I have had enough of this %#&@& winter.

[Sailor71]

George is one of my all time favorites!

You've pretty much itemized a list of what it takes to be an "excellent" driver so I'm not going to repeat it. It's all the above and the 3-C's and patience




I'm sooooo glad I didn't have coffee in my mouth when I saw this or I'd have been cleaning my monitors




I saw that on the news. It never ceases to amaze me how many people don't know what "safe following distance" means. What it is....and why it's a terrific idea to maintain it! You'll know it's me ahead of you on a freeway because I'm the dude with enough room in front of his vehicle to stop should somebody have an accident in front of him.

-32 here this morning (not including the windchill) and I'm darn good and ready for some spring *sighing* Meeting a couple friends for a cigar at my one friends shop......looking forward to that!

I suspect you're a much better driver than you're admitting............LOL...........but I'd be interested in seeing some links............

You tell me your stupid driving stories and I'll tell you mine!

It absolutely amazes me some of the driving in the Greater Toronto area. You can try to leave space between the car in front and sure enough, someone that has somewhere to be that's verrrrrry important pulls in front of you. For your info CptnBlues63, hwy 400 here is like the stretch of hwy2 between Red Deer and Calgary just add 4 more lanes and 10x the number of vehicles.

[CptnBlues63]

It absolutely amazes me some of the driving in the Greater Toronto area. You can try to leave space between the car in front and sure enough, someone that has somewhere to be that's verrrrrry important pulls in front of you. For your info CptnBlues63, hwy 400 here is like the stretch of hwy2 between Red Deer and Calgary just add 4 more lanes and 10x the number of vehicles.

I've driven on it and it's not a great place to be driving anything, least of all a fully loaded semi!

When I was 18, I got a job driving a pick up and delivery truck. I hauled oxygen/acetylene and other gases around. If you're familiar, it was an International 1600 (3 ton truck like they used to use for hauling grain) truck.

So one spring day I'm driving back to my shop and am approaching the intersection where I need to turn left that had no separate left turn lane. It's slushy, slippery and nasty out so I have plenty of safe stopping distance between me and the car in front of me. At the very last second, this douche in the next lane over to the right decides he has to make a left here and yanks into my safe stopping distance effectively removing it. It follows logically I rear ended him.

This happened right in front of a gas station I frequented for cigs and gas and it just so happened that at the time of the accident, two guys I knew reasonably well were standing outside pumping gas and saw everything that happened because they recognized my truck, and me, and were waiting for me to stop so they could wave "hi" at me (they told me this a few minutes later).

I tried fighting this in court. The judge at traffic court even said to me, "You didn't leave a big enough stopping distance" I said, "I beg to differ your honor, I have two eye-witnesses right here who saw everything including the fact that I had a safe following/stopping distance between me and the vehicle in front of me and that this fellow here (pointing at him) took it away from me when he slammed in there at the last second without even shoulder checking or signaling his intent."

His response, "You hit him from behind, you're 100% at fault"

I've never been so pissed in my life.

When the wife and I are on vacation with the 24' travel trailer behind us, I spend a lot of time on freeways slowing down to leave a safe space in front of me. We get lots of honks and get flipped off frequently but we both just smile and wave........

[Mangyrat]

Get a dash cam.

[CptnBlues63]

Get a dash cam.

You wouldn't have thought it would be necessary with two independent witnesses and in light of the fact that I them and the judge still told me "too bad for you" I suspect a video still wouldn't have swayed him either.

I have been thinking about getting a dash cam after watching a video on YouTube a friend sent me a link to. Apparently it's big business in some places for scam artists to pull in front of an unsuspecting victim on a freeway and stop suddenly causing a rear-end accident. My friend told me, they then offer you the option to give them cash to not report the accident.

So the video was a guy with a dash cam. A car pulls in front of him on the freeway and slams on it's breaks but the dude with the dash cam stops in time. The scam artist then backs up and bumps into the car with the dash cam. Both drivers get out of the car and dude with the dash cam points it out to scam artist. I'm assuming he told the guy, "No, I'd rather take this one to the insurance companies" but who knows the end result. All I do know is, he should have reported it to the police and provided them with a copy.

[badwhale]

I've had enough of hearing Pennsylvanians continually bitch about snow and cold temperatures.