What are some mistakes you observe drivers doing on a regular basis?

Figure this one out for me. I’m up north on vacation, on a two lane road, driving along at about 50 mph. This guy has been tailgating me pretty close. We come up over a rise, to a passing zone. There’s three cars about 150 to 125 feet away, our closing speed is around 100 mph. And the idiot behind me starts to pass me. There is no way in hell he’s ever going to pull this off. I hit the brakes hard and head to the right, the first car coming does the same, and fortunately there’s wide shoulders, because we all passed at the same exact time. I still can not figure out what he was thinking.

using the cellphone while driving.
eating while driving
drinking while driving
running a yellow light
running a red light

Girls driving pink cars
Baby on board stickers in the window
Unfunny, cliche ridden bumper stickers
Indicating way too late
Slow driving

Women putting on makeup while driving is one of the worst.

@Adirondackwannabe OMG. Once Rick and I passed this guy in a really loud car. Pissed him off for some reason. The instant we finished passing him and moved back into our lane, he instantly swung out to pass US…just as we all came up on that triangular “No Passing” sign. Scared the living shit out of me. I don’t know what people are thinking.

@ucme the ones that have (Baby on board) translated means = I am stressed out and I can drive like a suicide bomber because I have a baby on board sticker.

@SQUEEKY2 I think they mean “Please drive super careful or crash into someone else”
I’m driving careful anyway…twat!!

@ucme Not the ones I have seen, if that’s their idea of careful I think I would rather take my chances in Bagdad at rush hour.

“Candy Cane callin Rusty Nail, you take care now sugar”

SPEEDING, no turn signals, screaming at kids, texting or talking, not respecting merge lanes or right of way.

Not paying attention.

The center turn lane is for turning, as i n you get into that lane to turn off the road, so as not to slow traffic. It is NOT a merge lane for you to pull into until you get a chance to merge with traffic. Nobody seems to know this.

We need more driver education in the US. I proposed that they make up simple info signs and post them at traffic slowdowns (such as construction) where people have nothing better to do than read them.

Zipper merge and center lane usage being my top two picks.

@Dutchess_III That is the biggest mistake out there and we are all guilty of it from time to time other more so!!

Around here, it seems people forget how to drive when a new traffic light goes up. We recently got a McDonalds and a gas station right across from the road leading to our subdivision. I have to make a right off of that road to get on the interstate, but people in front of me turning left out of McDonalds seem to think they have the right of way when the light is green. It pisses me off – what the hell?!

Also, switching lanes in the intersection.

@ibstubro Psht, I’m sure as hell not waiting ten minutes for 4–8 lanes to free up at the same time so I can turn left when there’s an empty median to make things go a little faster. And I think anyone waiting behind me would agree.

Man, all the traffic lights in town went out once. It was pandemonium. Common sense would tell you to treat those intersections like a 4 way stop, but it seemed like most people just said, “Oh looky Marge! We don’t have to stop!” And the people intersecting them did the same thing. I got the hell out of Dodge and just used residential roads.

It was really weird how people completely lost their compass. It was unnerving for me too. Had NO idea what anyone was going to do.

@Dutchess_III I thought everyone knew that rule? I got off the NYS Thruway one time in Canastota and the power was out everywhere. But everyone knew how to negotiate in those conditions.

Around here it’s a little slice of heaven when a traffic light goes out. We’re rural, so 90% of the lights are superfluous anyway, and traffic moves so much faster using the 4-way-stop method.

@ucme Heh been eatching Joyride per chance?

@Symbeline Aye, thought the name suits @SQUEEKY2 him being a trucker & all.
Canny film though but.

Tailgating..

Failing to signal a turn.

Stopping on the freeway entrance, rather than merging into traffic.

Weaving in an out of one’s lane, usually because they’re talking on the phone.

Out if the more rural area, where there are some 2 lane, undivided winding roads, people will pass you on blind curves, or when there is clearly another car coming from the other direction.

Not bothering to stop or even slow down at a stop sign. This happens often near my house.

Passing someone who’s going slower, but still going at least or over the speed limit, in the far right lane (not the fast lane or the passing lane) and then getting in front of them and slamming on their brakes.

Throwing lit cigarettes out of the window. We live in a high fire danger area.

Having their windows rolled down and playing loud (usually rap) music at full volume so that my car shakes.

Not letting other people merge into a freeway lane, even though the person trying to merge has nowhere else to go, except up the side of the embankment.

Not stopping for pedestrians that are already in the road.

Racing on the freeway.

Men on motorcycles standing up with no hands on the handlebars, or doing wheelies, on the freeway. I thought I’d seen everything until I started seeing men do this.

Going for a mile with the turn signal on, signalling that they want to go left, then suddenly, without warning, turn right.

Not stopping completely at red lights, before turning right, nor without bothering to notice that there are pedestrians in the road.

People who are signalling that they are planning to merge off of the freeway, while at the same time the person in front of them (but still in the on-ramp lane) is signalling that they want to get on the freeway, but instead of merging off behind them, they feel the need to speed up and pass the other person before they get off, making it almost impossible for the other person to merge onto the freeway safely, or at all.

People driving half a mile on the shoulder and then squeezing (merging) onto the freeway ahead of the other people who were already there, in the merging lane, sometimes causing an accident, but always slowing the line down even more.

People driving with loaded pickups and not having their stuff tied down properly, then seeing that stuff go flying.

@ucme I liked it, the second one is also cool. Actually I forget which one has ’‘Candy Cane’’ in it. But I liked both. Also I…wait. Candid. You strike again lol!

I did?

Oh…no, you didn’t. I thought you wrote candid. Candy cane, candid, get it? But I misread. Lol.

Tailgating. Not just annoying but downright dangerous.

Texting while driving. Idiots.

Cruising in the passing lane, obliviously going slower than everyone around them.

@Dutchess_III yeah I really hate that, and us big rigs if we spend five seconds longer in the fast lane than car drivers think we should they are all flipping us the bird.

See, I know that big rigs are going to pull over, and I stay put behind them until they do. It kind of makes me sick at my stomach to see people pull to the right lane to pass them. I almost got sideswipped by a big rig once. It was when I first started driving. Maybe my first month. I was taking my car, a little Vega, in to get the oil changed. I was in the right lane because I had to turn right soon. The gas station was just outside of town, right where the high way starts.
I was (foolishly) next to the rig on the right side when it started coming over into my lane….OMG. I got on the horn and just floored it. Fortunately he saw me in time.
My dad was behind me, escorting me (that’s how new of a driver I was) and he said, “You don’t EVER pass on the right. And if a truck, or anyone, starts moving into your lane, not only get on your horn, but start flashing your lights, anything and everything you can think of to bring attention to yourself.”
That’s something you don’t forget. I imagine my Dad about wanted to throw up to see it happening in front of him!

When I’m out on out little two lane highways that connect town to town, and the speed limit is 60–70, I always flash my lights at cars that are stopped at cross roads, waiting for a chance to pull out. Want to make damn sure they see me!

Hey @SQUEEKY2…are those mud flaps still available, the ones for the left that say “Passing Side” and the ones for the right that say “Suicide”? I think all truckers should be required to have them.

I drive a lot (at least 45 minutes each way to work, plus a lot more). and my main pet peeve is people going slow in the left lane. They either don’t move when you’re behind them, or when you try to pass on the right they speed up. They’re like zombies staring straight ahead.

Also, on country roads, when you’re right behind someone (giving them a hint that you’d like to go faster than they are going) they don’t pull over.

People who don’t signal, so they think everyone behind them reads minds?

People who stop in places where it’s not appropriate to stop, to check their phones or whatever. Pull all the way over, please.

This happens here a lot. I’ll come to a stop sign. The intersecting road has no stop sign…but the person approaching on the intersecting road stops anyway, as though it is a 4 way stop, then waves me to go on through. I refuse to do so. Idiot. People think they’re being nice but they’re not. They’re just wasting people’s time.

WTF is up with bicyclists NOT using their lane. It’s epidemic here.

@ibstubro not just where you are, I have seen them going the wrong way, not in their lane, and disobeying every traffic law on the book, and they still think they have every right to be on the road as other motorists do.

When you’re on a two lane highway that has intersecting roads: If there is more than one car stopped at a stop sign on one of those intersecting roads, if the first person at the stop sign pulls out onto the highway, all the cars behind him think it’s OK to go ahead and pull out too. They seem oblivious to the fact that there are cars bearing down on them at 70 mph and those cars are a LOT closer now than they were when the first guy pulled out. They just…pull out and you have to slam on your brakes.

@Dutchess_III OMG I have seen that a LOT!!!
Then they look all puzzled when the big truck blasts it’s air horn.

It’s insane. It’s mindless.

IN PARKING LOTS: when people feel that because there are no cars parked in the spots, they can just drive any which way they want to, regardless of aisles, lines, spots, cars coming in and out of the lot.

And the pedestrians just stroll out there without even looking. That’s a recent trend that I do NOT understand.

@Dutchess_III Yes! I do not have an electric car, so I know people can here my car, yet they just walk down the middle of the aisle without even looking up or acknowledging that there is a car (that could accidentally kill them) right behind them, trying to pass. I don’t like to be one of those people who honks, because that usually pisses them off.

I just don’t get it. Sometimes they’re busy looking at their smartphones, but other times, they’re just walking along as if they’re in a cloud of stupidity or something.

I had a friend post something on facebook along the lines of “Last I heard pedestrians have the right of way!” then went on a rant about some lady in her car in the parking lot. I was flabbergasted. Pedestrians have the right of way for the same reason an elephant would have the right of way before a car. It’s not an excuse to act stupid. Plus it’s just rude, rude, rude, rude.

I meant to write hear my car, not here.

Hm. My post didn’t even make sense!