Road Warriors

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Monday, June 2, 2003 | BROCK YATES

[presidio9]

Orange alert: American drivers are demented, speed-crazed, food-swilling, cellphone-gabbing, lane-jumping, road-raging sociopaths. Forget those Middle Eastern loonies; you face a greater threat from the guy next to you on the freeway in that Chevy Malibu. Any moment now he's likely to punch the throttle, take a bite of an unwrapped Twinkie, hit some numbers on his Nokia, toss you the bird and bunt you into the tall grass.

[Paraclete]

and the worst are 19 year old girls.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Driving in public needs to be banned and it needs to be tightly regulated on private property.

[darkwing104]

Orange alert: American drivers are demented, speed-crazed, food-swilling, cellphone-gabbing, lane-jumping, road-raging sociopaths.

Sounds likes the people I have to work with....:-)

[Pyrion]

Changing lanes is so much easier when you have a bullhorn in your possession. ;)

[Helen]

Absolutely! 19-year-old boys drive fast and reckless but are at least somewhat predictable.

[theDentist]

Did you forget a smilie here?

[Conspiracy Guy]

Oh sorry ; )

[RightWhale]

While it won't help much when hitting the wall in turn 3 at 220 mph, the greatest next improvement in automobile safety would come from wearing helmets. Trendy, style-conscious Americans harumpf and scoff, but it's true. The semi-harnesses help a lot, but your noggin is still free to impact various hard surfaces. Most of us would prefer unobtrusive bicycle helmets if forced to choose, but imagine how awesome you will be in your big-wheel 4X4 Silverado 454 with a full-face helmet in matching trim.

[scottlang]

I LOVE THE SMELL OF BURNT RUBBER IN THE MORNING!!!!!!!!!!!

[anoldafvet]

Absolutely, they have NO peripheral vision.

[toddst]

and the worst are 19 year old girls.

That's a good average age for the worst group IMO. We have a large university in our town and the young women attending there are downright scary (as drivers) on city streets. I do have the advantage of driviing a Suburban (I'll walk away unhurt) but these lovely young drivers still pull driving stunts that cause me to cringe - question their sanity.

Actually, they think nothing will happen to them (many younger drivers appear to believe this) so they take chances - depend on other drivers giving them the room and time to "do their thing."

One other group actually drives worse, but it's clearly not PC to point them out (black women.)

[Farnham]

Changing lanes is so much easier when you have a bullhorn in your possession. ;)

Here's another method. If you drive something like an old Plymouth Fury and want to change lanes, just whip the steering wheel back and forth (small arc, so you stay in your lane for now.)3 or 4 times. The car will stay straight, but the body will begin to roll violently. Count to 3 and go anywhere you want to. You WILL be alone, as everyone else on the road has slowed waaay down.

[Conspiracy Guy]

It's the smell of victory.

[Huck]

the road-death rate remains constant at 1.51 deaths per hundred million miles driven.

This stat isn't very helpful, or is it just me? To give it any sense of proportion, wouldn't we want to know how many drivers drove those miles, or how many total miles were driven? It just seems like a weird stat.

[babyface00]

If there was one thing, IMHO, that would bring traffic accidents down, it would be if more Americans could grasp the concept of yielding to other traffic which has the right of way and, the corollary, not "being nice" when you have the right of way if there is other traffic behind you.

Freeway entrance ramps, passing lanes, stop signs are all examples I see daily of violations of this simple principle, which is largely the cause of traffic congestion and accidents.

Just my 2 cents...

[Paraclete]

I kiddingly say to my wife, when I see a fast approaching car in my rear mirror that it'll be a young women. 9 times out of 10, I'm right.

[RRWCC]

I think we should classify auto into categories.
1) The assault vehicle. Two or more of the following:
a. Chrome wheels
b. Wide Tires
c. 17” or maybe even the dreaded 19” wheels
d. Holds over 10 gallons of gas.
e. More than 1 tailpipe
f. Over 4 cylinders

2) The sawed off vehicle: Shorter than 100” Wheel Base.
3) The high capacity vehicle: Holds more than 5 passengers.
4) The high power vehicle: More than 150 horsepower.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

I'm sitting here online all day, a partial quad permanently disabled by a careless driver. Forgotten even more than the 42,000 dead and gone is that a similar number are seriously and permanently disabled who are hardly ever cited even as a statistic. That the article cavalierly dismisses what automobiles regularly do to pedestrians and cyclists shows that behind the wheel the author (and most drivers) could give a flip about other human beings.