What Annoyed You Today?

pbehn · Feb 10, 2018

SANCER said:
... or some honorable citizen of Mexico City! (We are reputed to be the wildest at the wheel! )
The traffic and rush in this beautiful city are the best factory of imprudent and driving beasts!
That could be my complaint of the day, ... well, of every day!

Sorry Sancer I drove in Veracruz for three months and for a week in Mexico City. In Saudi Arabia I had to drive to work on the Abqaiq Road. This is a six lane highway (3 in each direction) with no central barrier. At night for "laughs" the locals used to switch their lights off at night, others used to drive on the wrong side of the road and switch their lights off, switching them on at the last minute to scare people. Hey, guess what used to happen about once a month? Yup, two cars with no lights had a head on smash for no apparent reason in the middle of the desert.

mikewint · Feb 10, 2018

They (whoever the %$&@%$ that is) say those DA roundy-abouts are somehow safer than a good old intersection with 4-way STOP signs. So far, danke dem guten Gott, there are none in Arkansas but for some odd reason Missouri DOT has fallen in love with them and there are now several in both Springfield and Branson. I had the misfortune to be driving into Branson a couple of years back when I hit my first one. Yup, slammed on the brakes trying to figure out WTF. Went around about 15 times before I managed to escape and not on the road I wanted...POS!!!

Capt. Vick · Feb 10, 2018

Not today, but last week I has a calcium deposited in a shoulder tendon that flared up and gave me a little taste of hell. Damn that hurt...for a week!

Airframes · Feb 11, 2018

It's snowing, it's cold, and my new (in October) all-singing, all-dancing central heating system has decided to go on strike !
It's shut down, with a message on the digital control panel stating low water pressure, re-fill system etc etc, so a heating engineer's job.
Of course, being Sunday, it can't be looked at until tomorrow at the earliest (I hope!), and meanwhile, I have a cold house, and no hot water !
Being a digital, remote control (by R/F) system, that needs a degree in nuclear physics to understand, there's no way to over-ride the bl**dy thing, unlike my old (read "ancient"), manually controlled system. And of course, when this was installed, the old hot water tank, with optional immersion heater, was removed.
B*llocks to it - I'll get some food and go to bed and read !!!

Greg Boeser · Feb 11, 2018

mikewint said:
They (whoever the %$&@%$ that is) say those DA roundy-abouts are somehow safer than a good old intersection with 4-way STOP signs. So far, danke dem guten Gott, there are none in Arkansas but for some odd reason Missouri DOT has fallen in love with them and there are now several in both Springfield and Branson. I had the misfortune to be driving into Branson a couple of years back when I hit my first one. Yup, slammed on the brakes trying to figure out WTF. Went around about 15 times before I managed to escape and not on the road I wanted...POS!!!

Minnesota, always eager to jump on the progressive trend of the day, has been building them everywhere. My sister lost most of her front yard to one. Here in the Twin Cities they put them in residential neighborhoods by simply building a giant planter in the middle of an intersection, without altering the actual dimensions of the intersection. Soon the planters are scarred from multiple hits, and the properties on the corners have lost fences, trees, and foolishly curbside parked cars. But they reduce accidents?

pbehn · Feb 11, 2018

Greg Boeser said:
Minnesota, always eager to jump on the progressive trend of the day, has been building them everywhere. My sister lost most of her front yard to one. Here in the Twin Cities they put them in residential neighborhoods by simply building a giant planter in the middle of an intersection, without altering the actual dimensions of the intersection. Soon the planters are scarred from multiple hits, and the properties on the corners have lost fences, trees, and foolishly curbside parked cars. But they reduce accidents?

I grew up with them and have no problem with them, they do not reduce accidents and that is not their aim, they improve traffic flow under most circumstances. When a roundabout has a proper island, not a paint circle they reduce serious accidents. The biggest draw back is young kids using them as a race track, here is a video taken showing exactly the same roundabout at 1:13 ...worth watching to the end when the plonker makes a complete Horlicks of it and runs off road. However the same people in a place with no roundabouts tend to jump lights doing 100MPH or something else similarly stupid.

youtube drifting in stockton on tees - Bing video

swampyankee · Feb 11, 2018

mikewint said:
They (whoever the %$&@%$ that is) say those DA roundy-abouts are somehow safer than a good old intersection with 4-way STOP signs. So far, danke dem guten Gott, there are none in Arkansas but for some odd reason Missouri DOT has fallen in love with them and there are now several in both Springfield and Branson. I had the misfortune to be driving into Branson a couple of years back when I hit my first one. Yup, slammed on the brakes trying to figure out WTF. Went around about 15 times before I managed to escape and not on the road I wanted...POS!!!

They actually are safer; the data are out there.
That said, I don't like them. They're not particularly common in Connecticut, and tend to take up too much space to go adding them willy-nilly.

Greg Boeser · Feb 11, 2018

In winter, they are traffic hazards. I watched a slow speed crash just last week. Conditions, light snow. Car going 10mph, tops, slid off the road into snow bank, utterly destroying his front end.

mikewint · Feb 11, 2018

View: https://youtu.be/iAgX6qlJEMc

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Feb 11, 2018

mikewint said:
They (whoever the %$&@%$ that is) say those DA roundy-abouts are somehow safer than a good old intersection with 4-way STOP signs. So far, danke dem guten Gott, there are none in Arkansas but for some odd reason Missouri DOT has fallen in love with them and there are now several in both Springfield and Branson. I had the misfortune to be driving into Branson a couple of years back when I hit my first one. Yup, slammed on the brakes trying to figure out WTF. Went around about 15 times before I managed to escape and not on the road I wanted...POS!!!

Well if you know how to actually drive, roundabouts are efficient, easy and safe.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Feb 11, 2018

Greg Boeser said:
In winter, they are traffic hazards. I watched a slow speed crash just last week. Conditions, light snow. Car going 10mph, tops, slid off the road into snow bank, utterly destroying his front end.

They are no more of a hazard than any other driving in winter. People just need to learn how to drive first.

pbehn · Feb 11, 2018

mikewint said:
View: https://youtu.be/iAgX6qlJEMc

You jest, this is what a European vacation looks like, I lived in Paris for two years and my car went around the Place de L' Etoile precisely once, just to say I had done it. In France (usually) you can drive on to a roundabout without looking because you have priority, once on the roundabout you must give way to everyone else entering. The exceptions to this are roundabouts marked with a sign " Vous n'avez pas le priorite" where it is the other way around (the system used in UK). In France all roundabouts are chaos.
paris traffic chaos - Bing video

pbehn · Feb 11, 2018

Greg Boeser said:
In winter, they are traffic hazards. I watched a slow speed crash just last week. Conditions, light snow. Car going 10mph, tops, slid off the road into snow bank, utterly destroying his front end.

If a car cannot keep on a road at 10 MPH then anything is a hazard.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Feb 11, 2018

Greg Boeser said:
Minnesota, always eager to jump on the progressive trend of the day, has been building them everywhere. My sister lost most of her front yard to one. Here in the Twin Cities they put them in residential neighborhoods by simply building a giant planter in the middle of an intersection, without altering the actual dimensions of the intersection. Soon the planters are scarred from multiple hits, and the properties on the corners have lost fences, trees, and foolishly curbside parked cars. But they reduce accidents?

That comes down to a state full of people who simply do not know how to drive.

How come the rest of the world seems to be able to use them just fine?

Progressive trend...

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Feb 11, 2018

pbehn said:
If a car cannot keep on a road at 10 MPH then anything is a hazard.

It sounds to me like lack of driving skills.

I lived in a country for over 20 years that uses roundabouts heavily. Never hit or ran off of one, or saw a trend of anyone else doing so. But then again, there you were required to take real driving lessons, and not just get a permit to learn your parents bad habbits and lack of driving skills.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Feb 11, 2018

pbehn said:
You jest, this is what a European vacation looks like, I lived in Paris for two years and my car went around the Place de L' Etoile precisely once, just to say I had done it. In France (usually) you can drive on to a roundabout without looking because you have priority, once on the roundabout you must give way to everyone else entering. The exceptions to this are roundabouts marked with a sign " Vous n'avez pas le priorite" where it is the other way around (the system used in UK). In France all roundabouts are chaos.
paris traffic chaos - Bing video

Driving in Paris is terrible. Did it once, never again. Same with London.

pbehn · Feb 11, 2018

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
It sounds to me like lack of driving skills.

I lived in a country for over 20 years that uses roundabouts heavily. Never hit or ran off of one, or saw a trend of anyone else doing so. But then again, there you were required to take real driving lessons, and just get a permit to learn your parents bad habbits and lack of driving skills.

I know what you mean Adler but they are even more common in UK, if you view the previously posted video drifting in Stockton on Tees that is the route I use every day, there are many routes to/from where my wife works, between 5 and 8 roundabouts depending which way I go.

Greg Boeser · Feb 11, 2018

In this country we give driver's licenses to anyone who wants one. Requiring a test of proficiency is a human rights violation.

pbehn · Feb 11, 2018

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
Driving in Paris is terrible. Did it once, never again. Same with London.

Milan is worse, and from what the Milanese told me Napoli is the worst in Italy which is quite a claim to make. As I said in a previous post there is a way to drive in all these places, you must have driven on many unrestricted Autobahns which scare the hell out of most non Germans, the fact is they are no more dangerous than any other European Motorway and safer than many, you just have to know what you are doing.

T Bolt · Feb 11, 2018

latest thing around here is the Diverging Diamond Interchange I guess they might just take some getting use to I haven't done it yet. You get into it and it feels like somehow you've gotten on the wrong side and people freak out.

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