I've been contemplating this thread for a while now.
Every day I commute to school and back, about 4 miles of streets and a mile on the interstate. If the "Seattle, WA" placetag under my name doesn't mean anything to you, I'll explain: it rains here 5 days a week, most of the time not too bad, but definitely wet asphalt. So, this was the setting of the story.
I feel like Seattle has some of the worst drivers on the Planet Earth. Honestly, every day I see incredibly careless driving, people don't look before they take a left turn when yielding to oncoming traffic, people SUCK at merging into traffic, and they are obviously too cool to use blinkers. Honestly, 9 out of 10 car drivers that I see on the roads is either talking on the phone, putting on makeup, eating something, getting something from a glovebox, but NOT focused on driving.
People don't understand the simplest things. You don't cut in front of other cars or bikes when it is pouring rain - because there is a giant cloud of water behind you (just like behind everyone else!), and no one wants to be in it. This is why I try to avoid highways when it rains.
Every day I get to school pissed off at some douchebag that cut me off, almost ran into me because he/she wasn't paying attention, or something else.
How else do you describe the following behavior? I would be going in a right lane on a two-lane (in each direction) street, keeping steady 40, and there is a car in the left lane right behind my bike. Southwest of it, so to say, if I was going North. Anyway, the car speeds up and overtakes me, as in, it is a 3 feet in front of my bike, still in the left lane. My thinking: I don't like that kind of close-distance driving, and I am not planning on going slower than I am, so I speed up, slowly overtaking the car. The car (now I am realizing that douchebag's intention) is speeding up and tries to still be in front of me, obviously to switch into my lane, but in front of me. Now, I am totally ok with that, BUT, you need to show me that you want to switch lanes. Turn on your blinker, I will slow down and let you in front of me, I'm not in a hurry. But, when I'm shown this kind of idiotic behavior, it simply pisses me off. To annoy the idiot, I keep the same speed and stay to his/her left until he/she gives up and gets into my lane behind me.
I might be overthinking all this, people's intentions when they are driving, etc, but I'm so tired of riding in this culture of entitledness to the road and careless arrogance.
Recently I found myself re-reading my MSF handbook with advice on how to deal with everyday street riding. Without realizing it, I've been practicing what they describe "defensive driving" for a while now.
It almost seems like people are ok with crashing into each other's cars - they have airbags and seatbelts, and insurance will cover the damages. However, riding a bike I risk more than that, especially on almost always wet roads.
The bus drivers here are even worse. They are big, and they don't care if there is traffic (bikes don't even count as traffic for them, I would say) when they need to switch lanes or whatever. The city of Seattle is trying to pass a law, that drivers will have to yield to buses all the time because they have a "yield" sticker on their rear end. If you don't yield - you get a ticket. They justify it by saying that the bus represents tens of passengers versus one or two in a car. This is simply insane.
Don't even get me started on my encounters with drunk drivers...
...
Almost every weekend I get out of these streets and hit the country roads. Early mornings, so almost no traffic. People who are on the roads are courteous, use blinkers, e.g. don't drive like my everyday dickheaded commute-buddies. I don't know why, but somehow magically people drive normally outside of the city.
I am seriously thinking about moving to a more country-like region once I graduate... Or maybe it is just Seattle? Maybe other towns are better at driving? My girlfriend's Dad is from Illinois, so he says that the drivers here are way worse than the ones in Chicago...
Every day I commute to school and back, about 4 miles of streets and a mile on the interstate. If the "Seattle, WA" placetag under my name doesn't mean anything to you, I'll explain: it rains here 5 days a week, most of the time not too bad, but definitely wet asphalt. So, this was the setting of the story.
I feel like Seattle has some of the worst drivers on the Planet Earth. Honestly, every day I see incredibly careless driving, people don't look before they take a left turn when yielding to oncoming traffic, people SUCK at merging into traffic, and they are obviously too cool to use blinkers. Honestly, 9 out of 10 car drivers that I see on the roads is either talking on the phone, putting on makeup, eating something, getting something from a glovebox, but NOT focused on driving.
People don't understand the simplest things. You don't cut in front of other cars or bikes when it is pouring rain - because there is a giant cloud of water behind you (just like behind everyone else!), and no one wants to be in it. This is why I try to avoid highways when it rains.
Every day I get to school pissed off at some douchebag that cut me off, almost ran into me because he/she wasn't paying attention, or something else.
How else do you describe the following behavior? I would be going in a right lane on a two-lane (in each direction) street, keeping steady 40, and there is a car in the left lane right behind my bike. Southwest of it, so to say, if I was going North. Anyway, the car speeds up and overtakes me, as in, it is a 3 feet in front of my bike, still in the left lane. My thinking: I don't like that kind of close-distance driving, and I am not planning on going slower than I am, so I speed up, slowly overtaking the car. The car (now I am realizing that douchebag's intention) is speeding up and tries to still be in front of me, obviously to switch into my lane, but in front of me. Now, I am totally ok with that, BUT, you need to show me that you want to switch lanes. Turn on your blinker, I will slow down and let you in front of me, I'm not in a hurry. But, when I'm shown this kind of idiotic behavior, it simply pisses me off. To annoy the idiot, I keep the same speed and stay to his/her left until he/she gives up and gets into my lane behind me.
I might be overthinking all this, people's intentions when they are driving, etc, but I'm so tired of riding in this culture of entitledness to the road and careless arrogance.
Recently I found myself re-reading my MSF handbook with advice on how to deal with everyday street riding. Without realizing it, I've been practicing what they describe "defensive driving" for a while now.
It almost seems like people are ok with crashing into each other's cars - they have airbags and seatbelts, and insurance will cover the damages. However, riding a bike I risk more than that, especially on almost always wet roads.
The bus drivers here are even worse. They are big, and they don't care if there is traffic (bikes don't even count as traffic for them, I would say) when they need to switch lanes or whatever. The city of Seattle is trying to pass a law, that drivers will have to yield to buses all the time because they have a "yield" sticker on their rear end. If you don't yield - you get a ticket. They justify it by saying that the bus represents tens of passengers versus one or two in a car. This is simply insane.
Don't even get me started on my encounters with drunk drivers...
...
Almost every weekend I get out of these streets and hit the country roads. Early mornings, so almost no traffic. People who are on the roads are courteous, use blinkers, e.g. don't drive like my everyday dickheaded commute-buddies. I don't know why, but somehow magically people drive normally outside of the city.
I am seriously thinking about moving to a more country-like region once I graduate... Or maybe it is just Seattle? Maybe other towns are better at driving? My girlfriend's Dad is from Illinois, so he says that the drivers here are way worse than the ones in Chicago...
ive never had anyone cut me off but i have about 20 people double take and almost pull out in front of me every ride