I was getting dinner with auto-journal colleague Mike Bumbeck. We were sitting in the left turn lane behind a minivan, about to turn onto a four lane street. The minivan is going slowly. It appears to be heading into the left most lane. OK, I think, I'll swing into the right lane and go around the lumbering kiddie carrier. Suddenly, from the left lane, the white blob cuts hard right, swinging in front of me and heading into the strip mall. "Crazy Ivan! Crazy Ivan!" Bumbeck shouts, referencing The Hunt For Red October. If you've forgotten, submarines can't look behind them– the propellers cause enough noise and disturbance to effectively create a sonar gap. Russian subs took to the practice of suddenly making sharp turns in order to look behind them. Bumbeck said he developed the term when he used to ride motorcycles. The good news? My car has great brakes. What driving habits really piss you off? [Look for former Car and Driver editor Stephan Wilkinson's feelings on the subject in an editorial tomorrow.]
84 Comments on “Question of the Day: What Do Other Drivers Do to Drive You Crazy?...”
Back to TopLeave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
You can also login using Facebook Connect.
High-beams in town.
There’s so much!
-Tailgating.
-Hanging in the left lane.
-Crossing the center line.
-No turn signals.
Too many more to list.
Getting on an on-ramp, not accelerating and then trying to merge into freeway traffic at 30mph.
People not using their turning indicators, or driving with no lights on when it’s dusk, or pulling out in front of you because their all in hurries to go watch NASCAR or do pilates. Perhaps it’s all the “ballers” driving around with their stereo turned up to 11.
People that drive on the shoulder during traffic jams or in long stoplight lines.
I could overload your server with it all, but I would have to say lack of turnsignals. Last I checked, all cars have them!
John
Large (old) pickup trucks changing lanes on freeways without signaling has to rank high.
Worse I think is the habit that some drivers with a passenger have when entering the freeway of trying to get to their “birthright”, their very own HOV lane as fast as possible and damn all the other moving traffic in the three lanes in between.
Geographically I have to say that the denizens of Cupertino, CA take the prize for the most low speed aberrant driving. They have all agreed apparently that use of rear view mirrors and turn signals is forbidden except for the few occasions when it is instead confusing (e.g. signaling right when actually doing a left u-turn).
Stopping, mid-turn, in front of a sign that states “Keep Moving”.
Swerve into another lane without checking to avoid potholes!
Talking on a cell phone and any combination of the above.
1) Speeding to the very front of the bottleneck during lane closures. It is the Epitome of the collective action breakdown. If only we all merged ahead of time traffic would flow normally for all.
2) The left lane hog. “Yeah, I see you in my rear view and I know this is the passing lane, but I am not moving, I like it here.”
3) The “anti-samaritan” While waiting to turn right from a parking lot or side street, the person who will drive right up to stopped traffic and block you from entering traffic in what would normally be the opportune time.
Basically, inconsiderate driving upsets me. I can handle idiots, or the absent minded. But the people who do it on purpose and know that how inconsiderate it is should be deprived of their driving privileges.
hangin in the left lane. refusing to move when flashed. its so stupid to do that
Just had another one: the assumption that parking absolutely anywhere is perfectly fine as long as your hazard lights are on. I had someone block an entire street the other day to run in a store by leaving her her Corolla parked in a driving lane with its turn signals on. People had to cross a double-yellow into oncoming traffic (and it was already bumper-to-bumper) to get around her. I waited for perhaps five minutes in that mess and she still wasn’t back.
“Getting on an on-ramp, not accelerating and then trying to merge into freeway traffic at 30mph.”
-This is probably the single most dangerous thing I see on a daily basis. It makes absolutely no sense either, since it slows them down and makes merging more hazardous for them as well. As much as I hate people not signaling, not paying attention to the road because of cell phones, etc. those behaviors are understandable because they make life easier for the driver. Trying to merge at 30mph makes no sense for ANYBODY. Anybody who does this should immediately have their license revoked and/or be thrown in an asylum because their brains no longer have the capacity to think logically.
I’m fortunate enough to drive a car with 400hp and a 6-speed manual, so when I see someone doing this I usually cut over to the next lane, floor it and get in a position that makes it extremely hard for the slowpoke to merge. This probably makes things more dangerous for everybody involved, but somebody has to teach these people a lesson
A few things:
Tailgaters that think I’m going to speed up and tailgate the car head so that somehow the whole string of traffic will go faster. Tailgating tends to make me slow down, not speed up.
Left lane bandits. Especially the ones that wait till just before their exit to dart across multiple lanes of traffic. I hate to say it, but the fairer sex are the most guilty of this (including my wife).
Cars that pass at high speed and then jam on their brakes, especially on the right, when it is obvious that there is solid traffic ahead.
When towing, vehicles that merge after I have change lanes with my trailer and then pace me so that I can’t move back in the right lane. I speed up, they speed up. I slow down, they slow down.
I don’t know if anyone else experiences this, but in relation to merging onto a freeway: Pennsylvanians (Pennsytuckians?) from the quarter of the state surrounding Pittsburgh default to “if I brake until ALL the traffic goes by, I can merge” mentality. Of course, the traffic never ends and a line of 20 cars quickly builds up behind them on the ramp. They still won’t move. They’re ten feet from a loaded freeway of cars doing 70+ mph and they’re sitting still with their turn signal on (if you’re lucky) and refuse to move. I’ve never seen this behavior anywhere else in the country that I’ve driven, but have seen PA-plated cars doing this outside of their native environment.
thetopdog: Just watch out for Crazy Ivans!!
Left-Lane Vigilantes.
I don’t care if the speed limit is 60mph, and you are in the left lane goine 60mph. Its not your job to keep everybody at the speedlimit. Move over and LET ME PASS!
And flashing my high beams means, “Move over please”, not “I hate you”
In L.A.:
I hate those drivers that insist on hogging the left-most lane in rush hour freeway traffic who keep about 5-car-length “cushion” zone in front of them so they can safely talk on the cell phone while driving without paying little to no attention to what’s going on around them. Can’t pass them, can’t shoot them.
In Nashville, TN:
Whenever I’m in Nashville driving around town on one of them one-lane-per-direction streets, there’s plenty of idiots that cut me off from a side street only to force me to slam on the brake: and I’m staring at this guy’s broken tail lamp for the next ten minutes at about 10 miles an hour: can’t pass them, can’t shoot them.
The people who try to ‘teach someone a lesson’ when someone does something they do not like – i.e. someone cuts you off and you strike back by following three inches from their bumper. I’m sure we’re all guilty of this, but it makes a bad situation worse, and to date I don’t believe anyone has said “Gee, with this guy up my tailpipe, I now realize the error of my ways!”
Talking on cell phones is easily my number one. I’m always amazed when during my 6am commute somebody has one stuck to their ear. Who could anybody possibly be talking to at that time in the morning?
What annoys me most are not the drivers but the people who think all drivers are bad.
In fact, most drivers don’t want to get into crashes and do the right thing most of this time.
This “drivers are nuts” attitude reinforces anti-driver measures like low speed limits and traffic calming.
U-turns on cuts in the median (that aren’t turn lanes)- this usually results in a nearly stopped car that is blocking the PASSING lane in traffic – dangerous! I’ve seen more of this as time goes by..
Sudden lane changes at intersections- I know it may have dawned on you last minute that you should’ve turned at that intersection. Why can’t you make a u-turn up ahead (in a legally sanctioned turn lane, of course) or cut into a parking lot up ahead? So you made an mistake, big deal. Why make everyone else around you pay for it?
Pacing the car next to you on the highway- Traffic should be about flow, people. If you’re going the exact same speed as the person next to you, you’re essentially a single entity that is taking up the space of two lanes wide. Get behind the other guy or get ahead of them!
Besides that, basically any behavior that I cannot hope to predict. I generally don’t get upset when I get cut off if I can anticipate it happening before they even do it. Which, with enough experience and attention, I think most people are capable of doing quite often.
Definitely people who merge at 30mph are the worst because they make things dangerous for everyone behind them, and there is usually no way around it. At least you can generally just pass left lane pirates on the right. The on-ramp idiots are the scariest for me, as opposed to just annoying when people hang in the left lane.
I prefer empty roads, like in the TV commercials.
So many, so little time.
1) Not using your turn signal properly.
2) Not merging onto the freeway at the speed of oncoming traffic.
3) Not maintaining lane discipline while making a turn.
#3 is a frequent problem at an intersection I either cross or turn through after work everyday. It’s a signalled intersection from a moderately travelled street on a (maybe “the”)major street. The cross treet features two lanes at the intersection. The furthest left lane is left hand turn only and the right lane can turn left or go straight. If I’m at the head of the line of cars in the outside left turn lane, I always go as fast as I can, because rarely do the cars in the inside left turn lane want to remain in the far left lane once they have turned. When I’m not in front, I’ll turn into the far right lane and work my way back to the center lane. Three times in the seven years I have been working here, a driver in the inside left turn lane has gone straight while I was trying to turn from the outside left lane.
I always assume that every driver on the road will do something completely stupid.
In general, though, I have to agree with the poster that pointed out selfish, boorish behavior is probably worse than the general lack of attention or sanity that results in the above violations. I always love it when somebody is weaving in and out of lanes of traffic and then I pull up next to them at the next off ramp.
Having been rear-ended twice in the last three years by cell-phone-distracted drivers, this is my number one pet peeve not only in driving, but in LIFE….how in the world did all you people get all your conversations in BEFORE cell phones existed? It is almost like the majority of drivers save up their phone calls to make while they are driving.
Number two on my list is Driverus Impatientus, who will turn onto a two-lane road in front of me, when there is a larger, safer gap immediately after me. This idiot saves maybe 5 or 6 seconds, while endangering the lives of himself, me and the drivers of oncoming cars I may have to swerve into trying to avoid him….
People who drive 85 on the interstate and then jump in front of me right before my ramp, take the ramp, and then slow it way down. They can drive 20 over the limit on the highway, but when it comes to some curves, their crappy pick up truck can’t handle that, so they have to slow me way down, ruin my fun, and waste my fuel.
Tailgating
Hoarding the left lane
No turn signals
Waiting too long after a stop lihnt changes
Slow unsure drivers
I also hate drivers that steal your parking spot that you had the eyes on first, and they know it too: Happens alot in K-Town, L.A. where people are desperate for a spot. One time, I saw an open space on the other side of the street, so I turned my car around. Got the car in a position to get ready to back into the spot: of course, this asshole has to just “slide into” the slot from behind me as I’m trying to back into the space. I contested to the other driver, but all he did was raise his arms up through the window of his car with the proud acknowledgement that he physically occupies the coveted space now, and he’s not going nowhere…So now I know where writers for TV shows like in Seinfeld get their ideas from!
L47_V8 :
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Just had another one: the assumption that parking absolutely anywhere is perfectly fine as long as your hazard lights are on. I had someone block an entire street the other day to run in a store by leaving her her Corolla parked in a driving lane with its turn signals on. People had to cross a double-yellow into oncoming traffic (and it was already bumper-to-bumper) to get around her. I waited for perhaps five minutes in that mess and she still wasn’t back.
Way back in college, somebody parked a VW beetle on a corner in the red zone within 6 inches of my truck’s rear bumper. I was planning on a quick trip to campus. When I got back to my truck and saw this I just went to the library for a few hours to study. I left when I needed to get to work and the Beetle was still there. I had to get to work and my truck had a distinct weight advantage over that beetle; so, I just pushed it out of my way. One more reason for owning a truck, especially when gas was $1/gallon.
Tailgating – especially because the people who do it appear to have the lowest IQ, a lack of attention that stops them keeping both eyes pointed in the same direction and a reaction time measured in days.
Using mobile phone – especially texting.
Without a doubt it’s the guys (and girls) who cross a solid line (either into the oncoming lane or on to the shoulder) to cut into a lane ahead of you when you already have your turn signal on and are waiting for the right (legal) moment to do so.
Honorable mention: the idiots who, upon seeing a sign for a lane closed ahead immediately cut into the soon-to-be-forbidden lane and accelerate to the point of the merge…then dare you not to slam on your breaks and collide with them as they cut back in front of you.
Where are my missiles?!?
“Pacing the car next to you on the highway- Traffic should be about flow, people. If you’re going the exact same speed as the person next to you, you’re essentially a single entity that is taking up the space of two lanes wide. Get behind the other guy or get ahead of them!”
-These people should be executed
Funny thing.
A lot of things American drivers do used to irritate me a whole lot until I spent two weeks in Taiwan. My girlfriend drove us to dinner the first night I was there and I thought it was going to be my last night as well. Serious. I think I was curled up in a ball in the passenger seat. These people are frickin’ nuts. So, now I don’t get near near as tweaked by what I see some Asian drivers do here as I learned that where they came from their driving behavior is considered normal…despite what Sam Kinison had to say.
However, I will rank the whole not getting up to speed on the on-ramp as close to the top thing that gives me a strong urge to help these drivers get up to speed.
a prius needlessly in the high occupancy lane – but he had his sticker – driving slower than the speed limit, blocking other traffic, randomly moving out of the way by barging, no signals, into other traffic, which was also going faster.
witnessed during these christmas holidays. the driver, of course, was a bearded twit …
I’m angry at carmakers for making those worthless stalks on the left side of steering columns. It only raises my expectations that the driver ahead of me, but one lane over, will actually use the thing.
@ssholes that STOP in the high speed merge for an Interstate. I swear, if these people are so terrified of the high speed merge, USE SURFACE ROADS!!!!
Tonight coming home from work I think the only reason that the Acura TL (you know, with it’s anemic 275HP engine and insanely high HP/weight ratio) in front of me didn’t stop when merging onto the Garden State Parkway was the fact that my truck was barreling up behind her and wasn’t slowing up.
Not that I’m an @sshole, just everyone else.
I hate left-lane bandits. Them and the people who pace them on the right.
@ssholes that STOP in the high speed merge for an Interstate. I swear, if these people are so terrified of the high speed merge, USE SURFACE ROADS!!!!
You beat me to the punch. I wonder how people fail to see the illogic in slowing down to merge on a highway where cars are whizzing by at 70 mph. It’s maddening when I’m in my regular car and they force me to slow up when I’m behind them, but it’s downright scary when I had a rental Escape with a 4-cyl engine that barely had enough power to get out of its own way.
What drives me crazy is all of the same things the other folks have said. All these thoughtless,selfish ,so called drivers,that consider themselves to be entitled to do anything they want and that you and I have alot of nerve being on the road,or should I say “their road”, Plus the obvious fact they are the worst drivers around.
The number one thing that drives me crazy are the drivers in Boston who suddenly decide the road is their parking lot, throw on the hazards and get out leaving me stranded behind them.
Next are the drivers who can not take the on ramp from Storrow Dr. onto 93N faster than 35 mph. It enters onto the left lane of the highway!!!!
Also, the people who hog the left lane going 55 mph then try to race me when I finally give up waiting for them to move over and pass on the right. They are almost always driving minivans.
Finally, and I see this most in Jersey, the drivers who exclusively pass in the right lanes and ruthlessly tailgate regardless if the lane/lanes to the left are empty.
A wanna be guy from the hood or a real guy from the hood crouched real low in his “hoopdee” WFO in the far right lane of the interstate.
I never expect to passed at 90+ on the right and it always freaks me out.
Which brings us to my pet peeve; people who don’t “stay to the right except to pass”.
Riding in packs. Good God, are you afraid to be alone? Get heck away from me.
I don’t think that the server has enough memory for one of my rants on this subject. So I’ll bullet point and try to remain calm:
-No turn signals
-Tailgating
-Left-lane slugs
-Aggressive passing on the right. (We need a mandatory keep right/pass-on-left rule.)
-Using right-turn lanes to go straight (increasingly common)
-Failing to use the center lane for left turns, blocking traffic
-Those who dart across lanes or hit the brakes in order to reach an exit (If you miss it, go to the next exit and turn around. Your mistake or bullying are not my problem.)
-Those who stop short of the limit line at stop signs so that they can claim the right of way. (”But I stopped first!!!….”)
Honorable mention belongs to the dolts who pack their trailers and trucks so poorly that they end up dumping stuff on the roadway. Mattresses belong in your bedroom, not on the center divider of an interstate.
Jonny man… you got me started here. These are a few of the most annoying (to say the least) things I see drivers do:
1) Drivers that have no idea how to use their turn signals. I know it has been said before a million times, they do it all wrong or not do it at all, but nobody tells them how to do it right. Most of the time I see people in front of me slamming on the breaks and then start signaling about half way through the turn or lane change. THAT IS THE WRONG WAY TO DO IT! At that point signaling the turn is superfluous.
The reason for the turning signal is to make the other drivers know of your intentions AHEAD of time. Therefore you should start using the turn signal way BEFORE you slam on the breaks or start turning.
2) The “good Samaritan” drivers. Let me explain. I see a lot of people slamming on their breaks and stopping in front of me, in town (35 mph speed limit) because some pedestrians were trying (still on the side walk but kind of looking around for a gap in traffic) to cross the street where there was no cross walk. So what a lot of drivers do is stop and let them cross, out of courtesy believing they did a very good thing. What happens next is they get hit by the driver behind them or the driver behind them gets hit from behind because everybody had to brake too hard to stop. Same thing when they stop to let drivers from the side roads get in the main road.
3) I hate drivers that do not use their head lights when is foggy or rainy. Because the head lights do not help them directly, they do not understand the idea that those headlights are there not only to help you to see but also to help you to be seen.
All I know is that probably more than half of the drivers out there should not be driving a car. And sadly enough nobody does anything about this.
This is the main reason I like this website. Most of the times indirectly and sometimes directly it educates the drivers out there.
Being from the Malibu area,I would have to say that backing on to PCH,on the cell phone,starbucks in hand,smoking,with a dog in her lap is not an uncommon site…………!
Hello!!
1) Grey-/Blue-/No-hairs RIDING(not driving) their Sedan deVille 52 mph in the left lane with their left turn signal on for the last 15 minutes.
2) Boom-boxes set to “STUN” in stop-and-go traffic.
3) 9 kids jumping up and down in the back seat of a clapped out sedan, not a belt or child seat to be found.
4) Stick-on “Buick Ventiports”, gold grilles, diamond or heart-shaped back glass.
5) Drivers reading their favorite novel at highway speeds, looking up every 4 seconds or so.
6) Air fresheners or…NO-PEST STRIPS dangling from the inside rear-view mirror.
7) “Car Magnetism” You pass a car, or a car passes you and suddenly they are inches from your door. The pass is made, and they return to the center of their lane.
8) Women performing “Eye Makeup Maintenance” at highway speed.
9) Backing up along the shoulder because they missed their exit–as if they couldnt turn around at the next exit.
Nobody mentions drunk driving, driving like drunk when not drunk, or eating behind wheel. I see lots of these. Many ways to not pay attention to driving when driving.
Forgive Boston, it has no linear relationships between any streets, its all circular or triangular or one way or all 3 so these people never learn linear behavior. They do not understand moving to right lane to get off to right etc. Plus so many are new they are just lost and act it at speed. Its just a crapshoot there. This does not excuse taxi drivers who just haul around across 4 lanes of busy traffic with u turn with heavy brakes and gas and its up to you to miss them.
In Rochester NH they do not understand high speed on ramps. They come to dead stop and wait for clear traffic which can take a while then hop to right lane with left and right turns and step on it. This is out on northern inland backwoods frontier of Richmond to Portland megalopolis so I find myself assuming they only ever saw their one intersection in the larger interstate network.
In rural VA, I remember people customarily coming to full stop in lane, with blinker on, then turning right, with no stop sign or other car in sight in any direction except me to the rear waiting patiently in neutral.
In Pinehurst NC I remember people driving off to right into dirt then back. They have both hands on wheel and are looking out front as if paying attention. Rumbling along at 20 or 40 or 60, cloud of dust behind then back on pavement. I ride bicycle there so this scared me to death. Young and old, men and women.
In Naples FL they slowly roll forward through red lights into heavy traffic and get hit. They also take a full minute to get Ferrarri to a stop and door open and one skinny old leg with cane down to pavement, parking at 7-11.
In California they eat meals and do household stuff while driving. Makeup, newspapers.
Forgot one….and didn’t see it elsewhere….may not really be a “driving” issue, per se.
Idiots who toss lit cigarette buts out the window, or other litter….from a car moving at 75 miles per hour….they don’t realize that WE drivers behind don’t know WHAT it is they are tossing, so if it is heading toward my windshield, I don’t know whether to try to dodge it and risk a multi-car pileup, or let it hit me, risking damage to my car, and a multi-car pileup. Once I saw a guy toss a half-full big gulp out the sunroof of his pick-up…straight into the open t-roof of the guy behind him (next to me on a 3-lane highway….I got his license number and called the state boys and reported it, but doubt they did anything. Someone could get killed….These jerks should be forced to pickup all the trash from a mile of the interstate, and then EAT it, without catsup….