The latest idiot driver trend
 

I've noticed a disturbing and baffling trend around here with stupid drivers. For some reason, I keep encountering cars driving on the wrong side of the road. It's mostly in neighborhoods, as my commute route follows a lot of back roads. Some of the drivers appear to be attempting to get mail out of their mailboxes without having to step out of their cars, which strikes me as a new low for laziness, but I can't discern a reason for others. What is particularly annoying is most of them have their headlights on, so not only are they driving on the wrong side of the road but blinding me in the process. I always return the favor and zap them with the LED headlight on my helmet by staring them down.

This has happened at least 10 times over the past few weeks during my commutes, on different streets with different drivers. Totally baffles me. Perhaps we have an influx of Brits moving to our area and they don't realize they are supposed to drive on the right side of the road in the USA.

i don't miss American suburbia one bit.

Yeah I've seen people reaching from their car to get mail out of the mailboxes. It's really stupid when the mailbox is a whopping 10 steps from where they normally park their cars.

I can't reach my mailbox from my car, car is too low LOL :p

Another thing I see every day in front of my office is people driving the wrong way up a one-way street to get to the next 2-way intersection street up the hill, instead of taking 60 extra seconds to drive around the block to get to that street. smh

Here in Britain we have an stupid thing on the increase. You'll have to flip the left&rights to understand in the US - what happens is:

Car driving dick is stuck in a stationery queue of traffic, he (usually he) is wanting to reach a right hand turn further down the road. He loses patience, pulls out and drives down the wrong side of the road to get to the turnoff - then looks bewildered and angry when a car comes left out of the turnoff into what dick somehow thinks is his lane. It really goes wrong when the person coming out of the turnoff only looks for traffic to their right - and start to roll up their correct side of the road. Possibly smack into driver dick.

I was the car coming out of the intersection the other day. Was out onto the main road before I saw car coming the wrong way. I made him reverse back up the road until it was wide enough to pass. Damned if I was going to back into the side road like he clearly wanted me to.

Not so bad if you're a bike - we can nip over onto the edge of the road, or hop onto the pavement perhaps.

A friend of mine was recording a video to be shown to one of our city councilman when they were considering some changes to the cycling laws. During this video he happened to catch a driver executing pretty much this same scenario you describe:

Whole 3 minute video is interesting, but the incident you describe happens at 1:20.

I had the same thing happen to me yesterday as I turned out of a MUP onto the street and almost got run over by a moron who was totally on the wrong side. He then shook his head at me as though it was my fault. He may have been British or something.

Here's the whole thing. Really interesting to watch. Did it end up helping with the bike laws?

I thought you were referring to the white truck at 1:20, but that guy wanted to turn right, and the road was wide enough, with a right turn lane right up ahead. No big deal. I think you were referring to the VW Passat at 1:34 that went around the opposing cars trying to turn across traffic going your direction. This often happens when you have a center turn lane, with people getting into the turn lane way too early and end up facing opposing cars trying to turn into a parking lot.

Interesting video... Good use of real vehicular cycling... in slow speed traffic where such techniques work. Great lane positioning... done to prevent left crosses.

And ultimately, featuring the totally unpredictable move by a motorist on the wrong side of the double yellow, doing their own selfish thing... showing once again, that motorists can and will do just about anything.

I think it did help. The ordinance passed, which added six new laws pertaining to bicycles: http://www.siouxfalls.org/planning-b...d-updates.aspx

The only bicycle law proposed last spring that didn't pass was to make it legal to run a red light/turn signal where the sensor isn't sensitive enough to be triggered by a bicycle. The city council agreed that the law made sense, but they decided that particular law would be better enforced at the state level and written to include other vehicles (i.e. motorcycles).

I'll agree that both OP's and the British scenario described are the suck. My recent unpleasantness has had to do with greater numbers of motorists who go into the opposing lane on a residential street to pass me - usually while I'm traveling at or slightly above the posted speed limit - while approaching a stop sign, then moving back to the right while still next to me, expecting me to move into the gutterful of wet leaves to stop.

Poll: In these increasingly frequent cases should I:

1. Back off and let them roll in front, which I see as rewarding a dangerous move on their part.

2. Maintain my speed and position, leaving them in the oncoming lane at the intersection, till I make my stop and roll on? This obviously risks that one one day, some nut will attempt to occupy the same space as me at the same time I occupy it - making it a dangerous move on my part?

3. Kick the nearest piece of sheet metal, hork a lung-cookie on their window, shout and gesticulate wildly.

I think you just have to use good judgement, i.e. stand your ground until it becomes an imminent physical hazard to your well-being to do so. Nothing good can ever come from #3.

I've actually seen the woman who lives across the street from me get into her car, drive three houses up the street to the shared mail box structure. get her mail and drive back to her house. In her case, I think she's trying to minimize the chances of casual social interaction.

Some of the meanderthals from the bike path I usually ride on may be your new neighbors.

My other stupid driver pet peeve is people who drive in the dark or very low light conditions with their headlights off. Do they think they are saving gas or something? This totally baffles me. I was passed by a dark-colored Camry this morning that almost totally invisible once it went by me because it had no lights on. I don't know how the guy could see well enough to stay on the road, it was that dark, and it was a street with very widely spaced streetlights. This is one reason why I have several taillights on my bike and wear neon-yellow jackets and jerseys. Reflective gear does you no good when cars don't have their headlights on.

I have become far more judgemental towards drivers in gereral and not in a good way. I am a driver, though much less then ever in my life now. I make mistakes too, but good heavens the major mistakes many drivers make I see while biking! Makes me amazed they and others are not dead already!

I generally fail to be surprised by the stupidity I see on the roads. I am often surprised that people that drive that badly actually complete a single trip without a collision. I know those people are smarter and better looking than I am, but it really seems like they are asking for trouble.

I see this trend around my area too. Too much Batman movies?

Have seen that also. It's like they're thinking "okay let's see how late into the evening I can go before I absolutely have to turn my lights on" smh...

Lights out running is very bad boy, but very common in the semi-rural area I ride in. The other night I heard but couldn't see a very throaty exhaust blast past me at supra legal speeds in total ninja mode. I have no trouble seeing one low end blinky with half-dead batteries do you really think several are necessary? I haven't seen the blinky that is less than $10. I am not putting $30 or more dollars on the back of my bicycle in the mistaken hope that it will keep me safe from someone whose testosterone level is so high that he thinks he can drive without lights at 60mph. Best you can do is stay on the shoulder and pray that he doesn't need it the exact same instant that you do.

H

Ay Dios mio.

Can't see crossing the road to get to the mailbox if the house in near the road, but it's common and accepted practice in rural areas where driveways are quite long (often more a dirt road that leads back the house than a driveway).

A nasty trend I'm seeing more of lately are left-turn cars at intersections I am trying to get through. Because I'm not getting out of their way fast enough, they tend start turning early...

This annoys the hell out of me because, while 99% percent of them are on top of their game ( by that I mean they aren't homicidal...) the other 1% didn't see me (probably because they are looking at their GPS or something.) or would like to scare the bejesus out of a cyclist.

You just never know when an innocent rolling car is going to drive right into you.

Happens to me all the time. Sure, sometimes they're giving me lots of room but they're now driving in the opposing lane. And they rarely signal when they're getting in front of me too.

I usually go for option 2 especially if close to an intersection. If the pass was particular close, option 3.

That's happens to me to. If they're particularly aggressive about it I'll yell or signal that it's not their turn yet.