Really bad and terrible drivers

[sanda]

I try to avoid the interstates and run US and State highways. That said, I also understand that there are a lot of slower drivers on the rural highways. I understand that there are a lot of people who think the speed limit doesn't apply to them. I understand there are a lot of drivers that are driving "distracted" due to cellphones, pets, kids, radios, passengers, etc. I figure I need to drive defensively. And expect stupidity from all drivers. If someone gets near me, I keep a sharper eye on them.

As for truckers... like any one driving any vehicle, there are good drivers and bad drivers. Generally I feel safer with a trucker than I do with another RVer (unless it's a logging truck or a Swift driver.... which seems to be the same thing or they just drive the same). I've had far more near misses with RVers than I've had with truckers. And there's more truckers on the highways I travel than there are RVs.

RVers tend to think they are either entitled or they are unconscious as to what size their RV is. I'm leaning towards "entitled". I generally assume that if they are traveling with a little dog/cat (or two) wandering around on the dash, then they are an accident waiting to happen. I try to stay as far away from them as I can.

Another good example are the idiots that are currently parked next to me. When they backed in, they took out the 4X4 post with the site number on it... along with my now flattened solar stick light ON a thin pole that stuck up about 40" above the ground. I've noticed they haven't bothered to apologize for running it down and they've been here 3 days so far. Currently their big truck used to tow their fiver is parked so it is into the single lane drive by about 3 ft. How considerate of them. My old jeep is parked across the drive in the overflow parking and it's a good thing because they would have taken out my jeep otherwise. As it is, I checked to see if they had hit it when they backed their fiver into the site. And I will check every day while they are here. It's THIS mindset that indicates a bad driver.

I live in an RV park and have since 2005. I've watched a lot of bad drivers on interior park roads. I cringe to think they are out on the highways.

These people not only lack driving skills but also don't understand campground etiquette.

 

[GypsyR]

Went "to town" on our normal Saturday run. It was like one idiot after another. One sample was us on a literally otherwise empty five lane cruising in the left lane and a BMW comes steaming off the interstate, straight across the right lane and directly in front of us so I had to brake. Causing me to go off a bit. At the third such incident causing me to....comment, my wife said, "Well you're just road raging." I replied that I darn well wasn't there just seemed to be an excess of idiots out tonight.

So we went to a store and nosed into a parking spot like normal. Fairly crowded and busy place. Not easy to find a good parking spot. Came back out to find a car parked almost diagonally across the two spaces facing our car. I just pointed at it with my hand and my wife said "OK, OK, maybe you have a point."

Oddly enough, the trip back home was idiot free. Like a box of chocolates...

 

[MFJ]

I don't know if it's gotten better or worse with drivers. I live in an area that's gotten more populated over time, so when I feel that drivers are getting worse I think it's just that I'm seeing more of them. What legit scares me is when I'm towing and your options to maneuver safely uncomfortably dwindle.

Last summer I went to visit my Aunt and we took our trailer with us to sleep in. Traveling down Rt. 40 near Ohiopyle for those familiar. We're in a line of traffic coming up on a stop light where the road merges into one lane. We have some guy behind us trying to merge over in my lane, which has a line of traffic. Getting up to the merge, now he's hanging out beside out trailer. Not by the truck where I could reasonably slow to give space, but near the axle of our 31' trailer. He decides the best way to merge was to speed up and cut right in front of us, and I mean less than maybe 2 car lengths. I tell you what, I almost wish we hit him so I can get his license off our dash cam and go after him because I was p@#$ed. What I can say is that the trailer brakes worked very well and thank god we were already slowing.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

The best ways to avoid horrible, crazy drivers is to avoid Interstates and avoid large cities.

So my 5 or so years in Deming NM showed me that people on surface streets are kind and considerate(not!!!). I have come to believe foot travel is the only way to avoid the "people" we are talking about!!! well, I don't think that works either, as I hear peds get mowed down too

 

[old timer]

I find that most people are compliant and then there is the ones that never towed anything or driven any thing big.

 

[Bigblockyeti]

I was behind a jack*** leaving the neighborhood early this morning. He had GA plates on the double axle car trailer he was pulling and drove in the middle of the road (thank God no one was coming from the other direction), failed to use his legally required signal at every intersection he turned and out on the main road, blocked both north bound lanes on SC-6 to make an illegal u-turn to head south. Some people really just need to be fish food!

 

[GypsyR]

I came up with a theory the other day. I use so much turn signal that there's hardly any left for anyone else.

Yet to come up with one for why some many slow drivers around here are so obsessed with the left lane though.

 

[Rollin Ollen]

I came up with a theory the other day. I use so much turn signal that there's hardly any left for anyone else.

Yet to come up with one for why some many slow drivers around here are so obsessed with the left lane though.

It appears I have the same signal lamp problem as you but I'm still not going to share. I can attest that the "Left Lane Loafer" problem seems to exist continent wide. It seems all it takes is one driver from the UK to travel in North America and many of our drivers just want to make the foreigner feel at home. What accomodating folk we are!

Darrell

 

[LMHS]

My daughter and I developed a theory about turn signals after living in NM for way too long. In this state they don't tend to use turn signals nor do people (men, women and children) wash their hands after using the bathroom. Our theory on non-use of turn signals....

People who don't use their turn indicators also don't wash their hands after going to the bathroom!

Also...
How can you tell if a vehicle is from SC?
It only has one working low beam headlight!
Bwahahahaha!
(I lived in "The Golden Corner" of SC from 1990-1995. I worked in the same area from 1983-1995.)

 

[TheLooks]

I traveled I-81 a lot over the last 13 years, and I-75 to get on it and I-40 and...well all that crap in New England to get to Maine. I find the left lane loafers is generally women, in minivans, and many times they are of Indian/Middle Eastern bent. I have had this discussion in other forums and have had men come in and say they have taught their wives and daughters to stay in the left lane. Safer from trucks and the surface is usually better from less wear....you heard it here. ....also they put the brightest headlights possible in so they could see, screw the rest of you. These people are out there and more people are just following what others are doing. Plus we are importing millions of people that have no clue about rules of the road or anything else. None of them ever took a driving test of any kind.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

I can only speak for what I know! In AZ I-10 slow speed lane has pot holes big enough to swallow a full sizes pickup. Maybe the blame should go to the current government!!! Not it's peons.

 

[team bradfield]

I can only speak for what I know! In AZ I-10 slow speed lane has pot holes big enough to swallow a full sizes pickup. Maybe the blame should go to the current government!!! Not it's peons.

Same with I-40 across AZ & NM, I had to drive in the left lane it was so bad, I would return to RL when traffic behind me cleared