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Rules of the Road…

As I’ve been driving a little bit more lately, can we please get some basic “rules of the road” down? I think we can all agree on this, but you tell me what you think.

:: Turn Signals: Next time you slide in behind the steering wheel, please note the stick on the left. This stick operates your turn signals. When you are going to turn or need to change lanes, move the stick so the appropriate blinker is working. This is not hard to do. When it’s 7:30 in the morning and I’m tired, my psychic powers are week. I can not just magically figure out that you want to move in to my lane…

:: Tailgating: If you are driving a Suburban that could hold a family of 10 and you have one of those “I can smash anything” grill covers on the front of it, you don’t need to use it to intimidate me. When we are both going down the highway at 75 mph (posted speed is 65) and there are cars in front of me, if I have to call the Oceanside auto repair shop from http://www.atloceanside.com/ it will be their fault, you can’t just shove me out of your way. Get off my ass, because there is no way you’re going to be able to cram that giant tank in to my Honda Civic. No way, no how, so give it up.

What are your biggest rush hour pet peeves?

By Christine

Christine is an Avenger of Sexiness. Her Superpower is helping Hot Mamas grow their Confidence by rediscovering their Beauty. She lives in the Heights in Houston, Texas, works as a boudoir photographer, and writes about running a Business of Awesome. In her spare time, she loves to knit, especially when she travels. She & her husband Mike have a food blog at Spoon & Knife.

25 replies on “Rules of the Road…”

I love the throughtful people that want to share their 1million megawatt stereo playing “I can rap to some old rock song”. At 6:30 in the morning. And don’t forget the lovely 50’ish lady in the car next to me driving down the freeway at 70 miles an hour simultaneously talking on her cellphone, drinking her coffee, eating a donut, and putting on her mascara. Don’t worry about those silly little lines, they’re just a recommendation.

What I hate is when people weave in and out of traffic to get around you and others. Because they are in a huge hurry. Please leave your home 15 minutes early during rush hour. HELLO!
One time we saw this car speading in and around traffic…and a mile ahead he was in a ditch. HA! “Did not get there any faster did ya?”

The turn signal thing is a biggie with me…isn’t it amazing how all of these expensive cars don’t seem to come with them? LOL!!!

Another one…I am at a red light. I plan to turn right, and turn the signal on to that effect. There are HUGE-ASSED signs that say *NO TURN ON RED*. Yet the Masshole behind me insists on honking his horn anyway.

A variation on this is when I’m stopped at a red light, with the intention of going straight ahead, and some asswipe who wants to make a right turn is honking at me to move so they can get by. At this particular intersection, there is NO PLACE I can legally go…to the left is a *left turn only* lane, to the right is parked cars and sidewalk! As if I am going to risk my clean driving record just because this loser is in such a hurry???

Geezers. That’s what I call those who drive too slowly on the freeway. I-95 has a MINIMUM speed of 45. Even THAT is too slow! If you are afraid to drive fast enough to keep up with other drivers on the freeway, get the HELL off the road!

I want a Hummer. Maybe I should make a bumper sticker for my econobox that says…*When I grow up, I’m gonna be a Hummer…and I’m gonna kick your ass!!!*

Todd had a migraine the other night and I drove for the first time in ages. I had a big SUV on my bumper a good deal of the 2-lane county road home. I dropped from 10 mph over the speed limit where I started, to going exactly the speed limit the rest of the way because it was no-passing. My known-for-tailgating (2 rear-ending wrecks in the last 5 years) husband finally noticed that was what was going on in front of him all those years he’d been in an SUV himself. 😉

Hand jobs. Once, when I was driving home on the 405 Freeway (so cal people will know) and the traffic moved an inch at a time, I was stuck next to a guy who was “pleasuring” himself.

I’d inch away, then his lane would move, it was simply awful.

People who think they can still drive at 60 mph even though the road is an ice sheet. Then act all surprised when they slide and hit someone else. *Then* refuse to move out of the road to exchange details, but prefer to stop all the traffic while they yell incoherently at the person they hit. This is very close to my heart today!

I share your dislike of non-signal users and tailgaters, but I also don’t like drivers who feel that the shoulder is just an extension of the road that they can use to bypass the rest of us who are legally waiting behind someone turning left. Oh, and let’s not forget those drivers who driver right through stop signs and red lights as if the laws do not apply to them.

The turn signal thing annoys me to no end. My other peeve is people who drive in the left lane in on the highway like it’s just another lane. They don’t understand that it’s for *passing*, so you can’t drive 60 in the left lane and block all the traffic behind you. We seem to get a lot of those around here.

And the red light thing that the “other Christine” mentioned. I had a guy do that to me not too long ago. It was the middle of the night and raining, and he kept trying to ram his huge pick-up into my little Kia because I wouldn’t turn right into on-coming traffic. I flicked him off, and he proceeded to try to kill me after I turned right by trying to run me off the road.

Tailgaters urk me too. If I’m going over the speed limit at all, and someone is all over my ass, I will purposely drive slower and slower until they back off. I figure that way if they hit me, it’ll at least be less damage. And it kinda tends to annoy them too. I have road revenge, not road rage. 😀

When my father is driving and then asks me to take the wheel just so he can brush his hair. Surely there are better times for hirsute vanity than when you’re in the middle of negotiating Central London traffic?

Oh, and indicators were put on cars for a reason: use them when you turn, stupid.

Hi Christine. One of the observations I made while making weekend trips to Houston [while dating the now-hubby] is that Houstonians do not know what a turn signal is nor do they know how to use it. I think it’s just an unwritten law for those H-towners. 🙂

Don’t forget those who nearly rip off the front end of your car because they want to sit at the light 5 seconds less than they would had they just stayed behind me…and then less than a block they suddenly turn off…no turn signal of course.

Well, not that I drive, but I always find the passing only in the left lane thing isn’t followed very well here (at least in Virginia). When I was in Germany, I was amazed at how they only used the left lane when passing cars on the 2-lane autobahn – here, people just sit in the left lane the whole way, whether they’re going the speed limit or not.

It’s bad here in Savannah but I hate people that as soon as they see you turn on our turn signals (that is if you remember you must use your turn signals), they speed up, determined not to let you over.

Another pet peeve is DeRenne Ave. here in town. As you come into the city on DeRenne, the extreme right lane at White Bluff Rd. is a right turn only lane. Yes, it does continue pass White Bluff but the sign specially tells you you can only turn right onto White Bluff if you are in this lane. Yet, many drivers believe that sign doesn’t apply to them and continue to drive straight on DeRenne pass the light! Then those that do follow the road signs have a hard time getting into that right lane to turn onto the next street! *bangs head*

Can’t stand the people driving downtown in the squares. A road on an east-west route at a square downtown, are to yield to the people on the north-south routes. That is why they have a big old YIELD sign on the east-west route. Yet, a lot of people ignore the yield signs!

Wait. You mean that left lane is just for passing? *wink* EVERYONE in Houston cruises in the left lane. Everyone. I have to remind myself when I leave here that in the rest of the world that’s the passing lane.

German drivers are especially good about that left turn lane. It’s impressive!

I don’t know. Maybe I really am insane — my best friend insists that I am (on this subject, anyway).

I agree 100% on the turn-signal rant, but I returned to TX last night (driving), and I couldn’t help smiling to myself once I crossed the OK/TX border. It’s like everyone suddenly — within the distance of a few feet — learned how to freakin’ drive. Breakneck 90-to-nothing, 85 on the left, and 95 on the right, or, as I call it, the OTHER-fast-lane-for-people-who-get-stuck-behind-people-doing-70-in-the-LEFT-hand-fast-lane. Ha.

It just doesn’t bother me. Sometimes I get annoyed with the humongous trucks and SUV drivers who try to use the size of their vehicles to intimidate, but I have zippiness and agility on my side. I can out-manuver their clumsy tanks like crazy. And I really like the fast pace of the roads here in TX — especially in Houston.

As an ex-Houstonian, I miss the holy heck out of it.

🙂

I do use the left lane as a passing lane on the open highway, by the way. But I don’t see it used that way IN the city in ANY major city in this country, though. And I don’t think it’s feasible to try, really. The logistics are different within the city — and there are just too many cars, you know?

I like the guy who keeps half swerving in my lane because he’s on his cell, but he’s not holding it, it’s cradled one his shoulder, throwing off his viewpoint. Who the hell is he talking to at 6 friggin 30 in the morning anyway?!!!!

The people who run up the on-ramp/merge lane as far as they can when the rest of the freeway is stop-and-go, even driving on the shoulder, just so they can get in front of 10 or 20 cars, then try to merge in front of me, when I got into that lane shortly after getting onto the freeway. Oh, yeah, I also hate run-on sentances.

The worst thing in my town is people who are coming from a side street and trying to turn onto a main road — they ‘inch’ forward so far that they’re actually sticking into the middle of the street and the cars driving by have to swerve to avoid taking off the front of the waiting car.

My old old car, Eddie, didn’t have a working right turn signal (at least, it didn’t after a schoolbus ran me into a snowbank) and for over a year, I had to use hand signals for right turns. It wasn’t so bad, except when it was raining or snowing. Then it was horrific.

Corolloary to Rules of the Road (H-Town):

All things being equal, when it’s sprinkling here, a majority of H-town drivers are like a tribe of Bedouin on ice. This is especially true on the freeway.

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