I’m open to the possibility that it’s just me being more aware/sensitive to how people are driving around me too. And I’m not necessarily talking about drivers I have to interact with myself but just seeing what people are doing in general.
Since 2020. Covid broke a lot of brains. Once people started driving again, it’s like they forgot (or rejected) all the rules. Bad behavior that I rarely saw, like blatantly running red lights, aggressive driving, using turning lanes as passing lanes (even through intersections) went from rare to daily.
Using turning/bus lanes to cross intersections is something that I see that went from rarely to daily. It drives me crazy since they usually try to force their way back in to the lane once they cross.
You’ve an uptick in this type of behaviour coupled with a decline in enforcement.
You can go to countries where there are no traffic rules being enforced at all, but there’s not the same wanton disregard for life that I see daily on US roads. Recently was in Houston and you couldn’t pay me to live in that hellscape of entitled drivers.
It might be the age of most drivers around me but they all forgot how to use turn signals, how to merge onto a highway, what a yield sign means (hint: it’s not stop) and how to anticipate that they need to merge instead of waiting until the last minute and creeping into the other lane.
And just about every time it’s someone in a Subaru driving like they were beamed into a car and don’t know what they’re doing there.
Oh, and just about everyone comes to almost a complete stop to make any turn.
I’m generally fine with people stopping at yields. It slows things down, but it’s still safe. There’s actually one near my friend’s house that has hedges blocking all view of the road to the west until you’re right up on it, so I always stop at that one; can’t see if there’s anyone to yield to until you’re almost inside the intersection.
Oh, totally. But if we can all see that there isn’t any traffic slamming to a stop at a yield is a recipe for an accident.
Maybe they’re trying to get me to rear end them.
I seriously think this happened. I never used to see people signaling right and then turning left from a MIDDLE lane. People used to at least slow down at a red light before making a right turn. My dashcam went from an insurance policy to a highlight reel of absolute idiocy every time I drive.
I think it’s time everyone gets a road test every time they renew their drivers license.
Or the fact that No and mean almost no one moves over for emergency vehicles on the side of the road. Did fucking they stop teaching that in drivers education?
The same thing happened after 9/11 and lasted for months. People were stressed, upset and angry and it really showed up in their driving.
We now have the Republicans and their malignant narcissist glorious leader actively destroying this country. Medical costs, housing and grocery prices (among other things) are completely out of control and keep getting worse and Trump claims affordability is a “hoax” while adding more tariffs. Nearly eradicated diseases are surging again and children are dying. Our food has become unsafe to eat. We’re in a war that was completely unnecessary and the dotard in chief is shitting his pants and pretending he’s a tough guy while crawling into food carts to hide. Nero isn’t just fiddling while Rome burns, he and his ilk are smearing shit on the walls and actually lighting more fires.
People are naturally stressed, upset and angry, and it’s again showing up in our driving.
What makes this worse is they actually don’t have the humanity to care because to them you’re just “poor people”.
Not really. It sure can feel like it when you run into one, but people have been shit at everything since forever.
The city I live in had 15 pedestrian deaths from cars as their previous record, this year we are up to 40.
Cars are rapidly increasing in size and weight, decreasing their visibility, and people wont get off their phones. I do also partially believe that covid hit cognitive function and that tough times are making people antsy and angry too.
I think the older we get, and the more we know how things “are supposed to go” we notice more when things don’t go that way. I usually try to chalk it up to people that are inexperienced, elderly or not local. But there will always be people that are dicks because they can
It seems so, but I don’t have any data to back this up so it’s yet another anecdote. Speaking as someone who spends a lot of time on a motorcycle, though, I feel that I probably have a keener eyeball out for this sort of thing than most.
People kind of went insane during the COVID lockdowns and as far as I can tell remained at that approximate level of insanity in the years afterwards, whereas the number of vehicles on the road returned right back to its original level.
Yep. Coinciding directly with the proliferation of massive trucks with 10 seats and 600 horsepower engines and a bed too small for a TV to fit in.
It was way worse before phones were outlawed while driving. Now, people are back on their phones while it’s illegal. It’s a legitimate issue, and a hard one to solve.
People are braking like 30% later because of distractions inside of cars. More recent automobiles can tolerate braking so suddenly, but older ones cannot. Phones, funny enough, have gentrified the roads via producing unsafe drivers
And if they’re not on their phones they’re tapping on the giant iPad on the dashboard to change the HVAC settings.
I was at a friend’s place, and they had an oven with dials. Before I could even begin thinking of grandma and puppies, I had already ejaculated from the sheer beauty of it. It even had a numerical temperature gauge for every burner.
People on their phones at red lights is insane. And then they have the absolute fucking nuts to look at you in the mirror when you beep at them for almost missing the entire turn arrow, like you’re the moron. Blows my nuts off. I gotta get out of the city, man.
People ALWAYS say that drivers have gotten worse since [date] or that [my-local-area] drivers are the worst. I remember people saying this 30 years ago.
I am aware that pedestrian deaths are up in the US, which can be attributed to phones and vehicles increasing in mass. Other than that, let’s see the data.
“The younger generation these days has lost their respect for elders, has become too reliant on technology, would rather be entertained than educated, and represents a decline in humanity”
- everyone misattributing and misquoting Socrates for a couple thousand years
I’ve seen endless people not using their blinkers, and I’ve seen people diving over two, three, four lanes of freeway to make their exit, I’ve seen people changing lanes in the goddamn well-marked no lane change tunnel, speeders and super slow drivers alike,
and I think it would prolly be for the best if the standards to get a license were much, much higher.
No, in my experience it has always been bad
Reading over the responses from people here, I’m realizing that Philly drivers really are as bad as I believe they are.
Most of the responses here describe what I’ve been seeing in Philly for decades. Running red lights, blowing through stop signs, turning right on red from the left-turn-only lane. I refer to that as the “Philly Right Turn”. There’s also a “Philly Left Turn” (AKA, turning left on red from the right-turn-only lane) which is slightly more advanced because it involves crossing at least one additional lane of moving traffic.
I had a guy hit me because he went straight in the right-turn-only lane and the road had a dog-leg at the intersection because of construction. He said it was my fault because “everyone does it”. His insurance didn’t agree with his argument, and I got my deductible paid (thanks, dashcam).
When I was in college 30 years ago, I used to joke that Philly drivers should have their horns linked to their brakes so that when they leaned on their horn to warn other drivers that they were going to run the red light, the car would automatically brake instead. That wouldn’t work since then because people stopped bothering with the warning honk.
The things I’ve seen change more recently is what I mentioned in my other comment: driving on the wrong side of the road and driving while staring at their phone.
They’re easy to identify around here, most drive a pick up. As for the uptick, a lot of people only were decent drivers because they drove regularly. COVID and they lose the constant practice they needed to remain just decent. Add in that there’s a lot of anger directed by males, who I find a higher percentage of these drivers, to others around them and yeah. It’s a breeding ground of shit drivers. Add in that younger drivers are hot blooded typically and it answers the majority of them.
nah it’s fucked now. and as a result, I’m more aggressive as well
had a guy last night with LED bulbs in halogen housings pull up across the red light. put my highbeams on because I couldn’t fucking see. he turned his LED highbeams on. when the light turned green, they swerved towards me.
funny thing is, that’s similar to what I do when I’m being blinded - I drift towards the center of the road so I don’t go into the ditch. but this guy thought I instigated the situation when I was just responding to him instigating the situation.
nobody won. we’re both pissed off. it’s stupid. but fuck the assholes, nothing will change unless there are consequences. so I’m gonna try to make consequences for them. and that means I appear as just one more asshole on the road to others.
another peeve of mine is driver aids. it’s made people so goddamn bad in parking lots. I don’t give a fuck that your backup alarm wasn’t going, I’M WALKING HERE, and “I didn’t see you” isn’t a fucking excuse or apology for you being a dangerous shit driver. fuck you.
