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Old 08-16-2022, 07:09 PM
 
15,796 posts, read 20,504,199 times
Reputation: 20974

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Quote:
Originally Posted by newenglandgal123 View Post
I got beeped at before because I stopped to let a woman pushing a stroller cross.

I was thinking about this thread on my ride home. Sure enough, while cruising backroads through Wilmington i got stuck behind an elderly person doing the speed limit down the main road. I'm in no rush, so I settle in behind him and just blast my tunes.

Older guy in an Audi comes hauling up behind me, easily 40-50MPH down this road and brakes to get in behind us, starts riding my bumper and gesturing "come on lets go!" which I can see....like i have any control over it since I'm also stuck.

Finally he takes his turn and I hear him essentially accelerate to 40ish down a 25-30MPH side street.


Sadly i see this all the time, and I'm not a slow driver by any means.
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Old 08-17-2022, 04:44 AM
 
3,620 posts, read 1,844,995 times
Reputation: 1508
Quote:
Originally Posted by BostonMike7 View Post
I was thinking about this thread on my ride home. Sure enough, while cruising backroads through Wilmington i got stuck behind an elderly person doing the speed limit down the main road. I'm in no rush, so I settle in behind him and just blast my tunes.

Older guy in an Audi comes hauling up behind me, easily 40-50MPH down this road and brakes to get in behind us, starts riding my bumper and gesturing "come on lets go!" which I can see....like i have any control over it since I'm also stuck.

Finally he takes his turn and I hear him essentially accelerate to 40ish down a 25-30MPH side street.


Sadly i see this all the time, and I'm not a slow driver by any means.
If someone hits you from behind in MA they will pretty much be declared the more than 50% at fault driver and will get points on their insurance. That's why whenever I have someone tailgating me when I'm already going at or ~5mph over the speed limit it doesn't bother me. I don't brake check them or anything. I just let them do their road ragey thing and think how they must have something really horrible going on in their life to be so irate. I also get a kick out of looking in my rear-view mirror to see how ugly nasty some of their facial expressions can be. Like it's the end of their world that they have to calm down and drive a little slower.
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Old 08-17-2022, 05:48 AM
 
Location: Westwood, MA
5,037 posts, read 6,923,971 times
Reputation: 5961
Quote:
Originally Posted by MikePRU View Post
As the song goes . . . signs, signs, everywhere there's signs. F'ing up the scenery. Breaking my mind . . . "

Do we really need all of these signs?? If a speed limit sign isn't effective, chances are adding a second sign that merely asks people to slow down is not going to reach the people ignoring the first sign.
It's a cut-through in a residential neighborhood. No one cares about "the scenery". The people that live there want their kids to not get hit by cars and the people speeding through would happily kill a family of five if it meant they got to Dunkin' a minute earlier so they could sit there and nurse an iced coffee for 31 minutes instead of 30.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MikePRU View Post
The "drive like your kids live here" signs are a whole other story though. I only ever see them on super busy streets. My feeling is . . . those people want the world to change to their needs instead of realizing the conditions that exist in the world and adapting to them. They think "it's OK if we buy a house on the Mass Pike because we'll just put a sign out front asking everyone to slow down and then it will be like we live on a quiet side street." Simple solution to this problem . . . if you don't want cars whizzing by your house all day then don't buy a house on a busy street.
I don't see these signs on any of the houses that back up to US-1. Or even on 109. Or even on Canton St. It's only on side streets that are used as cut-throughs with low posted limits (or even the "densely settled" signs) that are routinely ignored by people who just don't care. I think you're in the camp of "drivers can do what they want, even if it grossly exceeds the legal limit, and residents just have to suck it up" and I'm in the "they can complain as much as they want until people at least start following the speed limit".

You are right, though. Signs are largely ignored. Eventually towns have to start stepping up enforcement and dead-ending cut-throughs.
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Old 08-17-2022, 07:14 AM
 
15,796 posts, read 20,504,199 times
Reputation: 20974
Quote:
Originally Posted by newenglandgal123 View Post
If someone hits you from behind in MA they will pretty much be declared the more than 50% at fault driver and will get points on their insurance. That's why whenever I have someone tailgating me when I'm already going at or ~5mph over the speed limit it doesn't bother me. I don't brake check them or anything. I just let them do their road ragey thing and think how they must have something really horrible going on in their life to be so irate. I also get a kick out of looking in my rear-view mirror to see how ugly nasty some of their facial expressions can be. Like it's the end of their world that they have to calm down and drive a little slower.
Oh i don't care about what sort of tantrum folks want to have behind me because I'm slowing their commute down by 30 seconds, it just seems like this sort of behavior is becoming more and more common.

Walk into a crowded store and bump into people accidentally and 99% of the time you exchange apologizes and everyone is nice and that's the end of it. Then you get into the parking lot in a car and if you delay someone by 5 seconds pulling out of a parking space they are calling you every single name in the book.

Folks get too comfortable in their enclosed box of wheels and let their true feelings out. It's almost as bad as social media where folks respond from behind a screen with no real accountability.
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Old 08-17-2022, 07:16 AM
 
Location: Needham, MA
8,545 posts, read 14,025,464 times
Reputation: 7939
Quote:
Originally Posted by jayrandom View Post
It's a cut-through in a residential neighborhood. No one cares about "the scenery". The people that live there want their kids to not get hit by cars and the people speeding through would happily kill a family of five if it meant they got to Dunkin' a minute earlier so they could sit there and nurse an iced coffee for 31 minutes instead of 30.
I think you may be exaggerating a smidge.

I'm just making a general statement about signs. Do we need so many? Every other lawn I pass has 10 yard signs on it, every open space in our world has an advertisement plastered on it, and IMO we could trim down on the number of traffic signs as well because some are redundant.

If you think someone driving by your yard is going to look at you 10" x 10" corrugated plastic board with two skinny metal pegs sticking out of the bottom and change who they are or the way they act or vote based on what they saw in your yard I think you're kidding yourself. Just my opinion.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jayrandom View Post
I don't see these signs on any of the houses that back up to US-1. Or even on 109. Or even on Canton St. It's only on side streets that are used as cut-throughs with low posted limits (or even the "densely settled" signs) that are routinely ignored by people who just don't care. I think you're in the camp of "drivers can do what they want, even if it grossly exceeds the legal limit, and residents just have to suck it up" and I'm in the "they can complain as much as they want until people at least start following the speed limit".
I think you've misjudged me. I very much think drivers should follow the posted speed limit and that's especially important on local roads and critically important in densely populated areas. You never know when some kid is going to run out into the street after a ball.

My attitude is if you live on a busy street, you have to suck it up when it comes to the volume of cars going by your house at or below the posted speed limit. Yes, I do not see these signs on houses that back up to RT1 or for the most part any local highway/route. However, I regularly see them on the busiest streets in most towns. In Needham just to name some examples that would be Central, Dedham, High Rock, and Great Plain. I almost never see these signs on side streets. I guarantee you that any of these yahoos with these ridiculous red signs in their front yard would GLADLY lower the speed limit in front of their house from 35-40 to 15 if given the option (and I totally undertand that). Again, in my eyes these people feel the whole world should adapt to what they want and don't feel that they need to be concerned with what the existing conditions are. Again, you don't want cars whizzing by your house . . . don't buy a house on a busy street with a 30-40 MPH limit.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jayrandom View Post
You are right, though. Signs are largely ignored. Eventually towns have to start stepping up enforcement and dead-ending cut-throughs.
Couldn't agree more. People need to reach out to their local police if there are regularly drivers causing unsafe conditions in their neighborhood. Their local police should absolutely step up enforcement in that area until drivers get the message that their behavior is not acceptable.
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Old 08-17-2022, 08:03 AM
 
15,796 posts, read 20,504,199 times
Reputation: 20974
Quote:
Originally Posted by jayrandom View Post
It's a cut-through in a residential neighborhood. No one cares about "the scenery". The people that live there want their kids to not get hit by cars and the people speeding through would happily kill a family of five if it meant they got to Dunkin' a minute earlier so they could sit there and nurse an iced coffee for 31 minutes instead of 30.
Ha. That's funny.
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Old 08-17-2022, 08:28 AM
 
3,620 posts, read 1,844,995 times
Reputation: 1508
[quote=MikePRU;63980188]I think you may be exaggerating a smidge.

I'm just making a general statement about signs. Do we need so many? Every other lawn I pass has 10 yard signs on it, every open space in our world has an advertisement plastered on it, and IMO we could trim down on the number of traffic signs as well because some are redundant.

If you think someone driving by your yard is going to look at you 10" x 10" corrugated plastic board with two skinny metal pegs sticking out of the bottom and change who they are or the way they act or vote based on what they saw in your yard I think you're kidding yourself. Just my opinion."


A house near me has had, no lie, around 15 handwritten poster board type signs in their front lawn for the last 8 months. All of them express sentiments about how Biden is the worst, etc. If those are their political beliefs so be it but is there really a need to leave signs up like that for 8 months? It just makes their property look junky and if I was their direct neighbor and had to keep picking up windblown signs off my property from it, I wouldn't be too happy.
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Old 08-17-2022, 08:39 AM
 
Location: Western MA
2,556 posts, read 2,284,398 times
Reputation: 6882
My town has put speed bumps on a few of the more notorious pass-through streets where speeding has been common. And there seems to be continuous talk about putting in more on other streets. Are other towns doing this at all? It seems to work pretty well here anyway.
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Old 08-17-2022, 09:05 AM
 
Location: Providence, RI
12,864 posts, read 22,026,395 times
Reputation: 14134
Quote:
Originally Posted by bizcuit View Post
My town has put speed bumps on a few of the more notorious pass-through streets where speeding has been common. And there seems to be continuous talk about putting in more on other streets. Are other towns doing this at all? It seems to work pretty well here anyway.
Speed tables are more and more common the Boston area. Seems like every time I drive I encounter a few new ones. They're generally effective at slowing cars down, but they do seem to draw the ire of many (at least from what I've seen in neighborhood meetings and on neighborhood social media groups). In more urban neighborhoods, they're pretty typical of "traffic calming" efforts like converting one-ways to two-ways, adding curb bump outs and traffic islands, etc.
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Old 08-17-2022, 10:48 AM
 
2,710 posts, read 1,733,872 times
Reputation: 1319
I was driving north on 3A in Billerica and the car in front of me was waiting to turn left so I slowed to a stop. An old guy in a Honda Civic was tailgating me and slammed on his brakes, then slammed on his horn. I thought I was going to get rear ended. His car skidded and his brakes sounded squeaky, definitely needs a new set. He continued driving erratically like that for the next mile or two, trying to pass on the right the whole time. We got to each stop light at the same time
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