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obc83

Starting to Get Obsessed
Sep 4, 2023
244
1,147
Make standard.....standard. Here is the states people don't remember that it was called a standard because thats what the vehicle came with. Automatics had to be ordered.
I second the motion. Make standard standard again. And keep on pipin'.
 

bullet08

Lifer
Nov 26, 2018
10,206
41,453
RTP, NC. USA
I second the motion. Make standard standard again. And keep on pipin'.
Why not walk? We had and still have the Presidents who can't walk and chew at the same time. Let's go way back. Even Beijing is filled with cars now. Stick shift has nothing to do with lack of concern for others these new generations have. Hard times in the past have generated bunch of retards for the future.
 
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sardonicus87

Lifer
Jun 28, 2022
1,340
13,968
37
Lower Alabama
Besides, the people that need education the most are the ones for whom it will be least effective because they won't care. Most of the bad driving is due to self-centeredness.

And if you made driving courses mandatory in the USA to get a license, they'll just drive without one.

I also don't think making manual transmissions standard will do anything. My first car was a manual (1987 Subaru Justy, 2WD), and as a dumb teenager, I would all the time be eating fast food while driving. It might make being distracted harder, but they're still going to allow themselves to be distracted.

You have to fix the people themselves and culture, that's the problem.
 
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Pipingntrucking

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jun 9, 2022
112
243
Zebulon-JoCo NC
This is America- or was. Do you really want to legislate transmission types?? Less regs, not more.

You have to fix the people themselves and culture, that's the problem.
@jpmcwjr - You mean like catalytic converters, seat belts, helmets? We already jumped that shark long ago.
I agree with you on less regs. I wasn't really thinking of it on the regulation side I was thinking more adaptation via manufacturers. You know like how all new mid size trucks have the name embossed in the tail gate, or every car now has oversized grills etc.

Completely agree with you @sardonicus87
 
Mar 1, 2014
3,658
4,960
and then discovered they were too small in diameter for city busses, school busses, and a high percentage of trucks to use.
I've seen a lot of new roundabouts lately but they're all made with sloped curbs for large trucks to drive over it.
(Drove through a few roundabouts with a 40 foot flatdeck north of Calgary last month, no problem.)

In areas with dense traffic and enough crazy drivers I might prefer lights but if it's actually rural traffic then the roundabout means you just never need to stop and everyone saves time.
I would say the roundabouts are perfect except that we should really just be getting more overpasses, governments love spending money no matter where it goes so they may as well make every major highway intersection totally seamless.
 
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obc83

Starting to Get Obsessed
Sep 4, 2023
244
1,147
This is America- or was. Do you really want to legislate transmission types?? Less regs, not more.
I mean, are we talking in a perfect world or the one we're in? Give me perfect and I'll turn the govt into a local highway dept and not much else. If we're going to have a gov at all all, make it work infrastructure and basically nothing else. But yeah, I'd vote to make standard standard. We can educate and incarcerate all we want but standard vehicles have actual limits, they don't go unless you make them. It's baked in. And @sardonicus87 kudos to you for beating the system, I did too, burger, soda, cigarette in hand stopping on hills in a beat up yota stick shift at 16. Got real good at it. There's not much to be proud of in mastering 10 and 2 in a automatic minivan. IMHO.
 

JOHN72

Lifer
Sep 12, 2020
5,824
57,283
51
Spain - Europe
Especially in the morning, some people are sleepy, absent-minded, tired, cranky, angry. And as our dear friend, FurCoat, says, using the cell phone. And to this, you add that they are clumsy drivers, because before, your father taught you how to use the car, with 11 or 13 years.
 

David D. Davidson

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jul 19, 2023
200
776
Canada
I think this may just be Alabama, but it also drives me nuts when someone passes me, and then gets in front of me in my lane, and then slows down. It makes using cruise control impossible, because it happens all day long on the interstates.
I’m about as far from a road rager as it gets - my philosophy is that I’ll get there when I get there, and I drive the speed limit and rarely switch lanes. I’m fortunate enough to not have to commute for work, so if I’m driving it’s usually for something that’s not too time sensitive or a repetitive daily drive.

But that said, what you described is the one chink in my otherwise zen armour. I will never understand this type of driver; it’s like their lizard brain stem takes over and compels them to pass people, regardless of what their speed is. It makes no sense, causes traffic backups, and makes me have to pop off cruise control. I don’t really get mad in life, but I’ll be damned if that doesn’t get me close!
 

Pipeoff

Part of the Furniture Now
Jun 22, 2021
928
1,556
Western New York
In NY roundabouts are called a Traffic Circle. They impede free flow of traffic and are dangerous to your self and others. Many towns have Civil War monuments erected before motorized vehicles. Rule is that the driver with in the circle has the right of way. The confusion is caused but the rule that at a four way stop signs on intersecting roads, the vehicle on the right has the right of way. When the local common council voted to relocate a monument they were blocked by a member that shortly after moved to la la land !
 
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sardonicus87

Lifer
Jun 28, 2022
1,340
13,968
37
Lower Alabama
I think this may just be Alabama, but it also drives me nuts when someone passes me, and then gets in front of me in my lane, and then slows down. It makes using cruise control impossible, because it happens all day long on the interstates.
Every time they do a study on the nation's worst drivers, Mississippi is always #1 worst, but Alabama is usually in the top 5 worst drivers in the nation, many times being in the #2 spot.
 
Every time they do a study on the nation's worst drivers, Mississippi is always #1 worst, but Alabama is usually in the top 5 worst drivers in the nation, many times being in the #2 spot.
Not that I care, but Alabama isn’t even the top 10.
 
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sardonicus87

Lifer
Jun 28, 2022
1,340
13,968
37
Lower Alabama
Not that I care, but Alabama isn’t even the top 10.
Not all of them use the same metrics, but most do put Alabama in top 10, often top 5, in most years:




 
Last edited:

brian64

Lifer
Jan 31, 2011
10,025
16,070
Not all of them use the same metrics, but most do put Alabama in top 10, often top 5, in most years:




They find a lot of Cadillacs in ditches down there.
 
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sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
20,707
48,981
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
Alabama drivers are not bad, oh no. You got it all wrong. They are good drivers who just don’t care about you.
Or themselves, come to that, since they're in the same accident that they caused.

I'm amazed that California ranks as low as it does. Whoever did the ranking must not have included LA. There a so many incompetent drivers behind the wheel in LA that it's hard to believe any other state, except Texas, based on my visits there, could be worse.
 
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lraisch

Part of the Furniture Now
Jul 4, 2011
727
1,509
Granite Falls, Washington state
I'm a little surprised that my state is relatively low, especially in drunk driving statistics.

I was in the office of a local prosecuting attorney and asked her about the huge number of files she had, wondering what the most common crime was. She told me that drunk driving was the vast majority of her cases.
 
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bearwolf56

Might Stick Around
Mar 16, 2013
67
261
68
Burlington, North Carolina
I think this may just be Alabama, but it also drives me nuts when someone passes me, and then gets in front of me in my lane, and then slows down. It makes using cruise control impossible, because it happens all day long on the interstates.
It's not just Alabama. They do it here in North Carolina as well. Along the same line is the driver who rushes to pass me then goes maybe a mile, but usually half a mile or less, and needs to turn left on a busy road, where it takes forever for them to turn.
 
Another peeve of mine are people turning left on a very busy two lane road. I have to drive this road every day that is bumper to bumper traffic from 3PM till 7PM, and it never fails that someone turns left, bringing the whole lane to a dead stop for up to 10 minutes sometimes. All they have to do is drive two more blocks and turn around at the light and then drive back making it a right turn without disrupting the flow of traffic.