Driving on the road [sub topic: automatic transmissions]

[W8taminute]

Ok has anyone noticed that literally with each passing day people are getting more and more aggressive and entitled when it comes to driving habits?

During the past week of just commuting back and forth to work I've been cut off at the last minute, tailgated ferociously, and challenged to back down from a right lane driver on the highway.

Subtopic:

Because people are acting like jackasses on the road I find the automatic transmission cars just can't respond smoothly to abrupt changes in traffic flow the way a manual can.  The gear shifting is just too sloppy especially when driving an SUV with auto transmission.

[Gusington]

^Absolutely. In semi rural upstate NY I fear for my life every time I get in the car. Something broke in people's brains during COVID and I fear it will not be fixed. Let me coast down the highway in the right lane at 55mph and leave me the fuck alone.

[Redwolf]

Yeah, especially around big cities.

I still have a manual and it comes in handy with some lane weavers.

[Tripoli]

Yeah, especially around big cities.

I still have a manual and it comes in handy with some lane weavers.

Plus, the current crop of younger car thieves can't steal them, because they don't know how to drive them. 

[Jarhead0331]

I watch a channel on YouTube called Active Self Protection where they analyze confrontations and use of force videos and I would say a fairly high percentage of them start over road rage.

Avoid doing stupid things, at stupid times, in stupid places with stupid people.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

It's always been bad in Vancouver but has recently gotten much, much worse.  The city is being flooded with approx 10,000 new people per month and the infrastructure can't accommodate it.  The majority are immigrants and the chuckleheads in charge of drivers' licences basically just threw up their hands and said "if you had a licence in your old country, you're good to go".  I normally work til 7 pm and up until about a year ago, rush hour traffic had died down for my 35 km commute home.  I could get home in about 30 minutes.  Now I'm lucky to make it in 50 minutes and it's frequently more than an hour.  Mostly it's just volume and choke points but I see an accident at least once a week.  Lane changes and merges seem beyond many drivers now.


It's 2024.  Where's my god-damned jetpack? 

[Gusington]

I stay in the right lane and cruise and I would say 95% of the time I can avoid most assholes. I also leave my house at 5am to get to work by 6am when my office building opens. That also helps a lot.

But in that remaining 5%, the newest fad is to come speeding up and tailgate me (in the right hand, slow lane). I just go slower and sometimes throw them the finger.

Goes against what JH says above, but I can only have so much patience.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Many of the right hand lanes here are infested with cyclists.  The road to my workplace seems to be the go to location for want-to-be Tour de France participants.  They're festooned with matching team spandex, pointy bike helmets and a huge attitude.  The law says they're supposed to ride single file but they always ride 4 or 5 abreast and they refuse to move over.  If I pass them, there's always lots of swearing and finger waving.  One even furiously pedaled up to the security gate at my work-site (it had already closed behind me) and he rattled the bars screaming stuff like "I f**ked your wife!"  I just smiled, waved, walked inside and wondered if the ace security guy manning our gate was going to make an appearance on just stay hidden inside his shack with the doors locked.  He chose the latter.

[Gusington]

^Hmm well that does sound worse than my commute. I do drive through some very beautiful hills used by cyclists but have never had an issue with them.

Motorcyclists are a different matter. The name of the hill I live on is called Storm King and it is traversed by two highways - 218 (smaller 2 lane) and a larger more modern highway, 9W (4 lane).

Every year at least 2-3 motorcyclists die up here from an excessive speed, inexperience, etc. Sometimes their bodies are never recovered. And every year more come. They never learn.

[Jarhead0331]

Many of the right hand lanes here are infested with cyclists.  The road to my workplace seems to be the go to location for want-to-be Tour de France participants.  They're festooned with matching team spandex, pointy bike helmets and a huge attitude.  The law says they're supposed to ride single file but they always ride 4 or 5 abreast and they refuse to move over.  If I pass them, there's always lots of swearing and finger waving.  One even furiously pedaled up to the security gate at my work-site (it had already closed behind me) and he rattled the bars screaming stuff like "I f**ked your wife!"  I just smiled, waved, walked inside and wondered if the ace security guy manning our gate was going to make an appearance on just stay hidden inside his shack with the doors locked.  He chose the latter.

Bicyclists are a pain in the ass in my area too. I don't see them too often, but when I do, they are always very inconsiderate, entitled and for some reason, think they have just as much right to the roadway as motor vehicles. They also think they ALWAYS have the right of way, which just is not true. In New York, cyclists must ride in a manner that does not interfere with the flow of motor vehicle traffic on the roadway. The problem is, if they ride like idiots and get hurt or killed, there is always going to be some inclination to blame the operator of the motor vehicle. It's just like when someone gets shot committing a crime; so often its the victim who was armed and defended themselves or their property that takes the blame.

[Redwolf]

I watch a channel on YouTube called Active Self Protection where they analyze confrontations and use of force videos and I would say a fairly high percentage of them start over road rage.

Avoid doing stupid things, at stupid times, in stupid places with stupid people.

Philadelphia had a series of car-to-car shootings after botched lane changes.

I'm not honking or anything anymore, no matter what others do.

[Uberhaus]

Won't commute into work by bicycle anymore, it's just too dangerous, especially with people on cell phones.  Whether I was driving, biking or very rarely running (it ain't happening now), I always obeyed the traffic laws and treated others  with courtesy whatever my or the other persons conveyance. On the bike, I was hyper-aware of what was happening around me and I was never impressed by other cyclists wantonly running stop signs or other stupidity.

Nowadays in the Greater Toronto Area there is just too much traffic, too much impatience and discourtesy, too little enforcement and accordingly too many accidents.  It is just incredibly frustrating to witness the massive deterioration in road safety.  As to road rage, "Lofty" Wiseman of the SAS Handbooks fame recommends just yielding the lane and letting them do whatever else where.  I don't think I'll ever be chased by the SVR and need to use "speed is life" that the CIA suggested, according to the first Rainbow Six game. 

Gus, I hope you have a Jarhead in your glove compartment.  Me, I curse loudly in the car, but I need to get that under control as it is the only thing the situation that I can control.

[W8taminute]

Yeah I used to act very angerly when someone cut me off but over the past few years I've learned to just suck it up and let the idiots do what idiots do.  It's not worth getting upset over. 

Most of the time traffic offenders lay the blame on the victim and not themselves.  They just can't or won't think courteously of others.

[Gusington]

I'm much more chill than I used to be. It helps tremendously, as do the hours I commute. But something is seriously wrong when I can't drive 5 minutes without some jackassery. I believe a lot of it has to do with phones.

[solops]

Ok has anyone noticed that literally with each passing day people are getting more and more aggressive and entitled when it comes to driving habits?

During the past week of just commuting back and forth to work I've been cut off at the last minute, tailgated ferociously, and challenged to back down from a right lane driver on the highway.

Subtopic:

Because people are acting like jackasses on the road I find the automatic transmission cars just can't respond smoothly to abrupt changes in traffic flow the way a manual can.  The gear shifting is just too sloppy especially when driving an SUV with auto transmission.

Well, yeah! I am always flabbergasted when I go somewhere and see other cars out on MY highway. I mean, really, the nerve!

Re. Subtopic - are you sure this whole thread is not just part of a plot to get a real race car?