My kid’s just finished the classroom part of driver education and it prompted a discussion of crazy things we’ve seen other drivers do.
The craziest thing I saw, many years ago now, was I came up behind a guy driving a Ford Ranger pickup and could see through his rear window that he was doing tricep extensions with a dumbbell in his right hand. I was more surprised as I passed to see he was shaving with an electric razor in his left hand. I don’t really know how he was steering.
Kiddo said they were told personal grooming was the fourth leading cause of accidents.
I saw someone who mantained the legal speed limit and safe following distance.
I remember commenting about people going over the speed limit here on Lemmy, and getting so many downvotes from people who could never explain to me why they thought they deserved to go over the speed limit. Emergencies, with your emergency lights on? By all means! Going over the speed limit because you got up or left late for work? No bueno.
To be fair, most speed limits aren’t very accurate to the design of the street. If you wanted, you could speed up for straightaways and slow down for turns. Obviously though, they aren’t going to put a speed limit sign every 5 feet, so it won’t match the street design everywhere.
Case in point the freeways where I live are limited to 65MPH but you cross the border into either neighboring state and magically 70-75MPH is the safe limit. It makes no sense apart from generating revenue from speeding tickets. Most commuters do 75-80MPH depending on traffic.
The low speed limit also has the side effect of causing those slow, oblivious drivers to immediately crank the wheel over into the left lane the second they merge on the highway and then set their cruise control to 62MPH while they get passed by every car around them causing massive congestion behind them and lots of lane changes.
why they thought they deserved to go over the speed limit.
So I don’t obstruct traffic? To improve safety by driving consistently with other vehicles. Yeah, sometimes I speed but most of the time I’m over the speed limit is to go with the flow of traffic.
My bigger annoyance is construction/school zones. I’m not compromising there but it is frustrating to get honked at, or have other drivers try to pass
Ooh, thought of another. I once saw a gentlemen driving down the mountain who must not have known that riding his brakes all the way down would cause them to overheat and fail. He was free rolling and honking his horn, weaving in and out to avoid hitting people. Sheer panic on his face.
Fortunately, he had the wherewithal to steer up one of the emergency offramps. I caught up to him a couple mins after he passed me. He was standing, leaning against his car, and just breathing. He was not a white guy, but somehow he still looked so pale. Glad no one got hurt with that one, that could have easily led to one or more deaths if things had happened just a little differently.
Wait I never knew that you could overheat and fail if you rode it down the mountain. Holy shit
Yep, you want to do engine braking. That’s when you downshift and the engine slows the car. Even with an automatic transmission, you can downshift to 2nd so long as you’re under 50mph or so. You want to be slower than 20 before shifting down to 1st gear.
If you ever have a chance to drive up Pikes Peak in Colorado, 1) it’s gorgeous and 2) they have a stop halfway down where park rangers will check your brake temps with an IR thermometer. If you’re too hot, they make you sit there in your car for a while for the brakes to cool off and they give you tips on engine braking. Lots of flatlanders driving in the mountains for the first time and learning lessons the hard way.
Wow that’s crazy. You have taught me a valuable and potentially a life saving lesson today. I really appreciate your knowledge here.
So I have an automatic so how do I keep it under 50 or 20 without using the breaks?
they have a stop halfway down where park rangers will check your brake temps with an IR thermometer
My wife’s family did that once and the ranger was apperently shocked at how cold the breaks were from very effective downshifting
Late '70s, on a winding paved backroad heading into town, a smaller car coming in the opposite direction lost traction (a light, misty rain had just gone through) and rolled twice in a field before landing upright.
My buddy and I quickly pulled over and ran towards the car to make sure everything was alright.
They drove off before we got to them…
Ok…I want THAT car!!! Forget airbags, and modern safety standards. This dude rolls his car TWICE and just drives off.
…until you get in a collision and the car crumples up and squeezes you out like red toothpaste.
Cars like that don’t crumple up, you just bounce around inside till you die
Ya, iirc, it was something like a Datsun or Toyota compact car, which were a lot smaller and fragile than today’s compacts.
This is one of those events that you chalk up to pure luck.
Just last week, a car had missed their turn on the motorway, so decided to REVERSE up the hard shoulder.
Reminds me of a saying I heard: “Good drivers sometimes miss their turn. Bad drivers never miss their turn.”
I can’t agree more. I always say if you miss a turn or get in the wrong lane then “own your mistake and go around”
Too many times I see someone got in the wrong lane so they turn on their signal and wait or just plow over to the lane they wanted and cut others off. Nobody understands the solid white line. If it’s sold white you can’t cross it!
While stopped at a red light, a taxi casually got onto the right sidewalk and drove on it to get to the front of the line.
