So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Bugguy]

Really trivial, but high on the pet peeve scale... guy owns a Hummer 2 or 3, made to climb mountains, ford deep rivers, optional expensive off-road suspension, 24" road clearance, etc. Why does he need to take the railroad tracks at 2 MPH. Why not make use of the suspension and take them at a normal speed?

 

[Touchofevil]

Really trivial, but high on the pet peeve scale... guy owns a Hummer 2 or 3, made to climb mountains, ford deep rivers, optional expensive off-road suspension, 24" road clearance, etc. Why does he need to take the railroad tracks at 2 MPH. Why not make use of the suspension and take them at a normal speed?

My issue with "those guys" is how they will take up four parking spaces instead of the one they should take. The arrogance really gets to me, but what's a guy to do?

 

[swanson_eyes]

And parked diagonally, no less.

 

[St.Ignatz]

If you can't park it don't drive it. They always seem to do that when parking spaces are at a premium.

Tom D.

 

[Touchofevil]

I think that they do it to keep their Precious from getting dinged. I see it with big lifted trucks and new muscle-type cars all too often. It'd be kind of acceptable if they parked as far out as one could, but they normally don't.

 

[tonyb]

In a similar vein, I am amused (but not at all ticked off) by the drivers of vehicles capable of traversing rough terrain but who will never put those vehicles to such use. Wouldn't wish to risk scratching it, after all.

On the other hand, I dig thoroughly banged up, rusted out 4WD trucks. A snowplow on the front and a lightbar on top make it all the better.

 

[swanson_eyes]

^ Real Man

 

[sheeplady]

I drive an SUV. Even if I never took it off roading (I drive on seasonal roads all the time that you can't transverse with a car or truck without AWD or 4WD) I wouldn't drive anything else on our snowy roads the way they are maintained lately.

What annoys me more is jacked up trucks driven by poser rednecks who think that because they lifted their truck they're country. Specifically more country than people who were born and raised in the country based solely on their pretty little chromed truck blasting out bad country western.

No, you ain't buddy. Your cat crawls in your oven and has her kittens, but you don't butter 'em up and call 'em biscuits, now do ya?

 

[basbol13]

So you're driving down a super highway speed is posted at 70mph and you're doing 80mph cause you figure the cops wont write you up til you are 12mph over. You're in the left lane making great time passing everyone and there's not a soul following behind. All of a sudden you see a truck on the right doing his posted 55mph an following him is somebody in some fuel efficient dog of a car, when all of a sudden this joker decides to change lanes to pass the truck. All this idiot had to do was wait til you passed, but no he changes lanes and of course his idea of passing speed is 57mph. So now your hitting your brakes so you don't end up in his back seat, your speed drops and cruise is off and there you are polishing this joker's bumper for 10 minutes while he "passes" the semi. Then you realize there is another semi in front of this semi and again this joker doing his 57mph decides he wants to "pass" this second semi. So now your oil pressure drops and your blood pressure climbs as your pin every derogatory name you have ever heard on this joker. By this time you are now leading a caravan of about 50 cars all with the same thoughts of mayhem when after another 10 minutes he passes the second semi. At this point your foot slams on the accelerator and now your off at 90 mph trying to reach that Nirvana you had prior to "Circus time with the Joker".

I guess this is perturbs me more than any "4 wheeler" who has no concept on how to properly use a vehicle for its intended purpose. It's like giving Dom Perignon to a wino.

 

[sheeplady]

I get more upset with passing cars that insist on riding in people's blind spots.

If you're going to pass, please don't hurry up just to lag right in somebody's blind spot for 5 minutes, and certainly don't do it to tractor trailers! If you decide to pass, you must either speed up and pass OR slow down and decide not to.

 

[vitanola]

So you're driving down a super highway speed is posted at 70mph and you're doing 80mph cause you figure the cops wont write you up til you are 12mph over. You're in the left lane making great time passing everyone and there's not a soul following behind. All of a sudden you see a truck on the right doing his posted 55mph an following him is somebody in some fuel efficient dog of a car, when all of a sudden this joker decides to change lanes to pass the truck. All this idiot had to do was wait til you passed, but no he changes lanes and of course his idea of passing speed is 57mph. So now your hitting your brakes so you don't end up in his back seat, your speed drops and cruise is off and there you are polishing this joker's bumper for 10 minutes while he "passes" the semi. Then you realize there is another semi in front of this semi and again this joker doing his 57mph decides he wants to "pass" this second semi. So now your oil pressure drops and your blood pressure climbs as your pin every derogatory name you have ever heard on this joker. By this time you are now leading a caravan of about 50 cars all with the same thoughts of mayhem when after another 10 minutes he passes the second semi. At this point your foot slams on the accelerator and now your off at 90 mph trying to reach that Nirvana you had prior to "Circus time with the Joker".

I guess this is perturbs me more than any "4 wheeler" who has no concept on how to properly use a vehicle for its intended purpose. It's like giving Dom Perignon to a wino.

I see your point. This problem and many others would be very simply solved with a 45MPH national speed limit.

 

[basbol13]

I get more upset with passing cars that insist on riding in people's blind spots.

If you're going to pass, please don't hurry up just to lag right in somebody's blind spot for 5 minutes, and certainly don't do it to tractor trailers! If you decide to pass, you must either speed up and pass OR slow down and decide not to.

What's worse is when your trying to pass and they decide to speed up, in your blind spot of course, so you can't get in front of them.

 

[basbol13]

I see your point. This problem and many others would be very simply solved with a 45MPH national speed limit.

Actually as I can see your point but I believe going one better, banning all motorized vehicles and mandating real "horse power" would be best. You wouldn't have the pollution and you would be well below the 45mph you are proposing and thus eliminating your problem.

 

[tonyb]

I can see driving 80-plus mph during daylight hours in, say, eastern Montana, on I-90, or on a similar divided, limited access highway, which curves gently when it curves at all, and which is relatively flat.

It's not that I don't hit the gas under circumstances under which is less advisable to do so, and it's not that I don't curse the ****ing idiots who don't know to get the hell out of my way, but I'm not going to defend the behavior.

 

[2jakes]

I see your point. This problem and many others would be very simply solved with a 45MPH national speed limit.

On the many occasions that I had to go in early for work & specifically on holidays when most everyone was at home.

I actually enjoyed the drive. Felt like I was "back in time" with hardly any traffic & my speed limit was about 30 to 45 MPH
with no one around to honk at me.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Actually as I can see your point but I believe going one better, banning all motorized vehicles and mandating real "horse power" would be best. You wouldn't have the pollution and you would be well below the 45mph you are proposing and thus eliminating your problem.

You may want to re-think that "wouldn't have the pollution" idea. I ride my bicycle on a mixed-use trail (walking, skating, biking, and, in some spots, equestrians). It's easy to know when you have been preceded by an over-privileged adolescent girl on her horse.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I see your point. This problem and many others would be very simply solved with a 45MPH national speed limit.

YES. In the Era, Maine state law specified that "Operation of a motor vehicle over the speed of 45mph is prima facie evidence of reckless driving."

The thing is, away from what passes for the "big city" here, this is still a state where people drive on the same twisty two-lane roads they did when that law was in force. I live fifty miles from the nearest interstate, and do *all* my driving on such roads. 45 mph is an entirely appropriate speed in such conditions. So why does every jackass in a Miata think they need to go 65 at all times?

 

[Edward]

Really trivial, but high on the pet peeve scale... guy owns a Hummer 2 or 3, made to climb mountains, ford deep rivers, optional expensive off-road suspension, 24" road clearance, etc. Why does he need to take the railroad tracks at 2 MPH. Why not make use of the suspension and take them at a normal speed?

Assuming the high end of normal speed is about 7/12 to 2/3 of the dial.... wouldn't that be about 30MPH in a Hummer? Dreadful things - ugly, slow, and they do feet to the gallon. Can't begin to imagine what the appeal is, unless some folks like advertising that they have no more imagination as to what to spend their money on...

My issue with "those guys" is how they will take up four parking spaces instead of the one they should take. The arrogance really gets to me, but what's a guy to do?

Obviously, as a lawyer, I would never suggest judicious use of a six inch nail up their fancy paintwork. It's what I feel like doing sometimes, though!

 

[Fading Fast]

YES. In the Era, Maine state law specified that "Operation of a motor vehicle over the speed of 45mph is prima facie evidence of reckless driving."

The thing is, away from what passes for the "big city" here, this is still a state where people drive on the same twisty two-lane roads they did when that law was in force. I live fifty miles from the nearest interstate, and do *all* my driving on such roads. 45 mph is an entirely appropriate speed in such conditions. So why does every jackass in a Miata think they need to go 65 at all times?

Not recently, but over the years I have driven on many roads in Maine like the ones you describe and, agree, 45mph is a very "natural" speed limit. Beside that they are just two lanes and twisty, many times, there are houses or mom-and-pop businesses right off the road (sometimes, literally, just a few feet off) where anything faster (and sometimes slower is appropriate) would be very dangerous. But, no surprise, people are regularly passing us by when we are going 45mph.

 

[vitanola]

Actually as I can see your point but I believe going one better, banning all motorized vehicles and mandating real "horse power" would be best. You wouldn't have the pollution and you would be well below the 45mph you are proposing and thus eliminating your problem.

Where I live we are twenty to thirty miles from any interstate highway, and we have many twisty two lane roads. Outside of incorporated areas the speed limit on these death traps is 55 mph, which means that the jerks drive at 75+. This included unpaved farm roads. I currently drive a Four cylinder Dodge, a Flivver and a Benz C280. The C-280 really "wants" to run at 80 on most paved roads, so I can understand the urge to "scorch" when driving a powerful modern machine, but on these country roads with their poor visibility and narrow lanes such speeds are deadly. Remember that these roads are not only used by powerful modern cars. They are also used by farm machinery, slow, heavy grain and stock trucks, Amis buggies and wagons, and those few of us who drive antique vehicles. Leave the high speeds to the interstates, which are built for them, and keep the surface roads to 45 and below.