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

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.

I think that it's slightly more true in cities where there are a lot of drivers, but also a shitload of pedestrians/bicyclists/etc. so you have to be aware of shit.

But then, yeah, other places people are just gunning it like crazy and dodging everything at 50

All this driving talk is stressing me out.

ha i go to school in new england and am a little familiar with the mass pike (but not boston traffic) - new england drivers are really, really bad, it's true. i usually go 71-72 mph (and remain on the right unless passing) on I84, which for the most part of my drive is a 65 zone, but one of the most rewarding things to do when 84 is two-lane is when i'm passing a line of cars (believe it or not at +6mph i'm in the upper speed quartile probably) and some tough guy is coming from behind me wanting to go 8o or something, i'll slowwwwwly take it down to 70...68...65 (he has nowhere to go because we're both passing cars on our right) until macho man gets the idea and backs off. after we both pass the line of cars and i get back into the right lane he'll usually be yelling, flipping me off, and i'll put the biggest smile on my face and wave to him as faux-politely as i can. somehow i never feel bad about costing that guy 20 seconds on his trip

If someone is driving slower than me but passing traffic, I do not begrudge them at all; I mean, they're passing traffic! That's what you are supposed to do in the left lane!

I totally try to trap people who try to pass me on the right though because they are usually trying to go 90 or something ridiculous like that.

yeah it's one of life's small pleasures for sure

i have indulged in braking wars but it always makes me feel dirty.

I love the ppl who get exasperated with you and accelerate around your car... to a red light.

i set my cruise religiously. if i pass you on the left, it's because i was going 64 (in a 55 heh) and you were going slower. if you pass me at any time after that, especially on the right, i know you've just noticed me and put your foot down, so go fuck yourself.

^^^every word of this post

it's the ultimate passive aggressive behavior imo. i try not to let people who tailgait me get on my nerves. i'm way better about just moving over if they start to bother me. that shit is dangerous! xxpost

yeah goole otm

i'll go for an hour sometimes without hitting a pedal

the vagaries of Boston traffic patterns make me really gunshy about cruise control; it's not at all uncommon for 65 mph traffic to suddenly jam on the brakes for no good reason and I've had one too many experiences in my old car where this would happen just as I was encountering a hill, so the cruise control would suddenly start accelerating at traffic going like 25 mph so I just don't use it now

of course now that I have a car that likes to cruise at 88, I think I need to start using it again

(that should really be "Boston/Mass Pike/128 traffic")

I can't wait for self-driving cars a la minority report

is boston traffic as bad as nj turnpike traffic?

I can't wait for self-driving cars a la minority report

^^ this. it's gonna change american life as we know it and be awesome

self-PARKING cars. think about that. our children will wonder what a valet was.

"no parking spaces in less than a block. set 2 block radius?"

"yes juanita"

"parking space found"

"we'll be in da club in time 2 catch five for fighting reunion tour. woot!"

our children will be deprived of the valuable skill of parallel parking

is boston traffic as bad as nj turnpike traffic?

It's similar; I've noticed though on the NJ Turnpike that people are more likely to let you merge.

goole, they already have cars that will parallel park themselves! I find them terrifying

^^ luddite perry is keeping us behind!

I was reading a review of some of the cars that can basically cruise for you on the freeway -- you set your desired speed, and it will keep a safe distance from the car in front of you at or below that speed. If the car in front of you brakes or even makes a sudden stop, it'll jam on your brakes for you if you don't react after a certain time threshold.

So apparently American automakers had this option available and they were like "nah, that will freak people out, we'll only half-ass implement it"

the vagaries of Boston traffic patterns make me really gunshy about cruise control; it's not at all uncommon for 65 mph traffic to suddenly jam on the brakes for no good reason and I've had one too many experiences in my old car where this would happen just as I was encountering a hill, so the cruise control would suddenly start accelerating at traffic going like 25 mph so I just don't use it now

of course now that I have a car that likes to cruise at 88, I think I need to start using it again

― Tal Berkowitz - Vaccine advocate (DJP), Monday, September 12, 2011 4:14 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol yeah cruise control is fucking useless around here. i've literally never turned it on.

going to be hilarious when all these fancy computer-based systems start failing randomly once the cars they're in are like 8-10 years old.

It turns out that the brake pedal still always overrides what the computer is doing!

I mean, that was still the case with the Toyota owners who "magically" ran into stuff, but in that case it was about 99% driver error once they actually looked at the facts

yeah it's more like "drivers will get even more lazy/complacent/distracted because they assume these backup systems are foolproof"

some reports are coming out of hackers who are able to do things to cars via USB or 3G or even SMS. be warned!

lol

we need some banaka up in here

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/04/hackers-break-into-subaru-outback-via-text-message/

I don't know, which is worse: a car that you drive distractedly and run into things, or a car that you drive that hits the brakes for you if you're about to hit things?

remember those Grand Cherokees with the "sudden acceleration" issue that turned out to be "because of pedal placement, ppl were standing on the gas when shifting it into drive"?

Golly, you just have to have equipment to set up your own gsm network and you're good to go!

fwiw this is a way people have done really entertaining phone hacks of all sorts, it's just that it usually doesn't lend to property theft.

x-post

Yeah, the Jeep issue has hit a couple different cars now! There was some other one where people were slipping off the brake pedal and their foot was landing on the gas.

I'm never sure if I think our self-driving car future is a good thing (fewer people killed...in the long-term) or a bad thing (makes awful exurban lifestyles more attractive)

Fuel's still gonna cost a lot

computer-driven cars could react much more quickly than a human driver, it wouldn't need the space in between cars as a buffer for reaction time. conceivably in a freeway situation the cars could be quite close to each other, like a train, allowing for much more drafting and better mileage

Yeah, I live in the upper midwest and that'd be useful for about half the year until ice season

why don't you just put your entire city under a dome