People Who Live In Suburbs: Classy, Icky, or Dudes?

Speaking of car horns, people hardly use them any more (in the U.S.), as I suddenly realized while watching a 60's movie --it was as suprising to hear all the honking as it was to see everybody lighting up cigarettes.

wait what -- have you ever been in L.A. or NYC?

Here in Miami it's de rigeur.

lol in nyc there are signs saying NO HONKING EXCEPT FOR DANGER, half of which some wit has crossed out the D

UNJUSTIFIED ANTI-SUBURB SLANDER. I am from the suburbs and learned to drive there and hell yeah they taught us to pull out into the intersection while waiting to turn left.

And no, I have never encountered anyone not doing this.

Also, I was taught to call the converse to the Pittsburgh Left, where the left-turner zooms through the intersection without giving the opposite-way straight-goer a chance to go, "the Boston Left." I am not from the Boston suburbs.

!

i am from pittsburgh and have never heard of any such appellation

where are you from?

I am posting from Ikea, Schaumburg, the most heinous of the suburbs.

I dunno man, I thought Schaumburg was bad but then I spent an hour driving around Irvine looking for a non-existent banh mi shop *shudders*

The suburbs: where you attend a halloween party and one guy comes dressed as a homeless person, complete with that newspaper they're always hawking.

Ha. Wow.

I have had some time to think about it, and guess what? I am sometimes guy behind you, honking when you don't turn right on a red light, BUT PLEASE NOTE: I am that guy only if it is completely clear to me that there are no pedestrians or oncoming cars preventing you from executing that daring feat. I apologize if there is a squirrel or supine pedestrian that I can't see that is preventing you from proceeding.

it's amazing how little patience people have when they're driving. I think it's because driving a weird phase between being completely 'in control' and not in control at all.

yeah i have to catch myself a lot like "whoa why am i so mad right now?", no joke. maybe it's the loud rap music

driving / being "on the road" is absolutely a new and terrible mode of social existence.

i think you could make a case for it being a major cause of lots of alienation/depression problems.

:/

I've calmed down majorly in my driving. people actively pass me by for driving too slowly. I've become an old lady.

the problem is, you still have to deal w/ aggression when you drive like that. (other peoples' aggression.)

yeah I can recall a couple of instances where someone else recklessly passed me. scariest one in recent memory was when a driver passed me on a two lane, two way road - he passed me on the left and there was a car coming down the other way and he just barely squeezed through in between us. I did not see a pregnant lady in the car, or any blood, or anything that might suggest an emergency.

the way I break it down to an extent is that if I see a red light, I'm going to let go of the gas - no point in applying any gas at all at that point. if I'm on the highway, the most I'll do is +8 on the speed limit - the difference between driving, say, 63 miles an hour and 70 miles an hour is a gain of 7 minutes over an hour. considering that gas mileage decreases as you go above 50 mph, it makes more sense to budget more time into your trip than to squeeze time by driving fast.

that's basically it but apparently it's enough to earn the ire of dozens of red blooded americcuns

yeah i try to stick to a +4mph in-town and +9mph freeway over the speed limits. but i'm kind of a leadfoot :/

I obey speed limits in neighborhoods and on local city streets

On highways, if you are not going 80+ then gtfo of the left lane

like, drive the speed limit all you want, just don't sit in my passing/high speed lane is all I ask

there's also the element of stress - if you're trying to go 80 mph and have to pass people / get caught behind people every 30 seconds, you're going to have, ultimately, a more stressful trip than if you learn 2 luv 63 mph.

(xps)

my fave is having people roar around me on a four lane, 45mph artery that leads directly onto the freeway out to the burbs (my commute) -- and then turn up maybe three cars ahead of me at the exit light 10 miles away. gj speed demon.

i go through phases, but when i decide to calm/slow down and just chill in a middle lane, especially on the freeway, i have a much better experience. there really is no point to going fast and no speed you 'have' to go. i think maybe my personality is just not suited to driving in the first place. i'm naturally competitive but i get really stressed about 'competing.' not a good combo behind the wheel.

pet peeve is what i call the "douche patrol" -- endless line of SUVs in the fast lane gently undulating from below the speed limit to 5 mph over. seems particularly bad in utah. people here don't get the "passing lane" or "fast lane" concept and so everyone just drives in that lane by default because they have a vague idea that they drive fast, or something.

x-post exactly, there is always pressure to drive more aggressively because x jerk cut you off or whatever, it's a constant test of your patience.

people here don't get the "passing lane" or "fast lane" concept and so everyone just drives in that lane by default because they have a vague idea that they drive fast, or something.

i think people view it as a good lane to be in to avoid merging people, too. the set-it-and-forget-it lane.

pet peeve is what i call the "douche patrol" -- endless line of SUVs in the fast lane gently undulating from below the speed limit to 5 mph over. seems particularly bad in utah. people here don't get the "passing lane" or "fast lane" concept and so everyone just drives in that lane by default because they have a vague idea that they drive fast, or something.

THESE PEOPLE MUST DIE

there's also the element of stress - if you're trying to go 80 mph and have to pass people / get caught behind people every 30 seconds, you're going to have, ultimately, a more stressful trip than if you learn 2 luv 63 mph.

This isn't actually true when you hit those stretches of a long trip where ppl actually know how to use the road; slowing down as you approach someone going 65 in the left lane only for them to move over and let you pass is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Also beautiful is when people signal before moving into the passing lane; it is a joy to allow someone into a lane who has let you know they're going to be moving over as opposed to the douchefaces who zip in and out of traffic like they're LARPing Pole Position.

Basically, when you get actual drivers on the road who aren't dicks, driving is amazing. When you get people who can't drive or people who think life is just like Gran Turismo, it fucking sucks.

I've got a little meter in front of me that tells exactly at that moment what miles per gallon I'm getting. I try to keep that thing right in the middle at 30, which means I don't rev my RPMs up as much as I used to do.

I was also taught to use the brake only if needed. So I start slowing down sooner before I stop, which doesn't waste the energy it would have taken to brake and slow down. I don't go overboard and coast 100 yards at 2 mph, but I also don't gun it anymore either. And besides, it pisses off the tailgater behind me because I'm slowing down even though my brake lights are off.

oh that's why it's all cayennes or whatever. still inexcusable when you have 3 or more middle lanes between you and the on-ramp you can zone out in, maybe pop down your above-dash dvd player. *sees red* xpost to GD

This isn't actually true when you hit those stretches of a long trip where ppl actually know how to use the road; slowing down as you approach someone going 65 in the left lane only for them to move over and let you pass is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

other person's pov:

'douchebag in bmw is on my tail, gonna switch lanes but I hope he crashes soon'

like, drive the speed limit all you want, just don't sit in my passing/high speed lane is all I ask

― Tal Berkowitz - Vaccine advocate (DJP), Monday, September 12, 2011 3:23 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

a lot of highways, major highways, are only two lanes though

'douchebag in bmw is on my tail, gonna switch lanes but I hope he crashes soon'

lol it was even worse in the Rav4

xp: and on those highways, people who want to drive the speed limit need to use the right lane so everyone else can use the fast lane.

This isn't actually true when you hit those stretches of a long trip where ppl actually know how to use the road; slowing down as you approach someone going 65 in the left lane only for them to move over and let you pass is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Also beautiful is when people signal before moving into the passing lane; it is a joy to allow someone into a lane who has let you know they're going to be moving over as opposed to the douchefaces who zip in and out of traffic like they're LARPing Pole Position.

― Tal Berkowitz - Vaccine advocate (DJP), Monday, September 12, 2011 12:30 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

I let out an audible sigh of gratitude when someone in front of me, in the fast lane, going slower than me, moves over to let me pass. i will ALWAYS do the same for someone who wants to pass me. the problem becomes knowing if they're actually going to pass me or not. if they're going to pass me then slow down. if they're going to act like they're going to pass me then stall out next to me. i have flipped these people off, like rolled down my window and flipped them off. true-blue passers, i salute you.

you're not even supposed to be in the passing lane - it's for passing only. after you pass, get back in the right lane! xp

Miami is a city dominated by drivers merrily going 15 mphs in the leftmost lane.

omg Matt P you are my brother in driving *salute*

man I don't think I've ever signaled to somebody my intent to pass them by slowing down in preparation to tailgate them. usually I change lanes, pass them, then change back. this feels better, I'm not imposing anything upon you.

lol dan is sounding like one of those dudes who gets wayyy too worked up over highway driving...

perry i mean

man I don't think I've ever signaled to somebody my intent to pass them by slowing down in preparation to tailgate them. usually I change lanes, pass them, then change back. this feels better, I'm not imposing anything upon you.

In fairness the scenario I was assuming here was that I was already passing a long line of traffic and someone near the front was just cruising in the left lane for no discernible reason. I DETEST tailgaters and refuse to do it myself, mostly because I don't want to die.

i mean, it starts to become apparent that all these little behaviors that are mostly people just being distracted from the task at hand or thinking about something else or setting it and forgetting it or suddenly wanting to get somewhere NOW are magnified 100x on the freeway, it can become this big drama and cause a lot of stress, but in the end it's also completely pointless.

xp like i said, the passing lane is not really a passing lane here!

I wouldn't get worked up over highway driving if people knew wtf they were doing!

Anyway my wife is about a bazillion times worse than I am.

in some ways I think driving or being a pedestrian in a developing world is somehow safer than in developed countries with long histories of driving - in places where everybody is just figuring out how to deal with cars for the first time, people are hyperaware of every aspect of driving. in america, people take so many things for granted, actions become ritualized and habituated, that it becomes easy to zone out and not pay attention to your surroundings.

seriously though k3v, drive around Boston for a while and see if you don't just start wishing instantaneous death on people

the tailgating, blowing through red lights, randomly switching lanes without looking... it's outrageous

I watched someone at a stop sign making a left turn t-bone someone who had the right of way because they failed to look both ways before attempting to make their turn; they were staring to the right and then just gunned it when traffic on that side was clear, never once looking to the left to see if someone was coming from the opposite direction. This is not even unusual driving behavior around here!

d I can pretty much guarantee you that statistically that's not true overall. maybe a few places w/ harsh laws? but somewhere like India just has brutal statistics w/ cars. xp

haha yeah that's verging on "I drive better drunk because I KNOW I'm impaired, so I pay more attention" logic

way to kill my dreams

driving on the autoroutes in France is awesome: cameras set up everywhere to monitor speeding so p much no one speeds, but also nearly everyone drives the speed limit of 130kph which is just over 80mph. When a douchebag flies behind you wanting to pass, though, they flash their lights & honk...not the coolest but it's rare enough that driving is a delight.