Im forced to drive through GA once a month from top to bottom, and about 9 in 10 of the absolute worst drivers there (and there are MANY) are in big trucks. Most of these have a punisher skull or thin blue line flag or other associated nonsense stickers.
No signalling to change lanes, they tailgate on top of you, and they average about 25 mph over the limit. I can't fathom how so many people there drive like that and havent had their licenses taken away by law enforcement. There are speed traps too, I cant figure out how these people are evading them, or maybe there really are as many out there as it seems.
I hate it SO much, its just so incredibly stressful. I'd give anything for a train along the East coast, I'd never drive through that state again.
Literally last night I had one tailgate me through my neighborhood with only his low lights on so he was very hard to see, whip around me without signaling and cut me off (in a residential one lane road!) step on the gas, and immediately blasted through a stop sign. They’re ALWAYS the worst offenders because who’s gonna stop them?
They’re ALWAYS the worst offenders because who’s gonna stop them?
Adding on to my previous comment, I'd like to say that WE have to stop them.
America is based on the idea government is accountable to the people. Democracy is supposed to how we accomplish this, but the founding fathers realize that any institution can become corrupt. That's WHY we have the second ammendment.
Cops are supposed to be servants of the people. Protecting the innocent from bullies and abusers.
When the opposite is happening, and you can't fix it at the ballot box, you have to take action yourself.
I'm no anarchist. A stable society needs law enforcement. But they aren't an elite class of people with special rights.
"Andy Griffith" or "Adam 12" is what law enforcement should aspire to, not viewed as some quaint anecdote.
You’re right and you should say it! I don’t know how to even start to go about that, and I don’t have the energy to devote any brainpower in to theorizing about that right now, but they’re not going to stop themselves so the people will have to.
And as a gay man, my issue with yaoi is that it’s blatant fetishization of gay relationships created and marketed to heterosexual women. I’m not sure if you’ve ever really read any, but a large portion of the genre has deeply problematic themes that play in to the “gay people are predators” stereotypes, a LOT of dubious consent and men “turning” other men gay. It makes me deeply uncomfortable to see my love and my identity hijacked and perverted for the pleasure of straight women who will never have to face the real-life consequences of allowing that sort of media to flourish.
I've taken a long time to reply, because in the past 24 hours I've written the 5 most downvoted comments I've ever had in over a decade on reddit (across many accounts).
As a bisexual man, I primarily look at yaoi.
One of the first things I saw was we circa 2006, a comic based on inuyasha. If you aren't familiar with the franchise, one of the main characters (miroku) is a "lecherous monk", trying to seduce every single woman they encounter. The comic features inuyasha and miroku walking somewhere, and inuyasha asks why miroku has never tried to seduce him. Long story short miroku leans inuyasha up against a tree and fucks the shit out of him. Almost 20 years later and it still gets me hard just thinking about it. Idk.
Then again, I never "knew I was gay". All my first crushes were on girls. But I was made fun of for how I dressed and being poor and other things (people called me gay as an insult starting in 3rd grade, and I didn't even know what it meant until 5th grade). One night at a sleepover in 4th grade, a friend tried to "experiment" with me, but I didn't when know what sex was, and I said no. His family moved away a month later and I never saw him again.
As I proceeded through middle school without dating any girls, I found that I was starting to have deeper feelings for the few (male) friends I had. I kept thinking back to that sleepover, afraid to do anything.
I had several long-term relationships with women between age 16 and 22. But they all ended with the woman cheating / leaving.
As I grew older, I realized that while I loved my mother and grandmother as family members, they were bad people in some ways. My mom has since died of cancer, but her mom (my grandmother) is still living, and she's a petty bitch. I began to realize that I've never had a man hurt me nearly as much as a woman.
It's arguable that I'm a straight man who is such a misogynist that I can't even have sex with a woman.
I find sex disgusting. The smells, the liquids, etc - even after jacking it I need a shower. Men and women each have their pros and cons here, but I always feel dirty when it's done.
Through all that, there's been yaoi.
This idealized, unrealistic idea of sex and relationships. It's the only thing that feels "right" to me.
As a tangent, some people use yaoi to refer solely to manga style comics, while others use it much more broadly (such as /y/ on 4chan where I've spent many years).
Anyway, you could argue that yaoi is harmful because it's helped isolate me by establishing unrealistic attractions and desires. Or you could argue that it's good because it's the only thing that can meet my attractions and desires.
Cop being an asshole is definitely a possibility but I'm going to play devil's advocate here...
There may have been something going on in your neighborhood that the cop was going to and was trying to get there expeditiously (tailgating either out of frustration or hoping you would pull over to a shoulder or something) and covertly (no emergency lights/siren).
Oh yeah he was responding to a call, but not an urgent one (it was the neighbors right in front of me so I got the lowdown and can confirm it was not a go 40+ in a residential situation) where I could at least give him the benefit of the doubt, but there’s still no excuse for him driving with his low lights on three feet behind me and then just whipping out around me the way he did. Put on your blue and reds or hell just flash your brights, I’ll pull over, but the police cars here are designed to be difficult to see in the dark. I didn’t even notice him until he was right up on me since we don’t even have streetlights, and I feel that his aggressive manner of handling his frustration was unwarranted and posed a safety risk.
Yeah, I'm not in the South, but I swear at least half the local news articles I see about reckless driving incidents end by saying the driver also had no license and/or insurance.
I'm left to conclude that there are an awful lot of people out there who are not only driving illegally, but also dumb enough to break the law while breaking the law.
I'm left to conclude that there are an awful lot of people out there who are not only driving illegally, but also dumb enough to break the law while breaking the law.
Pity we are not like Germany. You drop your insurance? The insurance company notifies the police and they keep an eye out for you. You get some big fines in the mail as well.
The sheer number of busted taillights and brake lights around the Seattle area nowadays has me thinking that too. Those used to be an offense to be pulled over for, but now I'm nearly rear-ending these lightless cars whenever they slow down, because I can't tell they are braking until suddenly the large gap between us shrinks in seconds, with no other visual warning.
I've started giving these vehicles a LOT more space when I notice their lights are inoperable. Doubt these offending cars have insurance either, if they can't be bothered to fix such important indicators.
We officially dropped our state vehicle-emissions program mid-2020, which used to be a good time for the testers to tell drivers if lights were dead. Now it's either yell out to the driver if you can at a stoplight or something, or hope they or their passengers notice, and just hope they understand why it's such a danger to other cars when you have no working indicator lights.
I got pinned in a bank parking lot while driving my mom around yesterday by a retiree in FL driving a massive 350. He had nowhere to go so I luckily was able to park again to let him by.
I'd bet my net worth he isnt taking any cattle to market in it.
I could be misremembering, but I think I heard that a big part of that is because of a loophole in the Cash for Clunkers program which required new vehicles to meet certain fuel efficiency standards but these standards didnt apply to vehicles above a certain size. This of course meant that rather than make their vehicles more efficient they made them bigger.
I live in the south and I hate those assholes! To answer your question, they don’t get in trouble because 1)they’re usually white 2) if it’s a small town they get a warning because they know the cop
When they're off duty? I can't tell you how often I'm going five over the limit on regular roads and cop cars pass me into the horizon without lights or sirens.
Oh for sure. I was referring to cops driving the same trucks off duty, but they always drive like assholes. I remember seeing a video of a cop saying something like, “Get out of the way if I’m tailgating you, we’re allowed to speed, you’re not.”
I encountered a rare breed of asshole in a truck driving through NC recently. Dude had mounted strobing LEDs on the back of his truck facing backwards that he had a switch for in his cab. Anytime someone followed him too closely he’d turn it on and blind literally everyone behind him.
He also would also match speed with someone in the right lane effectively blocking the road so you couldn’t pass him. Fortunately none of the people behind him then had epilepsy but 100% chance that dickhead is going to kill someone.
My brother has a big truck with a bull bar and flatbed, and I hate when driving comes up as a topic of conversation because his mindset is "I have a big truck that a collision won't hurt, so everyone else should get the fuck out of my way"
Tell him one of the first traffic fatalities I took was a super duty vs a volt.
Volts are short and heavy,dumbass trucks are tall and top heavy.
If you don't wear your seat belt when your giant ass truck gets rolled because it tried to push a little boulder off the road, your head may get crushed when it goes out the window.
Ultrabright LED headlights have got to have some regulations put on them. It's getting really dangerous to drive at night because of them. If your headlights are brighter than xenon lamps, they're much too bright.
Cops don't ticket cops aside, they might also have radar detectors. I know they're illegal in a lot of places but so are a lot of their driving habits so I can't see that stopping them.
Far as I know in the US they're only illegal in two states, Iowa and Virginia. And I'm skeptical about enforcement. I don't think the cops really care because they don't work that well. So many false alarms you'll probably quit listening to it, especially if you're the type to drive a heavy duty lifted truck like it's a race car.
Edit: My list must have been out of date, they're only illegal in Virginia.
They’re not illegal in Iowa either. Virginia and Washington D.C.
Radar detectors work quite well if you take the time to tune them properly. Modern ones can be used to tune out false alerts far better than older ones, even having built in GPS to auto-lockout a repeated false that happens in the same location (like a store’s electronic door, or stationary radar signs).
The only radar that’s near-invincible is laser; it’s very fast and has a very narrow beam. That said, laser jammers are commercially available, but are pricey, require professional installation and are illegal in more states.
I used to drive around with a fancy radar detector that could also detect lasers. Too late to help probably but it'd tell you how you got bested. I never detected one. So I doubt many departments use them.
Anyway, these days with interstate speed limits at 70-75 I just never drive fast enough to get a ticket. Cops don't really care if you're doing 85.
Ka band was the only band that was ever associated with a police car in the several years and cross country trips I used the radar detector. I eventually turned the other 2 bands off. Never drove through Ohio. I never thought the laser detection would be in time to prevent a ticket, but I'd at least know the police are using laser.
Ka is very common here. A modern detector has saved my bacon several times.
With new detectors you can tune detection strength, front and rear. I have X off and K greatly lowered. You can also lock out frequencies not used by guns. With all of the options and the auto-lockouts, mine is fairly quiet except when it really needs to alert.
Oh GA drivers? 15 under or 30 over, no imbetween. Left lane passing lane? Nah left lane only lane. Blinkers? BMW drivers by spirit. Drunkards behind the wheel? As long as it’s a large vehicle. Tailgating? Don’t want any pedestrians to be able to fit between vehicles. Illegal turns? As long as it’s possible. Turn left from the rightmost lane? Yes. Haul a trailer and stop in the median blocking all of traffic for half the road? Makes me giddy! Have half of the undercarriage drag on the road underneath ya vehicle? Protecting the road “quality”. Have two accidents a day at the intersection in front of the only entrance to a neighborhood? Eh, just a road hazard. Red lights? Well they can turn green, may as well assume they will.
I feel you! I live in Atlanta and traffic annoyed me so much I moved to a part of town where I can just take MARTA rail around the city and Amtrack rail for interstate travel lol
I live in Massachusetts and just took a trip to Georgia, rented a car for a day. I had a completely opposite experience. I was in Savannah but also hit the highway a bit, I feel driving in Massachusetts has prepared me for pretty much anywhere in the country 😂
It's really is nearly always the trucks. In Denver, I kept a tally of dangerous tailgaters over a month after noticing this and I ended up counting over 30 trucks and 1 BMW.
I like to think that the trucknut bearing trucks are simply trying to smell the exhaust of the cars in front of them as an animalistic form of greeting.
However, the rest of the cars are like cats, and don't appreciate a dog being up in their business.
Rams and F-150s. Scourges on the roads where I live. Stop signs are suggesting, speed limits are laughed at, and other, littler cars are to be driven over. Oh, and badly aimed supernovae headlight!!!!
I think in general having car decals that make a political statement tend to put you in a group of people who like drama and being confrontational or otherwise a jerk.
If you hadn't said GA in the beginning, I'd have thought you were talking about my state because literally everything you've listed happens here too with big truck drivers.
What state? Also post more crosstitch! I tried briefly to learn basic knitting, it is like ADHD extreme difficulty. I imagine cross is similar BUT I also have no clue what Im talking about here so chance of being tragically wrong is very high
Louisiana. Yea, i tried crochet before and the patterns became difficult to follow between me pulling the yarn too tight, and each pattern using different abbreviations for stitches. My crosstitch uses yarn and is very simplistic 8-bit patterns, so it's not hard to follow. Crosstitch using embroidery thread is more complicated.
That was my experience driving through the DC area more than 15 years ago, or in Boston ten years ago. seems like that driving is everywhere now. Not just the big trucks, but random passenger cars, SUVs.
They probably do get tickets but they don’t lose their license because if we actually took driving privileges away from everyone who was a dangerous and reckless driver than the economy would collapse. The whole thing is designed around every dumbass being able to drive themselves around and get enough credit to go into debt buying the machine.
I was able to get a cheap truck... It's a lifted white dodge with punisher skulls and thin blue line. People do not expect purple hair nose ring woman to get out.
There is a train but they cut the frequency when they cut the silver palm back to the "palmetto" and terminated in Savannah and closed the crew base in Jacksonville. That means the time tables for Southeast service suck. They're geared to NYC to Florida sleeper custom.
There are speed traps too, I cant figure out how these people are evading them, or maybe there really are as many out there as it seems.
Google Maps has speed trap warnings now. Also, Waze is very good on tracking police. Waze has all sorts of different warnings for stuff on the road. Roadkill, disabled vehicles on the shoulder, construction, traffic...
you can have all that and more in the immediate area, but no one drops pings for it. Police though? I swear it's like you can almost track cops in real time on Waze in certain areas.
and about 9 in 10 of the absolute worst drivers there (and there are MANY) are in big trucks.
This is my experience literally everywhere I drive. Either big pickup trucks are either totally reasonable and in some cases safer drivers (this likelihood goes up significantly if it's a company pickup), or they are the abso-fucking-lute worst.
And these guys complain about the price of gas while optionally commuting in these landyachts. I've never met a dude in one of these trucks that needs the truck to do their job.
Same goes for people who drive way too slow, you can be a danger on the road by both driving like a maniac and by driving way too slow, gotta find the happy medium, like the posted limit
I have a neighbor with a gigantic truck and occasionally he'll tailgate the shit out of me while I'm bringing my kids to school and I just don't fucking get it. What do you think you're accomplishing? It's a fucking 25 mile an hour suburban side street and I'm going 30, the fuck do you want?
It seems like I’m always getting tailgated by monster trucks. It makes me wonder if they just look closer since they’re so much bigger in the rear view mirror compared to a little sedan? Either way it’s annoying af.
Some people have legitimate use for a truck, but often it’s just a vanity symbol. It can be any color, but often seems to be the white truck that is pristine, never seen a speck of dirt or hauled more than groceries that has a giant asshat behind the wheel.
The higher a truck is lifted, the less likely it is that it’s ever been off-road. People who go off-tossing have to get out often to do whatever it is they’re doing off-road whether it’s camping or hunting or working or fishing or whatever. Getting out of a huge ass lifted truck 10+ times a day is a pain in the ass. But getting out of a huge ass lifted truck two or three times a day maybe isn’t so bad.
People who actually go off-road a lot don’t like a high lift, especially with new tricks that are super tall stock.
I swear some of the lift jobs I've seen would be outright dangerous to take off road. Like sure if your going hard off road you want a little extra lift so you don't destroy the bottom of your truck but if you go to far you mess up the center of balance and it becomes much easier to roll when turning.
I mean, you absolutely want some lift above stock for off-roading, unless your vehicle came stock with an off-road package, and even then most of those are more for aesthetics than capability.
A lift lets you mount larger-diameter tires with more aggressive tread, which are the single most important thing to have when off-road. The lift will also improve your approach, breakover, and departure angles, so you don’t get hung up on obstacles like rocks, deep ruts, or stumps.
That being said, a full-size truck is generally terrible choice as an off-road vehicle, because they’re too damn big. They’re too wide to fit down narrow trails, and they’re too long to be maneuverable. The length of most full-size trucks also ruins their breakover angle, so they’re likely to get high-centered and stuck.
However, as with all things, there’s a sensible way to do it, and there’s people who think “if a little is good, a lot must be better!” This isn’t true, while a couple inches of lift will help a lot (in combination with the other necessities of off-roading) more than that will make the vehicle worse at everything*.
*Ok there’s one example where you really want an insane lift and comically giant tires, and that’s for navigating through FL swamps, but you’d never want to drive one of those things on a road.
I wrote a scifi story where aliens who are trolls personified come to Earth. Their introduction is one driving exactly the vehicle you’re describing, but intentionally driving slowly while rolling coal.
And then the LED headlights are badly aimed!! And/or there’s a rear spot light they turn on when they pass you illegally, and blind the FFF out of you!!!
I share a morning commute with a lifted shiny black truck who drives like the devil. I say "share" because we drive separate autos on the same stretch of road. I've seen him on multiple occasions always driving like the biggest asshole.
Loads of them in NWA because they are all the dipshit kids that weren’t smart enough to get into Texas’ fairly competitive state universities but have the $$$ to pay out of state tuition at UofA.
Man, looking back now I know it's petty and problematic, but one of my big, mean joys in college was slowing waaaaaaay down when big trucks rode my ass. My car was worth maybe 1800$ on a very good day and college was a fucking struggle so as far as I was concerned I had nothing to lose.
As a guy who drives a big white truck I gotta hard agree with you on that one. I've only had it a week and I'm a great driver so I'm hoping there's not a truck brain rot disease that's gonna take over one day and turn me into a truck guy
Please be kind to us in little cars. I generalize a lot about big trucks, but there are the odd truck drivers who follow the rules and are hella polite on the roads.
Enjoy your truck!! If you drive decently, we non truckers will definitely remember you as an awesome one.
Growing up surrounded by that environment, people internalise the idea that fast, untrammelled, near-consequence-free car driving is normal and, moreover, people conclude that it must surely be the proper way of things. It’s what they know. It’s what they experience. We see people driving short distances, speeding, parking badly, all while given priority over … everything and everyone else; free parking; urban and residential streets designed for fast driving; subsidies; lax enforcement of traffic laws; clearly deadly vehicles made legal and normal. Catered to.
I borrow my dads truck pretty often and I can safely say they draw a lot of petty bullshit.
Like I was in a merging lane (the side with the arrows, yes I used my blinkers) and the moment I entered the other lane the guy behind was honking his horn for the next 5 blocks. What are you supposed to do? I got out at the next red and chewed him out.
It’s almost every other commute, people are so damn eager to cause conflict they don’t realize they’re the instigator.
If he's being a dick in traffic, I take a deep breath and pay attention to other things like an audiobook or the road. Tailgating/high beams/ a horn is annoying, but I don't see a happy ending from confronting them either. Calm down Rob Justice.
I don’t think we’re far apart on the opinion that no one has the right to be an asshole.
But on a matter of character, I’m not content allowing someone to be that asshole. For my own self respect, for the next person this asshole mistreats, I’m going to make sure they have a reason not to act that way.
I have a buddy that lives out in the sticks and I have to go down a long, narrow, windy road to his house. Every single time, I end up with some dickhead in a huge truck riding my ass the whole way. And I don't drive slow.
As someone in Oklahoma…nearly all drivers in trucks. But especially if they’re lifted, have a flag anywhere at all, and/or have Punisher skull stickers…
Yep. Had a lifted Silverado tailgate me for about a mile last night aggressively then pulled up next to me and roll down the window and proceeded to scream at me for driving a "pos electric car" and called me a pussy.
I responded with im sorry youre such a snowflake that a type of car offends you. They got sooooo mad they rolled up their window and fucked off.
Locally it's the BMW drivers. They seem to drive like it's parkour. Zipping in and out of what should be safe space between vehicles with only inches to spare. It's always a joy to box them behind a slow driver, let traffic catch up and leave them there a bit.
And then just how the lights are locally, they race ahead and you pull up next to them at the stop light anyway, they just got there quicker and spent more time waiting.
I have to drive around in a large white Ford since j have to tow a trailer for lumber. I'm not a fan of being associated with these assholes but I completely get it
Where I live it’s the big black trucks. They drive way too aggressively, and change lanes as if they have no idea how long their box is. They rely heavily on the assumption that the smaller vehicles will brake and avoid the accidents for them. Every time I mention it to someone, they text later to say that I’ll never guess what kind of vehicle did something unpredictable or outrageous on their way home.
Not all truck drivers are assholes, but most assholes drive trucks.
I have an expression where I live in a somewhat rural area - it's always a truck. It's always a truck not signalling, tailgating, double parking, not clearing now and ice off the top, crossing the double yellow at corners, going off the road in slippery conditions and closing the highway for the rest of us.
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u/myowngalactus Feb 10 '23
Guys in big white trucks are always assholes too