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My wife's mother has a new Mercury something or another. She didn't get a manual with it. She'd had it for a couple of weeks and broke down. A police officer let her know that she should have the hazards on. She replied that she couldn't find them. He told her to try pushing the button with the hazards symbol on it. "Oh, that's not a button, that just tells you it's on!" "Push it anyway." "Oh, so that's how you turn them on...." To be fair, it doesn't click like a mechanical button, and looks exactly the same as the indicator lights on either side. I found it in about thirty seconds because I push EVERY BUTTON and turn EVERY KNOB on every car I get in, if I think I can get away with it. It took me about 45 seconds to figure out how to get the Prius to go, however.
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Sep 10, 2013 00:35
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Ask me about rear-ending someone in California and being found not at fault! Someone parked their car in an exit lane. Put car in park. On an off ramp. No brake lights, no motion, nothing; just sitting in the car (in park) because the light was going to take a long time. CHP took everyone's statements. My insurance went after their insurance, and everything was fine in the end (my insurance won, and I'm not at fault). People are, have always been, and will remain, incredibly stupid.
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Sep 13, 2014 10:52
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Deeters posted:Are you supposed to use your turn signals at all That's about right.
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Oct 4, 2014 16:45
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PT6A posted:How the gently caress can people just not notice it when they back into a thing? I tapped a cement post when I was learning to drive stick at well under walking speed (it turns out I was on a slight hill), and I immediately noticed and went out to see if there was any damage (nope -- not even a scratch). I can't fathom backing into a car and just driving away. My friend's mom backed into a Geo Metro in her '77 blazer (lifted on 35s). She thought the transmission was acting funny because all of a sudden the truck was way down on power. No, actually, it was your truck caving in the side of that car that's too low and narrow to see out of the mirrors, then pushing it sideways out of its parking spot. We flagged her down as she was driving out of the parking lot and let her know. She was suitably embarassed. Total damage was a 1.5' dent into the door of the car with the trailer hitch, which was the only thing on the Blazer that showed any sign of damage. There was also a bit of paint transfer on one side of the bumper. She left a note, and the owner's insurance contacted her later.
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Oct 6, 2014 16:48
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Pham Nuwen posted:Would it be going too far to start honking at people when I see them texting and driving? I wondered about that the other day as I cruised up past someone in the classic head-down position. Nope. Anything to keep their eyes outside the car is fine. I have been SORELY tempted to ride up next to some idiot texting and slap the phone out of their hand. I got behind some dude in a minivan who got a phone call at a red light. Light turned green and I honked a bit to get his attention and he drove off. I was prepared to be all pissed off because he's being an idiot and talking on the phone, but he then proceeded to drive PERFECTLY. Not weaving, indicating properly, checking blind spots, maintaining consistent speed within a couple MPH of the limit, not delaying at lights. Absolutely textbook driving, all while yammering away into the brick glued to his ear. It was bizarro land.
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Oct 9, 2014 18:45
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Seat Safety Switch posted:I've shared this story before, probably in this thread, but two years ago I drove my Miata to work during the worst blizzard of the season because the MAF in my Subaru was acting up. I didn't really have any trouble getting there but one morning - the first big snowfall and deep freeze of the storm - I saw a brand new Pathfinder in the ditch. The look on the guy's face as he saw my tiny gay car burble happily past the spot where his invulnerable 4x4 had failed him is something I will cherish forever. I know I've shared this story before, but I used to have an S-10. When it snowed in Hampton Roads, everyone lost their minds. I took off the camper shell and unloaded everything out of the bed and went drifting around. It was glorious. As I was headed to Chesapeake on 64, I notice the other side of 64 (separated by a wide, snow-covered median) is at a standstill. No surprise, someone probably wrecked. I then see a big billowing patch of snow in the median, and some lifted blazer just spinning wildly out of control. I slow down just so I can gauge a trajectory for this vehicle in case it's going to come all the way over into oncoming traffic. The median is roughly ditch shaped, so as the blazer gets to the middle, its path is shifted and it's now spinning donuts at about 30mph in a straight line down the center of the median, pedal to the floor. As I pass, I hear a tremendous "WOOOOHOOOOOOOO" coming from every occupant of the vehicle. Glorious.
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Nov 16, 2014 18:04
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jammyozzy posted:
There was a guy in a BRAND NEW CHARGER that kept parking like this in the two spots right in front of the door in the hotel we were staying at on a business trip. My coworker and I decided to discourage him. I parked my ratty spray-painted rashed ammo-can-saddlebag motorcycle nice and square in the center of the parking spot, which was about a foot from his driver's door. The coworker parked his '01 silver-and-primer rashed-panel impala tight in the other space. Wheels on the line, but a technically legal parking job. Again, about a foot from the other door. We don't know how he got out; my bike was unmoved, and his car had no obvious marks. Guy stopped parking across the lines in those spaces; he went to the other side of the lot to do it.
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Dec 5, 2014 15:17
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https://www.google.com/maps/@35.351445,-80.688947,3a,75y,25.64h,84.45t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sbfVXAH7vz6r4BpKl6nYisw!2e0 This is in front of Charlotte Motor Speedway. There are a total of 9 completely reversible lanes. It's typically signed for six lanes with the three in the middle being X, but that can change somewhat randomly. That whole couple of miles is a nightmare normally, but traffic control measures activate for up to 30 miles in every direction for the 4 days surrounding a "race weekend."
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Dec 21, 2014 14:33
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GENDERWEIRD GREEDO posted:I took an I-25 on-ramp once south of Albuquerque that had no merging lane and it was uphill onto a road with a several-foot-high wall on the side so I had no visibility of any oncoming traffic until I got off the ramp directly in front of a semi. San Antonio. That thing is a death trap. Uphill around a corner with incoming traffic also in a turn, where the oncoming is going 75+. Worth it for the green chile cheeseburgers at the Owl, though.
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Jan 14, 2015 04:06
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Siochain posted:Everyone I know hates how long I take to pack/tarp/strap loads in my truck box/trailer. Nothing I'm hauling will ever fly out like that video, though. Man. I had to go get a bunch of stuff from Home Depot and I took my father-in-law and his truck. Few sheets of drywall and some interior doors, that kind of big, billowy stuff, along with baseboard trim and some other smallish things. We go to tie everything down, and I'm throwing the twine over to him, he does something I can't see on his side, and throws it back. I keep knotting and securing and tightening and whatnot, expecting him to do the same. We get out of the parking lot and I get up to 25mph, when the whole load flaps up on his side. I immediately pull over. He's looped all the twine around the baseboard trim and tied it off to a gallon bucket of drywall mud. I used all the hard tiedown points in the bed. It suddenly struck me that the average person thinks that just tying stuff to stuff (or not at all) is an acceptable way of securing a load. When I asked him about it, he just said "looks like we can only go about 25mph the rest of the way home." Yeah, not so much. I redid the whole tiedown procedure (after moving 20' forward to get out of the fire ants) and proceeded home at normal speed (45 and 55mph limits). Putting on your flashers and going slow should not be a replacement for some incredibly basic knotwork.
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Feb 17, 2015 18:03
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Three inches of ice fell on the Carolinas Monday night. The state shut down Tuesday. Today, however, people are out in droves. I took a 15-minute drive and saw no fewer than 20 tank commanders. It's above freezing and the ice is melting, they just only chipped it off tiny sections of windshield. I saw over a dozen hood- and roof-sized plates of inch-thick ice flip up off cars and smash into the street at 45-55mph. The roads were littered with these debris piles, too. To make it even better, the county put down about four inches of salt along major roads. It was an absolute chore avoiding those roads today.
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Feb 18, 2015 17:34
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The Locator posted:It's more than a bit puzzling how badly people drive when there are phone numbers and vehicle identification numbers all over their company vehicle. Makes you wonder how much attention employers really pay to those reports. A guy I worked with got the "demo" company van one day. The lettering idiots had put the phone number on the van wrong. So when we drove a bit agressively in traffic and someone yelled "I'm calling your boss!" my coworker yelled "do it. Call him right now and tell him he's an rear end in a top hat, I quit, and I'm stealing his van!" Absolutely priceless look on the rager's face. My coworker took that specific van A LOT after that. Also, anecdotal, but I rear-ended a car in California and was found not-at-fault by the police and both insurance agencies. The other guy had put his car in park in the middle of an offramp.
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Feb 20, 2015 04:25
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I accidentally shifted into reverse in an early-90s Mazda 626. There was a loud ratcheting sound and i jammed the brakes. When I skidded below 20, the transmission engaged and there was loud clunking and I stopped. I had an 87 astro that was on its way out and I shifted that into reverse at about 50. It also made a ratcheting noise and continued on like in neutral. I put it back into gear and everything was fine. My friend tried it on his GMC Safari (same van, same year). He, however, went past "R" into "P." There was the ratcheting noise, then a pop, then silence. From that point on, he had two neutrals.
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Feb 26, 2015 23:56
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dennyk posted:A lot of people just don't realize that in most places, when you're turning right on red or from a stop sign, you have to yield to people making U-turns. It can make things a bit awkward at some intersections, because you often can't tell a U-turner from a left-turner until it's too late, so you may have to wait until all the left-turning traffic clears out. There's a bunch of "U-turn yield to right turn" signs near where I live. I've been making a u-turn on green arrow when the right-on-red people just zoom up to the intersection and blow on through the red light to turn. I realize I would have to yield if they were there first, but they didn't even SLOW DOWN for their right-hand turn. Also, I was the person you share a road with today. Well, not share, I suppose. Three times I got caught in a place where the road goes from two to one lane with no markings. It just gradually gets narrower over the course of a mile or so. I was driving next to someone all three times and had to squeeze in behind them. I guess having local plates on the car but not being "from around here" makes people assume I'm just a tremendous rear end in a top hat for not knowing the road and merging in earlier. edit: The Google street view shows a generic yellow "right lane ends" sign and stripes on the road. Neither of these things exist now. Northern winters are HARSH on roads, and plows are probably pretty harsh on signs. babyeatingpsychopath fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 01:48
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Ringo Star Get posted:So Illinois got schwacked by a bit of a storm earlier today where it must have dropped visibility down to zero. To a lot of people in this state, that means jump in the far left lane and aggressively tailgate people with their lights off. I was driving around Illinois in the post-deluge fog around 8pm and noticed a silverish car hanging off my passenger quarter panel. He's got his lights on and everything's fine except for the fact that he's pacing me. We go through an area that has a bunch of housing and I want to merge over that direction, do a quick glance and don't see the car anymore, so I put on my signal and start to move over. Cue a horn, because this imbecile has turned off his lights and is now upset that I'm merging into him. It's well after dark, in the fog, and he's got a silver car. What could POSSIBLY have possessed him to turn off his lights then act like the aggrieved party is beyond me. I was also upset a bit earlier because there was a z71 suburban with six ladders on the roof next to a kia soul. We were on a stretch of road with a 55mph speed limit and stoplights every 3-5 miles. They would take off from the lights wheel-to-wheel and make it up to almost 53 before we'd hit another set of lights. Ten minutes of this bizarre elephant race left me baffled as to why EITHER of these vehicles can't manage an acceleration profile greater that 1mph/s. As soon as the Kia turns off, that z71 is going 70mph and weaving through traffic. I don't get that at all.
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May 9, 2015 15:50
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Scruff McGruff posted:It drives me nuts when people stopped behind someone in another lane jump into my lane at a red light as I'm still approaching the red. I was stopping based on the amount of distance I had to the red and now you have significantly changed the amount of distance I have to stop! Is it really such torture to be behind another car at the light that you need to get into the empty lane? Even worse is after the light turns green and that person just putts along. If you are going to gently caress with my stopping distance at least get going. Why was it such a big deal for you to be first in the line when you aren't even going fast? I'm sorry I cut people off to get into the free lane. I'm a bad person for doing this. But I use all of my meagre engine's capability to go like hell off the green. I've seen my fuel map. My best fuel economy is at 1100 RPM and WOT, everything in between is ugly compromise. I'll do either, but 1100RPM acceleration is not a whole bunch of fun. Let's let this 3.8 purr (or hum, growl, rattle, knock, cough, wheeze) on up to whatever our intended speed is, then let the transmission just shift from "1" into "OD" and we can be on our way. I'm not lying, either. I cut off teslas, then out-accelerate them up to 65. It's because I'm not texting. I'm also not dicking with the radio, because it's broken. I'm not messing with my mirrors, because they've fallen off. I'm not fiddling with my drinks, because I have no cupholders. I passed a Lamborghini Aventador the other day. It was on the back of a flatbed, but I count it as a "win." You share the road with me, and I drive a beater.
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Jun 6, 2015 08:22
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This guy was as terrible as you'd expect. I saw this poor jetta a few cars up from me at a light and thought the thing was going to explode. Then he pulls into the parking lot of the place where I was going and I noticed his license plate.
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Jun 15, 2015 16:08
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PenisMonkey posted:Nah. He even had his indicator on. He knew which lane he should've been in but wanted to zoom to the front. Not an easy task for a Prius to achieve against an M3. This happens every day on a motorcycle. I, like everyone else on the road, use only about 20% throttle to accelerate away from lights. This means I can get from 0-45 in about 4.3 seconds. This is REALLY REALLY FAST to someone in any non-supercar, whose 0-45 times at 20% throttle are in the one minute range. Every now and again, some car will use perhaps 60% throttle and manage to get up to the speed limit before the next stoplight, but it's rare. It may look like I'm drag racing away from every light, but I'm really not. I need 7k RPM to get the stupid thing to move; it sounds like I'm revving the piss out of it and dropping the clutch, but I'm really, REALLY not.
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Oct 25, 2015 18:10
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Sagebrush posted:Motorcycling down the road today in the pissing rain. I'm on a four-lane divided road, in the left lane in my direction, and at every cross street there's a NO LEFT TURNS 7-10AM 3-7PM sign. I'm behind a woman in a fancy new Audi with no license plate. (In California, you don't need to have a plate displayed for the first six months after you buy the car due to some idiotic loophole). I pulled up to an intersection with no fewer than three signs saying NO TURN ON RED. There are two right turn lanes; both occupied, and I'm on my motorcycle, next to go. The light is red and we all stop. The two cars stopped then proceed to turn right on red. I give a little "WTF?" hand gesture at them, and move forward to the stop bar. The guy behind me then proceeds to honk at me a couple of times. I look back and he honks again. I point directly at the three NO TURN ON RED signs, in order. He gives this hands-up-waving "jeez, dude, really?" gesture. I turn around to wait for the light, and he honks again. I ignore him, and wait until the light turns green to go. I do not get blindsided and killed by the traffic whipping up a hill around a corner. I get it, dude, the two people ahead of me just broke the law and did something unsafe. I'm the jerk for NOT doing that.
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Dec 22, 2015 03:12
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Mariana Horchata posted:
I know the name of the municipality is Reading, but the sixth-grader in me is going "who's gonna stop me from checking facebook and driving? The READING POLICE?!"
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May 6, 2016 02:33
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Sten Freak posted:Every day on the way to and from work I see people looking at phones sitting at green lights, getting onto the interstate on ramp (seen this morning) weaving down the road, driving obliviously from one place to another. Every day. I agree with you. The drunk driving thing has been so effective that a sign like "We'd rather you drive drunk than text while driving: it's much safer" would probably make a large number of people at least think about something, maybe. I got disheartened while typing and realized that no, people on phones in cars isn't going to stop until they all wreck.
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May 14, 2016 02:09
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Geirskogul posted:In my 1988 Delta 88 it just goes into neutral and throws every check light and kills the engine, but keeps rolling in neutral. In my 88 Century, reverse has an amazing ratchet that makes a godawful noise, scaring the driver to throw into park, where the pawl immediately snaps off and now you have two neutrals!
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Jul 30, 2016 13:11
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PT6A posted:I was following/in front of a guy who was driving so bad that, even at 10AM, I'm almost sure he was drunk as gently caress. Speeds varied between 90 and 130, speed limits were ignored entirely (40 in a 50 km/h construction zone, then 70 km/h in the same) and he was having the worst loving time maintaining his lane, constantly drifting to the right. I can almost guarantee that it's texting, or pokemon or something phone-related now. Before phones in cars was a thing, I was happy that someone was drunk. That gives an excuse. They are physically incapable of reaction times that allow them to safely drive. People on phones: No excuse, they're just stupid assholes being dangerous.
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May 20, 2017 18:06
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um excuse me posted:They don't have to turn if they don't want to, FYI. The speed limit is just that, an upper limit. You are legally allowed (in most places) to go slower than that in any lane, if you want to.
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Jun 26, 2017 00:57
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xzzy posted:Last time I looked it up I think the majority of Texas' fatal accidents were single vehicle too. No helmet law in TX, either. Insuring a bike in Texas is DIRT CHEAP since insurance doesn't even have to pay out on the most common accident: single-vehicle fatality with no collateral.
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Jul 8, 2017 22:51
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nsaP posted:I'mma be honest here, I stopped worry about my turn signal a lot of the time because about 3/10 times it indicated to a person behind me that I was coming over so that they could make sure I had room, and about 7/10 times it indicated to them that they should speed up to close the gap. Yeah. That blinking light on the side is a signal of intent, not a request for permission. I give two blinks then start moving. I've had people get SUPER close, trying to cut me off, but I have so far won in all the chicken games.
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Nov 23, 2017 19:07
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bigbillystyle posted:Instead people see that their exit is coming up, move into right hand lane, slow down to 45mph for the next 1/2 to 1/4 mile, move into off ramp lane, slow down to 25mph regardless of off ramp speed limit, eventually exit the highway. Couple that with the people that also think that merging into 65+mph highway traffic at 35mph is the best strategy and I just don't understand how so many people get on and off highways everyday without even more traffic accidents than there already are. It consistently flabbergasts me that what are nominally thinking human beings can see a problem and come up with an opposite solution. "Here's a big line of traffic one lane over going much faster than I am. SOLUTION: Must hit the brakes." I understand that I absolutely drive in a style that is considered aggressive. I accelerate at or near my pathetic car's capacity, and brake late at 60-70% of capacity. I take turns at a speed just under which the tires make noise. This driving style TERRIFIES people. I don't understand it. Granted, when I'm in the work Tahoe, I drive the same way, and my speeds are slower, but still. I make the engine get the thing up to speed as quickly as it can. Why is using a control (be it steering, braking, or acceleration) near its limit anathema to the general driving population?
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Dec 2, 2017 04:10
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I put it in neutral at lights and I drive an automatic.
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Dec 23, 2017 19:27
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Domestic Amuse posted:They're not the brightest knives in the light socket. Or the sharpest light bulbs in the crayon box. A couple of beers short of a happy meal.
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Mar 11, 2018 17:45
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Gorilla Salad posted:I was considering painting my rear bumper with the reflective paint emergency services use. I saw a guy here who had a 1' square of SOLAS retroreflective material on a piece of cardboard. He held it up when a brotruck was tailgating and that dude backed away pretty quick. I bet it seemed like the guy was holding up a million-candlepower flashlight, but it was just the brotruck's high beams going straight back at him.
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Mar 29, 2018 11:04
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nm posted:Idaho has had legal Idaho stops for more than 30 years and there isn't a bunch of dead people over that. Neither of the people in Idaho have ever hit each other.
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May 3, 2018 02:02
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Submarine Sandpaper posted:I had some old gently caress in front of me stop over 30 ft behind the next car on 50mph roads. So loving stupid, basically as unpredictable as stopping randomly. I was coming to a stoplight and there was a long line of traffic in my lane and only a couple cars in the other lane. There was an old redneck in a ratty truck whose front bumper was about even with my rear wheel, so I couldn't move over. When I stopped for the light, he stopped, too. Still even with my rear wheel. There were at least 8 car lengths between the front of his truck and the next vehicle at the light. He was basically stopped in the middle of the road. I absolutely could not fathom what was going on. I didn't want to try to change lanes from a stop in case he suddenly came to his senses and plowed into me or something.
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Sep 7, 2018 01:15
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wolrah posted:The core concept is good, but anything that tells people to slow to 25 MPH on an otherwise free-flowing highway is pretty stupid. Slow down OR move over. They put it on the information signs when there's nothing else important going on. This means you have the option: slow down, or move over. Please don't do both. When you see the lights, don't immediately pull the drag chute and dump it left three lanes. Especially if the lights are on the other side of a divided highway with a median, two rows of jersey barriers, and a wire separator.
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Sep 8, 2018 02:25
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https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0973411,-107.5813681,3a,75y,13.57h,87.49t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sMoOfBx8R1ySzjfGzATstnA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 This used to be my favorite road. That intersection sign used to be a sign listing the fines for speeding. It went up to 100mph over the posted 55mph speed limit. From that intersection, you can, on almost every day of the year, see (without exaggerating) thirty miles in front or behind you. The posted limit used to be 55mph, because that's just what it was. From what I can tell, they have since replaced all the speed limit signs with "please don't litter" signs, and have stopped enforcing speed on that stretch. Note: this is not an exaggeration, there was a sign letting you know how much you'd be charged for going 155mph on a signed 55mph road. It wasn't anything too crazy, $200 maybe. No impounding your car, no reckless driving, no losing your license. If you had cash, you could pay the trooper right there and he'd sign your ticket "paid." The google maps must have showed up on a particularly cloudy day, since there are clouds visible in the sky; that's pretty unusual. It's also unusual to see that many cars on the road. I would regularly travel that stretch from Magdelena to Datil a twice a day and never pass or see another vehicle, person, animal, cloud, or movement of any kind. There are hundreds of roads like this across the desert Southwest, many with speed limits posted. Note that New Mexico is roughly 90% of the area of Germany, with something like 5% of the population. The same rules, logic, and driving habits absolutely do not apply, nor are particularly relevant to compare in these two locations.
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Sep 23, 2020 16:46
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