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Freeway speeds lately?

The requirements to get a license are laughable.

The penalties for not having one are minimal.

Driver's Ed for teens is long gone.

Cellphones. Freakin ' cellphones...

Add it all together and we get the hellbrew we have to deal with every day, and there is no end in sight. In '81 my peers and I took getting out on the road seriously. Now it seems that most "drivers" are in their own little worlds. Paying attention and adjusting one's pace seems to be things of the past. :(

.
 
In my opinion, the CHP and city police aren't giving out enough tickets. I rarely ever see anyone pulled over and many times, people drive like knobs right in front of law enforcement...and the law enforcement does nothing about it. Things won't change until the law starts coming down a bit harder. Plain and simple.
 
Let me ask. Since so many of us make too much money (I know it's not enough but most of the rest of the country would consider me to be in the .1%, and from the sounds of it most of you do better than my wife and I) how many of you have paid for real driving training for your teens when they got licensed? My kid is 6 so I am not there yet. Co-worker sent his daughter to some BMW car control type classes down in Marina when she got licenced. Reason I ask is because people talk like new drivers aren't taught anything anymore, which may be true. I did it in the mid 90s in a small town of about 70K.

So if they don't learn anything then shouldn't we be finding them additional training if we can afford it which again I think most of us can.

If you did it, what training did your kids do?
 
ejv said:
Let me ask. Since so many of us make too much money (I know it's not enough but most of the rest of the country would consider me to be in the .1%, and from the sounds of it most of you do better than my wife and I) how many of you have paid for real driving training for your teens when they got licensed? My kid is 6 so I am not there yet. Co-worker sent his daughter to some BMW car control type classes down in Marina when she got licenced. Reason I ask is because people talk like new drivers aren't taught anything anymore, which may be true. I did it in the mid 90s in a small town of about 70K.

So if they don't learn anything then shouldn't we be finding them additional training if we can afford it which again I think most of us can.

If you did it, what training did your kids do?
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From what I know - younger folks have to take training in CA. From a website: "If you are 18 or older in California there are no age restrictions for you. Just follow the above steps. However, if you're 16 years old you are only eligible for a provisional license after completing a driver education course. And if you're 17 1/2 you're allowed to apply for a provisional permit without taking a driver's education course."

I never took any training for driving - didn't need to. But - it seems really common from surveying people I know who grew up in south bay.

In terms of cost - it's not worth a consideration. You'd only be worried about that if you're some prop 13 beneficiary.
 
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bradlys said:
You do realize that no one keeps a 150ft distance between themselves and the next car even at 80mph, right?
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I do. And the older I get, the greater the distance. My sight is weaker, my reflexes are slower, and strength isn’t the same, etc.

That’s all I have to say. Out.
 
bradlys said:
You do realize that no one keeps a 150ft distance between themselves and the next car even at 80mph, right? You're lucky to see more than 50ft.

Next time - watch how people pass a semi-truck. Those trucks are no longer than 70ft and yet it's common for more than one person to be passing those trucks at the same time.

BARF has hit peak old-man! :afm199:afm199:afm199:afm199
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My pickup and I always keep about 100-150ft at 70mph. It takes for-fuckin-ever to stop and no way am I buying some schmuck a new car because he locked up his brakes on a downgrade and I couldn't stop in time. Cut me off all you care to, I just reopen the gap.

My bike and I tend to keep a few feet laterally and not really worry about following distances.
 
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ejv said:
..... how many of you have paid for real driving training for your teens when they got licensed?
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My kid got driver training at Holy Names High School when she was 15. I'd let her drive me around to practice driving, and she got her license on her 16th bday. A lot of schools, including public schools had driver training in 1986, dunno about now.

In the early 90s, I worked at a Porsche dealership. The owner sponsored a free weekend driving school class with Skip Barber, or Bondurant, at Sears Point. Any new 911 owner could do the classes. I'd say about half our customers took up the offer, the other half we'd eventually see in the service dept with their car on a tow hook. (Well, actually more like 15%)
Best new car feature, ever, the skills you need to drive a 911. :)
 
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ejv said:
how many of you have paid for real driving training for your teens when they got licensed? My kid is 6 so I am not there yet. Co-worker sent his daughter to some BMW car control type classes down in Marina when she got licenced. Reason I ask is because people talk like new drivers aren't taught anything anymore, which may be true.
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The program that private contractors do for the state is garbage. My daughter went through that and they missed important stuff we learned in HS driver's ed back in the day.

One day I was driving north on 680 from San Jose, and in 3 separate incidents, cars stopped on the shoulder pulled back on the freeway without gaining any speed first. The last nearly caused an accident.

We learned to pick up some speed on the shoulder first in Driver's Ed. My daughter wasn't taught that. Nor apparently were those three drivers I saw on that single trip.

We also learned to (where it make sense) get up to speed on the on-ramp, and save the decelerating for the off-ramp. Doesn't seem to be taught anymore. Traffic would flow better if it was. There's be fewer slow cars merging on to the freeway (before gradually speeding up), and fewer cars slowing before their exit.

My daughter later got extensive training (with a different set of traffic rules) for her German driver's license.
 
I was riding along the highway at 80 the other day and got passed, at a good clip, by a Fiat 500! :wtf
 
Recently I've experience a lot of cars pulling out of side streets and parking lots without regards to whether I'm there or not. When I'm on surface streets I am usually either right at the speed limit or +5. Are people losing there ability to judge speed/distance, is there something about my truck that makes this hard or do people just DGAF?
I think I know the answer.
 
I wonder how much of this thread is a Baader-Meinhof quirk. You maybe read this thread then come back and comment or maybe you have one particularly bad traffic day then you notice it every time there's a slowdown.

:ride :laughing
 
Pretty sure it was not me passing Climber, but getting onto 4 in my wife's Fiat I pass 3-4 cars every time on the on ramp, settle into the 85mph average speed for the section of 4 I live near, and then get passed by those 3-4 cars like I am still in the driveway about a mile later.

None of the cars should be out accelerated by a Fiat 500 under any circumstances.
 
cg_ops said:
I love these kinds of topics and have my own theories about the cause. Here is my totally-not-an-expert idea about traffic and driving in the area. Based on decades of driving and reading the responses of people replying to post/comments that relate to driving.

I believe there are a few types of drivers on the road (each with varying levels of characteristics from mild to extreme) and on any given day, many of us can be in one or more of these categories:

- The "Average driver": not offensive, doesn't do anything particularly good/bad, not particularly annoying or ingratiating. They're basically NPC of the driving world.

- The Oblivious driver: does not recognize that their driving affects other people, sometimes doesn't understand that there are other people on the road. The people lane change recklessly, don't merge at the proper speeds, and doesn't look at what's going on around them. Often these are the left lane campers... they'll look at you, bewildered if you angrily pass them on the right when, in their mind, they're "just going the speed limit in the left lane... it's the maximum speed, I can go, right??". These people are every bit as dangerous as reckless drivers b/c their obliviousness means they really don't see bikes... ever

- The Active drivers: Typically prefer to drive faster than average. Likes to be in the fast lane but moves over if being overtaken. Can be considered an aggressive driver b/c they don't have patience to wait for oblivious drivers to make a decision or safely participate in the current driving conditions (eg, the oblivious driver is often the one pulling out of a lane doing 15mph into a lane doing 50mph without looking for much faster cars behind them)

- The Crazy driver: a scary mix of the last 2. Drives fast/aggressively but is oblivious to what others are doing around them or how their driving affects those around them. These people rage the most and rage easily. They'll camp in the left lane doing 66mph and make sure you can't pass them or will rage when you do. They often drive erratically.

I think what's going on is the result of what happens when you don't do a good job of teaching people proper road etiquette and Active drivers become sick of dealing with Passive and Crazy drivers. Active drivers may not be "better" drivers but they're most likely (IMO) the safest drivers. They know they'e breaking the law so they pay the most attention and are respectful to other drivers when possible, so as not to draw attention to themselves. Over many years, the growing number of Oblivious drivers has pushed Active drivers into Crazy driver territory. Increasing overall average speed and decreasing the politeness of traffic in general.

/Half-baked, quarter-serious rambling about the state of traffic.
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Nailed it:applause
 
Regarding the German driver's training, we had to take about 25 lessons before being admitted to the test. The test was more than here in the US, but still not much. I actually learned how to drive when I delivered concrete during my summer break. 6 speed manual with double clutching, weak engine and overloaded. Also hard to take tight turns on wet cobble stone in mediviel downtown. The real test came when I got my license for bus. You had to prove you knew what you were doing or you took the test again. I wish the test here would be much stricter, keep people pedestrians, it's much more healthy either.
 
frozenuts said:
Pretty sure it was not me passing Climber, but getting onto 4 in my wife's Fiat I pass 3-4 cars every time on the on ramp, settle into the 85mph average speed for the section of 4 I live near, and then get passed by those 3-4 cars like I am still in the driveway about a mile later.

None of the cars should be out accelerated by a Fiat 500 under any circumstances.
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I was surprised to find, when looking it up, that the Fiat 500 can come with a 160hp motor. That's more than I expected for a car that size and look.
 
Climber said:
I was surprised to find, when looking it up, that the Fiat 500 can come with a 160hp motor. That's more than I expected for a car that size and look.
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Mrs. Frozenuts does not have the "high horsepower" version. Hers is the zero to sixty eventually model.
 
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