Warning: Portland Metro Drivers May Be... (living, legal, stats)

[backdrifter]

Originally Posted by ChristinePDX

Traffic in Portland has changed a lot in the last twenty years. When I first got my license, it was POSSIBLE to speed in this town. Now, everything seems so jammed up all the time, alas. I still enjoy going about 10 over the speed limit when I get the chance and it seems reasonable to do so. I, too, wish that people would keep their slower vehicles out of the left lane. The slower drivers do seem much pokier than they used to be. Keep in mind, too, that a lot of those drivers are transplants from somewhere else. Is it really Portland drivers that are the slow ones?

Driving in other parts of the country feels pretty comfortable to me. In fact, I enjoy driving in other locations much more than I enjoy being stuck in my car in Portland, nowadays.

I feel the same way. It's so congested that you hardly can even get up to the speed limit. Driving in LA, in particular, just feels natural to me. Drivers are aggressive, but generally pretty skilled. Here, they are unskilled and passive-aggressive--not a good combo.

And yes--it must be the transplants since most of them probably have only half a clue how to get where they're going. I see the sort of driving behavior all the time that is similar to a lost tourist. Us Oregon natives surely can't be to be blame for poking about...

[hamellr]

Originally Posted by backdrifter

And yes--it must be the transplants since most of them probably have only half a clue how to get where they're going. I see the sort of driving behavior all the time that is similar to a lost tourist. Us Oregon natives surely can't be to be blame for poking about...

I think part of it is when the recent transplants experience wet roads for the first time. They have a little issue that scares the bejesus out of them, then over compensate for the next six months.

[Leisesturm]

I don't know... so much contradiction here. FWIW, we are moving to Portland proper from Hillsboro. We have been in the area looking at apartments. I'm not seeing what some of you are seeing. I don't claim to be an authority or anything. I'm just suggesting that if you really think that Portland drivers are so unforgivably slow that the problem might be you. I'm also suggesting that you learn to love it, because I don't really see where it is possible for it to change to any great degree without a lot of people getting killed in the process. I've got no dog in this hunt. I'll be alright either way. I survived NYC.

Another thing people here like to bash is Craigslist. I don't know, I've used Craigslist all through my time renting in various cities on the east coast and the midwest, and it is how we found both places we've lived in when we moved here six years ago. When others ask what alternative to Craigslist exists I see Padmapper come up time and again. So I decided to try it. Really? Every single Padmapper listing I've found so far takes me right back to Craigslist. Hmmmmm... But wish us luck, we've found a nice little place( via Craigslist) just a short bike ride from my wife's work, which is the whole point of doing this. Now I'll be the one with the long MAX commute. We should know in 72 hours if we make the cut.

Craigslist really isn't so bad people. Just use some common sense when using it. Portland drivers don't drive slower than anywhere else with 25mph in town speed limits. It just seems that way because, for the most part they are not allowed to bully and intimidate pedestrians and cyclists. I'm certain that if you check, you will find that the areas where a culture of motorist aggression towards peds and bikers is entrenched that you have much higher fatalities and injuries of peds and cyclists being reported. Is that good? Is that something that should be desired? Seriously, lets kill this one and get back to arguing for a sales tax or increased fare inspections on MAX.

H

[Leisesturm]

Originally Posted by hamellr

I think part of it is when the recent transplants experience wet roads for the first time. They have a little issue that scares the bejesus out of them, then over compensate for the next six months.

Not you too... come on hamellr it rains other places. Wet road is much the same everywhere on planet earth. But... to your point... I'm new to the Portland grid. I'm just that beat more cautious driving on those narrow avenues than I am in Hillsboro where I live! You should want that. Don't complain, then when some fool flattens you because they felt more obligated to look for the speed limit sign and make their speedometer match what they saw out the window than actually noticing that there was a person... you... in front of their car..

H

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by Leisesturm

I don't know... so much contradiction here. FWIW, we are moving to Portland proper from Hillsboro. We have been in the area looking at apartments. I'm not seeing what some of you are seeing. I don't claim to be an authority or anything. I'm just suggesting that if you really think that Portland drivers are so unforgivably slow that the problem might be you. I'm also suggesting that you learn to love it, because I don't really see where it is possible for it to change to any great degree without a lot of people getting killed in the process. I've got no dog in this hunt. I'll be alright either way. I survived NYC.

Another thing people here like to bash is Craigslist. I don't know, I've used Craigslist all through my time renting in various cities on the east coast and the midwest, and it is how we found both places we've lived in when we moved here six years ago. When others ask what alternative to Craigslist exists I see Padmapper come up time and again. So I decided to try it. Really? Every single Padmapper listing I've found so far takes me right back to Craigslist. Hmmmmm... But wish us luck, we've found a nice little place( via Craigslist) just a short bike ride from my wife's work, which is the whole point of doing this. Now I'll be the one with the long MAX commute. We should know in 72 hours if we make the cut.

Craigslist really isn't so bad people. Just use some common sense when using it. Portland drivers don't drive slower than anywhere else with 25mph in town speed limits. It just seems that way because, for the most part they are not allowed to bully and intimidate pedestrians and cyclists. I'm certain that if you check, you will find that the areas where a culture of motorist aggression towards peds and bikers is entrenched that you have much higher fatalities and injuries of peds and cyclists being reported. Is that good? Is that something that should be desired? Seriously, lets kill this one and get back to arguing for a sales tax or increased fare inspections on MAX.

H

My trip down to Virginia and back to the NYC metro, I would have to say some of the worst drivers are in Jersey where everyone drives over 80mph with rapid lane changing. If anyone like that were to move to Portland and drive around there they would obviously think everyone drives incredibly show there because they aren't all doing 30-40mph over the speed limit.

[Leisesturm]

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

My trip down to Virginia and back to the NYC metro, I would have to say some of the worst drivers are in Jersey where everyone drives over 80mph with rapid lane changing. If anyone like that were to move to Portland and drive around there they would obviously think everyone drives incredibly show there because they aren't all doing 30-40mph over the speed limit.

That describes LA as well. They drive diagonally. If you could see a car from the air, its path down the freeway would look like an argyle pattern. I didn't notice NYC/NY as being quite that bad. People would at least stay in one lane long enough to at least appear to be moving forward. In LA they literally move from side to side down the road. I don't want to think how many extra miles in terms of lateral distance the average LA driver racks up on a 20 mile commute. Gas must be real cheap.

H

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by hamellr

I think part of it is when the recent transplants experience wet roads for the first time. They have a little issue that scares the bejesus out of them, then over compensate for the next six months.

I've always heard this idea that California transplants in Portland don't know how to drive in the rain and slow down, but as someone who grew up in Northern California and around the Bay Area I found that people who drove fast normally still drove fast during winter rain storms coming in from the California coast(which can be as bad as any storm in Oregon)--it didn't make a difference, there was plenty of people driving fast all year(even on snow-covered roads up around Tahoe).

Now maybe Southern Californians on the other hand...

A lot of the rest of the country gets stronger(though shorter) rain-storms than Oregon. Down south the rains come like a mini-monsoon fast and then clear up--but I've seen some storms driving down in Georgia or Florida or South Carolina where I had to actually pull over to the side of the road for a second it was raining so hard. Rarely do I see it that bad in Portland, it's usually a lighter rain.

[searching for prudence]

The slow drivers have been out in force during the sunny storm we've had the last couple of days, slow drivers on I-5, I-84, I-205 and SR-14 on the other side of the river, have been forcing drivers that want don't want to drive 10-15 miles an hour under the speed limit, to weave in and out of traffic and pass on the right in light traffic. Perhaps it is the sun that has confused and scared the natives into driving even slower. Do they ever give tickets for obstructing traffic here, if you are preventing other drivers from attaining the legal speed limit in light traffic on major highways with the conditions we have experienced the last several days, you are obstructing traffic.

I've already provided links to government stats that show Portland has a higher metro-wide fatality rate (I intentionally didn't cherry pick a subset like one poster wanted to while accusing me of cherry picking because I used metro-wide data for all 3 metro-areas) than the notoriously fast drivers in LA and Chicago.

mvcFatalitiesMap

[psichick]

For SoCal drivers, I guess it depends on the type of driver they were in the first place. There are a lot of low people who refuse to get out of the fast lane. Idiots. There's a lot of people who like to get on the freeway doing 35mph (here too actually), more idiots. Yes, in SoCal, rain only slows us down if there's an accident. We are the idiots driving 80mph in the rain, I admit to that.

Question is....did the idiots down there move here? Or did good drivers move here? I know I changes my driving habits here, but I'm still not an idiot driver. Haha.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by searching for prudence

The slow drivers have been out in force during the sunny storm we've had the last couple of days, slow drivers on I-5, I-84, I-205 and SR-14 on the other side of the river, have been forcing drivers that want don't want to drive 10-15 miles an hour under the speed limit, to weave in and out of traffic and pass on the right in light traffic. Perhaps it is the sun that has confused and scared the natives into driving even slower. Do they ever give tickets for obstructing traffic here, if you are preventing other drivers from attaining the legal speed limit in light traffic on major highways with the conditions we have experienced the last several days, you are obstructing traffic.

I've already provided links to government stats that show Portland has a higher metro-wide fatality rate (I intentionally didn't cherry pick a subset like one poster wanted to while accusing me of cherry picking because I used metro-wide data for all 3 metro-areas) than the notoriously fast drivers in LA and Chicago.

mvcFatalitiesMap

I think you might be confused with your own facts. Based on your link Portland has a lower fatality rate than much of the LA metro and is missing data from a portion of that metro. Chicago is on par with Portland, but much lower for metro Chicago compared to Metro Portland.

Basically it doesn't matter how aggressive or defensive people drive, fatalities happen on the road.

Also with people driving slower leads me to believe that you were driving in an area that had more cars on the road than the road could handle which causes people to drive slower do to the increased traffic.