Blue-light-fog-light-one-two-three

Is this just Missouri drivers or are all American drivers this nutty? I'm driving the Cayman from Jefferson City to Lee's Summit (KC area), a distance of 110 miles, starting at 6:30 tonight, which I presume is well before most of the drunks get on the road. I'm on U.S. Hwy 50, and all these incidents occurred on the improved 4-lane part of that road within 2 hours or less. I'd hate to see the driving behavior by midnight tonight. Oh, and number of cops on the road tonight? Zero. There really is never a cop when you need one.

1) Driver is in a pickup truck overloaded with household goods and kids' toys, towing an overloaded trailer with more of the same, followed by another vehicle that is seriously tailgating him (presumably his wife). They are driving 45 mph in a 65 zone. I pass at 72 mph, which apparently becomes the signal for them to speed up to 73 to pass me. Okay, so I slow down because I don't want to follow these people closely, who knows what will fall off or what will happen if they have to stop suddenly. They then slow back down to 60 mph. I pass them again. Same thing happens. I run it up to 85 for a couple of miles to get some distance. Nope -- eventually they catch up and do it again. This repeats over and over again for like 20 miles until they exit.

2) Driver comes down the onramp without paying any attention to whether there is anyone who might happen to be actually using the highway. This is nothing unusual, I see it all the time, the attitude is that they feel you should yield to them. This is of course the exact opposite of what I learned in driver's training but I'm used to the attitude by now so I move into the left lane to prevent the accident. What is unusual is that the driver then moved directly behind me and proceeded to tailgate me even though there was no one in the right hand lane. I move over, he moves over. Eventually he got tired of this. Dunno what he was mad at, I moved aside for him and never made any gestures to anger him. Perhaps he just hates people with Porsches.

3) A large group of drivers all decided to drive well below the speed limit and occupy both lanes, side-by-side or nearly so. They also manage to tailgate each other so that you cannot move around them. This typically goes on for miles. I see this all the time, everywhere I go. As far as I can tell, they are completely unrelated, they just decided to all drive together. This is not a busy highway at 6:30 on a Saturday night. Is there some reason people feel they have to travel in packs?

4) Why is it, no matter how far I park my car from everyone else, some &@&^$# always manages to come and squeeze in right next to me. Don't say it's because of the Porsche, this also happens with my Scion tC and my wife's old Acura MDX. It is like they have a magnetic attraction for other cars. There will be 500 empty spaces in the parking lot but they will always manage to squeeze in right next to me. They aren't necessarily necessarily interested in my car, and they frequently seem to take some degree of care not to damage it, so apparently it's not an urge to vandalize -- so why do this? I figure they must be the same people as in (3), there must be a herd mentality for some people. Safety in numbers??? I would just like to know what goes on in their thought processes.

5) Driver in a 4x4, 4-door pickup truck (is there any other kind here?) moves into the left lane behind me and proceeded to remain there, shining his lights directly into my rear-view mirror. Boy, people really love to drive in your blind spot, that's a real favorite place to drive. I slow down to let him pass, he slows down. I speed up, he speeds up. Finally I aimed my mirror back at him before his headlights permanently burned my retinas. At that point he had enough and blasted past me at 80 mph and I never saw him again. A lot of you worry a great deal about getting speeding tickets. I usually drive 5-7 mph over the limit but don't worry much about cops because there are so many 4x4 4-door pickup trucks that are out there blasting 80 mph, cutting a fine target for radar and arranging to be the next ticket for any cop up ahead -- if I ever saw one.

Here's what I find in response to your listed items:
Here in northern NJ,
1) Nope. I can't say I see that happen much. In fact, in NJ, I don't see many pickup trucks, period. Many SUVs though, including mine. Lol. When I do see overloaded vehicles carrying stuff, they don't usually drive wacky. Bus drivers and big rigs do tend to drive faster than they should on the highway, as do women in tiny Toyota Corollas and Hondas (who tailgate you too).

2) Yes, I do see this happen sometimes, but most people do still tend to yield. The person who you encountered probably changed lanes with you with the intention of tailing you thinking that they could drive at your speed with you getting the speeding ticket if a cop was ahead.

3) I've only see that happen while driving in PA (people doing that on purpose to piss me off), perhaps on one of our TSBL drives where our Boxsters hogged up the freeway lanes. Lol.

4) This is a rule when it comes to any parking lot in America. Don't try to fight it. These people who park real close against you...they don't care about parking damage to their or your vehicle. They are more concerned about getting the shopping done for their kids, picking up those shoes they wanted for 30% off, or whatever. I am very careful and mindful of where I park my Boxster just cause I think it's special, even though it's old now, but I dont care where or how close I park my Infiniti FX SUV to another car or shopping cart, because I consider it my family utility car to get things done/daily driver for work. That's part of why I love it. We have to go to the mall or Target?...ok, let's take the FX...I can park it anywhere and not care about it while I'm in the store.

5) Again, no one really drives pickups here, but we have seas of SUVs, and whenever this happens to me, I just use my rear wipers in my FX to spray some wiper fluid....gets the driver behind me upset, but also back off.

What really annoys me on my drive home from work when it is dark out are folks who convert their headlights to the ice blue xenon-ish beams. Their headlights are designed to use halogen bulbs, and don't have the projector beam eyeballs in them like real factory xenons have (which build in a strict cutoff line so that oncoming drivers aren't blinded), so I get all this spray of obnoxious blue light in my face, and end up not being able to see the road. To make things worse, many folks don't even have their lights aimed right. You can notice these easily by seeing one beam pointed way higher than the other. I wish they made checking headlight beam aim a mandatory item at State Inspections. Oh, and don't forget the folks who feel they have to run their headlights AND foglights when there's no freakin fog!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2011 08:37AM by boxtaboy. (view changes)

I also dislike those phony blue bulbs: a triumph of form over substance. I wonder if anyone has put smoked lens covers over blue bulbs. Many times I've seen some so blue and dim I can't imagine the driver being able to see with any distinction. (Hey, while you're at it, wear your sunglasses when you drive at night.)
In my relatively rural streetlamp-less environment, I've often used the fog lights to provide additional peripheral lighting. (Watch out for that deer, George!)
The golden rule of freeway driving is that the left lane belongs to the fastest driver, period.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2011 10:44AM by Laz. (view changes)

The headlight units while aesthetically pleasing (yes, debatable) and cost saving, don't have the fog lights in a position to do much good for their "intended" function. Porsche had to know this would be a functional design compromise. Fog lights should be positioned as low as possible and aimed with the upper cut off projecting at a true horizontal. I recall mounting Marchal fog lights on each of my Alfas, and the instructions called for inverting the lens element depending on the mount facing up or down in order to have upward cutoff. The integrated fog lights on the 986 and 996 series aren't differentiated by position to properly illuminate the road surface and minimize reflection from fog. As I mentioned in my previous post, they are very useful in minimal lighting situations, adding total and especially peripheral illumination.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2011 11:03AM by Laz. (view changes)

Oh, I wasn't in particular, referring to the fogs in the 986/996...they aren't really annoying to me on or off (although since I have the Litronics, don't feel a need to use them for extra light). I find them annoying on those vehicles that use those fake blue xenon headlights, with matching fake blue xenon fogs that blind you. But, I do agree that they don't really serve well as fogs on the 986/996 headlamp cluster design. I also find amusing, those LED strip driving lights that people put on their 20 yr old family minivans or hondas. No, it's not an Audi. Oh, and don't get me started on the fake front fender side air vents. LOL.

CARSTEREO



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2011 02:46PM by Laz. (view changes)

....we encountered most of this for the last 4 days and all I can say is I'm ready for anything. People reading while driving, driving with elbows while texting (this was a semi) Pulling out in front of me when there are NO CARS behind me, folks going 85 one instant and then 60 the next all while in overtaking lane and when the interstate goes through a city cars going 25 mph over limit and traversing 3 lanes while going one or two exits.
I've travelled 2650 miles so far on this return trip and averaged 70 mph and 27.1 MPG, not bad for a 325 HP V8 with 3.73 gears.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2011 12:41PM by Laz. (view changes)

(1) I encounter quite often. And it is not just me, or Porsches. Once in while when I'm on the road I overhear a truck driver observing the same thing. Some '4-wheeler' speeding up or slowing down in time with the truck's speed.

Oftentimes passing a slower moving vehicle is some kind of trigger that a 'race' is wanted. The other driver is bored, insulted, or has feeling of insecurity and wants to show you that even though he's driving a sh*tbox he can't drive worth a darn.

(My favorite is when I pass a car out on the open road and I get the horn, lights, a finger or even a swerve over as I go by -- and my pass is made safely though I might be going 5mph or more than the other car just to get around quickly -- only to come to a reduced speed limit zone miles down the road and I slow down. Then this vehicle comes racing up from behind at the last second whips out and around my car and proceeds to drive 5mph or 10mph or more over the limit through town.)

(2) Same as (1). It happens often. A variation is I'm merging and the outside lane is clear but some bozo decides he wants to change lanes just at the merge point and I have to take evasive action to avoid a collision.

(3) Happens all the time. I just lay back a safe distance and wait for a chance to make a safe pass.

(4) The car attracts other cars. I too often park faraway from other cars, and almost invariably when I come out to the car, another car has decided to park right next to mine. A real bad case has of all things a Cayenne parked so close to mine I wondered how the driver got is door open without hitting my car's passenger's door. I looked and saw no new dents/damage. But still? Why park so close?

(5) In this case I just move over if it is safe to do so. And if the driver follows my car over I slow down gently (no brakes) a few miles per hour then slowly pick up speed again. Many times I see the trailing car get pretty close to my car's rear then the driver realizes he's too close and backs off. This can happen several times until the other driver finally gets the hint and passes my car. Really, in most cases I think the driver is just not paying attention. And I see tailgating all the time. Used to be a car length for every 10mph and then it as one should not follow a car with less than 2 seconds distance. Now, I see many instances of tailgating where the following vehicle is barely car length behind the leading vehicle.

Scary. And do the cops do anything about this? No. Many times I pass a CHP car on the side with a radar/laser gun and while cars are going by at the limit (or at least not far enough over the limit to get pulled over) I see instances of tailgating that are ignored by the CHP.

My experience on the section 05 50 highway between Lee's Summit and Sedalia ( I drive this section often when I am back there cause my parents live in Sedalia) is there are always cops on the highway. (Lone Jack is a well-known bear trap area but I've spotted bears in Knob Noster, Warrensburg, between 7 highway and 291, almost everywhere. If you drive that road as often as I have you'll see cops everywhere eventually.) You may not see them but they are there. My V1 and CB radio help provide me with an early warning that a bear trap is up ahead. Thus I drive that section as if there'a cop over the next hill, or around the next bend, or on any overpass.

Sincerely,

MarcW.

Yeah, Marc, I know ALL about Lone Jack. That "city" experienced a bonanza last year when MODoT rebuilt the highway through there and put a long construction zone with a 45 mph limit. Saw the bear every trip through there. Surprised they haven't built a new City Hall and Police Station yet. Now that MoDOT is finished, the Lone Jack cop seems to have found other things to do and Lone Jack may need to raise taxes. Elsewhere, I rarely see the cops other than in Sedalia city limits, and I am on the road to my Mom in Jefferson City every 2 weeks like clockwork. Holiday weekends you'll see lots of Highway Patrol out radaring, but otherwise they are pretty scarce IMHO. Last Saturday night -- zippo. As you say, though, nobody cares about anything but speeding. I don't have any detector but I have been safe so far, probably since put it on cruise and don't go more than 5-6 mph over the limit. There are plenty of 4x4s willing to take a ticket for me and they are a much bigger target, too.

Other than speeding, IMHO there is a general lack of enforcement here. I am amazed how many personal use pickups are allowed to run with no rear license plate here. By state law this is only allowed for commercial vehicles with a GVW over 12,000 lbs. That GVW is bigger than an F-350, but I'm talking about F-150s that are clearly under the GVW and are also not even remotely commercial, and I'd bet 30-40% of them aren't running rear plates. The cops just ignore that violation, which I think is dumb. Let's say the cop stops them for speeding. With no rear plate, the cop has to go to the front of their vehicle to get the license number and then go back to the cop car to run it. That would be extra danger for the cop, which makes me wonder why they don't make these clowns use their rear plates.

There is a town in Georgia, Ludowici, Georgia located just South of Fort Stewart, that had such a bad reputation for being a speed trap that the governor of Georgia (Lester Maddox!) had signs erected just outside the city limits to warn drivers. Apparently, the local cops not only wrote the tickets but were "authorized" to collect cash on the spot....if you didn't want to spend time in the local "clink" while the check cleared. The situation was so bad that newly minted Ensigns from the Naval Academy, who were driving their new Corvettes, GTO's, etc., down to Pensacola were warned by the Academy administration to be careful. I-95 eventually put an end to the Ludowici speed trap.

A link to a 1970 Time magazine article: [www.time.com]

Y'all come back y'hear?

Bill



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2011 07:13PM by whall. (view changes)

Somewhere along the past 20 years, laziness became a virtue. All of the things you list can be explained by laziness.

1) Too lazy to make multiple trips or load the car properly. Too lazy to take safer side roads, too lazy to follow the interstate without your help.

2) Too lazy to think and too inconsiderate to care about your safety.

3) Too lazy to think.

4) Too lazy to look at the parking lines themselves, uses your car for assistance.

5) Too lazy to pass you, and too inconsiderate to care about your ability to see.

This is what happens when you exempt 300 million people from responsibility for their own lives. And then we get upset when the Indians and Chinese put American industry (what's left of it) out of business.

1998 986 Turbo-Look Cab
172,000 Miles
Dilithium Crystal Supercharger

Another good idea turned into a fad, making it worse than useless. Perhaps rescuers have given up looking for the baby after a crash, perhaps not.

i can't count how many times i've been driving along WITH THE CRUISE CONTROL ON (so no variation in speed), come up behind somebody doing AT LEAST 10 KPH less than i am, pass them only to have them pass me a little ways down the road. then they of course slow down again and i catch up to them GOING EXACTLY THE SAME SPEED BECAUSE I HAVE CRUISE ON and I pass them, wash, rinse, repeat.
when i pass them i look over and it can be young or old, male or female, it doesn't matter. people are just idiots. i don't think they realize what they're doing.

and as far as parking goes, it's the same EVERYWHERE!!! crappy car or new porsche, north america or europe, it doesn't matter!!! i park on an empty floor in a parking garage in switzerland with no other cars ANYWHERE NEAR and come back to find a car in the space beside me. And this happens to my friends as well. we've discussed it many times. it is soooooo bizaaaaaare!!! why???

--
MY 2000 S, Ocean Blue, Metropol Blue, Savanah Beige.
Bought June 2000 - Sold May 2010