homepage Forums SimHQ Community Community Hall Why Do People Drive Like Idiots?

Peoples odd (stupid?) driving habits is a huge pet peeve of mine, and today was a doozy.


I'm driving along a 4 lane road, in the right (slow) lane at about 60 mph. There is a white SUV is coming up on my left at maybe 61-62 mph closing very slowly, 50-75 yards back. I see a tractor in the road a couple of hundred yards ahead driving in my lane at about 35 mph, so I sped up to 70, move into the left lane well in front of the SUV to get around the tractor. When I do this the SUV that was behind me speeds up to 70+, catches up with me and tailgates me as if I had crowded her lane. After I go past the tractor, I immediately go back to the right lane and slow back down to my previous 60 mph again. The SUV then slows to match my speed and rides along just 10 yards or so back on my left quarter panel in the left lane! And remains there for a while then slowly passes me.

I hate having anyone keep pace with me by riding in the adjoining lane just back a bit or directly beside me when there is no traffic around requiring them to do so, either fall back and get behind me at a reasonable distance or pass me! And I won't do this to others, if I find myself riding along side someone when theirs no reason too I either speed up a bit or slow down. Riding in formation with another vehicle when there is no reason to do so is just inviting an accident to happen.

I am totally with you. I've often thought about getting a dash cam and starting a YouTube channel to show all the stupidity that I see on the roads daily, but I'm guessing someone else has already done something like that.

I'm always a fan of being a block away from a light as it turns yellow, knowing I can't make it in time I start coasting. Everytime anyone behind me switches lanes and hits the gas only to slam on the breaks a second later. I don't think most people pay attention to more than maybe a small cone in front of them that might extend a car length.

Yep. There is a general lack of situational awareness in people these days. You can see it in large crowds as well. People stopping at the top of escalators in airports and starting to look around to orient themselves, rather than taking some steps forwards or to the side to let those coming up behind past them.

In traffic, people seem to have a very narrow field of view that only extends to the car in front, and react only to what that car is doing.

My dad taught me to do this, but it infuriated my driving instructor ("You have brakes, use them!" LOL). So I use both methods depending on how much traffic there is behind me.

Something that baffles me (but at the same time I benefit from) is approaching a red light at an intersection on a 4 lane road and the vast majority of the cars ahead of me bunch up in one lane, with only 1-2 (or zero) cars in the far right lane. It's really bizarre, apparently for a lot of people just being in the left lane makes them oblivious to the fact that the right lane has become the faster moving, less congested option.

I am a faster than average driver and I generally stay in the right, "slow", lane as I find that it actually, most often, moves faster than the "fast" lane does, solely because of some peoples predilection to drive in the fast lane regardless of their speed.

Probably the best thing that I ever did for my driving was to get my large/heavy goods ("truck") licence (thanks to the British Army it cost me nothing, in fact I was paid to do it ).
It taught me to look much further up the road & anticipate/start taking appropriate action as you need to in a truck but that observation carries over to car driving as well.

I understand this, however, I am also often frustrated by it. There are many times where I'm approaching an intersection at which I'm going to make a right turn, and it's legal to do so on a red light, but I get stuck behind someone coasting at 25mph in a 45 zone to the intersection, slowing me down for half a block when I could have just gone up to the intersection and made my right turn. California streets often have a right-turn lane, or there's a space that you can use at intersections in the bike lane to go around traffic stopped at the light to make a right, so being behind someone going straight wouldn't keep me from making a right turn.

This pretty much nails driving in NC.

It gets worse around the Holidays every year.

I do the same. It really improves my gas mileage and minimizes my wear and tear on brakes.

I snicker to myself whenever I see someone either speed up or maintain speed right up to a red light 300m ahead and then have to apply their brakes. What's the point of racing to a red light?

I remember a reading about a driver survey where every single respondent rated themselves (at least) either average or above average.

I live in South Florida so I'd say about 50% of the drivers I encounter are idiots.

My Mercedes SL has an interesting feature. It evaluates how you drive as well as your mileage.






This was a couple days ago. The three areas are your acceleration, your speed control, and braking. In this picture my acceleration is excellent, my speed control is excellent, but my braking is only average. That is probably because I was in traffic and had to brake in accordance with others. Pretty cool feature in the car.

Do you get to redeem the bonus for schnitzel or something?

I don't think I would care for such a feature.... I would keep all segments in the red.

Yeah, the same reasons I never sign up for those tracking apps to get better insurance rates...

It is one of many choices. You scroll through and select what you want. I just thought it as interesting.

I drive a manual T5 Volvo 4x4, stage one remap. The amount of teenagers who challenge me at the lights are insane. I'm too old so just let them rag it past me. Waste your petrol kids! Drive an electric car for work, by god it's quick. The acceleration is scary at first.

I get that all the time when I'm on a motorcycle. Problem is, the faster I go, the sooner the ride is over, so I'm in no hurry. Besides, I'm too busy trying not to get run over.

I frequently meet people when driving on the motorway here that apparently do not like me to pass them. They typically drive slightly below the allowed speedlimit and as I approach them they start driving even slower. Then, as I pull out to pass them, they seem to wake up from their nap and speed up, thus causing me to being unable to pass them without breaking the speed limits. Then I pull in behind them and they start going slow again! I don’t know what they are thinking.

There was a time I noticed someone freaking out behind me because I approached a crossing with lights regulation with caution, making sure I’d be able to stop if the lights turned red, which they did. In the lane beside me, someone ran into the car ahead. I was sorely tempted to ask the driver behind me, if they now understood the benefit of not driving up close to the car in front.

When on my bicycle, I’ve been nearly killed several times.

A dad picking up his sick offspring from school, and crossing the bicycle lane without realizing I was there, nearly chopping me off.

Two individuals in each their own vehicle, stopping and chatting, completely blocking the road and as I came around the blind bend I had to brake so hard the rear wheel of my bicycle left the ground.

Someone performing a threepoint turn in front of me when I approached on my bicycle.

Another close shave as someone passed me, only to instantly brake-check me as they had to stop for oncoming traffic, before turning off the road at a 90 degree junction.

Actually, years ago I was hit by a car which failed to yield for me as I was going straight ahead and the car was turning onto a smaller road and crossing the bicycle lane. I went over the hood, performed a perfect sommersault with a triple Nelson and somehow escaped injury. The bike was bent though.

I’ve acted stupidly on occasions as well though. There’s a stretch of motorway crossing the Island of Funen. If you ever drive in Denmark be very careful here because this is where people crash into each other. You’ll be slowed by some unseen cause, perhaps it is one truck passing another at a speed differential of 0,02 mph and as you pick up speed again your frustration and urge to make up for lost time makes you and everyone else drive just a bit more agressively. When you’ve been through this process of slow-faster-slow a few times, in the end everyone drives like a maniac. Until I had to get on the brakes, throw the anchors out, apply reverse thrust and hope for a bit of good luck as suddenly cars ahead of me weren’t moving. It turns out that exactly due to this stop-start pattern to the traffic, several vehicles had crashed into each other and blocked a lane on the motorway. I went unscathed but properly scared.

Anyways, I also got that eco-drive analyser thing in my current car. It’s not sending any information to anyone but me but I sometimes use it to just check on my driving style. Lately I mostly go with the mpg reading, as I hate to part with my money.