death race 240....

[Blutbad]

Originally Posted by 85rx-7gsl-se

While Memphis drivers leave much to be desired, some of the driving I saw in STL takes the cake for sure. Besides the guy doing 100 on the interstate in a 20 year old Pontiac, in some parts of town, the shoulder is treated as an extra lane to pass people who actually wait for traffic lights to turn green lol

this,

[Blutbad]

Originally Posted by Jardine8

I always love it when I am driving on a multi-lane city street in the far right lane and there is someone behind me who decides to pass me, only to immediately make a right turn after getting around me.

and this. Memphis drivers be trippin, mane.

[Dd714]

No worse then I've seen in other cities. Actually in most large cities at 7:30 one would be stuck in stop and go traffic, be lucky you can even move at the speed limit.
The only difference - the huge amount of uninsured drivers in Memphis.

[pappy35]

Originally Posted by Dd714

The only difference - the huge amount of uninsured drivers in Memphis.

This is the biggest problem here. I would love to know why TN doesn't enforce insurance laws. In Ohio, NYC, and CT, the three biggest areas I've lived, upon termination, say for non-payment, auto insurers are required to notify DMV and the first time that car is stopped, bam, impounded. One of those three, I forget which, would suspend the registered owner's license.

I learned to drive in NYC (Manhattan specifically) and had a job for our years that had me roaming the five boroughs every day. You folks here don't know what bad driving is until you see how people drive there. Granted, I see some crazy stuff here to, mainly having to do with trailered loads not being tied down, but overall it's not really any worse than many, many, other places. Try France or Italy!?! OMG!!!

One thing I do do differently though is that here I'm armed everywhere I go. I never felt that need even walking around with tools in places like the South Bronx or Sugar Hill/Harlem (in the 80's, now Harlem is a lot better than it was then).

[Geneyus]

Originally Posted by acarsme

Driving home last night I-240 (Saturday), 7:30pm, we had numerous cars racing at like 100mph, zig zagging in between cars, and one barely missed us by a few inches. I know every city has bad drivers, and I've seen this kind of thing in other cities, but not with the every day frequency that I seem to encounter it around Memphis. 240 is the absolute worst, and I'm glad I don't have to drive that highway on a daily basis for my work commute. What's more appalling to me is that there wasn't one damn cop anywhere on that highway to be able to pull these fools over. Not one!!

I don't care if these fools kill themselves....in fact, I hope they do in order to get one more idiot off the streets, but they have absolutely no right to put my family's life in jeopardy pulling their racing stunts.

Where is the MPD? Where is the State Highway Patrol? I'm originally from up north, and our highways were constantly being patrolled by the state police. Does the Tennessee Highway Patrol not even bother with Memphis for some reason? That's the reason these fools do this kind of stuff, because there are no cops on highway duty to put a stop to it!

Just one more reason I hate living in this city more and more every day. You can't feel safe no matter what you do or where you go.

Memphis Police are down something like 500 officers right now due to benefit cuts and officers quitting. The writing was on the wall for a long time, and the city leadership was warned about officers quitting. They didn't care. In addition, on a normal Saturday night when they are fully staffed, MPD is often holding calls waiting for an officer to clear another call. Did I mention we don't have enough dispatchers, and the 911 system keeps people on hold forever? There are so many losers in Memphis that commit crimes and so many alarms and calls, police stay busy. The uneducated call 911 instead of the non-emergency number all the time and tie up the lines over things like barking dogs and McDonald's being out of French fries. Add your little traffic complaint to the long list of things the city needs to attend to.

My hope is that newly-elected Mayor Strickland will somehow fix MPD so they are fully-staffed again, and then (and only then) they can focus on traffic issues for a long period of time. Mayor Strickland seems like an alright guy, but I'm concerned because he's already been around for a while. If you complain today, MPD will probably put a few patrol cars or a task force out there on I-240 for a few days so everyone sees them, and then they'll be back to the usual cat and mouse game. We need more officers and incentives for officers to stay. I'm not saying the past retirement plan was sustainable longterm, it was a little too generous, but I think the retirement should have been pushed back to 25 or 30 years (instead of 20) before reducing the benefits and pay. Some other departments in the area have 30 year retirements. Reducing benefits for people who have already retired is plain evil and immoral.

To answer your question about Tennessee Highway Patrol... I believe they rarely come into large urban areas because there are overlapping departments that are large and capable of handling wrecks and other issues. You'll often see a THP cruiser during road construction or on the open highway where others aren't patrolling.

If you still want to complain, I would call the Shelby County Sheriff's Department instead and see if they'll hit the highways. Their guys aren't as busy.

[Geneyus]

Originally Posted by pappy35

This is the biggest problem here. I would love to know why TN doesn't enforce insurance laws. In Ohio, NYC, and CT, the three biggest areas I've lived, upon termination, say for non-payment, auto insurers are required to notify DMV and the first time that car is stopped, bam, impounded. One of those three, I forget which, would suspend the registered owner's license.

I learned to drive in NYC (Manhattan specifically) and had a job for our years that had me roaming the five boroughs every day. You folks here don't know what bad driving is until you see how people drive there. Granted, I see some crazy stuff here to, mainly having to do with trailered loads not being tied down, but overall it's not really any worse than many, many, other places. Try France or Italy!?! OMG!!!

One thing I do do differently though is that here I'm armed everywhere I go. I never felt that need even walking around with tools in places like the South Bronx or Sugar Hill/Harlem (in the 80's, now Harlem is a lot better than it was then).

Uninsured motorists are a HUGE problem around Shelby County. There are also a ton of people driving on suspended licenses, which I'll get to in a minute...
TN does take uninsured motorists seriously. If you get a ticket for no insurance, and you don't show proof later, your license is suspended. Even if you pay the ticket, you're suspended if you don't show proof. Just this year, TN made it possible for law enforcement to tow your vehicle if you can't prove you have insurance. It has gotten that serious. The problem is, 99% of the agencies out there don't have a lot big enough to handle all of those seized vehicles, and departments would have to have personnel running the lot. It can't be created overnight. Also, TN is working on a registration system so that you can't get your vehicle tags renewed without proof of insurance, so that should start making uninsured motorists very visible when their tags are expired, or stolen. In the past, your sticker on your license plate had a number on it that linked it to your plate. This year, TN wised-up and made it so that your license plate number is under the year on the sticker so that it's obvious when someone steals your sticker. Genius! And so simple! We're making progress.

Now, back to those suspended drivers... The people who are getting insurance tickets and not showing proof are becoming suspended drivers. The people who aren't paying child support for all of their kids are becoming suspended drivers. That's a lot of folks! What do you think happens when a suspended driver hits your vehicle? They leave the scene! That's another problem here. I'm hoping the new insurance law will start deterring some of this nonsense. Until then, I'd recommend carrying uninsured motorist insurance and wrapping pool noodles around your vehicle to minimize the damage for when they drive off.

[Jardine8]

I don't know if we will ever be able to get the situation under control with all of the uninsured drivers and suspended drivers. There will either always be some loophole or not enough staff/officers to deal with the problem. Towing the vehicle and keeping the vehicle would be a nice start. Let's hope that they actually will do that in Memphis. As you mentioned above, they are going to need a BIG lot if they truly are going to do that. Good luck getting a lot of those people to show up for their court date to pay the fine for their infraction (lack of insurance, driving with a suspended license, etc.). That is another thing that they don't take seriously. I am always as nervous as can be when I see a beater driving behind me, as I just know that they don't have insurance and I don't trust them to use their brakes and make decent driving decisions.

[latunafish]

i know this thread is about driving in memphis. but i have driven in just about every major metropolitan area in the southeast and they are all about the same except, texas. they have the most courteous drivers of any place i have ever been. especially if you come up behind them, they pull over to the right lane or shoulder and let you go by.

now that insurance issue is pretty common also, they will get insurance for six months or a year with monthly payments and not pay the second payment, after they get their tags. if they get stopped, they go pay another month, show the judge they have insurance and they are back on the road and loose their insurance the next month. this can only be solved by insurance companies contacting the state when they cancel a policy, but that makes them the police in this issue and that will cost the rest of us. we run a small fleet of vehicles and i would say half the accidents we have been in, were with uninsured drivers and it would also be their fault. our insurance takes care of us, but i am pretty sure they never get reimbursed by the uninsured driver.

i remember when i first heard of under-insured coverage, (and i thought it was an insurance gimmick to raise your rates), now you can't live without uninsured coverage!

[PhDnMe]

The Highway Patrol does not actively patrol the Interstate within City limits. Within the City limits MPD is responsible for enforcement on the Interstate, which is kind of weird because its not like that in most places and truth is MPD is so short staffed, I would imagine Interstate enforcement is not a priority. Truth is certain drivers do drive very recklessly on the Interstate without regards to the safety of others, as the poster described. I can also say this is not common in all major Cities....