They are trying to kill me!?!

Friday on the way to work I was nearly killed four times. I kind of just took it in stride but then it happened again this morning.

Incident #1; Traveling in the right lane of a two lane east bound road at 50mph a lady in a mini van coming from a side street pulled out to go west bound about fifty feet in front of me. I jabbed the brakes and apperantly startled her because she looked diredtly at me and slammed the brakes on. So she is sitting broadside in front of me and I had to do an emergancy threshold braking swerve around the back of her van. I managed to miss her and the curb by a fraction of an inch.

Incident #2; I managed to make it to the highway and merged into the westbound traffic at around 65mph. I had a semi to the left so I stayed in the right lane.The next entrance ramp was about 1/4mile up the road. I had a pickup truck about two feet off my back bumper and the truck to the left and a car in front. I was pretty well blocked in. Well up comes this suv to my right from the entrance ramp and just rips it into my lane without even looking. Somehow I managed lock it down and rip it to the left missing the back of the semi by around an inch. I was starting to get angry.

Incident#3; Traveling south bound I take an exit to the left to go east on a four lane road. Halfway through the exit westbound traffic from the four lane road has to stop to cross my lane. This is a very dangerous intersection that has three crosses off to the right where people have lost thier life. I get about ten feet from the intersection doing about thirty and the idiot who had been sitting at the stop sign while the three cars in front of me passed pulled out directly in front of me. It was an all out put it in the ditchor t-bone them moment. I went off the road to the right, dropped two wheels in the dirt stood on the gas and somehow pulled it back on the road just before I hit a power pole. Now I was pissed, I stopped the car jumped out and the idiot who had stopped to watch peeled off. If I could have got ahold of him or her I would be in jail now.

That was just Friday morning.

This morning coming down the same four lane road at 50mph I had someone coming from a side street pull out directly in front of me and slam on the brakes again. Someone was in the turning lane and I barely squeezed in between both of them.

I think I'm going to start wearing my helmet because it's starting to feel like it's going to be when not if I get into a bad accident.

May be time to find a different route to work.

Holy berkely! Where do you live?

friedgreencorrado wrote: Holy berkely! Where do you live?

whatever city the "Final Destination" movies take place...

Sounds about par for the course, every couple of weeks I get a day like this where I just pray I make it home in one piece. I would be all for stricter licensing requirements.

friedgreencorrado wrote: Holy berkely! Where do you live?

Where the locals say that northerners can't drive I have never seen the level of complete non drivingness anywhere else I've ever driven until I moved south

Take it in stride and drive safe, my friend. I go to and from work before people really get out onto the roads. Its been a while since I've seen a body being pulled out of a car.

Just be careful in that nutty traffic. I find adjusting my schedule by mere minutes can help with traffic.

nicksta43 wrote:

friedgreencorrado wrote: Holy berkely! Where do you live?

Where the locals say that northerners can't drive I have never seen the level of complete non drivingness anywhere else I've ever driven until I moved south

We have similar problems here in Atlanta Metro. Y'know how different places have different driving habits? There's so many folks here from so many different places that there's no predictability to it at all. Just one big mess.

I don't know if I've ever had four of those so close together, though. Damn, I'd take a day off.

Sounds like you live in Austin, TX. Biggest bunch of no drivin mother berkeleyers I've ever had the displeasure to be around. Lived there since 1993 and it just got worse as the years went on and more and more companies were importing workers. I think they had meetings when they were opening an Austin branch and said, "Who here is a no drivin sombitch... you, John, you're moving to our Austin branch!"

I have been giving serious consideration to getting a motorcycle to commute on. Given how few people around here can see a car I have serious doubts that I would arrive alive on a bike.

that, Nick, is the whole reason I will never own a bike.

It's been like that around here recently. I think the spring like temps are bringing the idiots out of the woodwork.

Sounds just like Raleigh NC.

I second the vote for more restrictive driving licensing. We need a group with a greater skill set.

Be safe out there.

It's weird, but I can go weeks without a close call or witnessing a crazy driver doing his thing, but whenever I do see something wacky, I know to be on the lookout, because it's never just one incident. There have been days I've witnessed multiple acts of lunacy and/or inattention and breathed a sigh of relief when I arrived safe at home in my garage.

^^^ how very very true.

Couple of weeks ago, I was pulling into a local shopping centre. I needed to go to pepboys for some oil. I am making a turn across traffic, so I am sitting in the middle turn lane of the road and If I had felt like the typical BMW shiny happy person, I could have punched it and cut off a nice looking caddy that had put on it's blinker and was going to pull in from the opposite way..

Well, the guy took FOREVER to make that turn and I would up waiting almost another minute for the oppertunity to pull in. I get in, find a spot, park, and get out before the guy driving the caddy has even parked his car (he has been trying to line it up at this point) I run into the convience store and then to pep boys.

While in Pepboys.. I keep running into this older asian man. Every aisle I go into, it seems he is there, just staring at the shelves. I get my stuff, head to the register, and wind up behind him there too. He takes his sweet old time paying, I pay for my stuff and go out to my car.

I get in, start her up, and pull out.. just in time to see the older asian guy getting into the black caddy that started all this... I got out of there quick

Keeping your eyes up - as in always looking as far ahead as it's possible to see, all the time - goes a tremendous way toward eliminating people trying to kill you.

I was a bicycle + motorcycle messenger, former motorcycle roadracer, and the past 5-6 years have done a lot of track time - around the time I started instructing I noticed that the "holy crap - that person just tried to kill me" events rarely happened.

The past year, since going racing in a low lap time car, ie, getting accustomed to going really, really fast, it just doesn't happen anymore. Or rather, it happens, but I'm driving so much farther ahead that I'm seeing it way sooner.

And I live in the middle of a vortex of homicidal drivers - honestly the worst driving I've ever experienced on earth, though I've never driven in any 3rd world places.

So - track time - eyes up.

Doesn't sound like here. Small town, two lane road, 50 mph speed limit. Very little traffic. 10 minute commute unless I get caught at one of the three traffic lights.

Of course, that's commuting at 6:30 am.....it gets annoying later on when there are more cars on the road.

I have to make a shipment drop off at a freight forwarder by the Miami airport this morning. Down I95 into the Maw of Hell drivers. I always do this at 10:00AM, as traffic is lightest then. No joking, when I cross into Dade County, my sphincter clenches.

the heads up works well. I learned to do that when I drove commercial.. however, the problem I have anymore is I drive one of the few cars in an ever increasing sea of SUVs.. between their height, girth, and heavily tinted (factory) windows.. I feel like I am driving in a hole in the road

Situational awareness, especially if you are really considering buying a bike.

If she can pull out so far that she can stop and you can swing around behind her and continue on through you had several seconds to react, and didn't. The top of her front tire told you almost a second before the rest of the vehicle did that she was coming out.

You should have known the guy coming up the onramp was going to merge in. When he came past you, he was obviously going to dive in in front of you. You should have long been prepared for what was coming, and making the room for him.

If you can flail your car around that hard, you could also just use the brakes. Thirty through an intersection with a known history of people blowing through it? Sometimes too there are intersections to simply avoid. Even when it's inconvenient to do so.

If you're going to ride, you have to ride to survive, if you actually want to survive that is. The same methods apply nicely to cars. Situational awareness, readiness, escape plans, etc.

My day would have stopped with incident #1. I would have just hit them.

Motorcyclists always say "Ride like everybody's trying to kill you." The same applies to driving as well.

Moved from podunk Idaho to Omaha (Siberia) to Tampa and I can say the drivers have gotten progessively worse. Omaha had lots of frost/snow/ice/tornadoes. Florida has torrential rain storms and bluehairs. Everybody seems to be issued a cell phone, an SUV and ZERO common sense.

Sometimes I feel endangered driving my 5000lb truck. I can't even image being on two wheels. I feel I couldn't enjoy riding because I'm too afraid of that one person who was distracted for that split second. You guys who ride have bigger gonads than me...

The only person that you have to worry about being distracted for a moment is you.

It does take a different mindset from driving, unless you've been driving a Spridget, Spitfire or Lotus 7. At #2 I thought..."he must be on a bike".

thats why, with the last 3 cars Ive bought, I change the oil, check the tire pressures, and install the loudest, biggest horn I can find at the autoparts store...turbodiesel duallies typically have some badass horns...so, now does my Infiniti G20...

If you aren't already doing this, I would recommend leaving your headlights on.

How do you think our service people in Afghanistan feel? They would love to get down to only 4 attempts per day!