Road Rage: Vent Here

[sol-survivor]

I would much rather have on-ramps coming downhill to the highway instead of coming uphill. A lot of them around here go uphill, and for me it's hard to see vehicles coming when they're merging uphill instead of down. At least when they're coming downhill you can see them, but when they're coming uphill they can be almost on top of you before you see them. This is especially true in the summer when the tall roadside weeds or grass needs to be mowed.

And speaking of mowing, around here it's illegal to blow grass clippings into the roadway because it becomes a slippery hazard, not to mention it looks terrible. Yet I still see roads half covered with grass. Same with snow. We're not supposed to blow snow into the roads, either, but people still do it.

[mylungswereaching]

Jan 7, 2020 18:09:38 GMT -5 sol-survivor said:

I would much rather have on-ramps coming downhill to the highway instead of coming uphill. A lot of them around here go uphill, and for me it's hard to see vehicles coming when they're merging uphill instead of down. At least when they're coming downhill you can see them, but when they're coming uphill they can be almost on top of you before you see them. This is especially true in the summer when the tall roadside weeds or grass needs to be mowed.

And speaking of mowing, around here it's illegal to blow grass clippings into the roadway because it becomes a slippery hazard, not to mention it looks terrible. Yet I still see roads half covered with grass. Same with snow. We're not supposed to blow snow into the roads, either, but people still do it.

The problem with blowing the snow in the street is that in many area's there just isn't anywhere else to put it. I live in RI and if you live in the city, you walk out your front door, take three steps and you are in the street. By law, you can be fined if you don't shovel your sidewalk but there's only about 2 to 4 feet between the sidewalk and the house. You can only pile snow so far. On the other hand, if the temperature is over freezing, snow thrown in the street will melt.

My ex-BIL had a house in the city. He went out and carefully shoveled his front walk. The plow came by and covered it back up and he was fined for not shoveling his walk. You can't win.

I agree with grass. Grass doesn't melt. It just turns into mulch at the side of the road after a while.

[crowschmo]

They have a good solution on some major thru-ways in New Jersey for that whole left turn dilemma. One CAN'T turn left on the roads at all. If you want to get to the other side or travel in the opposite direction, there are little loop roads on the RIGHT hand side. You have to turn right to go left. You turn right, go around this little loop and then wait at the light to go in the other direction; you're not in anyone's way. Everyone waiting to go the other way is on this little side loop and not forming a line in the left lane.

[sol-survivor]

Apparently it doesn't matter if you don't have a place to put the snow. You still can't put it in the street whether it will eventually melt or not because it creates hazardous conditions for drivers and pedestrians. We don't have sidewalks on our street other than leading from the driveway to the front door so we don't have to mess with clearing those, but most other streets in town do. Neither my Dad or I are capable of shoveling or blowing snow, him because of age and various physical problems and me because of back issues, so we have to rely on our neighbors to clear the driveway, and they've been very good about helping us out. In fact, the neighbors get a lot of the cookies I do every year during the Annual Cookie Baking Orgy. They even clean out the end of the driveway when the plow fills it again. And that's another thing about plows. Since they are working with limited space they tend to leave big piles on street corners and in parking lots, and that makes it very difficult for other drivers. It can be very hard to see oncoming traffic when you can't see around a snow mountain on the corner. In parking lots those big piles make a lot of blind corners, and lots of parking spaces also get taken up by the piles. Apparently trucking the snow someplace else to be dumped isn't an option. It also doesn't help when people can't see the lines for the parking spaces and they just park any which way. I think some could make more of an effort to try to park in straight lines but that's a whole other headache. I don't know about winter conditions in RI, but here in Wisconsin and the other snowy states if you have, say, a six-inch or more snowstorm in December that snow could possibly still be on the ground in March or April, especially where the plows have piled it up. We've had giant plow piles taking up space in areas like the parking lots at the local mall and at Walmart that don't completely melt until into April or even May or June, depending on how many storms we've had and how cold it's been. Our house is almost on the very end of a dead end street that is usually one of the last streets in town to be plowed, and by the time we do get plowed the snow has frequently been packed down so the plow can hardly move any of it. And if people don't get their cars off the street in time we might not get plowed on our end at all because the plow can't get through. And since our street is mostly hill, that makes for fun trips up and down the street through the slop. There's just enough incline on our end of the street right in front of our house that can make it hard for some vehicles to get moving. In fact, a few years ago the neighborhood was digging out from a snowstorm, and of course our street had not yet been plowed by early afternoon even though the snow had been stopped for hours. Our neighbor had cleared our driveway and was doing another neighbor's driveway when the mail came (We have curbside delivery with a USPS Jeep making the rounds). I had just bundled up and was on my way out to get the mail when the Jeep got stuck right at our box. I helped with some of the other neighbors to get it unstuck, and you could tell that the woman delivering the mail was not happy with all the snow still in our street. The neighbor that had blown out our driveway had cleared around the mailbox but he could only do so much with all the snow that was in the street. I think we got close to a foot of snow in that storm. Not 15 minutes after she got going again was when the plow finally came. I have never thought that was a coincidence and that she probably contacted the city and complained. I can just imagine how it would be if the mail carriers around here had to walk the route carrying a bag. Like I mentioned, we don't have sidewalks so they would end up walking in the slop and drifts in the street.

[sol-survivor]

And then there are thoughtful drivers. On Friday we had a fairly major "snow event" around here, and due to the rotten conditions we left work early. One of my coworkers is a driver for us, meaning he goes to a large city a couple hours away twice a week to pick up work for us to do and drop off some work we have finished. He was still there after having been driving in the slop all day when I was getting ready to leave, in a snowstorm, during rush hour. He cleared off my car for me and insisted on following me all the way home to my town roughly five miles away completely in the opposite direction of his way home, staying close enough behind me so no one else could get behind me, ride my bumper, and make me nervous. That helped me a lot. For thanks I gave him a big bag of some of the peanut butter cookies left over from the Cookie Baking Orgy.

[Grape]

To be quite honest, I'm surprised you lot don't crash more often. You do realise, you're all driving on the wrong side of the road, don't you?

[crowschmo]

^^^ Mwahaha. We're left-handed. Like Napoleon.

[Grape]

Feb 6, 2020 19:59:01 GMT -5 crowschmo said:

^^^ Mwahaha. We're left-handed. Like Napoleon.

And you saw his yearly insurance quote, didn't you?

[crowschmo]

I hate when people swerve slightly to their left to then turn right (and vice-versa). Yeah, your corner's not THAT difficult to navigate. Or when they swerve a bit into another lane to pass someone in the lane ahead of them who is turning - WITHOUT LOOKING TO SEE IF SOMEONE IS IN THE LANE NEXT TO THEM. Sure, you're the only one on the road, Sparky.

Also hate when people turn from a road perpendicularly to you while you're sitting at a stop sign or light and you're a safe distance from the white line that says, "stop here on red" or whatever and they still almost hit you because they don't know how to take a corner. Then they look at you like YOU are in THEIR way. No. I'm on MY side of the road. On ANOTHER ROAD. Not my fault you cut the corner like an uncoordinated dickweed. Pull up a little more and turn a corner at an angle that makes sense.

Also hate people who are parked on the side of the road and don't wait until cars go by them before they open their doors practically into oncoming traffic.

[sol-survivor]

Perhaps it's just me, but when I am waiting to cross a street at a stop sign and someone else is waiting to turn left in front of me onto that same street from the other side, it irks me just a little bit when that person keeps waiting for me when he/she has the right-of-way. This happens all the time near where I work. That person could have been waiting since before I even come in sight of that intersection, and then we are both waiting for the cross traffic to clear. Fine and dandy. But then when there's a gap in the traffic and there's plenty of time for the other car that actually has the right-of-way to turn, it just sits there. By the time I realize he's not going to turn and is actually waiting for me, there's cross traffic coming from both sides and we have to wait some more. Then when there's another gap, only then does the other driver wave me through, making me feel like a jerk because I get irritated when he could have turned two or three times while waiting for me. Don't know what people waiting behind him/her are thinking when the person in front of them isn't moving. And if I do assume the other car is waiting for me and I start to go cross the street, that's when the other car turns in front of me. That's fine if the other car has the right-of-way, not so fine if I do. Don't know why that irritates me when someone is actually apparently trying to be nice, but it does.

[sol-survivor]

Today on the way to work in just the space of three blocks I saw a semi go through a red light and a car making a right turn from the lane next to the right turn lane. Nice.

[mylungswereaching]

A few weeks ago I was in normal rush hour traffic on the highway. A 55mph road going 5mph. A car behind me hit the gas and went around me going 40mph, to pass me, accelerating up the exit ramp and then slammed on their brakes inches from the car in front of them. I went off the same exit and pulled in behind them 20 seconds later.

I don't have any problem with someone passing me. But leaving a trail of rubber behind and risking an accident when it only saves you 5 or 10 seconds just doesn't make any sense to me.

It's the opposite of people who are so timid that they slam on the breaks on a curve when there's no one within a half a mile of them.

[sol-survivor]

Last night there was yet another irritation at the same intersection with the extremely short left turn arrow that I've mentioned in a few other posts. It was pouring rain (at least it wasn't snow). I was behind one car in the right left turn lane, and there was a semi in the left left turn lane. When the arrow turned green the car in front of me and my car turned, and of course the light went yellow before the other car got halfway through. We both made it around the corner just before the light went red. The semi didn't even start moving before the light turned red, but it did turn. During the day that light will stay green for a longer time, but I have no clue why the stupid timing has it so short at night. I can be the only one at that light and I don't care how quickly one moves when the light turns green it is impossible to get around the corner before it turns yellow or even make it to red. These sensors should be able to time it so someone can actually get through the intersection legally.

Years ago going home that same way I would have four lights and two stop signs to go through. Now it's seven lights and three stop signs and a slightly different route near home because of the bypass around my town. If I decide to go straight ahead instead and turn at a different light and circle around to get on the same highway that I need to take it's 11 lights and three stop signs. Three of those extra lights seem to have two or three accidents every day. It really isn't any faster and I usually only do that if there's round-the-clock road work and lane closures to avoid on my usual route. Since the giant project that involves widening the interstate and putting in at least one diverging diamond that probably won't be finished for another year or two that will be happening quite often, I guess.

[crowschmo]

We probably mentioned this already, but I don't feel like re-reading everything, heh. People who see you at a crosswalk. Look right at you. And just keep going. Not ones who are passed the point where it would be dangerous for them to come to a screeching halt. People who are driving at a somewhat reasonable speed, see you from a reasonable distance away, then drive by looking at you as they go. Jerks. So, it was finally nice out today after having been raining for days, so I went for a walk. Wish I had had my camera as I saw the widest rainbow I've ever seen streaming out of some storm clouds. But anyway...idiots just drive by me at the crosswalk. Not just one car, but three. I shouted, "Thanks!" as they went by.

[sol-survivor]

^^^ Did they splash you, too? That would've been the topper.

My favorite highway is all torn up again right where I have to go in order to get home. The right lane in both directions has been closed for a couple weeks now and is supposed to be closed until around the end of the month. Fine, other than having to deal with the drivers who wait until the last possible moment to move over, forcing other drivers to slam on the brakes to let them in. I know there have been studies that allegedly prove that waiting until that last minute like this is the correct thing for them to do but I'll never believe it. For me it will always be thoughtless dumbassery.