy taking pictures of my license plate for being temporarily parked in a handicapped spot at my place of employment, for purposes of unloading the truck.

My boss is not the confrontational type; Though she can switch from the persona of the funloving Asian girl she seems to be, to the no-nonsense businesswoman she really is, at a moment's notice. This isn't the point though. The point is that my boss is very calm and patient 99% of the time. She probably said something like "Excuse me sir, can I help you?"

I would be absolutely flattered if someone took pictures of my truck (happens all the time at the shows I enter it in), but if I'd seen some shaggy old man photographing my license plate at night (this was at night), I would have flipped out at him. Yes, I was in a clearly marked handicapped spot, but it was on private property, and I had permission from the owner of said property to park there for purposes of unloading my truck.

 

Perhaps we should start a "Parking Pet Peeves" thread that is separate from this thread and the "Asshole Parking Thread"...?

One thing I hate is when people see my truck and think its okay to lean against it. I've also had problems with people leaving stuff in the bed of my truck. One time I even found a large chunk of a front bumper in the bed in the student lot at college...

 

And seriously...

Anybody who's ever gone fishing knows that fish are attracted to shiny objects. Most people have also probably heard of the "Moth Affect," in which drunk drivers are drawn to the flashing red lights of police cars and other emergency vehicles. Perhaps, this is the "Fish Affect" where drunk people are reduced to a childlike state and are attractive to shiny vehicles (like a regularly-detailed silver pickup truck)...?

 

Anyone driving in front of me.

 

That's a bit broad, but at the same time it makes sense!

I can't stand it when I'm behind large vehicles like big rigs, buses, etc...

 

@ALI3N_123
@booted
@ChadsPride
@Gr8fl
@Jamesboy2233
@Plain Jane Taco
@scottalot
@wilcam47

I was not even driving in this instance, but it's still a rather amusing story.

I was probably 16 or 17 years old, my mom was driving me home from school. I believe I was in 11th grade and it was sometime in 2006. We were in my mom's 2004 Honda Odyssey EX, and I was in the front seat. We ended up behind a school bus full of students from my school, and unfortunately a kid who liked to pick on me was sitting in the back of the bus. It did not take long for him to notice that one his favorite teasing targets was riding shotgun in that silver minivan. He starts making faces at me and laughing, and then he taps a friend on the shoulder. Pretty soon, the entire back section of the bus seemed to be staring at me. They were making faces and pointing, and saying shit to each other. I was about stick up both middle fingers and "double barrel" this obnoxious kid, named Garrett, and friends...

My mom started to get pissed at these kids too. Conveniently, there was a 7-Eleven right on the way from my high school to our house, and it was coming up on our left. My mom said "How about a Slurpee?" and pulled off into the 7-Eleven parking lot while the bus kept going...

 

Coming to a 4 way stop and everyone is sitting there with a deer in the headlights look on there face.See who decides to go in the intersection first and when they do they drive 1 mile an hour.

 

This is something that continues to be an epidemic in my area...

People who make a right out of a side street or parking lot and just mosey onto a stretch of road where the speed limit is 45 MPH or more. The other extreme would be people who "hesitate" regardless of whether they are turning left or right. At best, their front bumper is sticking out and you have to go out of your lane slightly to avoid de-bumpering some moron's Altima...

At worst, they pull all the way out and just sit lengthwise across your lane, oblivious to the fact that this is a busy road they are on and not some quiet residential street. In late 2015, I almost T-boned some idiot in a brand new BMW at 45 MPH when he made a left out of a bank parking lot and blocked both lanes of traffic on my side of the street...

 

Your area doesn’t understand stop lines. I thought more then a few times I was going to get Tboned in Doylestown

 

Here in this small town, that happens to me quite often. Every single bus around town has people I know in it, I hate being behind them cause they're always doing some funny shit.

 

I understand stop lines...

The key to driving in Doylestown, at least in my opinion, is to stop at the stop line, and then slowly inch forward to make sure nobody is coming. Then, you gun it so there's absolutely no hesitation!

 

@ALI3N_123
@El Duderino

Here's a GOOD one!

Cops who pull over vehicles with out-of-state plates and try to enforce their state's motor vehicle code! I'm not talking about stuff like headlights and taillights not working, or not wearing your seatbelt. I'm talking about window tint and "failure to display a front license plate." I've never been pulled over for such a thing, but I've heard stories about cops in states that require two plates pulling over people from states like Pennsylvania, Florida, and Oklahoma and ticketing them for not having a front plate (NOTE: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia DO NOT require two license plates). Look up New Rome, Ohio, the police department of which was disbanded about 15 years ago, for a prime example of arbitrary law enforcement bullshit...

 

From what I've heard, Texas laws don't apply to people with out of state plates. So if a person from Alabama has a front plate missing, Texas law doesn't apply to them, as long as the driver has an Alabama drivers license.

 

A person from Alabama wouldn't have a front plate missing, as they don't have two plates...

 

Holy fuck, you're right.

 

Did I share that one with you guys already?