Self Righteous Drivers

[patiokitty]

I'm the weirdo who is quite comfortable driving on a sheet of solid ice with all-season on the car. I've had to do to that couple of times due to freak weather, but instead of freaking out when I felt the car start to slide I just let it do its thing. I didn't end up in a ditch or hitting another car like so many others did - I ended up exactly where I needed to get to and took another route home. Not all the roads were sudden sheets of ice like the road I used to take to pick my son up from school, thankfully. And there was no real indication that there was ice until you were already on it. However, I wouldn't go out looking for those sort of road conditions, especially where I live now with all the hills!

I have found that the most dangerous drivers in bad road conditions are those who think they're invincible (like so many 4x4 owners) and don't bother with the proper care and attention that the road and weather conditions require. Only when absolutely required did I even bother putting my old truck into 4x4 mode, and even then I was careful. Well, other than the few times I went mud-bogging...it was fun to see my old, small 1986 Ford Ranger pulling bigger and newer trucks out of the mud

Damn, I miss that truck.

[indigo]

Would this be a good place to add Northerners and others who insult people in the South for not handling snow and ice well? We m average one noticeable snowfall per winter, often melted off the roads by the same afternoon. There is no sane way to expect most people to have their vehicles stocked with snow tires, chains, all-wheel drive, sandbags, or any of the other things y'all use up there to deal with this. Nor do we own snow shovels. I've never even seen one in a store. Nor would most of us, even if we had such things, have any reasonable way of getting and maintaining enough experience to use them effectively. It doesn't mean we're idiots.

As a transplanted Northerner, I was one of the few people at my job who made it in during the snow. The other two who did were from Ohio and NY. Our token Southerner was picked up by me on my way in.

Even knowing how to drive in the snow, I still puttered along my winding twisting road to work - and of course I got tailgated. Someone in a jacked up truck decided he needed to zoom around me (since 25mph on a completely snow-covered road wasn't fast enough). I waved at him as I passed him a mile down the road in the ditch. I saw more self-righteous Southerners getting towed out of the snow than anyone else. How the hell they thought they could still zip around in the snow boggles my mind. They're the ones I was calling idiots and laughing at. If you don't know how to handle snow, that's one thing and its understandable. But to see so many act like they knew what to do and then end up in ditches was pathetic.

[otakuneko]

A woman in my neck of the woods stopped on the train tracks. Her daughter ended up in the hospital and her car ended up totaled. She's lucky she didn't get totaled. And this is the second accident like this in a year, so now the city wants to look at the crossing gates.

On another forum, I used to know a train engineer. His sig went something along the lines of "I'm tired of killing stupid people!"

[Andrew B]

I remember an episode of Car Talk, where the guys said, "We recommend getting the 4WD, but driving like you don't have it."

[HYHYBT]

I remember an episode of Car Talk, where the guys said, "We recommend getting the 4WD, but driving like you don't have it."

Sounds about right. (And much better than their advice to fix a mold problem by setting the car on fire. Yay! Someone else who listens to Car Talk!)

[EricKei]

"It's not dangerous to stop on train tracks, I'll see the train and move."

That's an actual quote by the way. I live among idiots.

Well, what you have there is a self-correcting problem, if you wait long enough ...Just gotta hope that they don't make anyone else pay for their own stupidity...

Would this be a good place to add Northerners and others who insult people in the South for not handling snow and ice well?

Mayyyyybe.

Funny. In the town where I live, there are crossings marked so you not only can, but legally have to, stop on the tracks

Interesting o_O Wherever I've been, stopping on the tracks can get you ticketed. Different towns, different ways, i suppose.

I've got a friend who actually scares me when she drives.

My brother used to be this way...well, except for the "swerving at random" part >_> He was once an extremely aggressive driver. Naturally, I had the misfortune of having him as my ride to and from college every day x.x

Two of my scariest memories of riding with him were these:

- The day he decided to go from the 2nd lane on the right, while within sight of the exit we needed to take, to the far left lane out of five, just because that lane was more or less open -- and then swearing and getting furious when nobody seemed to wanna let him back over to the right in time to make the exit. We still made the exit, btw.

- The day he decided it would be a good idea to tailgate an 18-wheeler. Our car actually began *shuddering*, and he backed off when I observed that we had encountered a "higher vehicular life form" and that our car was afraid of it

Oh yeah, Forgot to mention...these took place at highway speeds. In a Geo freaking Metro.

[HYHYBT]

Interesting o_O Wherever I've been, stopping on the tracks can get you ticketed. Different towns, different ways, i suppose.

I'm not sure how to link to a location, but go to Google Maps, search for Commerce GA Public Library, and look at the crossing sort of in front of it. It's one of at least five like that, though some are left-handed.