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some texas redneck posted:To set the scene: last night, 50 mph access road next to a highway. 2 lanes, one way. This same type of poo poo happens in front of my apartment complex every couple months. It's at the crest of a long hill, they stall or break down just past the crest(to where you can't see it) and roll to a stop in between the driveways to the complex office and just leave the car there. It's all of 40 feet between these driveways, and a QT is about 100 feet from that. I don't know why coasting into the office driveway is such a herculean task. Funny enough it's almost never a beater, they've mostly been things like Cadillacs, Mercedes, Land Rover, etc. And then there's the assholes who unload cars off their transports for the dealership at the bottom of the hill during rush hour and block off a lane for an hour or more doing so. It's a massive AutoNation lot and they have gobs of open pavement there, why the gently caress is the middle of a public road at the busiest time of the day the most appropriate place to unload? Hell half the time they don't even put up cones or flares or anything, just stop the truck about 50 feet past the driveway and roll the fuckers out backwards in neutral. I'm pretty sympathetic to truckers in general but gently caress the ones who are doing this so hard.
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Dec 16, 2013 07:09
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 18:24 |
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NoWake posted:I haven't really been anticipating the upcoming future of driverless cars, but as the boomer generation blossoms into infirmity and stupid poo poo like this happens more and more, I'm starting to feel like it can't come soon enough. Provided there is always an option to disable the autopilot and go back into manual mode, I can't wait for them. Nobody's got the balls to tell the elderly "no" to anything, and watching the girlfriend's grandfather go from increasingly frequent near misses and fender-benders, to actual accidents, and finally nearly running his wife over(as in inches between tire and head or torso) twice in a month before he finally accepted that(at 93 without the ability to perceive more than low rumbles for sound, see past about 30 feet, react in less than a few seconds, or even take more than 2 steps without requiring a walker to stay upright) he was unfit for driving a hu-loving-mongous Lincoln around narrow-rear end city streets, and was basically a preview for the entire boomer generation over the next 10 years. I will be trying my hardest to live in the youngest parts of whatever town I'm in as a result. I'd rather handle predictably-retarded teenager/20-something speeding/hooning shenanigans than deal with hordes of people who are losing the mental ability to tell the gas from the brake without having to sit and think about it, and are becoming physically incapable of reacting to the world around them in anything resembling a timely manner to drive within the range of what's considered "safe." I already know I'm going to have to deal with the same type of poo poo when my mom gets old and it is going to be war of the loving worlds when my sister and I have to tell her "hell no you can't drive anymore" and take those keys away. My dad not so much thankfully.
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Dec 16, 2013 16:34
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xzzy posted:Maybe it makes me an rear end in a top hat, but I hope the accidents get frequent enough that it generates some press and gets some laws passed. I don't know if a hard cutoff for losing your license at age X is appropriate, but annual exams of some sort are definitely in order. A page late but I'm firmly of the belief that once you're old enough to get social security payments(or the equivalent for non-US drivers) you should have to re-qualify your eyes and ears every 3 years, and a full road test at the 10-year mark. I don't think there will be any laws passed until the Boomers are dead and gone. They're going to make up the largest group of one of the most powerful special interest groups/lobbies around: AARP, and telling them "No you can't do X because you're too old" is tantamount to chaining yourself to the ground in front of an out-of-control steamroller, politically. The GenXers will be the absolute earliest chance the country gets to get a handle on dealing with people still living but entirely too infirm to operate a vehicle safely. Maybe we'll luck out and get cool trolleys back again in cities and towns, everybody loves streetcars. nm: it ain't just SoCal, Central and South Florida is rife with junk trucks carring a 10-foot tall load with nothing but twine and the power of belief holding all their poo poo together on bumps and turns. When I was in Orlando I gave those SOBs a wide, wiiiide berth at all times. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Dec 17, 2013 |
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Dec 17, 2013 03:31
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I don't disagree but the Boomers are going to be the 500-pound political gorilla until they're more or less dead. The 5-year retest would be a good thing overall but they'd still go insane over it (as would other large portions of the population, to be fair) and it would never happen. I'd also be happy with licenses that aren't essentially "for life" like in Arizona, it's pretty ridiculous. Plus car culture is so ingrained in the US that driving is seen as a birthright rather than a privilege at this point, and our entire country has been planned around that attitude. Maybe a good lever would be "you agree to get full retests every 5 years and we make the upper speed limits on federal highways a challenge to meet" 
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Dec 17, 2013 04:37
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InterceptorV8 posted:The AARP is the most powerful union ever. And that includes the old Soviet Union. How else do you explain RV having 800+ HP engines, air brakes, 60K GVW and still doing 45 in a 75mph zone? And you don't get your eyes checked every couple of years at the DMV? I know I get my poo poo checked for my medical, but I also always get me vision checked at the DMV when I renew. Funny story about that, I am legal to drive a normal car without glasses, but I have to wear glasses to drive a CMV. This guy knows what's up, AARP is the Emperor of all unions and lobbies. I think even Big Ag would think twice about going up against them. Personally I'm okay with Grandpa Cottontop doing 45 on the freeway in his technically-not-a-semi, because it means there's just that much less kinetic energy coming my way when he falls asleep at the wheel or strokes out and barges into my lane/onto my vehicle. It's still annoying as hell but if poo poo happens that's 30mph less odds that my ticket's going to get punched if he hits me. And yeah you're supposed to get a recheck on your eyes but like Snowdens Secret said, many DMV employees will help you fake it through. The person at the counter here in Texas didn't even seem to be listening when I did my vision test and just kind of handwaved through it. Thankfully I have good eyes til I hit 40, then it's time to shell out on that vision plan at work(thanks for the eyeballs, liver, and kidneys Dad. Particularly the liver and kidneys you apparently stole from Bacchus himself). I'd expect that anybody with a CDL is going to get a much higher degree of scrutiny than a normal C class. Since most CDL holders are going to be operating semis or other large heavy vehicles the odds of lots of people dying if you gently caress up(rather than just one or two people with cars, also the odds of large amounts of infrastructure damage for the hazmat transport guys) are much higher. Even though it's a pain in the rear end for you drivers. Maker of Shoes, that's the equivalent of basically every work trailer you see here in DFW. I could count the number of flats I'd had on one hand until I moved here, and in 2 1/2 years the road hazard plan on my current set of tires has paid for itself at least twice over due to picking up every nail, screw, and other piece of shrapnel dropped out of the landscaping and contractors' lovely-rear end trailers. I should just bite the bullet and throw down on one of those wide shop-sweeping magnets and suspend it from my bumper on chains at this point. loving Arlington doesn't seem to believe in the concept of street sweepers. \/\/ My adrenaline always spikes a little bit when I'm riding and I see anybody waiting to go left at a non-light-controlled intersection. My old roommate had an old lady stare him in the eyes and creep out from a gas station into the lane and block it off with less than 50 feet inbetween them. Swerving was not an option due to it being a 2-lane road with traffic at the moment and her sticking the Buick's nose all the way to the yellow, he was lucky to get out of it with just a most-of-the-body bruise. I hope your Dad's alright and that he was wearing his helmet/riding gear. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Dec 18, 2013 |
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Dec 18, 2013 06:55
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The Midniter posted:Ever been behind one of those drivers whose speed fluctuates +/-10 mph for no good reason, so you go to pass them thinking they're on their phone or loving around with something or whatever, but...nope! They're looking straight ahead, hands at 10 and 2, focused intently on the road in front of them. It's almost worse that way. At least that would explain their senseless changes in speed. This is literally what I was taught to do by my driver's ed teacher(a persistently drunk/hungover baseball coach, go go Georgia public schools) when there are hills of any kind; speed up as much as you can on the downhill and then just lay off the gas and coast up the face of the next hill. It took me some years to break the habit of doing that subconsciously everywhere (grew up north of Atlanta and it's basically hills, hills, and more hills) so the behavior got reinforced like crazy)and I'm sure it infuriated the poo poo out of everybody driving behind me. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Mar 21, 2014 |
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Mar 21, 2014 01:45
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I've accidentally done that in my truck before making a u-turn from a dead stop. It was in the first 15-20 minutes of rain after a couple months of drought and dust(so, not as bad as if it were clear dry conditions), you still feel like the biggest retard ever. Touched the throttle, had the wheels turned too sharply, and immediately spun a 270 at 5 mph. Thankfully there was maybe 1 person on the road driving away from me so my shame was still relatively private.
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Mar 27, 2014 16:54
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In that vein, some sweet karmic bro-truck justice here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XqZoaWKv2k
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Mar 27, 2014 21:54
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Yes, that would have been an awesome two-for, but my ire for what truck guy does outweighs my ire for people that do exactly the limit in the fast lane. It's SR 41 in Tampa, not exactly a multilane freeway. There's lights every mile or two, you're going to be slowing down or stopping soon no matter what. Also, with all that space he could have just gone the gently caress around and gotten on with his life as well. If I did what bro-truck guy is doing every time I ran up on somebody doing the limit in the left lane I'd have wrecked every vehicle I've ever owned several times over rather than just rolling my eyes and passing them up like a non-rear end in a top hat.
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Mar 27, 2014 22:44
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God drat, I know exactly how to spark an AI argument in the future now. And of course they're both idiots, it happened in Tampa for chrissakes. Go look at all the dumbass and insane news stories that come out of Florida - 70% of them are going to be from Tampa/Tampa metro area. It's like a hellmouth except it pours out dumbfucks instead of demons.
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Mar 28, 2014 05:46
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 18:24 |
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N is for Nipples posted:I guess there's just slightly too much police dickwaving and way too much driver absentmindedness. In my experience of formerly working for a federal gov't/military contractor and currently working for the state government of a border state, never ever underestimate the volume and quality of dickwaving from any governmental agency. Dickwaving is their true profession, everything else is secondary. The guy did share some fault there, but not in the legal sense imo.
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Apr 12, 2014 16:01
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