Driving habits of rural folk

[Ken]

Have you ever been to Brazoria county? It's no "suburb" of anything. Yeah, it's near Houston, but in the way that only a Texan would describe something as "near." There is hardly anything out here where I live. Flat, boring farm land; rice fields mostly. No roses to stop and smell. Flat, straight roads so long that all depth perception goes out the window. At night you can watch a traffic light at an intersection turn red 3 times before you get to it, driving 60mph. Sometimes if deep in thought during my commute I'll "snap out of it" and have nothing to reference to tell me how close I am to work or if I missed a turn; everything looks the same.

What qualifies as "the country" for you?

I won't argue about Houston drivers though. They are an energetic lot. I drive through half of Houston twice per day and it's quite the experience. Something that I find very striking though, is every time I have to travel to Dallas for work. They don't drive as fast there. Through most of the city in rush hour they are "smelling the roses." I think they are just so resigned to everyone else driving like they have helium in their foot, that they don't even try. And they have WAY more accidents. I start seeing the accidents before I get into the city. And then I'll see 3 or 4 within a span of a few miles. They don't have those accidents in Houston. I might see one per week on average.

I agree Houston has excellent drivers. Every time it rains they all get into there cars and bust the water out of the roadway. doesn't matter if the sign says water covers roadway in the storm area. get enough racing and soon water has moved on down the ditch.

 

[Jstpssng]

Curiously, why?

If somebody hits me from behind, at least I won't go into the road under power. If a pedestrian walks in front of me and my foot slips off the gas, again I won't be under power. I also pay attention to what's going on, so I know when to put it back in gear.

 

[fidowanttobe]

X2. :thumbsup: I'm in neutral with my foot off the clutch whenever possible. Changed too many clutches because the throw-out bearing went bad, . . and I'm not gonna pull an engine or a tranny/transfer case and NOT change the clutch when I'm in there.

 

[Frankenkubota]

Anybody remember the old WC FIELDS movie.

ROAD HOG

I guess it takes place in the 20s or 30s? In the beginning there are a couple scenes where he gets blown off the road by some discourteous driver and he yells ROAD HOG!

I think he inherits a bunch of money and and buys like 50 new cars and every time some one acts like a SOB, he smashes into them and wrecks one of his 50 cars. I would love to do that.

2 quick stories. Brothers friend pushed someone up to about 80 MPH. He got arrested. A machinists I worked with had a drinking problem. Once on the freeway he smashed into the side of another car, on purpose, drove them off the road and into the hospital.

Cop said, had he hit them twice, it was attempted murder. I知 not sure if I condone the behavior but, I bet, in both cases, they had it coming!

 

[Oaktree]

X2. :thumbsup: I'm in neutral with my foot off the clutch whenever possible. Changed too many clutches because the throw-out bearing went bad, . . and I'm not gonna pull an engine or a tranny/transfer case and NOT change the clutch when I'm in there.

I occasionally would do that back when I had a car with manual shift, but everything I've owned for the last 20 years or so has been automatic (not necessarily by choice, but almost nothing that appeals to me comes with manual anymore).

I agree changing a clutch in a front wheel drive vehicle isn't something that sounds appealing. Heck, at 70 not sure I'd want to do one in a RWD vehicle anymore either.

 

[LouNY]

Years ago in the days of carburetors and fast idle cams,
people that drove on snow or slippery mud roads learned to put the automatics in nuetral while stopping.
This removed the driving force to the rear wheels which reduced the locked up front wheels being pushed by the fast idle rear wheels.
I don't know how much difference it makes with the newer vehicles but I still do it after slowing down using the engine and transmission,
in slippery going.

 

[kenmbz]

Putting the car/truck in Neutral doesn't seem to help with our AWD car or 4WD truck on snow.
Back when I was a kid, we were driving our 2WD large Ford sedan on sheet ice. We went slow enough that when we slid off the road, we could just get out and push it back into the lane

Pet peeves - driving in NJ - Faster drivers stay in the right lane and pass at 80-since all the police are parked on the center divide.
We have one highway near here (295 in NJ) where people seem to forget where their exit is, see flipped cars/suvs there almost daily in central/south NJ.

In my area, lots of twisty's , the thing that drives me nuts is drivers get freaked out by even the mild turns when they see a car that is clearly within their own lane coming and hit the brakes. So 35 in a 45 and hit brakes hard. Other car passes uneventfully as expected. On Weekends have to really pay attention.

As for snow- 4WD won;t help you stop when you're going sideways

Love having the truck here during the snow, I get to pass the people off in the woods and call it in after checking to make sure they are ok. I think they wonder why I not doing the speed limit on icy roads! So they have to figure it out for themselves....

 

[Jstpssng]

I was going down the interstate a couple of days after a snowstorm when a car with two young women in it went flying by. I watched them go around the next curve, then a big plume of snow went shooting up into the air. When I got there I saw the car way off in the ditch, and both occupants were getting out. A Yukon was already stopped and two people getting ready to head down. Since their license plate was "Crash One" I figured they had it under control and kept on driving.

 

[seville009]

didn稚 read the whole thread, so may have been mentioned before..... Live on long country road - lots of deer around, so naturally have to be careful driving. Have had a few cases where you can see deer eating maybe 20 feet off the road, and the car in front of me comes to a dead stop and just sits there in the 55 mph driving lane, evidently paralyzed in fear. Had one give me the finger when I laid on the horn...(the driver, not the deer)

 

[seville009]

Test after test by the experts show that studded tires are better than good snow tires in ONE AND ONLY ONE situation - glare ice. The day of studs is coming to an end, we already have to pay an extra fee for them. My suds have been in the shed for 30 years or more, I'll take good 'all weather tires" and reasonable driving any day.

I use studded tires on my F350 plow truck. When plowing, you値l get a thin layer of ice for a few minutes, so the studs help alot.

My daily driver is an AWD Explorer; use non-studded winter tires. The car sticks like glue to the road. I think AWD is much better in snow than 4wd for daily driving. After I put my summer tires on last Spring, we had a quick little Nor弾aster; tested the AWD with summer tires on just for the heck of it before it melted. It surprisingly had pretty good acceleration traction, but turning and stopping were terrible.