I've been meaning to bring this up but it really pissed me off.
Why does it seem like one out of three oncoming cars drives past me with tires on the line of not over the line.
There's almost nothing that's more annoying.
And this is a fairly recent phenomenon to me (been living in the same town and I'm 46)
Pisses me off too. I take a 2 lane road to work. If someone is on the line (or over) I honk the horn at them. Some days are zero honks, some days are 5.
Smartphones and other distractions is my first guess. I've noticed it's gotten a lot worse in the last few years. Yesterday, I had a dump truck do it to me.
I see this a lot on the bike too - I'll come around a bend hugging the inside to find a pickup in the middle of the road - and as soon as they see me they jerk right. Like... "Nobody else is out here today so I'll just use the whole road until someone comes along then move over a little".
I wonder how there are not more head-on collisions. Because 9 times out of 10 it's not a guy on a motorcycle using only half the inside lane. It's a giant gas industry tanker truck moving like someone needs to get to a bathroom pronto. Those menaces are a whole other category of road hog.
You should be more considerate and respectful of other people. They have selfies to upload, Facebook to check, and text messages to send. How can anyone be expected to stay in their own lane under such terrible conditions?
I guess I'm very territorial, GET OFF MY SIDE OF THE ROAD!
I think it is due to folks not knowing how to adjust the passengers side mirror and having no idea how close (or far) they are to the curbside.
we have the other problem here. people driving with two wheels on or OVER the shoulder line. Had a guy following me yesterday with his car half in the shoulder the whole way. It's like they are programmed to drive with their body in the centre of the lane
The percentage of drivers careening down the road at speed, looking down at their phones is alarming. One thing that seems to improve my chances of getting them to give up their position on the double yellow is my big mirror duallie filling my lane from stripe to stripe coming at them. That usually gets them to move over.
Not just driving, try staying alive on foot on your street. The layout here is two pedestrian walkways / temporary parking areas from curb to white line, maybe 4' wide. Roadway between the white lines, usual markings. Went out to check the mailbox on the curb, thankfully I glanced up the street before stepping in front of the box, otherwise I'd have been killed by some texting (GRM variant of female canine) in a spotless BMW SUV, late apexing my neighbor's driveway entrance by mere inches.
She never looked up going through the intersection another 100' past me...
Time for dual air horns!
(Although I have fantasies about tossing a ziplock bag full of spoiled milk at their windshield instead)
I blame it on SUVs and poor visibility from inside. Nobody is sure where the right side of their car is.
I live on a 2-way street, and parking is technically legal on both sides, but it is tight when people do. About half the people I meet are driving almost straight down the centerline of the street because they can't see they're 5 feet away from the parked cars on their side. They usually refuse to budge, or else the just slow to a crawl but still won't move over.
I notice this, too. I think several factors are at play.
1: phone checking. Facebook,spotify, GPS, etc.
2: "infotainment" systems. Seriously, how can anyone use any of these things while still looking at the road?
3: Vehicle size. I really don't think people realize how large modern vehicles are and have a poor sense of where they end.
4: Vehicle visibility. High belt lines and tiny windows make interacting with the outside world an increasingly smaller priority in manufacturers' designs and law makers' edicts.
Whats funny is i posted this same rant a while ago but it involved a member here so i got told how wrong i was for bitching about it. berkeleyin irony!
It's every single make and model from F450 work trucks to Neons and men and women.
I can't SEE any direct link save for phones. And if that's true, that's NEVER gonna stop.
I'm surprised I don't see two vehicles smashing each other's drivers' side headlights together sooner.
Most cases from what I have "witnessed" from my time on the road is caused by
Women,Teenagers, Men in that order.
And then it's followed up by what they drive which is usually a rather large vehicle i.e. Truck, Van, SUV or Minivan
You will see this on a parking lot as well. It's becoming rare to see a large vehicle parked inside it's white lines of a parking space however it is happening with other smaller vehicles as well but seems to be coming from a group not mentioned at the top of the first list which is the elderly. Again, this one is not really fair since quite a few retailers, churches, government, theme parks are still using the same parking dimensions from the 60/70's and vehicles today are much bigger as well longer. This was painfully obvious at the parking lot Carowinds in NC over the weekend. Then again, they know it because it's a money maker for them to charge you for parking there. It was terrible. You really could not take a shortcut walk between the vehicles to access the park.
etifosi wrote: I think it is due to folks not knowing how to adjust the passengers side mirror and having no idea how close (or far) they are to the curbside.
This....I meet vehicles all the time that are over the center line. I live near several schools and it's largely people coming to pick up their kids in larger SUVs/CUVs. I keep to my piece of road and brush them back. The bridge over the creek is the worst place. The road surface is the same width as the rest of the road, but people insist on running across it on the center line. I don't think they have a clue where the right side of the vehicle is. I do the same thing going through the viaduct under the railway tracks. It's wide enough for two pickup trucks.
Now I regret not taking a picture of my Yukon XL parked literally within a 1/2" of perfect all around yesterday while a tiny-by-comparison Grand Cherokee was not only at a pretty severe angle but had its entire contact patch of the passenger front tire covering the dividing line. Bad enough that I had to squeeze into my door and bump it's mirror with my shoulder.
ebonyandivory wrote: Time for dual air horns! (Although I have fantasies about tossing a ziplock bag full of spoiled milk at their windshield instead)
You'll never regret it. My old Nissan truck had a horn that sounded like "the Roadrunner". I mounted up an air horn and wired it to a switch so I could chose which one to use based on who the offender was. Old lady wandering a little into my lane: "Meep Meep". Jaywalking dirtbag who stepped off the curb right in front of me making me lock up all four so I didn't kill him, yeah, he gets: "BRRROOOOOOONNNNNNKKK!!!!"
I tear up a little thinking how beautiful the second one was.
Years ago I was working road construction, I had a can of orange marking paint for people they were too close. Quite a few cars had stripes.
On the horn thing, I supplemented the decent but not loud enough stock dual-tone horns on the Jeep with a set of the old GM 4 tone units. It's now got a fairly pleasant (but loud and very distinctive) tone.
And it's still not enough to get the point across most days. People either ignore it or get vindictive that I beeped at them for doing something stupid (like stopping for no reason at a merge with no yield sign).
Some days, train horns are a tempting thought. Some people might stand a chance of reacting reasonably if they've actually shat their pants.
stan_d wrote: Years ago I was working road construction, I had a can of orange marking paint for people they were too close. Quite a few cars had stripes.
This reminds me of a douchebag highway construction worker I found a few years ago. Left lane is closed and blocked with cones. Right lane is open. I'm doing 45 - 50 in the right lane (IIRC, speed limit was reduced to 45 mph for the work zone). I'm a few feet from the cones (and pulling a trailer). The guy proceeds to step out just beyond the cones and swing a shovel out in front of me. I didn't miss it by much as I moved into the shoulder... Not sure what the hell he was thinking.
Honestly, if it weren't for the amount of front-end damage that would have occurred and some concern for it coming through the windshield, I would have been very tempted to hit the shovel and just rip it out of his hands to prove a point. You don't just swing a shovel out 50 feet in front of live traffic (especially when it's 9k lbs of Jeep + trailer) to tell them to move over into the shoulder unless you have a death wish.
I see this nearly every day on curves in my rural area, and most offenders drive huge trucks and SUVs. So ridiculous and unsafe.
And this is why new vehicles have lane warnings and some will even steer you back.
Odd though, the lane problem doesn't seem prevalent around here. Occasional construction truck gets on the line. A lot of our roads have rumble strips in the center marker. Maybe that is why.
ebonyandivory wrote: Now I regret not taking a picture of my Yukon XL parked literally within a 1/2" of perfect all around yesterday while a tiny-by-comparison Grand Cherokee was not only at a pretty severe angle but had its entire contact patch of the passenger front tire covering the dividing line. Bad enough that I had to squeeze into my door and bump it's mirror with my shoulder.
I quit being polite about that a long time ago. Especially if I park my car with an empty space beside me and plenty of room between the lines and come out to some monstrous suv so far over the line I can barely open my door enough to slam it into theirs.
I attribute it to people thinking that their phone is more important than living.
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