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What Are Your Peeves?
I encountered one of my pet peeves on the way to work today. About seven or eight bicyclists were ahead of me on the road. The road had a fairly wide bike lane — easily wide enough for one rider, and perhaps wide enough for two. The riders, however, were ignoring the bike lane and riding in the (only) traffic lane, generally two abreast (occasionally three abreast).
I live in a scenic and hilly area outside the city, which is quite popular for bicyclists. There are “Share the Road” signs up in the area. But I regularly encounter bicyclists whose idea of “sharing the road” is to block the entire car lane.
So, these are two of my pet peeves: (1) bicyclists who use the traffic lane even when there is a bike lane provided, and (2) bicyclists who ride side-by-side, blocking traffic.
I do understand that there are occasionally good reasons for this behavior. For example, there may be rocks or other obstacles in the bike lane, or a rider may be passing another. Neither of these exceptions were present today (or generally in my area).
What are your pet peeves?
Published in General
As a pedestrian, I take a brisk pace and try not to do stuff that annoys drivers. My pedestrian pet peeve is the people who won’t wait for the light to change because their time is so precious. So they wander into the lane when it’s clear on this side, waiting for the traffic to clear the other way. Sometimes they have to hop back onto the sidewalk so as not to get hit. State law now says you have to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. So these jerks step out into traffic against the light and it’s the drivers who can be ticketed.
After this time-saving fandango, once we all get across, these same jerks saunter along 2 or 3 abreast adagio non troppo and I have to find a way around them.
Cyclists driving in middle of the road is one of my biggest pet peeves. I have often wondered if this is due to oblivion or due to passive-aggression. After all, they are morally superior to me for not polluting the air.
it is a sense of entitlement. This is our current era, in my opinion. Everyone is entitled in some way or another.
Drivers who slow down before a turn without putting on their turn signal, then stop (still with no signal) before finally making their turn.
At my age , my pet peeve is when they don’t have what I want on the early bird special.
No, bikes are not for sidewalks. Bicyclists on sidewalks is another of my pet peeves.
I am conflicted when a bicyclist rides across a street in a crosswalk. This is technically wrong — if you’re going to use a crosswalk, then you should be walking your bike. But walking your bike takes longer, so as a matter of Pareto optimality, it is better for everyone if the bicyclists rides across the street.
Two more:
(1) Pedestrians who jaywalk within 10-15 yards of a crosswalk.
(2) Drivers who don’t use their turn signal.
On the other hand, I confess that I will both jaywalk and cross against the light when there is no traffic coming (though I won’t jaywalk when there is a crosswalk nearby).
hah – I have a friend who gets really uptight when I don’t signal. Generally, if I’m the only car for a mile in either direction, I’m not going to put my signal on. If I’m in a turn-only lane, I don’t signal. His opinion is that if your car so much as moves to the left or right, you need to be signaling. I say “it’s called a turn indicator, which implies that you’re indicating something, which further requires another individual to whom you are indicating said maneuver. If nobody sees it, it’s not an indication, and therefore it is entirely unnecessary.” And then he grumbles a bit about how I’m breaking the law, and then I intentionally peeve him further by saying that laws are designed for a purpose, and I find it more important to advance the purpose rather than the letter of the law… I actually do have a larger social point with that whole argument, but of course I am presenting it in a manner that is deliberately hyperbolic.
I will agree re not signaling when you are the only car around, but only if you will attest that you are omniscient, and therefore can have 100% certainty that there is no other vehicle — or pedestrian, who you ignore — who could possibly be affected by your failure to signal.
If you don’t know, then you should signal.
I will agree with you re not signaling in a turn-only lane, but only if you will attest that there are no other idiot drivers on the road who might go into a turn-only lane and nevertheless fail to turn.
You need to signal so that the rest of us know that you really mean to turn, because otherwise the rest of us can’t distinguish between someone who knows what he is doing (like you) and that idiot who is about to go straight in the right-turn-only lane.
Why?
I’m with you PC. I’m only flying about 1/2 as much as I did 3 years ago (2 million air miles – and that’s only one of the airlines I fly). The grocery store that we usually shop at gives rebates and discounts on gas purchases – the more we shop, the more they give back. It’s called customer service, as in taking care of your regular customers.
The airlines won’t give discounts on their fares, so they give little percs instead – occasional upgrades (sigh – I remember the days when I was ALWAYS up front) or, failing that, early boarding privileges. I’ve contributed somewhere in the neighborhood of $500K to Delta’s revenues over the past 20 years. I often pay a lot more for my ticket – having to buy it within 7 days as opposed to the tourists who bought theirs months ago. Therefore it is entirely reasonable for me to be allowed on ahead of the tourists who fly once a year at best.
Oh, and for the major airlines, 85% of their revenue comes from the road warriors. It’s to their benefit to take care of those folks.
OK, gonna start a referendum to deny drivers licenses to lawyers. Who’s with me?
;-)
Just to be annoying, when the plane arrives at the gate, everybody is supposed to in their seats with their seat belt securely fastened.
Why don’t the people in the back wait 2-3 minutes for the people in front of them to get off?
I haven’t found evidence, but I would imagine that if everyone used the same system, the entire all the passengers would deplane smoother than any other method.
I get annoyed at drivers who are constantly changing lanes on a motorway. There are good reasons for changing lanes but, if you’re doing it more than six times within two hundred yards, you’ll probably soon find the accident you’re looking for, and in the meantime, you’re raising every other driver’s blood pressure.
I get annoyed at drivers who don’t know how to use a motorway on-ramp. Instead of matching speed they creep along at a crawl until they reach the point where the ramp is too narrow where they just stop, causing a big tail-back.
I get annoyed at drivers who enter an intersection at traffic lights when they have no exit, thus creating a gridlock when the lights change.
Why is this controversial? Why are you all fighting so hard against this? Can you all take off your moral/fair-play/right-wrong/thou-shalt glasses for a minute and think in terms of efficiency?
The reason it takes so long to deplane, is that as the rows empty from front to back, everyone grabs their bags from the overhead bin one at a time. That’s the bottleneck. We know it’s the bottleneck because when you look past the current person fetching their bag, the aisle between them and the door is empty.
Consider a plane with six seats across. Imagine if the plane emptied as follows:
1. Everyone in aisle seats grab their bags.
2. They all walk off the plane.
3. Everyone in the middle seats move to the aisle and grab their bags.
4. They all walk off the plane.
5. Everyone in the window seats move to the aisle and grab their bags.
6. They all walk off the plane.
Notice that a full third of the plane is grabbing their bags simultaneously at any one time. Notice that the aisle is completely utilized at all times. The goal is to get everyone off the plane, isn’t it? This would empty the plane in a fraction of the time.
Why would we purposely make it take longer? What principle are you all trying to defend? That deplaning by columns is evil, but deplaning by rows is virtuous?
Another one: People who don’t walk on the right (on a sidewalk, aisle, etc.)
This is America. We drive, walk, and bike on the right. Otherwise walking down the sidewalk is like trying to get past a linebacker.
After my rush-hour walk to an appointment, last night, I have to add one more:
Joggers – – who have inexplicably decided that the best time and place for them to run is between the hours of 4-6 pm, on narrow sidewalks packed with pedestrians.
Yes!
The worst is walking around corners.
I walked around a corner on my right and there was a pedestrian right there and we almost collided. Totally avoidable if he had been on HIS right.
Except on a street pedestrians should walk on the left facing traffic.
Had this “discussion” with a biker on a recreational trail recently. With mixed mode bikes and pedestrians, my position is that the bikes [“vehicles”] should be on the right and pedestrians should be on the left facing traffic. Encountered a biker who vociferously disagreed.
I work in a car dealership, and this really bugs the heck out of me. Someone will call and say, “My car’s getting the oil changed at 2:30; could the guys also rotate the tires and change out the wiper blades?” Or, they want a car to drive while they wait 30 minutes for the oil to be changed!
Another peeve—people who want to turn off the road and signal for 1/4 mile, or pull into the left lane of a two lane road 100 feet before the corner to make a left turn.
Agreed. I was talking about pedestrian-to-pedestrian encounters.
People on my lawn.
Today, my pet peeve is people who don’t return phone messages or acknowledge emails within a day or two.
Sufficient unto the day is the trouble thereof.
Will have to wait and see about tomorrow.
I acknowledge that this is irrational, but men who wear Italian loafers without socks drive me into a near-homicidal rage.
And it’s ten times worse if the man wears them with shorts.
There’s something about that look that seems so wrong in so many ways, though I can’t articulate precisely what they are.
On airport moving walkways…people who block the entire width and then are annoyed when someone whose plane was late is rushing to make a connection and “rudely” pushes past them.
Someone uses “your” instead of “you’re.” It’s never the other way around.
Moms or Dads in line at the doughnut shop (any fast food place) that wait until they are at the counter then turn to their kids and say, “OK, what do you want?” and each kid takes forever deciding which items.
Delta Airlines. Have you flown Delta lately?
Atlanta Airport. Because if you die in the South, you have to go through Atlanta Airport to get to Heaven.
Wow, just reading these is making my blood pressure go up! Kudos to Ryan for best rant ever!!
My peeves: People whose response to everything starts with the word “so.” People who drive on the interstate entirely in the left (passing) lane even if there are no other cars around. People who bend over every time they take a bite to eat instead of lifting the fork to their mouth. I could go on, but those are the only things my husband does that bug me that I can think of right at the moment.
-Cyclists…just in general
-Truckers who attempt to pass another truck but spend 5+ miles merely pacing each other and blocking the lanes
-People who play music in their car at blazing levels with the windows down in public (especially annoying at gas stations and parking lots)
-Groups who insist on taking up all the lateral space on a walkway so you can’t get around them while at the same time walking at a pace my dead grandmother could beat
-General public obliviousness (likely cause of most of my pet peeves)
I’m not sure this thread is good for my blood pressure…
This is giving me flashbacks of living in Seattle…
On a side note I actually hit a cyclist in downtown Charleston no more than 3 hours after moving here. Having just moved from Seattle I was still a little worried that I would get written up with a big fat ticket etc… I was going to go get the guy enough cash to buy a new bike but he insisted on getting the cops to show up…who eventually sent me on my way and wrote him a ticket for trying to pass on the right. I love this town.