Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Driving Me Crazy



I've lived in Colorado off and on for the last ten years
and something has always bugged me about driving
in this state. Here's the scenario:

You're pulling out of a driveway or turning onto a
highway from a side road. There's a car approaching,
but not so close that it's dangerous for you to pull
out. All of a sudden, the approaching car begins to
speed up, instead of slowing down or even maintaining
their current speed.

What is up with this???

I've only seen this in Colorado. Maybe it happens in
other states too, but I've never noticed it. Is it something
taught here in driver's ed? I would think that if I saw
someone pulling out in front of me, I would at least
maintain my spead...at the very least...let alone slow
down. Are people in that big of a hurry? DUH!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, in Grand Junction you have two different phenomenon. The first is the "invisible car." You are driving along at a normal speed and a car pulls up to an intersection. They stop. They look. Then they pull out in front of you as if your car didn't exist and there is no one on the road. You are left slamming on your brakes and honking at this idiot who looks at you like, "Where did you come from?" The other is the one that you described. See in Grand Junction, they are used to large following distances; larger probably than the ones taught in drivers ed. They see people in Denver, or worse California, come in with their close following distances. A Californian will be 50 feet behind a Junctionite and the Junctionite will be like, "What's this guy riding my ass for?" So in order to compensate for that, they charge on the gas when you pull out comfortably ahead of them to give you a warning that you need to give "proper" allotment of space. Makes perfect sense.