🚀 go-pugleaf

Bri wrote:
> 
> Hyperion Systems wrote:
> 
> > In article <3957A183.3D72D75D@noplace.com>, noone  <noone@noplace.com> wrote:
> > >Having lived in other large cities (Detroit, Salt Lake City
> > >and San Jose), I a amazed and disgusted at the amount of
> > >incompetant drivers on the highways.
> >
> > Here's my take:
> >
> > Denver, like a few other cities, has a very large number of people from
> > somewhere else.  Agreed?  Are they necessarily bad drivers?  Not really. I
> > think people from different areas of the country have differnt driving
> > habits.  Merge all those driving habits together and you have something
> > that can seem like chaos.
> 
> There are a multitude of cities like this where I have not experiences
> thehorrible traffic like here in Denver.  Denver is not special when it comes
> to transplants.
> 
> Really it has nothing to do with where people are from.  There are more people
> from all over the world in CA, but driving is easier.

I think you may be missing the point; the problem in Denver
(partly) is transplants from 
other parts of the country.  For example, Texans are
notorious for the total lack of lane 
discipline they exhibit, often using the passing lane as
their personal "don't bother me" lane.  
Mix these people into Colorado, with people from California
where driving in the passing 
lane at the speed limit will net you an impeding ticket, and
you have a natural conflict.  
There are other examples, such as the simple refusal of many
drivers to use dedicated merge 
lanes at right turns; instead of using the protected lane
right in front of them, they 
everyone tio wait until ALL the travel lanes of the road
they are turning onto are 
clear of traffic.  This drastically reduces the efficiency
of our roadways, increases 
the crowding problem, and dramatically increases frustration
for other drivers.
> 
> > I grew up near New York.  I drove a delivery van in Manhattan and North
> > Jersey for a while.  My opinion is that in other areas with far fewer
> > transplants, people generally have somewhat similar driving habits.  They
> > know what to expect from others and know what others expect.  In cities
> > like Denver, it's different.  It's hard to know what to expect, because
> > you don't know how or where that other person learned to drive.
> 
> Really, I do not believe that Denver has even close to as many transplants as
> CAand many in CA are from different nationalities.  If you follow this logic CA
> should have the worst drivers and from my experience in San Jose and San Fran
> Denver driving sucks.  I know this is a generalization.  Not ever Denver driver
> is
> bad, just many of them are clueless on dealing with heavy traffic.  They believe
> 
> that the single most important goal of driving is to get one car ahead of the
> next
> guy.  This means do not let anyone merge in front.  Do not slow down, tail gate
> so that noone can merge or change lanes.  In fact this causes many of the delays
> 
> that are seen especially when lanes combine.
> 
> It is my opinion that when people do not even look for merging traffic that
> they are bad drivers.  This is in general true when coming onto a crowded
> highway
> in CO (at least from my experience thuis far).  Traveling less then the speed
> limit in the left lane when traffic is thin is also bad.
> 
> Since I have recently returned to CO I am totally impressed with the
> freindliness
> and courtesy of people in public.  I am totally NOT impressed by the courtesy
> and
> thoughtfullness as well as attentiveness when driving.
> 
> Then there are the rubberneckers...

Have to agree on the rubberneckers!  They indicate very poor
driving skills, since they can't
seem to take in other distraction without dangerously
slowing their vehicles.  I think California has the
advantage of better designed traffic systems and much better
law enforcement.  The state patrol in Colorado is notorious
for focusing on one or two issues at a time, and rarely do
these contribute to improved traffic flow.  They focused on
speeding, until the speed limits were raised and they lost a
lot of revenue, then switched their focus to "aggressive
drivers", other wise known as the people who drive like they
no where they are going.  They never go after the clearly
overwhelmed dangerous drivers, those traveling well below
the flow of traffic, panic stop for no apparent reason,
etc.  If they wanted to improve safety and traffic flow,
they would seek to remove the drivers who clearly are a
danger on the road.
> 
> Bri