Awful Drivers

Welcome to the “Awful Drivers” Blog. My name is Dennis. I have been driving on the highways and byways of North America, as well as several other countries, since 1955 –extensively. Certainly well over one million miles so far. If you spend as much time on the road as I have, you may have noticed some changes over the years. Certainly the number of vehicles out there has been steadily increasing. That alone is a bit of a problem, since in many cases the upgrading of our highway system has lagged about ten years behind requirements, but what concerns me most is that the driving competence and courtesy of the average American driver has waned seriously.

It is my intention to post on this blog from time to time some of my own observations regarding those little annoyances “along the way” that result from inattentiveness, complacency, irresponsibility, ignorance, or just plain rudeness while behind the wheel. I invite others to join in with posts of their own observations, comments, agreements or disagreements in regard to other postings, etc. You get the idea. Perhaps some discussion, tit-for-tat, back and forth, may turn out to be constructive in terms of generating some self-examination by all of us. And who knows, in time ……………

I would ask that, while I believe postings should be clear and explicit, with no holds barred, we refrain from obscenities and vulgarity.

I believe if we all took a good look at our all too casual driving habits, and put forth a bit of effort into “polishing” our skills behind the wheel, taking driving more seriously, we would all find driving to once again be more pleasurable.

When I first learned to drive, in 1955, we did not have Driver’s Ed in the school system. I was taught to drive by my father. I have always remembered the first thing he told me when I took the wheel of my Grandfathers 1946 Chevrolet. He said, “Son, they used to call these things “pleasure cars”, but driving is no longer a pleasure, nor should it be – it is a full time job!” I believe that is a truism that driving instructors today should drum, drum, drum into the minds of fledgling drivers.

So, with that intro, I would encourage anyone to “sound off” with one of your choice pet peeves encountered while driving. I’ll start this off with one of my own:

I find it particularly annoying when, driving on a four-lane, I encounter someone riding consistently in the passing lane at the same speed, or worse, even slower than the traffic in the right lane. In most states this is actually illegal! Seems to be that some folks think the left lane was put there just for them, and they just cannot grasp the concept of “keep right except to pass”. C’mon folks, wake up! What I find most interesting about this problem is that about 75% of the drivers who consistently violate the keep right rule are female. I had begun to believe that driver’s education instructors were teaching their female students that the left lane was created specially for women!

I believe in most cases those drivers hogging the left lane are totally unaware that they are a nuisance, and in many cases a hazard. We hear a lot of banter about controlling aggressive driving. But it is just this sort of nuisance driving that incites aggressive driving on the part of those behind who are getting really peed off.

Enough for that for now. Chime in with your comments regarding the “keep lefters”, or if you happen to be one, we would like to hear WHY. Or, anything else you would like to rant about.