Driving pet peeves

I thought of a couple more related to safety and airbags:

Passengers in front seat with their feet on the dash. If the car crashes and the airbag deploys, your knees are going into your face at about 200 mph (due to airbag inflating almost instantly). Those airbags need to inflate in a hurry before your face hits the dash. I use this fact to keep my wife's feet off my dash.

This one goes with #10 on the list: if your driving with your seat positioned so close to the steering wheel that your face is literally inches away, there's no room for the airbag to deploy out of the steering wheel. It's going to deploy into your face instead of inflating first before your head hits it as intended.

 

I agree with every pet peeve listed.
The most annoying for me is distracted drivers texting, reading mail (seen it) etc.
I saw this one idiot a while back that had a file folder splayed out on the steering wheel of his Range Rover.
That day I had decided to take my 77' Scout II out for a spin. I pulled up next to the moron at a light, said "no f***ing way"
and then I laid on the horn. Which happily startled the guy enough that he threw the folders contents all over the place.

 

When I was younger, and my mom slammed on the brakes when I was in the front seat, she would instinctively throw her arm out in front me. I've always been OCD about wearing my seatbelt. However, when I was young and really small, and the cars we had didn't have any airbags (1990 Toyota Camry, 1993 Chevy Blazer, 1990 Mazda B2600 pickup), this didn't matter much. Even in the 1987 Mercedes that had a driver airbag but no passenger airbag, this was fine. When our cars did have airbags, I rode in the back of vehicles with dual airbags until I was about 12-13 (by then I was growing fast and plenty big enough to ride in the front with an airbag). I was still fairly small though.

However, fast-forward to about 2006-2010 when I'm a 240+ pound guy in his late teens and early 20s, riding in the front as long it's just me and her, and all three of our vehicles have airbags. The one we were primarily in together was a 2004 Honda Odyssey.

I pretty much laid out the facts to get her to stop doing this:

1. I'm wearing my seatbelt
2. This van has front and side-impact airbags.
3. If we actually get into a wreck and you fling your arm out, the force of the airbag will break your arm in half
4. If the airbag doesn't mangle your arm even somewhat, the force of my overweight body hitting it probably will
5. If your arm hits any part my body, I will probably be hurt, and the airbag slamming your arm into body will probably sent both of us to hospital
6. Even in a minor fender bender where the airbags don't deploy, we could both be very badly hurt just because of gravity
7. If we get into a wreck, the seatbelt, airbags, and the fact that we are in about 2 tons of Honda minivan will keep me safe

I broke her of the habit in less than a week...

And seriously, just the fact that we were prolific seatbelt users in a Honda Odyssey would have probably kept us safe in most collision situations.

My cousin's sister-and-law got her parents' 2003 Honda Odyssey EX as a first car when she got her license. Someone abruptly made a U-turn in front of her and she T-boned them going 40+ MPH. Of course the driver making the U-turn was found totally at fault and luckily had good insurance. They were not hurt either and surprisingly I don't think it was totaled. F***ed up, but not totaled. The front end was destroyed, both airbags blew, and since the van was like 12 years old and had about 200K miles on it, they totaled it. My cousin's sister-in-law was completely unharmed and her parents helped her pay for an almost-new Ford Fusion as a replacement...

 

I always wonder what aggressive Mercedes-Benz drivers who routinely cut me off or tailgate me would do or think if they knew what happened to the last Mercedes automobile/idiot driver duo who hit my truck. They'd probably back off. The same goes for BMW drivers (the ones around here are worse than the Benz drivers in my opinion). The best part is that I have dashcams now, I'll actually be able to make their insurance company pay up this time even if they lie.

And don't even get me started on the people who tailgate in me in compact cars. My thoughts are "I totaled a guy's Mercedes without even trying. What do you think would happen to your Civic if I had to brake suddenly?" My guess is this:
New bumper and maybe some minor bodywork ($1,200-$1,500) for my truck and I could still drive it, and they're paying for it. The random compact would probably have $4K or more in damage if not totaled, and either way it would have to be towed.

 

There is a McD's in Doylestown and a Wendy's in Southampton that were NOT built with any consideration for anyone driving a larger vehicle. I bumped my left side mirror on the side of each building at least once and now resort to just folding it in...

Luckily the only time I go to McD's anymore is to pick up the occasional Big Mac for my boss. I can't stomach McD's anymore thanks to being spoiled by the great food at the bar where I work...

 

I carry a false steering wheel and act like I'm swerving into oncoming traffic. Caused 3 wrecks. Add that too your list .

 

It's one thing if someone has a legit import tuner or performance vehicle like a Subaru Impreza WRX STi, a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo, or even a Civic Si, but I can't stand the largely stock Civics (most of which have automatic transmissions) that people put hideous spoilers and fartcan mufflers on. What this typically means is that not only does my Tacoma have a better stereo than your pathetic excuse for a car, but you also have one of the few vehicles on the road that my 2.7L slushbox Tacoma can smoke without any effort!

 

Isn't that a felony in some jurisdictions?

 

Another peeve is people who are convinced that you MUST have the arrow lit to make a left turn at a multi-lane intersection. These are the mental midgets that will sit there, with a green light, and NO oncoming traffic, but NOT MOVE because the left turn arrow isn't on. It's not red, signaling no turn, it's just not on which means it's not a protected left. If there is no one in the next lane, I have been known to pull out, go around them, and make the left in front of them. After 3 or 4 more cars follow, SOMETIMES they figure out that it's O.K. to go.

 

People who criticize your driving habits when their own driving record makes you look like the best driver in the world...

I am very honest and open about my various driving SNAFUS, but I have never gotten a ticket in the nearly 6 years I've had my license (2 parking tickets but no speeding/moving violation or equipment violation tickets) and only got pulled over once (it was BS, I'll happily explain why). Never any points on my license, certainly no DUIs or license suspensions, and I've had had the same truck almost since I got my learner's permit the second time (another story for another time).

I have one friend who severely damaged (but did not total) his mom's loaded Camry Hybrid, then just 2 years old. The airbags did not deploy and the car was fixable, but the accident was his fault because he failed to yield, and there was damage to the front axle/left steering control arm that prevented the car from being driven and it had to be towed. About 4 years after the first accident, he actually totaled another vehicle that his parents actually gave him (an SUV this time) just a year and a half after he got it.

His parents gave him another car and I got him to wise up when I told him that he probably wouldn't get another vehicle on the house. To say he got a second chance was an understatement. The car he got was only 2 years old and had been the replacement for the now-totaled SUV his dad gave him. His dad missed the ride height of an SUV so he gave him his loaded 2-year old Altima and bought a new SUV. He's been hit twice in the Altima, but those incidents weren't his fault. He's never lost his license or even gotten points, and he's not a drinker so DUIs aren't even a slight possibility, but between getting his license and the totaling of the SUV he's been pulled over numerous times and gotten a few tickets.

He's also even worse at backing up than I was. Everyone's driving record is their business, but this friend has regularly criticized my driving habits (going too fast, playing radio too loud, driving distracted) and I don't like that. If someone I know who has a virtually flawless driving record gives me constructive criticism, that's fine. My friend, however, has no right to criticize me. All I have to do is tell him I've had the same truck almost 8 years and kept it mostly in one piece, and remind him that he severely damaged one vehicle within 6 months of getting his license, and actually did manage to total another one after having it less than 2 years. Then I ask "which one of us has gotten numerous tickets, and which one has never been pulled over?" It shuts him right up.

And seriously, I've had a few fender benders (more than half of which were not my fault and none of which involved dangerous/intoxicated driving) and I've never been pulled over. I get substantial discounts on my insurance because I've never been ticketed or pulled over. So, don't criticize me about anything without looking in the mirror first!

 

Had this happen with an old woman in a Kia Soul last week. Not only that, she actually slammed on her brakes on a yellow arrow when she was right there and there was plenty of room for both of us to clear the intersection!

 

Nailed it! The left lane is for passing, and is not called the fast lane

 

Personal experience: People who prove they shouldn't have a license when they almost cause bodily injury while backing up. And forget about both parties being in vehicles. I've been in two incidents where I was almost BACKED OVER, within a couple weeks! Only the first incident was truly terrifying. Almost everyone on Tacoma World knows I backed into a lot of stuff with my truck before March 2015. The reason I wised up is because I got rear-ended and got a brand new bumper, paid for by someone else's insurance company, to replaced my scuffed up, dented, and slightly rusty bumper. I saw it as a clean slate.

When I did back into stuff, it was always below the top of my tailgate and out of sight, or because my bumper stuck out. Very little if any damage resulted to either my truck or whatever I hit. I have NEVER EVER almost backed into a person or any living thing, EVER. NEVER COME CLOSE.

First time was in late summer 2015. I was walking through a shopping center parking lot to get stuff at the hardware store for my boss. I was looking at my phone I think, and there was this white 2003-2005 Honda Accord parked in a spot to my right. I did not see anybody in the car, I did not hear it running (Honda vehicles are well-known for having quiet engines), and the reverse lights weren't on. While I am right behind this Accord, at about the rear license plate, the lights come on and the car just starts coming back. I was like a deer in the headlights, except I was a human in the reverse lights. I was just too shocked to move, and then I started screaming at the white-haired 60-something woman behind the wheel to stop. She didn't stop. I was starting to fall backwards and the back bumper was touching both of my knees. At this point I started pounding on the trunk lid and that got her attention. She slammed on the brakes and the look on her face just pissed me off even more. It was more "What the hell are you doing back there?" than "Oh my God! I'm so sorry!" I just glared at her with a look of blistering fury and pure homicidal rage and screamed "WHY DON'T YOU LOOK WHERE THE FUCK YOU'RE GOING?" I wasn't hurt, and I could tell by the look on her face that I scared the shit out of her (figuratively and quite possibly literally), so I just walked inside the hardware store and went about my business. She put the car in park and stayed where she was for a good five to ten minutes, probably too shocked by what she'd almost done to move, and then she left without even coming into the hardware store to apologize. I'm glad she almost backed over me instead of actually backing over a little kid, and if being sworn at and more than likely having her trunk dented by the huge 260lb 5'11" guy she almost backed over instilled fear in her and made her change her habits (which it probably did), then I forgive her.

That woman in the Accord had to be in her late 50s at the youngest, probably got her license at 16, and you'd think she'd have the common sense to look behind her, backup camera or not. I'd only had my license for a little over 4 years at the time and I still have my flaws, but nothing I've done behind the wheel between September 2009 and February 2017 even comes close to what that woman almost did that one day. NOTHING.

It still amazes me...

 

It's not CALLED the fast lane, but when everybody is doing 60 MPH on the PA Turnpike in a 70 MPH zone, it becomes the fast lane... I always do about 80 on the turnpike to keep up with traffic...

 

1) People who are too afraid while driving.

2) People who are not afraid enough while driving.

 

People who seem eager to win a Darwin Award. TODAY, I drove to the local produce store to pick up some limes, lemons, and oranges for the bar (typical Friday). As I'm backing into the parking space, this preteen kid whizzes past the front end of my truck on a bicycle, NOT wearing a helmet. Keep in mind that this is Main Street in Doylestown Borough on a Friday evening! All of a sudden I see two more kids hauling ass down the hill, and I was convinced at least of these little bastards was going to hit my truck. Shit like this is why I have two dashcams, so if someone gets hurt as a result of their own stupidity, I won't be held liable for it.

I couldn't back up because I was at such an angle that I would have sideswiped the blue Equinox parked to my left, and if I pulled forward I would have been in the middle of Main Street. I just stayed put, and thankfully the little punks braked. The whole time I was just staring at them with a WTF look on my face, and I could tell by the look on both kids' faces that they knew they'd almost screwed up. I was not worried about a kid on a bike damaging my truck, but rather worried about him severely injuring himself and his parents attempting to hold me responsible. My truck was STATIONARY! Also, pedestrians are one thing, but bicyclists are subject to the same rules as cars...

The other thing that confounds me is what the hell a couple of school-aged boys are doing riding bikes on Main Street without helmets,

 

I think the most WTF idiot I ever saw was one morning merging on to the 405 north from Western ave in LA, looking over to the left was a woman putting in her contact lens - I used to wear them so I knew she wasn't just putting on eyeliner. It wasn't like it popped out, she put both in so she had been driving without them.

 

I don't even text and drive... However, one time I pulled over to the shoulder right near a stop sign to either do something with my GPS or answer a text.. I put on my hazards, and I was hunched over. A middle-aged woman in a blue Lexus RX pulled up alongside me and asked if I was okay. I told her yes, that I'd just pulled over to answer a text (or whatever I was doing). I've also lost count of the number of people I've beeped at for texting or digging around in their center console at a green light. I wish the woman who rear-ended me at a green light and did $1,200 damage to my Tacoma had done that.

 

And incident #2 is nothing compared to incident number one. I was in Doylestown Borough taking pictures of a truck parked on Oakland Avenue before I went to my 2nd job as a pizza delivery driver. A white Chevy Express from Comcast XFINITY pulled into the metered parking space right in front of me, and I waited for the guy to finish parking. After a minute or so, there were no reverse or brakes lights, an obvious indication that the van was in park and that more than likely the driver was about to get out. I stepped off the curb and walked behind the van to finish taking pictures. All of a sudden the reverse lights came back on, and the idiot started blindly backing up. Yelling at the guy didn't work, so I resorted to pounding on one the glass windows in the left barn door. The foreigner behind the wheel got out and started yelling at me in very poor English, and then he realized I was right, got back in his van, and did the one-wheel peel (I guarantee you a cable van does not have posi).

It gets better. Turns out this cable guy was heading to a job at the very pizzeria where I worked, as I found out later. The look on his face when I walked into the pizza place like 10 minutes after he backed into me, and greeted my physical large incredibly intimidating take-no-bullshit Italian boss (the owner) with a friendly hello, was priceless. Turns out this guy was as incompetent at fixing internet as a he was at driving. He not only didn't fix my boss's internet, but made it even worse. When my boss was complaining about the internet not working, I told him that the same idiot had almost backed over to me, and my boss said "Fucking asshole." What this meant was that I'd proved his point...

 

Southern law enforcement officials who will pull over any vehicle with license plates from any state/commonwealth farther North than Virginia, and then go out of their way to give the driver a hard time...

If you're on the East Coast, this is common anywhere farther South than Maryland. Midwest and South-Central states also don't like "Yankees," and Ohio is particularly strict regardless of where the offender's vehicle is registered (Google "New Rome, Ohio").

This happened to my uncle when he was driving through North Carolina on his way back home to Pennsylvania from South Carolina. He was driving his 1991 Toyota pickup which was still registered in Pennsylvania at the time, and at the time was also what many truck guys would consider "under construction." A North Carolina state trooper pulled my uncle over and claimed he'd seen him not wearing his seatbelt, which was BS. What really happened is my uncle was not wearing a shirt and had a lot of tattoos, he was driving an "under construction" truck that looked downright ghetto, he had a Pit Bull-type Dog (the dog in the picture is my uncle's actual dog who was riding in the truck; a Staffordshire Terrier named Willy, who is more of a teddy bear than anything else, at least most of the time) in the front seat, and a bunch of boxes in the bed. If the truck was registered in NC, the trooper probably wouldn't have given a second look, much less called for backup.

My uncle has never been arrested in his life, his Pennsylvania license was valid, the truck was registered and insured, and he had absolutely nothing to hide. The first trooper called for backup and my uncle was asked the same questions 2 or 3 times to make sure he didn't change his story. He didn't. Then the cops asked if they could search the truck. My uncle gave permission, and the first trooper had him sit in the front seat of the cop car while he and his colleague searched the boxes of CAR PARTS in the bed of the truck. Then they moved on to the cab of the truck...

Remember what I said about Willy being a teddy bear MOST of the time? That 2010 picture depicts Willy acting the way he acts 99% of the time. The 1% is when you try to go anywhere a vehicle belonging to anyone he particularly loves, like my uncle who raised him from the time he was a puppy. Unless he knows you personally or sees you approach the truck WITH my uncle, you may as well being trying to steal my uncle's stereo or the entire truck, even if you're a uniformed police officer just doing his job... Willy will transform from a dog I'd trust around a newborn baby he'd never met before to the stereotypical attack dog if any unauthorized personnel gets withing a few of my uncle's truck. Luckily, the cops were smart enough to just give up and didn't get bitten... My uncle was sent on his way without so much as a warning...

By the way, like I said I've know Willy since he was like 6 months old, so I fall into the category of people he loves. I can and have walked up to another truck my uncle had and cuddled with him on a hot day with the A/C blasting like he was my own dog. My uncle said that if I left him in my Tacoma with the windows cracked, I would take the place of my uncle, and nobody would get near my truck unless he knew them personally or he saw them approach the truck with me.

Having Willy in the truck during loading/unloading would pretty eliminate the problem of drunk people leaning against it when I'm parked on Printers Alley...

Sucks he's now about 11 years old, almost complete deaf, and a full-time teddy bear...

This picture was taken at my uncle's old house in July 2012 (after the incident highlighted above), when Willy was about 6 years old and still a part-time theft deterrent for the 1991 Toyota pickup. Still hard to believe this dog could keep two state troopers from searching the cab of a truck for nonexistent contraband: