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A different tack on randomness today. I feel like unloading:
First, a non-annoyance: Foreplay is such a great name for a song. That
is all.
Now, onto the topic. mostly commute-related:
* Contractors: Make sure your pallets, ladders, pipes, etc are tied down
and properly secured in that 1970's era pickup truck you're driving.
Your cargo constitutes a deadly projectile. Don't be surprised when I
fly by you at 80 miles an hour to get in front of you. I'd rather risk a
speeding ticket than death.
I have seen in the past couple of weeks the aftermath of irresponsible
cargo handling: 2 ladders, a splintered mass of wood I can only guess
used to be a pallet, and various other things on the road that don't
belong on the road.
* Left Lane Blockers (Right lane blockers in those areas that drive on
the left side of the street) Need I say more?
* I'm quote annoyed when I pass you, and you're driving 50 in a 70mph
zone and you're busy yacking on the phone. You're probably equally
oblivious to the fact that you've become a road hazard as you are to
your surroundings.
* Driving while sending a txt msg? srsly?
* Arrogant cyclists who seem to get some perverse pleasure out of
wearing clothing that is waay too small and waaay to revealing of things
I prefer not to see. Ever.
* You know that big red and white triangle that says "Yeild" to ramp?
Yeah. Cars are coming off the interstate, why are you blocking them from
exiting?
* Conversely: Learn how to merge, let me give you a hint. Unless you're
in an 18-wheeler with a heavy load, you're expected to get up to highway
speed as you enter the highway. Any slower speed and you're likely going
to make the morning traffic report with the pile-up you just caused, and
on a technicality, insurance doesn't find you responsible for.
* If you've been doing something naughty on the road and you get pulled
over, please find a better place to pull over than the freeway on-ramp.
You're putting the police officer's life in danger as well as your own,
not to mention you've added an extra layer of difficulty to getting onto
a crowded freeway.
* If you see an exit ahead, and you're finding that the car driving a
bit above the speed limit is going way to slow for you, it is still
extremely rude to cross the solid white line and exit when they have
signaled that they are about to exit. You've also caused that vehicle to
miss their exit because you blocked them from exiting and just added
time to their already long commute.
* Riding the bumper of the person in front of you will not make the
person in front of you go any faster. Also, throwing up your hands and
screaming is not going to magically cure the situation either. Yes,
they're guilty of blocking the left lane. Yes, I understand your
frustration, no, its not going to help to use tailgating as an outlet.
Whew... If you actually got here, thanks for reading that.
--
~Mike
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Mike Raiford wrote:
> Whew... If you actually got here, thanks for reading that.
Man, it's like when you drive through some village like a nutcase, and
at the other side it says "Thanks for driving carefully" and you think
to yourself "oh... yeah, I should totally have done that".
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There was once a British show which name I don't remember which was
about the British traffic patrol and incredible examples of reckless
driving that the patrols had caught on camera.
I liked one thing the commentator said in the show, which was something
about the outright contradictory attitude many drivers have towards their
own car: When the car is parked, it's the most valuable and fragile thing
in the entire world to them. Even a minor scratch is comparable to the end
of the world. However, when they are driving the car, their attitude seems
completely the opposite, as their driving is completely reckless, as if they
couldn't care less how many scratches, bumps or even major damage their car
could get from it.
--
- Warp
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> I liked one thing the commentator said in the show, which was something
> about the outright contradictory attitude many drivers have towards their
> own car: When the car is parked, it's the most valuable and fragile thing
> in the entire world to them. Even a minor scratch is comparable to the end
> of the world. However, when they are driving the car, their attitude seems
> completely the opposite, as their driving is completely reckless, as if
> they
> couldn't care less how many scratches, bumps or even major damage their
> car
> could get from it.
That's because they all think they're one of the best drivers on the road,
and nothing will ever happen to their car whilst they're driving it because
they have the skill to avoid such accidents. If they are involved in any
type of accident, even if it is totally their fault for going double the
speed limit around a blind corner, they will blame the other person for
going too slowly or not pulling out fast enough.
I'm sure this guy blamed the other "idiots" for stopping on the highway:
(skip to 1:30 to see the interesting bit)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7H8q3OrGkY
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> A different tack on randomness today. I feel like unloading:
>
> First, a non-annoyance: Foreplay is such a great name for a song. That
> is all.
>
> Now, onto the topic. mostly commute-related:
>
> * Arrogant cyclists who seem to get some perverse pleasure out of
> wearing clothing that is waay too small and waaay to revealing of things
> I prefer not to see. Ever.
Are they arrogant _and_ wear form-fitting clothes, or are they arrogant
_for_ wearing form-fitting clothes?
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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Mike Raiford wrote:
> * Contractors: Make sure your pallets, ladders, pipes, etc are tied down
I think I've seen three or four times where I go past a car half off the
road with something wedged underneath where I think "That looked like a
ladder tangled in his wheels", and then three miles later theres someone in
a pickup truck full of ladders at the side of the road and the driver
standing there scratching his head like "I thought I had one more than that."
> * Driving while sending a txt msg? srsly?
I see at least several times a year someone driving down the road with a
newspaper over the steering wheel, reading it.
> * Arrogant cyclists who seem to get some perverse pleasure out of
> wearing clothing that is waay too small and waaay to revealing of things
> I prefer not to see. Ever.
Dogbert:
"Problem: Bicycle seats are hard and uncomfortable."
"Solution: Wear funny pants."
> * Conversely: Learn how to merge, let me give you a hint.
Yes. And please get your ass into the lane where you want to exit, instead
of waiting until someone is *about* to merge, then shifting from the center
lane to the right lane. And please don't speed up when you see someone
trying to merge in front of you - they really have nowhere else to go.
> * Riding the bumper of the person in front of you will not make the
> person in front of you go any faster.
And, while we're at it, if you're driving down the road at 70MPH and there
isn't room for someone to parallel-park in front of you, you're doing it wrong.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Quoth the raven:
Need S'Mores!
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On 8/12/2010 8:20 AM, Francois Labreque wrote:
>
> Are they arrogant _and_ wear form-fitting clothes, or are they arrogant
> _for_ wearing form-fitting clothes?
>
Arrogant /and/
--
~Mike
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On 8/12/2010 7:59 AM, Warp wrote:
> I liked one thing the commentator said in the show, which was something
> about the outright contradictory attitude many drivers have towards their
> own car: When the car is parked, it's the most valuable and fragile thing
> in the entire world to them. Even a minor scratch is comparable to the end
> of the world. However, when they are driving the car, their attitude seems
> completely the opposite, as their driving is completely reckless, as if they
> couldn't care less how many scratches, bumps or even major damage their car
> could get from it.
>
Wow... I can totally see that attitude in some people. I get annoyed by
the constant nicks the front-end of my car gets from gravel coming off
the road, which reminds me of another annoyance:
Gravel haulers. This is a tractor-trailer hauling a huge load of gravel.
They've passed a law recently requiring them to place a tarp over the
load. It helps, but I see so many that are in such a sad state of repair
that have huge holes in the tarp. Flinging rocks toward windshields as
they make their way down the road, usually driving way too fast.
--
~Mike
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On 12-8-2010 15:11, scott wrote:
> That's because they all think they're one of the best drivers on the
road,
Warning thread hijacking attempt:
Something that I would have posted on my blog if I had one ;)
I know it is too long, yet there is also much more to elaborate on after
the last line...
Anyway, inspired by two books: one is 'bad science' by Ben Goldacre,
apart from using this example wrongly, an interesting read. The other
book's subject you can guess.
Comments, suggestions and hatemail to the usual address.
----------
Apparently there was some survey that indicates that 80 or 90% of all
people think they are a better than average driver. This is often quoted
as an example of how easy it is for people to fool themselves or some
similar paternalistic point. I think that says more about the people
that interpret this result, than of the people that participated in this
survey.
There are probably as many driver styles as there are drivers. There is
for instance the aggressive style, though they would probably describe
it as 'sporty'. These drivers have good reflexes and know their car so
well that they are able to put their cars in small gaps that open up in
a densely packed road. They are often at least 15 seconds earlier home
than those with a less aggressive style, or so they think. The other end
of the spectrum are those that have a cooperative style. These drivers
look around and anticipate what others are going to do, for instance by
creating a space if they think somebody else is wanting to change lanes.
It is clear that these two styles will lead to different assessment of
how good somebody is as a driver. Sporty drivers will consider
cooperative drivers as slow, stupid and annoying because they don't
create space fast enough for the sporty ones to let them race on
uninterrupted. Cooperative drivers will regard the sporty ones as
homicidal maniacs. Of course the style of driving is not a linear scale
and other style are possible, for instance one that tries to inimize
the amount of gas needed for a trip.
In conclusion, people will try to drive in a way that they think is a
good driving style and judge other by the same standards. We should have
been worried if 50% of people would think they are less than average
drivers on their own scale of what is good driving. The error people
make when they think that this survey is an example of how people can
fool themselves, is that they assume that there is an objective
measurement possible on a linear scale for driving ability.
Let's keep this in mind and see what happens if we *force* a linear
scale. E.g. assume that there are only a finite number of cars and that
the government has decided that only the best drivers get a licence.
First we have to create a committee that can judge drivers capacity. For
this a natural first group is that group that knows about cars e.g.
because they own a couple and repair them themselves. This is based on
the logical assumption that people who know how cars work also know how
to drive them well. Presumably they will come up with a test like how
fast drivers can negotiate an obstacle course without damage, to test
the ability of the drivers. That would indeed create an objective linear
scale.
So we have as our main ingredients a complex multidimensional concept, a
need to make it objective and one dimensional, and a group of
knowledgeable men and what comes out is a very reasonable measure that
somehow and unplanned is not going to be gender-insensitive. And as long
as new members of this committee are recruited from the 'best' drivers,
it will stay that way.
This is of course an imaginary scenario and the fact that so many women
are going to fail the test is a dead give away that something is wrong.
You might even argue that no government is going to do something so
simplistic for such a complex problem. On the other hand many people
apparently fail to see the fact that driving ability is a
multidimensional problem to begin with. If you don't, it may seem
logical that it is a fair and adequate test. There is an even better
argument that this kind of fallacy is common: it works this way in science
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andrel wrote:
> First we have to create a committee that can judge drivers capacity.
On the other hand, I think it's safe to say that there *are* objective
criteria for bad drivers: If you frequently get in an accident, you're a
worse driver than those who never do.
I saw a study where they put cameras into 300 cars for a year to see what
the driver was doing when they got in an accident. Even knowing they were
being monitored, 100 people that year got in an accident. That tells me an
average driver (assuming they picked randomly, which might not be the case
now that I think of it) gets in an accident every 3 years. This boggles my
mind. I don't even ding a door in the parking lot every 3 years.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Quoth the raven:
Need S'Mores!
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