The dangers posed by the courteous driver.

I was driving my kid to daycare this morning in the '60 wagon, I have full seatbelts and a good baby seat....thank God.
I was going down Robinson Street which is a very narrow 4 way, i.e two lanes in each direction. I spied a big Cadillac to the left of me up ahead and a car in the intersection at 90 degrees to it. Without any warning the intersection car's driver came running across three lanes and almost into mine, thank God she saw me. I slammed my brakes on and stopped in a haze of squealing and burning rubber. The girl driver made an apologetic gesture, but a split second of a difference and I would've been broadsided.
Obviously the gent in the Caddy was giving the go ahead to the young lady in the other car. This kind of courtesy kills people. I see it all the time, drivers waving others into potentially deadly situations.
I'm not against courtesy, I wave people ahead of me, but only if they appear to be going in the same direction. I'll also let people merge into traffic on the highway in front of me, I don't do that "squeeze the asshole out" move, and I never tailgate.

I got a big scare this morning, the words "stupid bitch" came out of my mouth and my kid told me I shouldn't say that.

I reckon I need to save up for disk brakes, because modern traffic moves way too fast for ancient technology.

Keep your eyes open.

 

yeah i hear that.

imagine if you were in your other car and ya lost your brakes like ya did a few months back.

took them over 3 months and 14k to fix my "new" truck after somone in a minivan on a cell phone ran a red light at 50 and nailed me...........

 

Glad everything worked out OK! Just imagine how things would've turned out if you would've been putting on your make-up while eating, reading the paper, and talking on you cell phone at that moment!

 

Glad you can out of it ok!

I hear ya, I drive like an old grandma in my 51 for that reason.
People in late model cars think every one can stop on a dime and have no problem pulling out inches in front of you and then slamming on the breaks to make a turn in to the mall parking lot.

I think the breaking technology in new cars is amazing but it's turning young drivers into overconfident idiots

 

Glad your okay, I love kids - you can come to a skidding stop almost die and your kid will still tell you not to curse, got to love them

 

Krupa- I've never agreed with a post more than yours. Also add airbags to your list. I, too, drive like an old lady in my '55 (partly because I don't want any more tickets to screw up my insurance rates) . I really think that alot of the other drivers don't even notice that our cars are any different than theirs. It sounds crazy, but I think that alot of people that aren't "car people" don't even notice what we are driving.

 

Damn, glad you made out ok...

It's not just the courtesy that is dangerous, I see all kinds of dangerous driving.

I go to FSU in tallahasse which as 2 other major colleges....

what does this mean? this means tons and tons of 19 year old girls driving full size SUV's who never put their cell phone down.

It's really scary as often i walk 3 blocks after taking a bus cause there is no parking at school.

but you are almost killed every day just crossing a road!!

i'm really thinking it's suicide if i bring my motorcycle up here, god help me.

 

if i remember right, i think the person that does the waving on is just as liable if they cause someone to drive into an accident. definitely in a lawsuit sorta way, but i think they can get cited as well. i'm VERY careful when i wave people in front of me, look out for this sort of thing. glad my 65 stops GOOD. might splurge on discs up front for it if i can scrape 300 bucks together. it'd be nice.... just a real shame that you can't just buy rotors for the 65-70 chevies for under 120 apiece!

 

Trust no one... except HAMBers of course.

 

Speaking of kids correcting you a lady I work with tells a story of her son when he was about 5 yrs old. Car cuts her off in traffic the kid yells "motherfucker!". Mom says "where did you get that word from", kid says "Dad" Mom says do you know what that means kid says "yeah, bad driver"!
True story.

 

It' seems strage to read this here, I usually see this scenario related on bicycle discussion boards/groups.

I ride a bike damn near every day and can't imagine how many times I've had to ignore courteous folks like the old gent you describe. I usually hold my ground thinking "i'm a vehicle dammit" until the cars backed up behind 'em give him a clue.

I my (cyclist) case they may have an alternate motive though; take care of me by waving me into the path of the other car

mike

 

I can't tell you how many times i have waved off the help. OK I know I ride sport bikes way too fast but drivers are either pulling over to let me pass or waving me by. Mostly that distracts me so I don't go and maybe it's my fault for coming up on people so fast but do they think I need help to pass someone. The other times it's at intersections and believe me after ou fall off and hit a few cars you are the one that determines when it's safe to cross the road or pull out in traffic. I suppose it happens to a lot of folks too.

 

Picture this.
Heading home from work last week in the rush hour traffic.
We're all bumper to bumper hundreds of cars buzzing along at 35mph.
Suddenly the car in front of me hits the brakes and comes to a stop.
I hit my brakes, check my mirror and swerve up onto the sidewalk as the front half of the car behind me skids into where I would have been if I hadn't checked the mirror and seen the guy behind me looking in his mirror and not noticing I was braking. This guy is looking pretty sheepishly at me as he realizes what almost happened. I'm hoping I didn't screw up my suspension jumping the curb. You can hear brakes squealing from the whole line of traffic and I heard 1 crunch farther back in the line of cars.

The reason for all this?
The nice guy in front of me decided to stop a whole line of traffic and let a couple women out of a store parking lot so they wouldn't have to wait for an opening after the light changed. Real fucking nice guy.

 

Nads, Good to hear your OK and the kids are OK. The situation you described takes place thousands of times each day. People just have too much on their minds to do a good job of driving. When my wife and I were going to Florida we were on I-75 in Georgia and I was coming up behind a new Cadillac that was moving really slow in the passing lane. I moved over to the middle lane and noticed I couldn't see anyone driving the car. As I pulled along side there was a little blue haired woman who couldn't see over the steering wheel driving. She was holding her checkbook against the steering wheel balancing the total. I drove along side for a couple of minutes and she didn't even glance over, just kept totaling up the numbers.

Frank

 

.
A VERY timely post...I saw a similar situation recently with near tragic results! I will never stop for a cross-lane merge.

 

I hear ya!

I fear all non-classic drivers, generally because they all seem to be incompetent idiots. I lost a car I labored on for 2 1/2 years on Walmart wages to some jerkoff who "thought he could make the turn into a parking lot before I got there." He was WRONG.

You all may not like the car, but I did. 1968 Dodge Charger, 440 4 speed, blah blah blah..... I was just getting done with the ENDLESS hours of block sanding. I would have pulled the guy from his car and beaten him into unconsciousness, but the impact wrenched his neck so bad he couldn't move. Everytime I see the pictures I want to beat someone senseless with a tire iron. Here's two pictures.






Sorry if they're not the HAMB's style cars, but man, losing a project you really like really blows.

 

My daily is at least my 58 Chev. I don't drive a new fangled plastic fantastic with disc brakes. So this is my opinion on the matter:
IF THE IMPACT DOESN'T KILL YOU, I WILL!
x
Brandy

 

hey i just wanted to say that i got out of drivers ed not too long ago (a couple years) and i remember specifically that the person who waved the car out into traffic is completely liable. it is not your responsibility if a car crosses a lane into yours, and in most cases if they pulled directly into yours from a side street it is still not your fault.

i agree, there are times for being courteous and times to not to.

 

Those who would bitch about it not being a HAMB car probably drove a new pickup or SUV to work this morning.

 

My Kiddo has learned all of his "sentence enhancers" from similar situations. Glad you and yours came out on the upside.


Tex

P.S.
Nads,
I don't know if you saw my post allready: I was sortin through all my THBSC back issues and came across you and your shovel. Big thumbs up! Nice scoot.

 

same shit happened to my wife and I but we got hit... cost the insurace co. 4,500 to fix her SUV.. all because some dude waved that lady out..

 

I was behind a guy that waved a couple out of the Wynn Dixie lot two weeks ago, I put my hands up in a stop signal cause they couldn't see the idiot driving 40mph for 3/4 of a block in the left turn lane. They put a nice bumper crease the hole length of his truck side but stopped before their whole front was in his lane.


i agree, there are times for being courteous and times to not to.[/QUOTE]

 

Hey Snortin, I graduated from FSU in '96. Love those 19 year olds no matter how bad they drive! I was in my '64 falcon wagon griving down Gaines when cars from BOTH directions on a cross street started to cross in front of me, then STOPPED! Talk about threading the needle! We did a nasty chicayne with the rear wheels locked up and came out without a scratch. My buddy turned to me and said it was the best driving he'd ever seen. I had to change my underwear.
Man I miss those 19 year olds!

 

NEVER wave anyone in.....we're not a very litigious (?) society over here, but even I know you can get stung if something goes wrong 'cos you were trying to be a nice guy to a good lookin' chick!!

Glad you got outta it OK Nads! Your kid rocks!haha...

 

I'm biting the bullet and putting disk and a rack&pinion one my 67 ford for those reasons. Yesterday I had some minivan change lanes right in front of me, I locked it up, and barely got it stopped. If it was a more vintage car, i'd want to keep it stock, but it's so modified that it doesn't matter anyway. But anyhow, I never wave anyone out, unless we're stopped already... too dangerous, too many things to account for around you.

 

My '57 almost ate it one day this past summer. I stopped at a crosswalk to let a family with a young child in a stroller cross the street. Cops in Metuchen, NJ are hardcore about that, and have been known to work undercover in plain clothes to see if you'll let them cross, then radio down the street if you don't.

I'm stopped, the woman pushed the stroller off the curb and I looked in my rearview to see a car bearing down on me way too fast, with the driver unaware that I'm stopped. I screamed out the window to the family to stop. Luckily they heard me. The car behind me finally realized what was going on and slammed on the brakes way too late. I had already floored it and moved out of harms way, but the car behind me finally stopped about 15 feet past the crosswalk. All parties were very lucky.

I've already lost a '57 Bel Air to a jackass that didn't know how to handle his SUV, and the '57 Ford would have had the same fate had that woman not heard me.

 

I had an accident on my Royal Enfield 500 a few years back when a driver that was "waved" accross a 60mph limit dual carriageway pulled straight in front of me, she didn't bother too look as she had been given the OK by the "courteous driver" in the other lane. It went to court as she was insisting it wasn't her fault, needless to say the "courteous driver" didn't hang around to help clear up the mess and it took the judge no time at all to fine her and put an endorsment on her licence. The bike was totalled, which fortunately was paid for by her insurance company, but for a split second though it could have been a whole lot worse, I was lucky to get out of it with a few minor injuries.

 

El Scotto, that's heartbreaking, I love those cars, who gives a crap if some don't see it as a HAMB car, it's a cool old American car that's gone. Didja ever fix it up again?
It's amazing how many people absolutely don't see my car, it's friggin' huge for cryin' out loud. People are just oblivious, or there's just so much going on in their lives that they forget they're steering a lethal weapon.

 

this is why I have a semi air horn and use it - it works

 

Glad you and you kid is ok.
" my kid told me I shouldn't say that."
My seven year old always pulls that one on me...
r