OT: Where are the Worst Drivers? (US only) (At least the post involves cars, some of which would be Toyotas)

I drove through Illinois recently, well, through the Chicago area. I've driven in almost every state (46) and many of the large cities in the US and Chicago has got to have the worst drivers I've ever encountered. I've driven in Manhattan/Brooklyn, Boston (I hear their motto is "We Eat New York Plates for Breakfast"), Lost Angeles, DC, San Franciso/Oakland, Dallas, Atlanta, New Orleans, Miami, the Twin Cities, Seattle, Cleveland and numerous others and either driven there or rented cars while there. I learned to drive near Boston and then DC.

Chicago drivers go faster in heavy traffic, use turn signals less and do multi-lane changes at high speed differentials with inadequate spacing far more often than in any other place I've been. Coupled with the God-awful traffic around Chicago no matter what time you go through, well, it's just not a pleasant place to drive.

If the drivers in the Chicago area didn't scare the crap out of me, I might have time to admire their skill.

Also, a disproportionate share of the really aggressive drivers seemed to be driving BMWs. A good choice, I suppose, if you're going to drive aggressively. They do handle nicely.

So, does Chicago get the nod for worst drivers or does someone want to nominate someplace else? Please, justify your pick with examples of poor driving practices. I'd like to get beyond the simple "They suck."

If you feel your city's not actually worse, please feel free to nominate a runner-up.

PS: I notice, now, that I've got a typo in "Los Angeles" but it looks somehow appropriate, kind of sums up my experience driving there once, so I'm leaving it.

Reply to
dh
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Of the cities you listed, I've driven in every place you listed except for Seattle and DC, although NY was the Bronx/GW Bridge through NJ along I-80.

I learned to drive in Chicago, lived in the SF Bay area for 5 years, Boston/New England area for 10 years, back in Chicago for last 12 years.

Did you get to drive down a Chicago neighborhood 2-way street at 30+ MPH? Picture a street with parked cars on each side, with remaining pavement about as wide as a 2-car garage. It's kind of like playing chicken.

Most of the people driving BMWs in Chicago may drive agressively but they are not skillful drivers. I always pull over when passing head-to-head with one on a neighborhood street because they can't judge width. On the other hand, I have no qualms about passing a cop or taxi on a narrow street.

I still think drivers in Boston are the worst.

Reply to
Ray O

Chicago sucks. No doubt. I've been driving in Chicago traffic for nearly a decade. What's even scarier than Chicago expressways are the city streets in the Loop.

Just remember

We have:

A "Rush hour" that doesn't rush and lasts about 3 hours.

Expressways that don't usually express.

Tollways that are usually not busy now even during rush hours (A tip of the hat to Governor Blagojavich for releiving the congestion on the tollways by doubling the tolls and tripling the tolls for trucks, thus causing them to reroute through Momence and Kankakee, Illinois and up the US 41 up north to avoid the tolls on the I-294.)

Rivers that 'leak'.

Bridges that fall 'up'.

What's sadder is I do signal and my signals are basically ignored.

Bimmers think they own the road especially since it's usually high end people driving them, but the SUV's think I'm something to be ignored since I'm not as big as they are. People keep saying I should drive a Bimmer, but I don't want one.

Even on the freeways, unless there is a traffic jam, the left lane is going

  1. Sometimes the tollways hit 90! I've seen even the right lane hitting
80 in spots. Then they wonder why I only get 30 mpg with my old Corolla. But of course, the cops will give you at least 10 over the limit (which is 55 in most of Chicago) and if the traffic is flowing at 80, they are not going to stop you from doing 80, they'd have to stop and ticket everybody and that would put them over their quota . . . . I suspect that if they go over their quota, their quota gets raised for the next month . . . .

They will, given the chance, go after out-of-staters. Illinois has a crooked little law that says if the cops stop an in-state driver, half the fine goes to the county the vehicle is registered in, but no such law applies to out of state cars or drivers . . . .

And they say Illinois doesn't need any reform.

Charles of Kankakee

Reply to
n5hsr

And then there's the 4 lane streets that are just barely wider. My brother got his truck cut into on the right side by an old lady in a Cram-Me that wasn't watching traffic, or his signals. She suddenly sped up and took out his passenger door.

No they aren't, just basically arrogant, like the SUV drivers in the Burbs. Oh, I forgot, they're so much safer because they are driving SUV's . . . .

I've not driven in Boston, but I have driven in B'ham and I made the mistake of driving through Atlanata at 5 PM on Friday on the I-75. If one can call that driving, it was a lot more like parking. . . .

Charles of Kankakee

Reply to
n5hsr

Well, I havent' done that but I'm probably psychologically prepared for it. A week or two after I got my license, I found myself chauferring my grandmother, in her '68 Cadillac Sedan deVille, through Georgetown. I'd swear the space between the parked cars was narrower than the Cadillac.

And I've played "chicken" overseas and actually smacked mirrors with passing cars driven by the natives.

I've got to assume there's some sort of skill there because nobody died while I watched. It's not good when you want to close your eyes to avoid seeing looming disaster around you, when you're the one driving the car.

Why? What is it they do?

Reply to
dh

I'd like to propose the Twin Cities as runner-up for worst drivers. Three reasons:

- They complain about traffic conditions that are actually better than many other places. They whine about it incessantly and it's really not bad. If they were better drivers, in fact, conditions would be good all day.

- It's the only place where I've noticed they'll speed up to cut me off when I'm merging onto a freeway. It frequently happens that I'll be coming down a ramp to merge onto a freeway, a fairly empty freeway at that, and they will actually speed up to get ahead of me before I get off the ramp. They could move left, or even just continue as they were and I'd merge safely ahead of them but, no, they've got to be first. OK, not all the time, but enough and I haven't noticed this anywhere else. In cities with really bad traffic (Boston, for instance), it's true that people won't let you in but that's because it's already bumper-to-bumper and it's nothing personal but merging is YOUR problem. If you work to get a fender out there, yeah, you get in. In the Twin Cities, they never yield to the well-placed fender, they just keep fading further to the farther lanes until their stream of traffic actually moves into the other lane.

- I swear, when they merge into traffic, they NEVER look. Maybe they actually do look, quickly and surreptitiously, but I've never caught them at it and I've certainly had to use my horn often enough (when I couldn't move left) because they don't seem to have a clue that I'm there.

I did spring a Jersey Turn(*) on them, once. That was quite satisfying, for some reason. The oncoming drivers looked absolutely shocked. However, they all appear to have grown up on the farm and learned to drive in the cornfields and I really don't trust their driving skills enough to have tried it again.

(*) - Jersey Turn - I define this as the practice of waiting at a red light to turn left and then just rocketing off on the green, and taking your left before the oncoming traffic can get moving. A badly executed Jersey Turn ends up with you partway through the intersection, with oncoming traffic swerving to go around your front end, while the cars behind you can't get around your back end. This makes you very unpopular In a well-executed Jersey Turn, not only do you get through but sometimes a few more left turns will draft through behind you. The danger in doing this turn in the Twin Cities is that you can't trust those corn-dogs to STOP when you've clearly beaten them. They keep coming and if you don't get through FAST, they'll hit you. Along the East Coast (I think you have to be north of Baltimore), the oncoming drivers accept defeat gracefully, slow or stop and salute you with horn and finger. In Texas, I expect they'd salute you with a .44, so I'm not going to pull this trick there.

Reply to
dh

There are idiots in Chicago that will not let you in. Never mind that there is no one behind them for 20 car lengths and no one in the next 3 lanes over. They just have to cut you off. Arses. I hope they get the GI Trots!

I've got places here where the left arrow goes green and they sit there in the lane for several seconds. I give them the Chicago salute* from behind to get them going but sometimes that doesn't work. They sit there and wonder what you're honking at while the turn arrow goes yellow.

The drivers here in Kankakee are mostly older people. Kankakee is divided between being a retirement community and a bedroom community. There are few industries left to be able to work here and those that still exist mostly pay pretty poorly.

What's stupid is so few people seem to understand the Chicago merge in crowded traffic. Also known as the Zipper merge where two or more lanes are merged down to one, and alternating lanes merge into the open lane, or are supposed to.

*Chicago salute. One finger out the window, one hand on the horn. I sometimes substitute the English two-fingered salute just to see if anyone actually pays attention along with the prerequiite Bronx cheer.

Charles of Kankakee

Reply to
n5hsr

I think the skill is in the other drivers seeing the Bimmer coming and getting out of the way.

There's a reason Texas drivers have two license plates. It's so others can see the front plate and get out of the way. It would hold in Illinois except many cars in Illinois don't properly display a front plate . . . Camaros and Corvettes seem to be espeically bad in this regard as well as some models of Bimmers. And no, I've seen both ends, they are not from Indiana or Michigan (both one-plate states, Indiana since the '50's, Michigan since 1984.) Indiana drivers are a lot like Kankakee drivers, sadly.

Charles of Kankakee

Reply to
n5hsr

The worst drivers are the ones in the left lane with the cell phone stuck to their ear and 20 car lengths between themselves and the car ahead. They are everywhere in the country and are the most self-centered people around. They impede the flow of traffic and cause accidents because they aren't paying attention to their surroundings and won't get out of the way.

Reply to
badgolferman

I've seen women sitting at a light gabbing on the cell phone after it goes green so many times. I've used a radio for 20 years, not a problem. But then I can walk and chew gum at the same time, unlike some cell phone users.

Charles of Kankakee

Reply to
n5hsr

Maybe not a problem from your perspective, but what would the people behind you say?

Reply to
badgolferman

I can talk on the radio and drive at the same time. How do you think the cops do it in single-cop cars? It's an aquired skill. Takes a bit of practice, but unless you're a total ditz you should be able to do it.

Charles of Kankakee

Reply to
n5hsr

For what its worth, I was driving northbound on I-5 between Bakersfield & Bay area some years ago in our then newer Maxima.

Traffic was bumper to bumper I was at 85+ in slow lane. A piece of crap car passed on right, was hitting chunks of rubber and other crap and just flew on by. Didn't see him in the ding weeds so he must have kept control.

SF bay area to me is a good candidate.

Reply to
ron

Sounds pretty crazy. The only traffic I've actually been in out west is Lost Angeles. They move pretty fast out there, too. But I wasn't driving, thank God.

Charles of Kankakee

Reply to
n5hsr

In Orlando, when people want to change lanes they just drive into the other lane. There is no use of turn signals or looking to check if someone is there. To be fair, I didn't spend much time driving there, so it could have just been coincidence that I encountered several drivers like that during my time there.

I've notice that in general, turn signals are less-often used in the southern US. Not sure why...

Reply to
Ernie Sty

Despite the fact a law was passed WAY back in 1965 that one is supposed to use one's directional signals when changing lanes in Illinois, this law is observed mostly in the breach. . . . .

And worse yet, when I signal to change lanes, my signals are ignored most of the time.

Charles of Kankakee

Reply to
n5hsr

Maybe Scott can confirm this.

I heard that there are little old ladies in Florida that drive in the left lanes of the interstates at 35 with their left signal on. Traffic backs up for miles, scared to pass

Reply to
ron

I think that is a phenomenon that occurs anywhere little old ladies drive, although Florida may have a larger population of little old ladies than other states.

Reply to
Ray O

We watch out for Buicks up here. DWOF. The average age of a Buick owner is

  1. The AVERAGE age of a Buick owner is 65. Does that mean farting dust is a prerequisite to owning a Buick now?

Another bad thing besides little old ladies that can't see over the steering wheel. (See the scene in Ferris Buller's Day Off for the archtypical little old lady.) Old Men with Hats. A lot of them drive Buicks or Camrys, too. That's why I still drive a Corolla.

Charles

Reply to
n5hsr

We do have our blinker boys on the Interstates, too.

Charles

Reply to
n5hsr

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