THE ROOT DOWN'S TOP FIVE MAD ANNOYING DRIVING HABITS

As many of you know, I've really have given up, for the most part, on conventional transport. I'm a walker or a rider. I started doing it, geez, almost three years ago, I suspect and just kept doing it. There's a lot I've learned since I've begun and I would say that the msot prominent learning is how much I hate drivers.



People are just morons. Even cool people do stupid stuff behind the wheel of an automobile. Even my close friends do them. And it's time for me to air it out. I can't take it anymore. I read somewhere the other day that "loud bass music" is someone's annoying driving habit. "Loud bass music" is not a driving annoyance, it's a cultural annoyance. Likely this person was a racist. This person also mentioned "people talking on their cell while driving." I would agree that it can lead to annoying driving habits, but it, in itself, is not an annoying driving habit. What I have for you are The Root Down's Top 5 Mad Annoying Driving Habits. They are truly driving habits or unfortunate mislearnings. Getcha head right.



THE TURN LANE IS NOT A MERGE LANE
I don't know when this started taking off, but it was almost overnight. I remember the day I first saw a dude pull this one and almost kill me as I was pulling into the turn lane and found myself staring at his headlights coming directly toward me. Here's the failure in this: all traffic in the turn lane is to be turning as you exit traffic which requires, at the very core of it, decceleration. When an automobile is attempting to merge out of this lane, they are accelerating in the opposite direction. Here's the fix: you don't attempt to turn left across traffic until you, without fail or using the center lane as a waiting room, can make it all the way across the roadway. I gotta take the power back. It ain't a merge lane, broham. A merge lane is more commonly known as an "on-ramp." Check yo'self.



SITTING ON RED, RIGHTING ON LIGHT
It's like drivers just go blank sometimes. Like they didn't remember that they were driving. Like the pull up to the street light and then just start thinking about winged Twinkies or talking dogs. Maybe both. You're in the far right lane behind an automobile wanting to turn right at a light. The light is red. In most states (not all, mind you), it's legal to turn right on red after a complete stop. You're sitting with your blinker on awaiting your turn at the intersection except that the car in front of you has no intention of turning. You do not get the benefit of the "right on red." Light turns green and the car in front of you turns right even though he/she had ample opportunity to take advantage of "right on red." Stay awake, alert and ready to go right on red.


BLOCKING THE PASSING LANE
The "passing lane" is also known as the "left lane." If, on the highway, you're in the left lane, you should always be traveling faster than the traffic to your right. In the case that you are not moving faster than the traffic to your right, you are required to get over. The left lane is for faster traffic. It is not a lane to enforce your own vigilante speed trap and block faster traffic. It is not the lane you can travel in because the right lane is a little too bumpy. It is for faster traffic and faster traffic only. I don't care if that faster traffic is a Ford Escort carrying 900 pounds of cocaine and going 100 miles an hour while being pursued by fifteen cruisers. Not even sure if an Escort can get up to 100. If they're going faster than you, you must get over to the right. Here's the reason: faster traffic must be on the left because the right is most commonly the lane of highway entrance and exit so there's commonly slower traffic--either accelerating or deccelerating. Attempting to pass on the right is usually a highly dangerous operation because you're having to accelerate far pass the traffic entering or exiting the highway and it has the making of a horrible collision. If you're going 75 and passing a car going 60 in the right lane and I'm going 80, you must get over. Slower traffic keep right, broham. I don't care if you agree with me going 80 or not, that's not your judgment to make. Get out of my way. Take notice of congestion on the open highway. I would say close to 90% of the time, it's because some nincompoop is blocking the left lane.


EXHIBITIONIST DRIVING
Okay, I'm going back on my "cultural annoyance vs. driving habit" position. I make the rules here. You don't like it, get your own blog. I'll put it this way, I'm getting too freaking old to put up with moron drivers mad dogging me or peeling out to prove some sort of roadway supremacy. The Yellow's streets are jammed with tools in their bigass trucks or loud little Mustangs, Hondas with glasspacks or, my favorite, the neon Neon. Everyone wants to go zero to sixty out of every street light and hang out their window meanmugging every one in traffic. And me, because I drive a black Honda Civic, am thought to be a member of their Ghostrider click. Dude, I'm thirty plus, married and have steady work outside of the food industry. You ain't me and I ain't you. I don't want to race you. I don't want hang out and talk about Vin Diesel. I don't think you're cool. I don't like your music. I don't want to park my car in my lawn at an angle like it's a showroom. I don't own catalogs of car accessories. Everything my car is factory installed and my brain is larger than a lima bean. Leave me alone. I'm going to get a decal that has Calvin pissing on Vin Diesel with the words "I ain't yo friend" underneath it.

BRAKING WHEN ENTERING HIGHWAY
When entering a highway, it is important to blend with traffic. To achieve this, your speed while entering the roadway must be at or accelerating near the average speed of the vehicles occupying the highway. To do safely, it's also important to be aware of the highway traffic by looking over your shoulder. Want to throw a wrench into all of this? Brake while entering the highway. Because cars often enter the highway in multiples, they file in a line and begin to all accelerate in unison. All of them looking over their left shoulder (or sometimes right), you can imagine the damage of being the first guy in that line and braking even if for just a moment. If you don't have the fortitude to enter the highway, that's what the access road is for. I'll put it this way, if drastic and sudden acceleration feels dangerous when entering the highway, braking on the entrance ramp is ten times as dangerous.