I will re-post my rant from earlier in the week. I can't stand road hogs who are on their cell phones! In the suburbs, they are worse than the cabbies. When a car is going slower than the speed limit (especially in the left lane), the bloke driving is usually talking!! How are they being safer by going slower? Grrrrr!

more news, less ranting!

I was annoyed this morning for a different reason--people who yield at spots where the other driver clearly must yield. The 14th Street Bridge was backed up so I took Memorial Bridge to Independence Avenue, but Independence was also slow due to a lane closure at the Tidal Basin. When that happens I go across Independence and down Ohio Drive to West Basin Drive, swing past the FDR Memorial, and join Independence near the Stone Lantern. When you cross Independence Avenue, there is a small spot that is kind of like a roundabout (similar, though not quite the same) and the traffic coming from Rock Creek Parkway has a yield sign. So this morning the dingbat in front of me decided to stop in the roundabout to let everyone coming from Rock Creek Parkway go first! Honking at him didn't help, so I went around him and he then tailgated and blew his horn all the way down Ohio Drive (to which I responded with a very sickly sweet wave of my hand every time he honked). Why the heck should we be sitting there waiting when the other cars have the yield sign????

There are a few people in my neighborhood who do that, too--the intersection when you leave my neighborhood does not have left-turn arrows, so traffic from both directions makes left and right turns at the same time. Traffic turning left has to yield in that situation, but there are some turkeys who think that if they are going right they have to yield to people going left (and then when they turn left they expect to be yielded to). Good thing my car has a nice loud horn.

Closely related to the lane hogs are the constant lane changers. If there are 3 lanes of traffic and those lanes are all moving at 45 mph, no amount of lane changing, light flashing, finger flipping, or horn honking is going to allow you to drive 80 mph. So get over it!

I'm very glad you're "excepting all other rants". Most blogs accept rants rather than except them - in fact, rants are often the rule and not the exception.

I'm fairly certain I didn't type "rather rather", but in case I did please except my error.

You totally skipped the absolutely most annoying kinds of drivers:
1. People who, for whatever reason, won't turn right at a red light. Even if there's no sign saying you can't. Even if there's no cars coming for at least three miles. Even if I'm right behind them, leaning on my horn. There are certain intersections where I'm temped stand there for a day wearing a sandwich-board sign saying "For the love of God, turn right on red!" for a day just to educate people.
2. People inept at merging. For starters, you have to use the onramp to accelerate to at least 50 mph to even have a chance of catching up with traffic. And it's best to try to get over as quickly as possible, and not to a) stop completely, waiting for an opening or b) go aaaalll the way to the end of the merge lane, and sometimes even into the shoulder, and then realize, oh yeah, I was supposed to merge! In that case they're obviously just trying to get in front of all the other cars, but I'd rather rear-end you than let you in at that point, buddy!

To the Phantom Grammarian: It was either a misspelling or an incorrect word choice, not a grammar mistake. And BTW, an em dash, which I'm guessing your single dash was meant to represent, signals an interruption in thought. It does not signal a continuation of thought and it does not signal the end of a sentence.

Intelligent people misspell words every day. Get over it.

"I'm very glad you're "excepting all other rants". Most blogs accept rants rather than except them - in fact, rants are often the rule and not the exception."

Above are the words I see but what I read is "I've got a small penis and I over-compensate by being hypercritical on a blog"

The tone of this post is irritating - it's not just SUV drivers. Bad drivers are behind the wheel of all kinds of vehicles, and 'bad driving' is subject to the interpretation of the observer, regardless. For instance, I witness drivers of smaller cars; Minis, Suburu wagons, Honda Accords, etc. driving entirely too fast and indiscriminately changing lanes ALL THE TIME. As a driver of an SUV, I am 100% aware that my vehicle takes longer to stop and is more subject to rolling over than most. So I drive the SPEED LIMIT and don't tailgate, what a freaking concept. At any point when I'm driving inside the Beltway in VA or in DC, say on the GW Parkway or coming around a corner like the merge off of 395 onto Washington Blvd. that has 2 lanes on a curve, who is it that's speeding past me, all pissed off? The angry driver of the Subaru, who no doubt is self-congratulating as they zip past at 75 or take the corner at 50 for not being a danger to the environment like I am. Well guess what - if the vehicle you're driving gets better gas mileage but causes more accidents, I think your contribution to society is negligible. And as far as SUVs being the ones who 'take up two lanes'the majority of the time, I actually observe that phenomenon more from people on their cell phones, regardless of vehicle. That's the problem. Lay off SUV drivers - a lot of us drive vehicles that are paid off and don't feel like taking on another 5 years of car payments just so we can avoid the contempt of the self-righteous hybrid drivers who paid thousands of dollars more for a car that doesn't get any better gas mileage than the regular Accord.

The bad driving that really gets on my nerves is people who are so intent on getting where they are going that they block intersections, blocking the box as it were. It does not matter to them that traffic is stopped on the otherside of the intersection and the light is changing they have to pull out there in front of people and rudely stop traffic. It is particularly bad on 355 in montgomery countyand even worse down in the district. How hard is it to stop and wait for a light at the stopline and not in the middle of an intersection? Whatever happened to common courtesy on the road? Or maybe it just never exsisted and I am kidding myself. The same goes for intersections with smaller streets and larger ones where there are signs saying do not block the intersection. The signs should just say block the intersection seeing as that is what everyone does anyways.

amen to responsible SUV driver by the way

I agree with the previous post on blocking the box. The most infuriating part of this behavior is that almost all the time that people do that, they get stuck at the next intersection, and don't proceed through that one any faster than if they had just waited through the cycle at the prior intersection they just blocked!

There are too many drivers on the roads. We need to stop glorifying the pseudo-plantations in distant counties, encourage people to live on smaller lots or condominiums closer to the city, and get more people into fewer vehicles going shorter distances.

And for gods' sake figure out the difference between a road and a highway. This stoplight/cloverleaf/stoplight/cloverleaf nonsense is the bane of sane driving and rational traffic flow.

My biggest pet peeve is when I stop before the intersection to avoid gridlock and someone from the next lane cuts in front of me. Gee, thanks for encouraging good behavior in other drivers!

"I'm very glad you're "excepting all other rants". Most blogs accept rants rather than except them - in fact, rants are often the rule and not the exception."

Perhaps "excepting" was intended to be "expecting", a simple transposition of the P and C; a typo.

Don't disagree with anything above. What really drives me crazy, though, are people who pull out of a side street onto a major road in front of traffic moving at a 45-mph or better clip--say, on Old Keene Mill in Springfield--and refuse to accelerate, meaning those of us who were approaching at speed must hit the brakes hard to avoid slamming them from behind. Same with people who want to poke along at 10 to 20 under any posted limit (taxi drivers are the absolute worst for this). I encounter this every day. This morning someone decided to traverse Guinea Road between Braddock and Braeburn at all of *15* mph. I'm sorry, but (road conditions notwithstanding) if you can't drive at least as fast as the posted limit, you don't belong on the road.

I sympathize with SUV driver. I of course hate SUVs and feel smug about my Subaru, but on the other hand I'm often in my boyfriend's Jeep and I understand that he and many others have SUVs not because they want to but because that's just the car they have and they can't afford a new one right now. And I also definitely see more bad drivers driving little sports cars zipping in and out of lanes, and don't even get me started on big trucks and tractor trailors.
As for the Phantom Grammarian: I'm a copy editor myself but even I understand that blogs and their comments fall outside the world of proper, edited English. We're lucky if people even capitalize words at the start of sentences.

Re: agent orange's comment about inept merging. It is often better to use the entire merge lane before side-stepping to a travel lane. This allows the merging traffic to smoothly accelerate to a sufficient speed.

I guess your eagerness to rear-end says it all: "ME first!" Ugh.

So glad I moved from the insanity that is Wash, DC!! Enjoy your lives stuck in traffic to get home to your $500k townhouse 30 miles from your job!!!

What a life!!!

As someone who rides motorcycles, I get a birds eye view at what people do while driving. I am amazed at the carelessness and lack of civility on the part of a minority of drivers. I wont even talk about the amount of people that virtually ram into my back tire or cut into my lane. It is just amazing at what people will do to get 10 feet ahead or prevent someone from merging. You can tell alot about a person when they feel protected by a couple tons of metal. I wonder if some of the more aggressive drivers are so arrogant and bold when they face the families of someone they have killed while sitting in a court room facing a negligent homicide charge?