The other day I was driving through Kahala when an SUV in front of me stopped at a stop sign and signaled left.
Except you can’t turn left at this particular intersection. The driver, however, didn’t care about that.
A line of cars started to form behind me. And after getting frustrated that the oncoming cars won’t letting him turn left, the driver decided to just do it anyway, causing a near accident and inspiring a lot of people to use their horns for the first time.
This is minor in my book of driving infractions.
I don’t get angry too often — but I seem to have zero tolerance for bad driving.
Here are a few bad driving habits that annoys me:
- When you’re at a red light and the car in front of you doesn’t signal he’s turning left until the light turns green.
- When you’re approaching a traffic signal light and the car in front of you is driving slower than your daed grandmother — until the light turns yellow and he guns it through the intersection, leaving you at the red light.
- Drivers who are preoccupied with something other than driving. This can include — and I’ve witnessed them — applying mascara, text messaging, eating a hot dog, discplining the kids in the back seat, rifling through a purse, picking something up from the floor of the car and shaving.
Oh, there are so many more.
AskMen.com posted a list of the Top 10 Driving Etiquette Mistakes, many of which I agree with. Here’s the list:
- “Nudging” pedestrians
- Tailgating
- Driving too slowly
- Double parking
- Leaving your brights on
- Not letting other cars merge
- Honking at traffic lights
- “Sharing” your music
- Not cleaning your car in the winter
- Not using your turn signals
I wish there was some kind of mandated punishment for bad drivers, a tortuous penalty they would have to face for their poor choices behind the wheel. Like maybe they should take a driving class where they are subjected to their own awful driving. I bet they would change their ways.
Got any pet peeves when it comes to driving?
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31 Comments
Hello Cat
Driving below the speed limit on the freeway in the left lane
Switching to the right lane at the last minute to take the off ramp in rush hour traffic.
Driving below the speed limit on an incline and then going over the speed limit on the decline.
Rubber neckers and then continues to drive slow after passing the accident.
Cutting in line into the left turn only lane or right turn only lanes when there’s a line of cars waiting.
@M you pretty well listed mine. Agree with you totally.
CAT,
Ever notice what types of cars cut in front of you? Mercedes, BMW, Jags, etc., seems like the more expensive the car, the driver feels like they own the road!! M has some good ones that I agree with.
Try zapatag.com to post license plate numbers and report the infraction.
Usually I’m congenial and a defensive driver. I’ll let the person cut, if they signal in time. If they let me cut I’ll flash the shaka sign (I even do this on the mainland).
You listed most, if not all, of the pet peeves of driving. I’ll add one more: eating a plate lunch while talking on the phone, when it was legal, and driving with your knees. I was the passenger in this car and I’m “happy” that it was on slower surface streets and not on the highway.
This past Friday night I was walking up St. Louis Heights Drive after picking up my Jambalaya from Soul and this SUV was going up SLH Drive then makes a U-turn on Dole St. to head back down SLH Drive. Let’s count the infractions that occurred: illegal U-turn; crossing a double solid yellow line; crossing a solid yellow hatch area.
One thing I’m guilty of is when I return home from the mainland. I’ll be driving along the freeway and wondering why everybody is driving so slow. Seems that I was driving just a bit too fast. That’s easily correctable once I catch myself.
This is going to be a good thread Cat. Thanks for posting this.
One peeve is following a slow car on a single lane road, then when it divides into 2 lanes, they speed up so you can’t pass them and then they slow back down when it returns to one lane. *grrrr*
On a side note. Just returned from working on Kauai and over there it’s one road in, one road out. There was an accident by the Kauai Humane Society that cause a mean traffic jam in both direction. We took it in stride, but interesting to watch other cars trying to “get ahead”
me no like :
-people who back into parking stalls. Wastes times all that stopping and realigning. Parking structures like Ward Center where one car holds up everybody by backing into a stall. Just park headfirst. Easier and faster.
– people who take up two parking stalls so their precious car won’t get dinged
-Harley owners who gun their engines at 3am. Basically any cruiser or sport bike owners who gun their engine at any time. Annoying and pointless.
@CodyZamboni I’d rather back into a stall. Makes getting out easier. Will park front end first if I have to load stuff otherwise I’ll reverse in.
More pet peeves:
– How about a big butt SUV parking in a Compact stall??!!
– Parking in a Handicapped Stall (no tag seen) and just “running into” the store
in Honolulu, i bike and walk. i don’t keep a car there. on the ML i drive in SF, LA and SD. i want to go on record as saying the people with the most Aloha are also the people with the most Ainokea when it comes to observing traffic laws. i can’t count how many times i’ve nearly been wumpped off at Atkinson, at Pensacola, at McCully, at University and Kapiolani. all because of a strange island interpretation of how traffic signals work-to wit: Green=proceed. Yellow=hurry up and proceed. Red=step on it.
@turkfontaine … well said.
@turkfontaine Reminds me of the classic “Taxi” episode when Jim Ignatowski takes his driver’s license exam.
Jim (sitting at the desk): “What does yellow mean?”
Alex (standing on the side): <quietly> “slow down”
Jim: “Whaaaaaat doeeeesssss yeeeeeeeeeeeellow meeeeeeeeean?”
Alex: “SLOW down.”
Of course this goes on for a few more iterations. Very funny, imho.
I back into stalls. Lot more efficient for me to back into a stall than to slooowwly back out of a stall when there’s a line of cars waiting to pass. I try to be courteous and do it quickly been doing it for years.
My pet peeve besides those who don’t signal a left turn until the light turns green is the ding ding who tries to cut into the line on the Wahiawa off ramp on H-2 (Exit 8) when there’s a long line of cars already on the shoulder waiting to exit into Wahiawa.
poeople who multitask while driving. That is, smoking (tobacco and pakalolo), putting on makeup, texting, eating sammy and dinking soft drink at same time, reading paper or book, and so on …. Also, drivers who have a passenger in front and who constantly look at their passenger and talk while not focusing on the road.
@Maxcat Reading a book? That’s bad. But if they were browsing Nonstop Honolulu on their iPads, well, I can cut them a break. 🙂
I multi-task like a madman while driving. I admit — I also text, tweet, make calls, etc. I know it’s against the law, and I know I shouldn’t but sometimes when sitting in traffic, I need to do something to keep myself busy. @wongie808 does remind me often to put the phone down, and I do.
I can’t stand people who merge into my lane then crawl…. so slow! If you’re going to merge, at least go with the flow of traffic. Don’t mess up the flow!
I remember once as a kid sitting in traffic, some dude kept honking at the guy in front of him. After bout 10 minutes of honking, the guy in front got out and beat the crap out of the guy beeping. That was pretty epic.
I’ve also heard that if you get agitated and restless when a big truck or car pulls in front of you and you can’t see in front of them, you might have road rage. I do. 🙂
Hawaii should initiate penalties for driving below the recommended speed limit, as they do in California. The C&C should also penalize drivers who in the fast lane, but are driving slower than the average pace of traffic.
My pet peeve is the growing lack of respect for the solid line. OK crossing the single solid white is not technically illegal in Hawaii, but how many times have I tried to merge on to the freeway and almost get broadsided by some lolo who is weaving through traffic and cuts to the outside lane over the solid right by the on ramp. Or someone behind me on an on/off ramp decides to merge/cut in before I do, over a solid line. Merging on the freeway on Oahu is already an adventure in itself, no need to make it more so people!
Here on the Big island, people don’t drive like they do in Honolulu or other cities. That can be both bad and good. It’s bad when drivers waiting to turn left at a signaled intersection don’t bother to move into the intersection when it’s green. Instead they wait behind the line until the light turns yellow, at which point only one car makes the turn per cycle instead of two or three. Frustrating.
Another trend seemingly unique to Big Island drivers is the frequency at which drivers will suddenly pull out of their driveways onto the highway without any real sense of approaching traffic, which often has to come to a screeching halt.
Finally, Kona has quite a few streets with right-turns with yield signs, Many of these are right-turns onto lanes that begin at the turn (think of a cross-street that has only one lane on one side of the intersection but becomes two lanes on the other). A majority of drivers will ignore the yield sign thinking there is no need to yield since the lane begins with the turn. These drivers are not considering that traffic coming from across the intersection may need to merge to the new right lane in order to turn into a driveway. As these drivers obliviously make their right-turn without stopping, traffic from the left lane attempting to merge to the right now has to brake so as to get over to the right and not miss their turn. Hilarity, obscenities, and rear-end collisions ensue.
@hawaii2000 Waiting behind the line until the light turns yellow….. totally agree!!
Using the window wash/wipers while traveling down the highway and spraying the windshields of the cars that follow behind. Maybe more of an issue here in L.A. where it hardly every rains..LOL
@Eric LOL this JUST happened to me today. Made me laugh. 🙂
Parking in the HC stalls WITH an HC card on the mirror, yet NO ONE traveling in the vehicle at that time is handicapped. I used to approach and berate people when I was younger and saw this. I’ve mellowed since, but it made my blood boil when people took advantage of this. When I worked in Chinatown in the ’90s, a travel agency owner whom I “used” to use parked EVERY DAY in the metered stalls in front of our office and paid no meter fare because of his sticker–of course he was abusing this. I stopped using his business when I noticed him doing it and told him so. He tried explaining that his mother used a walker and that’s why he had the sticker, but I’d counter that I didn’t see her in his office everyday!
Another thing I saw a couple of months ago was an ambulance on the H1that was on its way to Queens Medical Center. A car full of teens, (I saw them as the passed by me), was tailgating the ambulance, so as to cut through traffic!!! The ambulance had to STOP on the freeway and the paramedics opened the back doors to yell at the kids, who sped away. I hope they were reported…
And of course the WORST is kids racing on the FREEWAY at night. There’s been more than a few times either my GF or I have encountered them while coming home from late-night deadlines. You’d be driving 55 or 60, and they’d pass you like you were standing still. I know, know, KNOW this is horrible of me, but I secretly hoped for them to crash. It’s not like they don’t know better in the first place, so they’d reap what they sow. But knowing what heartbreak their family, or other road victims would experience always makes me come to my senses… is it wrong of me to let those thoughts wander into my mind? Probably… but there’s no excusing them.
Like John below, I have to confess to talking and occasionally texting on the phone, but I am trying to stop.
@MaxMaxMax If I’m not mistaken the HC mirror card is good for up to 2 hours of free parking in a metered stall. I can’t find the exact time limit but here’s a link to the HC use. Also, I just shake my head when the people are driving with the HC card still dangling from the mirror… it’s supposed to be REMOVED PEOPLE and used only when PARKING!
https://hawaii.gov/health/dcab/parkingusersguide/
@harrycovair Thanks for the link. I can’t believe they don’t discourage the abusing of privileges when traveling without the person(s) with the disability.
@MaxMaxMax Unless the Meter Patrol is onsite and view the abuse, there is almost nothing that can be done, short of shooting a video and sending it to the C&C.
@harrycovair Well, the meter abuse is minor compared to parking in non-metered HC stalls in regular parking lots. There’s no meter patrol there. It would be nice if the C&C established a site to send in phone videos of people skipping merrily away from their cars with no evidence of physical disabilities while in an HC stall.
@MaxMaxMax Hard to enforce in public parking lots. Maybe the driver dropped off the HC person in the front or lower floor with another person/assistant then had to drive around to find a HC space for after the function/event/appointment/etc.
Only with * constant * abuse and proof can something possibly be done. With a one time event, hard to say anything.
@harrycovair Haha! I guess I’m a bit militant about all this, LOL! There are greater injustices in the world…
Sorry I’m a little late to this conversation. LOOONG day at work. Luckily, I didn’t have to spend much time behind the wheel. But I do agree with just about every pet peeve here. I guess it comes down to people being self-absorbed and not thinking about what’s best for all drivers on the road.
Another pet peeve from this morning. Taking Moanalua Freeway, Aiea bound. Cars stay in the left lane from town all the way to the Aiea offramp at 40 mph. HELLOOOOO, the left lane is a passing lane. If you intend on driving slow that’s what the right most lanes are for.
Then you also have the car that at the last minute decides to cut into the H-1 Ewa bound lanes just before the Aiea off ramp and crosses a fat solid white line to do so.
I hate cyclist who insist on riding on the side walks especially when they expect the pedestrians to move the give them space to ride. I have personally knocked a few dudes off their bikes into bushes or grass for trying to run me off the sidewalk( I think football and bikes might be fun).
Now the next killer is the Pedestrians who walk hella slow because they know you gotta wait for them. No not old people or let’s say heavysetters I mean the kids who are going along… look you dead in the eye and then slow down crossing. I just wanna do a David Carradine Death Race 2000 on their asses and score a quick 20 points. The McKinley kids are the worst I’ve seen so far.
Why the hell you buy a nearly $100K sports car and drive it sub speed limit?
Why do you put $20K worth of shit on a $6K import then proceed to take up two parking spaces so nobody will ding your car? I’ll park my brand new Bimmer right next to you and ding you anyway… I can afford to fix my door without my mommy’s help.
Why can’t the dip shits at Wal-Mart park straight? All it takes in one idiot to start it and the whole day is chock full of jackasses how cant park straight.
Look people when a parking lot is super busy don’t back in. It’s selfish & rude to waste others time making them wait for your diva ass. It’s rude.
Lastly when you come back to your car and the lot is busy… get in, start car and back the e’ff up…. Pull out to the middle then fix your BS, buckle up or what ever it is you do that takes five minutes when there are twenty cars waiting for you.
Does anyone remembers the comedian Gallagher’s idea about lousy drivers? Give everyone a bag of arrows and whenever someone does something stupid you shoot an arrow into the car. If a policeman sees a car with more than ten arrows sticking out of it he gets a ticket for being an a$$hole. 🙂