Driver behavior fascinates me - how about you? (Houston, Dallas: living, moving)

[Gaylord_Focker]

Originally Posted by SyZ

Anybody who's spent more than 30 minutes on a toll road in Dallas can attest to the following:

- People who have a constant need to be < 5 feet from the car in front of them, even if neighboring lanes are open (these, of course, are the ones who tell their insurance adjuster that the person in front of them who braked is at fault for the rear-end accident about to ensue)

- No matter the speed, it's just never enough in the fast lane. Multiple times I've done a little experiment - I'll move up to 83, 84, 85 ... 88, ... yet, mysteriously, the car behind is still honking and cursing me out. I'm sorry, is 18 over the speed limit just not enough for you? I usually do this en route to the 12 step recovery program I lead at my church, hoping they'll follow and come in to find healing and freedom in Christ from anger and rage. Unfortunately, nobody's followed me that far yet. They always give up after realizing they can't intimidate me to move.

- Industry data shows that, despite living in a time where 'smart' and 'self-driving' vehicles have more safety features and advances than at any point in history, we live in a time where frequency of accidents is higher than at almost any other point.

- There's always that one guy in the right lane doing 48 with nobody in front of him. Like he's paralyzed and fearful of driving on 121. Yet, there he is, on the road, not staying at home.

- That one woman who who makes sure to turn her blinker on after she's halfway into the lane she just merged into, and then turns it off 2 milliseconds later. For your benefit, of course.

- The people who just never know their exit is coming up until they need to merge 4 lanes at once in order to make it, risking death in order to save the two minutes it would take to go to the next exit and make a U-turn.

Any others I'm missing?

I know the reason for all of the above - do you?

IF you're in the left lane and you're not passing, please move over.

Now, to chime on, I hate the guy/gal that speeds up just to cut in front of you, and then stay there. Despite the fact there's three relatively empty lanes. You're in a hurry to get in front of me, but not in a hurry after that?

Texting while driving, especially on the highway. You will kill yourself or even worse, somebody else one day.

[Berrie143]

Originally Posted by ifew552

Could be much worse. If you think Dallas is bad, you should go check out Houston.

When my husband drives our family through Houston (because I refuse to do it) I literally put my hands over my eyes and pray as fervently as I can for us to not be killed by the INSANE drivers. I grew up going to Mexico and Vegas and those people have nothing on Houston drivers.

[SyZ]

Originally Posted by f4shionablecha0s

These treads are so tiresome. It's amazing that people always highlight the same behaviors in all city forums but proclaim them to be unique to their city. Then someone chimes in about how the drivers in their regional rival are actually worse.

I've driven here my entire life and if you have people screaming at you, tailgating you, and cursing at you on a regular basis, you need to spend more time examining your own driving habits instead of those around you.

Why do I need to spend more time examining my own habits? The fact other people are idiots no matter where they live simply means there are a ton of idiots.

Or, spoken in logical terms, your appeal to popularity is a logical fallacy.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by SyZ

Why do I need to spend more time examining my own habits? The fact other people are idiots no matter where they live simply means there are a ton of idiots.

Or, spoken in logical terms, your appeal to popularity is a logical fallacy.

Excellent deflections but no. The other guy is right. If you are being screamed at, tailgated, honked at, shown the finger or whatever regularly you are an outlier and causing most of the troubles noted. That's just reality.

[SyZ]

Originally Posted by EDS_

Excellent deflections but no. The other guy is right. If you are being screamed at, tailgated, honked at, shown the finger or whatever regularly you are an outlier and causing most of the troubles noted. That's just reality.

Simply repeating the exact same thing you already said doesn't add anything to the conversation or do anything to refute my points.

Again, appealing to popularity is a logical fallacy, not reality.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by SyZ

Why do I need to spend more time examining my own habits? The fact other people are idiots no matter where they live simply means there are a ton of idiots.

Or, spoken in logical terms, your appeal to popularity is a logical fallacy.

Originally Posted by SyZ

Again, appealing to popularity is a logical fallacy, not reality.

Actually, it's not a fallacy in this case. An argumentum ad populum happens when someone is arguing that something is true/better/correct just because it is widely believed to be true/better/correct. That's not the same thing as saying "If you are having this many people respond to you in a certain way, you're probably doing something wrong." It's an inductive argument, and it's prone to all of the weaknesses of induction, but it isn't fallacious.

Imagine someone said "Every time I approach a woman to try to get her number, she calls the police on me." Wouldn't it be reasonable for someone to respond with "Well, if every woman you interact with calls the police on you, you're probably doing something wrong"?

That's not an appeal to popular belief; it's just an observation that the response you are getting is very unlikely to happen time and again if you are behaving within certain norms.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by SyZ

Simply repeating the exact same thing you already said doesn't add anything to the conversation or do anything to refute my points.

Again, appealing to popularity is a logical fallacy, not reality.

Double fail.

1. I'm appealing to reality. You are hiding behind word games.

2. The above was my first post in this thread........I repeated nothing.

[astrohip]

Originally Posted by SyZ

Simply repeating the exact same thing you already said doesn't add anything to the conversation or do anything to refute my points.

What if most of us are also saying those same things, and pointing out the "error of your ways"?

Does THAT add anything?

[retiredintx]

This thread is going weird. Given all the issues in the world and the potential for worse, please take deep breath and chill. Understand and agree North TX is a great place to be. Also agree drivers are crazy and need to be addressed, no excuse for unfriendly attitudes and dangerous driving out there. Really surprised there has not been a class action lawsuit against Ford (Mustang), GM (Camaro), and Dodge (Charger/Challenger) for negligence - no different than recent ones against Ruger or Smith & Wesson on firearms. All are producing proven deadly products, but I see more stupid drivers threatening me and others with high HP cars than guns now.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by retiredintx

This thread is going weird. Given all the issues in the world and the potential for worse, please take deep breath and chill. Understand and agree North TX is a great place to be. Also agree drivers are crazy and need to be addressed, no excuse for unfriendly attitudes and dangerous driving out there. Really surprised there has not been a class action lawsuit against Ford (Mustang), GM (Camaro), and Dodge (Charger/Challenger) for negligence - no different than recent ones against Ruger or Smith & Wesson on firearms. All are producing proven deadly products, but I see more stupid drivers threatening me and others with high HP cars than guns now.

No sale.