What types of Vehicles are you wary and weary of?

[Sunbeemer]

What kinds of vehicles/drivers are you most wary of being around, and make you weary of worrying about?

1. I've noticed around here that big Ford & Mercury SUV's tend to pay little notice to anyone else on the road, be it other cars or bikes. I'm not sure if this is due to their size making their occupants feel invulnerable, or if they have limited visibilities or both, but their drivers seem more aggressive and less attentive than most.

2. I remember when real drivers bought BMW cars because of their handling (before yuppies bought them to make status statements) and you could usually count on them to be excellent drivers, using turn signals, passing appropriately, etc. Yes, they were fast, but they knew how to handle the car courteously. Not so much anymore, although I have seen improvement in the last couple years.

3. Nissan Sentra's seem to be driven by young women who go like a bat out of hell; their worthless brakes don't matter because they don't use them anyway!

4. Guys driving pickups by dangling their wrists over the top of the wheel (or anyone else driving anything else in this lacadasical manner but esp. the former).

Have you noticed these attributes in your part of the world?

BTW, the big rigs (18 wheelers, etc) have their own problems when it comes to visibility which they can't do anything about, so I stay clear of them too.

[ScooterCop]

anybody on a cell phone. Although it is illegal and I do my best to paper everybody at work, it doesn't seem to make a dfference.

[rdsmith3]

I despise dump trucks. They usually are dropping gravel and other junk all over the road; they frequently make sudden turns without signalling; they go slow; they stink worse than other diesels.

[Biff's R]

MINIVANS.

Usually some lady who is either yelling at her kids, or talking on the phone. They would follow you off of a cliff, because they can't drive, they just follow.

[MikeCam]

Anyone remember the top ten list and the well reasoned anti-school bus diatribe from 2002-2003? (Old board I guess).

Let's see?

1. School buses
2. multi axle dump trucks
3. Redneck white guys in work pickups
4. The white van man
5. old blue hairs in land barges
6. young angry chicks in econo-racer-boxes
7. cell phone SUV soccer moms
8. minivans
9. everybody else
10. ditto 9

[Sunbeemer]

I got stuck behind a dump truck on the interstate today and now know what the working end of a sandblaster feels like. Can't be good for the paint either

I did a some unfunded research a couple years ago while I waiting in the car for my wife on a busy downtown street at rush hour. I got bored so I started counting the number of distracted drivers that went by. Out of the 100 cars I counted, 67 of the drivers were distracted (including lighting cigarettes, fiddling with radios, reaching behind them to get something off the back seat, etc) and 37 of those were on cell phones. Not good odds for us being noticed by cagers when only 1/3 are paying attention anyway!

[NHighCotton]

I'm wary of any ones that are beside me,...... and I avoid garbage trucks in the middle of summer.

[yjleesvrr]

I'm wary of anything with 4 wheels or more.

[1MPH]

I'm wary of anything with 4 wheels or more.

Ding...Ding.....Ding...Ding....We have a winner..

[Harry]

I've gotta go along with minivans. Especially when 30 something year old white women are driving them. And sometimes Volvo stationwagons and SUVs. Those women always seem to be exceedingly pissed off! They'll flip you off with their kids in the back seat and not think twice about it.

I don't worry much when I see the elderly on the road. Their movements are usually pretty predictable.

Young kids aren't *too* bad because they like motorcycles and as a result they're paying attention to us most of the time.

Although I did have an incident with some kids over the weekend; they were tailgating me big time, and since there wasn't a shoulder so that I could pull over, I just maintained a consistent speed and turned on my hazard lights.

They backed off for a while but *did* call me names when I turned off of the road....

I would have been disappointed if they hadn't;)

[wncbmw]

I'm wary of anything with 4 wheels or more.

I would note that at trip to Deal's Gap (or any other hot motorcycle gathering place) means anything on 2 wheels has to be added to the list also! My last trip there, there were more close calls with bikes than cars!

[Lobo1625]

+1 to above post.

I am weary of anything I'm not riding Number of wheels is irrelevant!

[CycleRob]

Teenagers, Black women, Hispanic women, Oriental women, silver haired women and Chrysler 300 drivers. All too often the drivers in these groups continue on . . . . slowly . . . . unaware of the accident(s) they just caused. If you ever encounter a silver haired Black-Hispanic-Oriental teenager driving a Chrysler 300, you'd better just drive off the road into the woods . . . . it's safer.

It is not my fault that the poor judgement and inability to integrate with machines seemingly inate with Black/Hispanic/Oriental/geriatric/women or the naive recklessness of teenagers actually makes them bad drivers. The Chrysler 300 drivers are harder to figure out.

[The Velvet Monkey]

I've had a couple of close calls with women talking on cell phones--a problem that I think is absolutely out of control.

I also remember reading somewhere that Volvos were the make most involved in motorycle accidents. Avoid the Volvo. . .

[Sunbeemer]

Ok, I wasn't going to go there, but CycleRob's post justifies it...

I live in a racially mixed neighborhood. I have to be MUCH more careful around here because the drivers are far more likely to cruise through stop signs, or suddenly change lanes without signalling, or stop in the road just to talk to somebody, or do any number of (usually) unpredictable things. Big black women are notoriously the worst drivers around here and I avoid them, period.
I don't mean to offend anyone, just sharing my observations from 25 years in the 'hood.

[RForestR]

Minivans, Minivans, Minivans!!!
These things were created to distract drivers.
All kinds of internal space to carry around offspring and equipment, extra large blind spots and DVD players.

Usually Mom and her screaming brood, or a tired and bored Dad on the highway going to Grandma's house and knows the road 'sooo well' just puts the guzzler on autopilot and forgets the world around him.

But, I digress...
couple years back (okay maybe more than that) one of these dreadful machines cut me down in a parking lot. A PARKING LOT! We were hardly moving! and she still managed to sideswipe my back end! When she hopped out of her beast, after telling the kids to sit down and shut-up, she gave me the huh?? look and actually said "Where did you come from?" I didn't waste my breath to tell her I was sitting there all along waiting for traffic to stop so I could get into the exit lane. I waited for the cops to tell that tale...

Sorry for the rant, but it still drives me nuts, and I still hate minivans.

I was fine, the bike damage was minor, and I still avoid them like the plague.

Chris

[iowabeakster]

my favorite stupid driver story


I-80 passes (East-west) just along the north side of my town. I was headed north and sitting at a red light ON the overpass bridge over I-80. A woman exits off of I-80 and approaches the stop light from my right. She is talking on her cell phone. She is driving a big new SUV. She doesn't see the red light plainly lit in front of her. As she enters the intersection she notices the light. She stomps on the brakes. She is now directly in front of me. I can read her lips as she yells into the phone,"Oh my God, I just ran a red light!"

I don't remember much traffic about, but she then decided to throw the truck into reverse. She stomps on the gas. (you can see this coming) She plows into the car that had exited off the Interstate behind her and DID stop at the red light. Now she checks her mirror. She yells,"OH my god, I just ran into a car!"

She then throws the SUV into Drive (still a red light) and nearly causes another accident trying to get out of the intersection. She was still talking on the phone.

[Sunbeemer]

That would be hilarious if it weren't, sadly, so true so often!

Years ago, I was riding four cars behind an SUV and could see a bicyclist peddling alongside the road ahead of it that the SUV driver had to swerve at the LAST MINUTE to avoid! I couldn't believe the driver hadn't seen the guy until I saw she was talking on the phone!

Cell-phone use ought to be illegal in cars. I can't carry on a phone conversation in the car and have the necessary presence of mind required to drive safely. It's different than talking to somebody with you in the car because you aren't mentally even in the car when you're on the phone, you're at the other end of the line. You need to be in the car to drive, duh!

[NoRRmad]

Absolutely!

I was standing on a street corner in New York City a couple of years ago, and a woman was talking on a cell phone and turning left off a one-way avenue. As she went by, a pedestrian on the curb said to her "Oh! driving and talking on your cell, huh?" "Uh-huh," she said. I was about three feet from her side window, too, and I added "AND, going through a red light, huh?"

SCREECH!

[JCsman]

My wife was run off the Interstate today (in her car) by a guy talking on his cell phone. She said she saw him moving into her lane, laid on the horn as he came her way. He didn't even notice that, nor her journey into the grass median. She last saw him merrily continue up I-65.



No harm to her (Thank God), car only muddied a bit.

Our new-to-driving 16 year old carries one, but is forbidden to use it while driving. So far, every time we've called a friend answers or we get voice mail.