It never fails:

Frequently when I'm on my daily commute; or just driving around town on the weekend I'll come to a stop light with a group of cars. Maybe it's the car in front of me...maybe it's the car to the side...but one thing is almost certain. When that light turns green, at least one of those cars is just going to sit there doing absolutely nothing for 5+ seconds when it's time to go again.


On a lucky day, you might be able to zig-zag around them. If fortune is really on your side, you might take the opportunity to slip by undetected and rid yourself of the clueless driver who is still parked in place texting, reading, or doing who knows what else. That is until you look in the rear view mirror: and suddenly, the driver who was plainly in no hurry to do anything with their time now wants to do 5, 10, or even 15 over the speed limit in some apparent attempt to redeem themselves. What the heck happened?

In this case, the distracted driver is more of minor nuisance or diversion. In order to keep this rant to a reasonable length, I'll just say I'm going for mobile/text drivers here. I'm convinced drivers do this in my town so often that I made a game of placing bets anytime I reach an intersection. But make no mistake, distracted driving is seriously deadly. And it isn't like this is the early 2000's when cellphones were a new phenomenon. It's dangerous and we all know it! The PSAs are everywhere. Whitehouse.gov and Centers for Disease Control have entire webpages dedicated to just this one topic.

What annoys me most is the prevalence. Human beings seem to have this uncanny knack for convincing themselves that accidents only happen to other people, and that the PSAs don't apply to them. This is a myth made infinitly more horrifying by the sheer number of drivers susceptible to it. And this isn't just a personal observation, but also the subject of driver psychology studies funded by the American Automobile Association Foundation for Traffic Safety, just to name one. The phenomena is so common, it has gained the moniker "Lake Woebegone effect," although this term can now be applied to a lot of other scenarios.


Anyway, what I think it all boils down to is over-stimulation of the driver. Or more directly: drivers obsessed with over-stimulating themselves at bad times. A recent EETimes article pointed to some very helpful apps and mobile technologies aimed at reducing cellphone distraction. I think that's certainly a step in the right direction, but we also need to address the low likelihood of drivers voluntarily policing themselves with these apps. With each model year, the driver is equipped with an ever-increasing array of marginally useful gadgets and gizmos to lure the eyes and hands from where they should be. I suspect the problem is destined to mount until most (if not all) autos become self-driving. But that may be a rant for another day. Laughing
That's Quebec in a nutshell.
Driving of all kind is absolutely terrible. Take public transit.
I make an effort to honk whenever I have a passenger side traveling companion who can spy on inappropriate cellphone behavior in other cars. It's especially bad on the interstate when drivers are going 70+ mph.

That said, I'm really annoyed by hands-free driving laws - holding a phone to my head to make calls isn't any more distracting than talking to someone in the same car as me, and I have voice activated calling so I don't know to take my eyes off the road to dial. Our new car has built in Bluetooth so it's not as annoying as it could be, but the software is buggy and leaves me unable to call sometimes without just picking the phone up.
I've had similar experiences but no where nearly as regular as you but I also don't do a lot of driving - Disclaimer, I drive for my job but it's largely freeway (Work Site is next to freeway ramps, workshop is right next to freeway ramps. Home is ~10mins away from workshop) and at non-commute hours. Even when I drive outside of work I experience so little of this. Do you live in a college town? Somewhere with a lot of younger drivers? I do experience the occasional driver sitting at a light after it turns green but it's even more rarely over 2 seconds.

I do have one notable experience though. I was in line for a protected left, back about 15 cars. As soon as the light turn green, a car behind me honks. Not like I can tell which car but with the windows down in my car I know it was from behind me rather than in a surrounding road or parking lot. We proceed to go and the light turns red, now I'm first in line for the next green arrow. I'm a little paranoid because if I don't gun it the second the light turns green the jerk is gunna do a pissed off honk again. Light finally turns green and I do the safe thing and check cross traffic and then proceed through the intersection onto the four lane road. No honk. So I'm thinking some guy was honking at another guy for merging when he didn't have room or something.

I get to my destination road and engage in the activities to turn right. Check mirrors. Blinker. Pull over/into designated lane. Slow down. Turn.

I didn't have a right hand turn lane but the lane was wide enough for me to pull over near the shoulder and turn. The nearest car directly behind me is a ways back. I do all but turn by this point. As I'm turning I get honked at by a car passing me. I have my WTF moment and carry on. You always look in the mirrors and around when someone honks, or at least I do, and there was no one else on the road by that point. I couldn't see a car in the lane next to the passing car or in front of him. I don't know what their problem was that day.
Yeah, hands-free options are certainly a plus. I'm not sure of how well the laws are enforced. Personally, I always found the phone way too restrictive on my steering to hold in-hand accurately--especially if the wheel has to be rotated >180 degrees. Also over the years, I've had so many surprises like random debris in the road, that I prefer to have both hands ready to use right away. For a while, I always used those Bluetooth earbuds.

This area isn't really more of a college town than most other places. There are few, but the worst drivers seem to be in every age group. As for left turn lanes, in Chicago I've seen a few cars and taxis honk after 2 seconds of a light turning green. Personally, I can't stand left turn lanes and it always seems like the lead car also pays the least attention to the light--especially if there's only one lane. The worst left-turn experience I had recently was following a woman WAY under the speed limit who clearly had the impression in her head that the green arrow we were approaching was red. Not only did she have the wrong impression for almost 20 seconds before she came to her senses, but she actually came to full stop too. In a situation that obvious, I had to wonder if medications/drugs were a factor; because I couldn't see a mobile phone or a passenger to distract her.

Versus public transit (which isn't an option in less dense areas) it's a double-edge sword. Honestly, I would be interested if there was a reliable way to measure driver destructibility or attention span as part of the motor vehicle licensing experience.
I've seen more accidents around here recently as a result of public transit drivers than anything else...
Oh yeah! 6000 dinar penalty in Serbia for using a phone while driving!
  
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