What’s With Drivers These Days?
Posted by Stephen on
March 5, 2007
I was driving out to breakfast with Kelly today and a police car was coming up the middle of the road with its sirens blaring. It definitely looked like it was in a hurry to get somewhere. The first thing in my mind was to pull over because obviously if a police cruiser is booking it down the road like that, someone is in trouble, and they need to get there fast. I pull over, but a few people behind me decide to punch it around me and play “Oh look at the police car!” WTF? Did I miss something here? Are we NOT supposed to pull over when emergency vehicles are coming up the road? Well, I sure hope no one delays your emergency call when you need them.
When we get to the cafe, as we’re walking up the parking lot, some idiot books it up the middle of the parking lot in his piece of shit truck and screeches into the 10 minute loading zone spot at the front of the lot. It looks like when its not a loading spot, its the ramp for the handicap spot beside it. I guess the guy was in some sort of rush. As we head in, we see that its some dopey looking guy. Let’s just say he’s there for more than 10 minutes and he’s in no rush. What a dick!
I just had to get that off my chest.
Some drivers in the town where I live are terrible. When I drive home from the office all is great and then we cross the border in to my town and wow… you have to be on guard at all times
Taxis just pulling out in front of you is common, people going through red lights. I think I am going to move back to Leeds so I dont have to deal with them anymore.
Sorry to hear of your experience but I am sure it felt good to get that rant out. It is amazing sometimes to see how some people behave behind the wheel of a car, actually it is more scary than amazing.
On my way to work this morning, I witnessed a guy in the left lane with a state police cruiser on his tail with lights and sirens going yet the guy seemed completely oblivious to his presence. Eventually the cop had enough room on the shoulder to get around him but some people just don’t pay attention on the roads.
On a lighter note, you know you’re a techie when you read “What’s with drivers these days?” and you think of computers instead of flesh and bone humans. LOL
haha I was like that too when I first read the title. I was like ok.. what issue is he having with drivers and his machine now!
lol such a geek..
I wasn’t thinking about that when I was writing this, but that could be another rant:
Where are my frickin’ Vista drivers?
I guess I fall under the geek category too, because when I saw the title, I thought of the same thing.
speaking of vista, I believe that people who have vista and play FPS are having trouble with it.
Thats the word on the street…
http://www.megatechnews.com/fps-games-go-haywire-in-vista/
I have had the same experiences so many times in my town, it seems like I am the only driver who pulls over!
I really think that the driving test needs to be much more difficult!
Yeah, and also stop people being able to buy licenses and use other languages besides English to do their test. If the signs are multi-lingual, I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but if you can’t read the signs, and you need a translator to even do the test, will you have that same translator when you’re out driving by yourself?
Those damn immigrants again! What!?! They think this is Hong Kong?
This is a huge pet peeve of mine as I have seen people at the DMV getting their license that cannot read or speak one word of English. As you mention, that makes me wonder how they know what various signs/rules mean when they don’t have a translator with them.
Somehow I don’t think it would be as easy for me in another country, although I cannot say for sure as I haven’t ever really traveled to another country.
I couldn’t agree with you more!! Did you know that, in California, you can the test is available in 13 languages?!
The signs are in English. The car, heck, the controls are in English. How the hell do you drive in a land of English when you took your test in something else? Ridiculous!
Another pet peeve of mine is how many businesses in the US are now catering to non-English (primarily Spanish) speaking people. I’m the first generation in my family to be born in North America and when my grandparents and parents came to Canada and then the US, they had to learn English so I am not sure why (well, actually I do know why but…) many businesses have now opted to provide everything in Spanish and English.
If businesses are going to provide alternate languages, I don’t think they should limit it to just Spanish.
Good point – they should provide other languages if they are doing business in other country’s! I can understand wanting to grow your customer base by supporting Spanish, but there are a lot of other languages out there too – but then the cost of the support would be outrages!
Exactly. While I understand the motivation behind only providing Spanish due to the volume of Spanish speaking people, I feel it is a slight to people that have *had* to learn other languages because their native language is not provided.
It boils down to a financial decision as many businesses understand they will not see a return on investment if they provide things in a multitude of languages. However, that doesn’t mean I or anyone else has to like it.
Stephen, sorry for sending these comments off on a complete tangent. I’ll get off my soapbox now.
BTW, any of you from Canada ever heard of Souix Lookout?
What would happen when they get pulled over by the cops? They won’t understand what the officer is telling them to do or what the officer is asking.
I am wondering why Stephen was going out for breakfast before 1:55am since that is when he blogged about it? Was this breakfast on Sunday morning and you were just posting about it or did you have a fun night out with a late night / early morning breakfast?
Given some of the comments, I assume this was Sunday morning breakfast.
It was Sunday morning breakfast, though there is a Denny’s open 24/7 as well as other various early morning eateries. If I really wanted to go at 1:55 AM, I guess I could.
I don’t know about you but Dennys is usually reserved for the late nights out drinking with my boys.
The “Hulk” burger at Knight & Day is awesome drunk food. That and a stick of butter.
Sounds interesting! I’ve never heard of Knight & Day but I can imagine what the “Hulk” is like.
A big, greasy Guacamole Bacon burger from anywhere is great drunk food!
The “Hulk” burger consists of a 1/2 pound full-beef patty, a greasy egg and topped with a sliced bavarian sausage. There’s a bun and I believe some lettuce, tomatoes and dressing but you barely taste them. Comes with a generous portion of hand-cut fries. Mmmm, makes me wanna go get drunk.
A half pound of beef AND Bavarian sausage? That’s a lot of meat. Over at Vera’s burger shack, I think they have something similar… same with Wally’s on Kingsway (for any Vancouver locals in the audience).
I only have one thing to say:
Double-Double
In-N-Out!!
that’s pretty much every day driving here in soCal . . . my cousin actually has a notepad she keeps in her car to leave special “messages” on the offender’s car
You should (or shouldn’t) come out to Richmond more often. Either the young kids are driving too fast or the older folks are driving too slow.
So should he or shouldn’t he?!
If he should, are you inviting Stephen to come so he’ll get irritated before he gets there so he pick a fight?!?! Is this part of some plan of yours?!?!? Do you like puppies?!?!?! What about oranges??!?!?! Did you think this comment would be so random?!?!?!
I always drive out to Dot Com Pho with my ass cheeks puckered. There is no telling where someone will try to stick their car up my ass.
I prefer kittens over puppies and apples over oranges, and no, I didn’t think your comment would become so random.
What’s too fast these days?
Donno, but I can tell you what seems to be to slow: 20 mph over the speed limit!
Don’t drive behind Volvo’s and Camry’s in Richmond. They are accidents waiting to happen
Don’t forget about Corollas.
But I’m particularly wary of middle-aged women (in Richmond particularly) driving large SUVs.
Reminds me of something I was on TV a few years ago, where New York was City was having a lot of problems along these lines. The TV crew spent the day with a fire/rescue crew, and filled out the front window of the big ladder truck as they were going down the street with lights and sirens blazing while cars and cabs purposely cut the truck off to get ahead. They got what they deserved, as the problem was so bad that they now had a police car that follows the fire truck and pulls those drivers over.
But the best part was for the problem of almost every fire zone being ignored and having cars parked in it. They replaced all the front bumpers on the fire engines with rail road ties. Park in front of a building that has an emergency call while your there… pick your car up three blocks down the road!
Gregg, I would LOVE to see that in action. That would teach’em!
That sounds like YouTube material… to be blogged about by everyone.
I find it really hard not to get angry driving around these days. People do some stupid things. I’ve seen people drive up one way streets and keep going like everythings fine even though they’re dodging oncoming traffic.
When the roads are wet it suddenly becomes Mad Max. I swear people actually go faster in the wet. I don’t get it.
That’s funny When I lived in Colorado, people drove pretty normally in the snow – but if it rained 1/2″ or so, there were accidents all over the place!
It’s because rain is clear. They can see throught it. They don’t realise it’s there. Snow they can see
Stupid people.
Maybe! But when I say “normally”, I mean 60mph on the highway!
speaking of drivers and police, I was walking home from work today and i saw a cop turn on his flashers at a red light, cross through the intersection, and turn them off. What a joke. I wish I could have gotten the car number to report him.
I see that a lot too. But I don’t think we can pin it on the whole force. I’m sure that there are only a couple that do that, but that’s enough to paint a bad picture.
For me it seems that most people are just becoming more inconsiderate drivers, they could be good drivers if they wanted to but they just choose to be assholes.
I can agree with that, but need to make a change: “Most people are just becoming more inconsiderate” in general.
Yeah, I actually wrote a blog about it a while ago. Just remembered when I was digging around.
http://www.leochiang.com/driving-lessons/
it definatley paints a bad picture, it causes me t o
lose some respect for them.
sorry about this comment it was done at school and the computer was not cooperating with me.
I think there are a few sites that let you report bad drivers if you note their license plate. Platewire or something.