Are there any vehicles you see on the road that immediately provoke a negative response?
I mostly road-rage at other drivers on an individual basis, but over the course of my driving career I’ve come to loathe pretty specific subsets of cars.
First and foremost are any Pontiac sedans. I’m not saying that everyone who drives a Pontiac sedan is a terrible driver. I don’t want to paint with that broad a brush. What I am saying, is that if you happen to be a lousy driver, chances are pretty good you drive a Pontiac sedan. Like moths to a flame, I swear. Green or silver Grand Ams are the absolute worst. Pontiac sedans like to: drive ten miles per hour over or under the speed limit (and change to one or the other at random), not use turn signals, merge without checking mirrors, pull out in front of you at the last possible moment, and run stop lights.
Second on my list are Chevrolet Impalas. The gold ones. Gold Impalas like to drive really slow, then speed up if you try to pass them. I don’t know what it is about that car, but they all do this.
Third are Chevy Suburbans, because they don’t pay attention.
*I have no problem with BMWs, which spawned this whole debate.
Toyota Corrolas (although I don’t know if you have them in America.) They are invariably driven by good, honest to god, salt of the earth, mile per gallon loving, non-indicator using, one third below the speed limit moving, no lights during twilight driving, sudden braking, move one way then swerve the other way Mammies and their adorable ginger Irish daughters.
Large pickup trucks (F150 or larger). Invariably they will speed, never use a turn signal, and will blare their horn at you if you wait more than a 1/4 second to get moving when the light turns green.
Driving a large vehicle doesn’t mean the rules don’t apply to you, fuck nut.
Oo! This is a good one! Though our problems differ… Here they like to tow their horse-trailers and boats in the left hand lane and impede as much traffic as possible.
Motorcycles, especially in places like California where they’re legally allowed to ride the line (slot race) between lanes that are occupied by other vehicles.
Also, in addition to problems I have with the suicidal little kids on their plastic crotch rockets, the guys who go out of their way to be as loud and noisy as possible on their hot rods (regardless of where they happen to be at any given time) are total assholes.
This is a good topic. I deal better with road rage issues these days (try having neck surgery, it actually slows you down to the speed limit, but soon I will think I am driving a Ferrari instead of a Civic, but I digress.
One - Cadillacs of any sort. My old man had several when we were growing up so I know they are comfy, but the older ones tended to be big assed tanks driven by people who thought they were a barge going down a river instead of a car on a freeway. Then, they piss me off by having commercials with that sexy lady in them, and have built some type of sedan that is extremely fast from 0 - 60 (CTX?) so it makes my whole Cadillac theory a lot of bunk, which pisses me off even more because now I should like them.
Two - Mercedes Benz drivers of any sort. See One for most of the reason, but there also seems to be a lack of awareness or care going on, it’s like, I’m on my way from a Point A you’ll never see to a Point B you don’t belong at and I have a sense of entitlement that allows me to drive 15 miles under the speed limit, all over the road, not use my signals, and have a celly glued to the side of my head because this is good for you to work on your anger management issues, young man.
Three - large vehicles of any sort. Sure, I know you need those SUVs and other vehicles that you drive in both your land and mine to transport your spawn around to all their wonderful activities but it’s hard to see around you, drive around you at 95 MPH and I needed to get that off my chest.
I apologize to anyone I offended, I’m sure there are Caddy, Benz and large vehicle drivers amongst us and there is a small chance that I will become a type B rather than a type A driver at some point, it’s much more relaxing, and I am sure I am pissing a lot of people off by driving my Lamborghini (oops, I mean Honda Civic EX) like that.
A friend of mine bought a used car that had one of those super loud exhaust pipes on it. You could hear him coming a block or more away, and apparently riding in it on the highway was really awful because of how loud it was. He had it replaced fairly quickly.
Oh yea, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this first: semi-trucks.
The guys driving these are constantly talking on their cell phones. They act like they own the road, they’ll inconvenience everybody around them if it means getting around an even slower truck driver in the slow lane. Many of them never get near enough sleep. I could go on forever.
Semi’s or other large trucks. The problem isn’t that they are on the road, the problem is that they don’t always make smart decisions about when to pass each other. On a two lane hill I don’t need to be coming up at the speed limit and get stuck behind a semi doing 35 who has decided to pass a semi doing 30.
Tall SUV’s. I particularly hate when these are sold as “safer” because the driver is higher up and can see more of the road. Great, except for the part where that means people behind you are thus “less safe” because they can’t see around your monstrosity. In general I don’t like it when people buy cars that have features they don’t need for the kind of driving they do 95% of the time.
On northern California freeways, BMW drivers seem completely insane. I think they believe their cars are magical or something, and will never lose traction. I see these cars speeding and weaving more than any other make.
“There are only two kinds of drivers on the road: the idiots who drive slower than you, and the assholes who drive faster.”
That said my biggest unfair, irrational hatred is of high-end, full-size SUVs. They seem to always be driven in the most reckless, antisocial manner possible. That said, I always try to separate the car from the driver – cars are tools, drivers are TOOLS.
(I feel the need to add that caveat after helping to spawn this thread by knee-jerking unfairly to implied anti-BMW-driver comments in That Other Thread.)
Trucks and SUVs, particularly big ones. They are objectively very dangerous to everyone else, and don’t even have the small saving grace of increasing the safety of the people in them. They block your view. They don’t fit in parking spots. And they seem to be driven incompetently and inconsiderately much more than other vehicles, although we face an identification problem in determining whether trucks and SUVs cause shitty driving or shitty drivers tend to buy trucks and SUVs.
Definitely those little crotch rockets, usually driven by young guys. The weave in and out of lanes like they’re in a Tron game with no regard for the fact that the could be instantly killed if any of the cars they were swerving around moved.
Harley guys tend to drive defensively, with good reason. Not these jokers.
Hummers. Over-compensation for a small penis, I generally assume.
I’m not a big fan of BMWs or Mercedes either. They feel a bit heavy on the conspicuous consumption. Then again, I recently bought a Saab convertible, which is another overpriced Euro vehicle. But hey, it was used and reasonably cheap!
They should be allowed to do this in every state, as motorcycles are air-cooled vehicles and do not “sit” in traffic well. Now I’m talking about bumper to bumper not moving traffic jam situations. Not about doing this (splitting the lane) with a normal traffic flow, that is just crazy.
