Idiot Drivers

People are lazy.

She already had a story in her mind of what she would lie about to her husband and or the insurance company.

She's got load of money and when she beats that car up, she'll just buy another.

My wife searches for a closer spot? She could have been parked and in the store before she finds one closer.

I'll say this, woman or not.

They should have never made cell phones.

Ignorance knows no gender.

ButtonTheCat said:

I might have been living under a rock, but do most people, when they hit something, not stop and look at their car and check for damage? I look for scratch marks when I miss with the key. Is that odd behavior?

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I do that too! I not picky about where I park either. I don't mind a bit of a walk at all. I quite like it, actually.

Some people are...odd.

Actually, this reminds me of the time I saw a middle-aged man plow right into an entire line of carts that hadn't yet been pushed inside by the bag-boy (bag-girl?). I will admit that it was dark, and the carts were left in an inconvenient place. The guy kept driving; I'm assuming he was too embarassed to get out of his car

BenPanced said:

Ignorance knows no gender.

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I was thinking the same thing. The term, "women drivers," is viewed as insulting and arcane, and refers to a time when females were viewed as the lesser sex behind the wheel. By now, everyone knows that women can be every bit as horrible while driving as men without assuming anything!

I actually hit shopping carts on purpose. If a cart is in a parking spot, I just pull in slowly and ram it out of the way.

I'll try harder...next time.

A couple of weeks ago, I was waiting outside Sears to pick up my mom's lawnmower from the service center when an elderly couple came out. The husband went to "get the car" - which turned out to be a little SUV similar to my mom's parked in the handicapped spot. (He had a tag; the only point being that he was right up front were I could witness the whole thing.) He gets in, finally gets the thing started, guns it back and roars backwards up onto one of the traffic islands, nearly taking out a small tree and a woman in the crosswalk (crosshairs?) He finally gets it back in drive, lurches forward, spends a good five minutes trying to get it straightened out, then guns it again and almost ends up on the sidewalk outside Sears. And here I thought I was bad at backing my mom's SUV up. At least I never took out anything bigger than a stand of dahlias, and that was because I had to steer backwards around a dumpster in our driveway. BTW, the item they were picking up from the loading area? A small weedwhacker.

I'm not sure, but I think it might have been the same guy who took up five - count 'em, FIVE - parking spaces with one Jeep Liberty at Barnes & Noble. He just pulled in at some weird obtuse angle and shut the thing off, then went in.

MacAllister said:

Eh. Some idiot middle-aged white guy on a cell phone came within about a foot of plowing right over top of me in the middle of a crosswalk, when he came wheeling around a left-hand-turn without looking, earlier today.

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I went around the block for another try but you were gone.

On waiting (shopping) for parking spaces.

I work out at a local Gold's Gym four to five times a week. At busy times, people will idle their car for several minutes waiting for a parking place to open up (sometimes) just twenty or thirty feet closer to the gym doors...so they can go in an work out...they don't want to walk that extra twenty feet...to go in and work out...because it's not a machine with those cool calorie counters, I guess. (And no gender bias in this idiotic behavior).

Smish said:

Actually, this reminds me of the time I saw a middle-aged man plow right into an entire line of carts that hadn't yet been pushed inside by the bag-boy (bag-girl?). I will admit that it was dark, and the carts were left in an inconvenient place. The guy kept driving; I'm assuming he was too embarassed to get out of his car

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Haha, I always imagined doing that. Sounds like a lot of fun.

On a recent jaunt to Wal-Mart, as I was leaving the store, I noticed a older man unloading his shopping cart into his truck.

When he was done, he didn't return the cart to the corral. Ok, I see that all the time. What he did do was SHOVE the cart. The end result was the cart crashing into the vehicle parked beside him. There was damage. It was quite a shove.

He looked up and noticed me crossing the parking lot, gave me a smirk, daring me to do something about it.

So I did. I wrote down his plate number and a description of him and his vehicle, waited until the guy who owned the other vehicle returned(just a few short minutes). He was hopping mad, but also guess what? He was a cop.

Awesome. Apparently down here that classifies as vandalism. Which meant I learned something new that day.

It pays to be courteous and treat people's property how you'd like them to treat yours.

ButtonTheCat said:

I always figured I was a lazy person, but maybe it is I'm too impatient to understand the myth of the closest parking spot.

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In a huge lot, when you know you won't be leaving until well after dark and walking across a deserted lot - I could see wanting a spot very close to the front then. Otherwise, I'd rather park out a bit - it also makes it easier to back safely out of a space because there's less foot and vehicle traffic.

Speaking of middle-aged men and cars - this happened back when I was working at IBM. It was a really nice warm afternoon, one of the first really warm days of the year, and I was waiting in line at the light to leave for the day. Leaving the site, it was a right turn out to a light at a t-stop, with a left and right turn lane. There was about a quarter-mile stretch of road - two lanes, with several small but congested business parks and a side street along the way - leading up to the very busy three-lane main road. Well, as I was waiting in the left turn lane, I spied a guy in a black BMW roadster ahead of me revving and making evil eyes with a guy in a red Mustang convertable in the right hand lane. Mind you, we're talking about middle-aged men here, not teenagers. Well, the light changed - and these two both turned left and rocketed up the quarter-mile stretch at about ninety miles an hour. Yes. Dragging. Big time. They reached the turn onto the main road just as the light turned yellow and roared on through, both going right. I reached it about ten or fifteen seconds later, just as I got the green turn arrow - and just in time to see the police car that had been waiting in the far right straight-ahead lane hand a U-turn and roar down the road, lights on and siren screaming. That car went after the 'Stang. I pulled up to the light at the country club and there was Mr. Beemer-in-the-Beemer, looking around at me in utter terror (I think he mistook my black car for a very dark blue police car.) Well, the arrow turned green, he turned into the country club with a couple of other cars - and a cop car came up, also with lights and siren, and turned in after him. Busted. The 'Stang was pulled over about a mile down the road, and that cop did NOT look happy...

Don't know if it was spring fever or a full moon or what....

the foot weighs
heavy on the pedal
of the roadster of life
when the price of
fuel gets in the 40s
and 50s

and the car runs only
on testosterone

Huh. I thought the thread title looked off somehow...

Perfect timing for this thread. Haha.

I was driving home yesterday during rush hour. I drive down this relatively busy street (Nevada) for about five minutes to get to the quieter side streets. The weather's nice, so I have my windows rolled down. As I turn onto Nevada, I find myself stuck behind someone going nearly ten miles under the speed limit (I'm impatient by 5PM) and her car is giving off this awful stench. So I pull into the lane next to her, get up to the speed limit (not even over the speed limit, mind), signal and pull around her.

Apparently, I'd somehow offended this woman and she was determined to prove it to me by playing bumper cars in the middle of traffic.

I look back and find her waving at me, shouting, phone glued to her ear, cigarette between her fingers. She pulls around me, speeds up to the same speed as me and winds up bumping into my car in her efforts to prove just how angry I've made her.

Hm.

Luckily, I had just reached the turn lane to pull away from Nevada. She pulled into the right turn lane to get around both lanes of traffic and I thanked dog that I could finally get to a quiet street.

No damage to my car (I would have cried if anyone damaged my baby), but my goodness, I have never seen someone so angry or offended that someone else had moved around them. I hadn't even cut her off (I could understand it if I'd forced her to slam on her brakes, but I was a car length ahead of her when I moved over)!

ButtonTheCat said:

She's a dangerous driver, you should have reported her. She could have seriously damaged your car or injured you, or other people as well.

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Believe me, I tried to get a good look at her license plate. Unfortunately, she'd gone up to about 60mph and zipped around other cars before I could get past the first two numbers. I don't know the make of cars just by looking at them, either, so I would have been useless to the police ("Um . . . white car doing down Nevada?"). I just hope if she gets into an accident, it's car vs. pole, rather than car vs. car or car vs. pedestrian.

ButtonTheCat said:

Although the ones that really get me crazy are the ones that speed up to pull in front of me and then slow down to slower than I was driving.

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I see people like that all the time. It seems like the minute it hits 5PM, everyone's in a hurry to be the first car in the lane and then they decide it's best to go five/ten under the speed limit.

aadams73 said:

I do that too! I not picky about where I park either. I don't mind a bit of a walk at all. I quite like it, actually.

Some people are...odd.

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I try to find parking spots by how close they are to the cart return, not the door. It's easier to load the groceries, load up the kids and put the cart away if I don't actually have to leave the van. Not to mention, you most often get a few extra inches for parking because those returns aren't as big as the parking spaces.

Silver King said:

I was thinking the same thing. The term, "women drivers," is viewed as insulting and arcane, and refers to a time when females were viewed as the lesser sex behind the wheel. By now, everyone knows that women can be every bit as horrible while driving as men without assuming anything!

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I'm a damn good woman driver and I always remember to fill my turn signal fluid!

MacAllister said:

Eh. Some idiot middle-aged white guy on a cell phone came within about a foot of plowing right over top of me in the middle of a crosswalk, when he came wheeling around a left-hand-turn without looking, earlier today.

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There's construction right by where I work and they had to install extra stoplights. Also, it clogs traffic some during rush hour. I don't know how many people make a left turn in one of the intersections without looking ahead only to find they have nowhere left to go. So then they block traffic when the light changes. Annoying as all get out.