Bad Drivers

When I first started driving, my mom gave me the best advice. She said , "Assume everyone else on the road is an idiot, that way if they do something stupid it won't surprise you."

I still assume this every time I drive. Every time I pass by a driveway I am prepared for the car sitting there to pull out right in front of me, I never drive directly next to anyone when there are two or more lanes, mainly so I have somewhere to go if something happens in front of me, but also so they don't forget to look and try to change lanes and hit me.

Despite being cautious about all this it still astounds me how bad people can be at driving. Even some driving rules that I always thought were common knowledge are unknown to many drivers. Do you know how many people don't know how to determine right-of-way at a stop sign? Even worse, I can't tell you how many times cross traffic making a turn, with no stop sign, has stopped to let me go instead even though I do have a stop sign. I know you're trying to be nice and all, but it's taking more time trying to decide who will go first than it would have taken if you had just gone ahead and made that turn and I had waited.

I was driving the other day on my way home from work. To turn in to my apartment complex I have to make a left turn at a stop light. Simple enough, and when I come up to the intersection the left turn light is red so I stop, and all is going as it should be. Traffic going straight through the intersection has the green light, and since when I pulled up to the line my car activated the sensor the light for oncoming traffic turns red a little later and now it's my turn to go. I noticed a few cars coming the other direction that are turning into the complex as well, only they are making a right turn obviously because they are coming from the other direction. Well now they have a red light, so I am making my turn, but when I get halfway across the intersection I see another car making the right turn, only they didn't stop, didn't even bother to look until they were halfway through it and then saw that I was turning and stopped abruptly. I managed to catch the look on the driver's face as I drove past, as I had the right-of-way, and she looked very surprised and confused. I assume the look on my face was a look of 'what the hell are you doing?'

A few days later I was driving with my girlfriend, making the same turn, and mentioned the incident to her and how I saw people make those right turns on red lights all the time without stopping, although that was the first time they almost hit me while doing it. She said a lot of people don't know you have to stop... Wait, what?! I thought they just didn't feel like stopping, just like we all speed even though we know we're not supposed to, but are you telling me that a rule of the road that should be common knowledge to everybody is unknown to so many people? Did you know that rule? Basically a right turn at a stop light is treated like pulling up to a stop sign. You have to come to a complete stop before you can continue on to make the turn. She even mentioned a few people she knew that had never heard of that rule, and while I was contemplating just how cautious I needed to be while driving, I realized that maybe I don't assume people are stupid enough.

Don't even get me started on freeway on-ramps. If you aren't up to speed with people on the freeway by the time you merge on, you're doing something wrong. So that lady that was doing 40 the other day when I was behind her on the on-ramp, don't think I was being an asshole when I passed you once we got on and gave you a look, I just really don't want to be hit from behind by other cars on the freeway because you don't know how to accelerate correctly.