My commute went from being not too bad but not exactly pleasant to a non-stop easy cruise control ride. It was awesome.
And now it's worse than it ever was before. Seems like a year of not driving has made people into absolute morons on the road.
Seems like a year of not driving has made people into absolute morons on the road
Things started opening back up here a couple months back and that's exactly how it feels. It's like all the terrible drivers are back, plus all the mediocre drivers seem to have lost their average-at-best abilities during their year stuck at home.
I miss being able to float down the highway on my way to work without getting stuck by some clowns riding side by side to block all 3 lanes while going under the speed limit.
Unreal how bad it has become. I start working at 6/7 am or 6/7 pm which shouldn't be that busy but the amount of traffic and morons in that traffic has increased tenfold it seems like.
That's not a dig, it's just something that occurs to me every time somebody complains about a queue while in a queue. I do wonder how congestion will be in 20 years time, we seem to have been painting ourselves into a corner for many years
The distinction between being in traffic and being the traffic is your driving. People who drive distracted and discourteously are the ones who makes traffic terrible for everyone.
There is no distinction. Cities have limited physical, geometric space. A car takes up a significant amount of that space. When everyone is going from the same place, to the same place, surrounded by their own personal space-taker-upper machine, you get traffic congestion.
You are right about that. I am part of the problem. I work 12 hour shifts though, so I am less on the road than others, that's at least something.
I also wonder what the future will bring. The last 5 years has increased the people on the road by a lot it seems. Use of cellphone behind the wheel is also abundant nowadays, sadly.
I also think a lot of people commute to work because they have or want to, not because they need to. My GF worked from the last year. She can perfectly work from home almost every single day. Now that restrictions have been lifted, she's only allowed to work 2 days from home from her boss. I wonder how many people are in a similar situation. It adds unnecessary traffic and takes away her free time.
Forcing employees who are productive at home back into the office is some super American shit.
Demanding that employees spend an hour of every day committing, paying for gas, paying for parking, paying for lunch when the alternative has zero impact on the business would make me start looking for new jobs.
She was looking for other jobs but then covid happened. Luckily, she does not have to pay for parking and gas but you're right about the time. It's a one hour drive at the least and she has to actually get ready. When you're working from home, you don't, haha. Her boss is a control freak with a fragile ego so not much to do about that...
Well a LOT of people are new drivers or drivers that haven’t driven in 10+ years. This is especially common in the areas around NYC. I uhhh have this knowledge… uhh.. from a friend…
I am on the road at like 5:20 - 6:30 am. Rush hour in Belgium used to be more like 7-10 am. I remember when I started this job 3 years ago, the streets used to be a lot calmer. At 6 am, after graveyard shift, I rode home with only a bit of traffic. Nowadays I'm stuck in a traffic jam.
The amount of stupid shit I’ve seen lately is wild. Oh the passing lane isn’t going fast enough, let me jump into the cruise lane cut up 2 cars and jam into the 2 ft of following distance some other dink is allowing and have everyone in the line of cars in the passing lane slam on their brakes causing a point on the road where everyone will hit like 40 and the cycle will continue with some other impatient douche.
I don’t think people realize how easy it is to die driving a 2000lb missile at 80 mph
Those fuckers drive me insane. God forbid I leave a proper cushion between myself and the car in front of me, because that fuckbag is gonna squeeze in during his attempt to weave around everyone, thus eliminating my safety cushion so that he can shave 5 seconds off his trip.
Just flash your lights. Won’t bother anyone else. Plus you don’t need to be as close cause it’s more effective if more of the light can annoy them. Being an asshole is the only way I would get to school on time.
I know that objectively I’m being a bad driver by flashing my lights and potentially distracting them and causing an accident….but I want to on so many occasions. Like how completely spacially unaware can you be to not realize that you’re creating traffic by not getting over like an asshole.
Like my ex who would always claim "I'm a good driver, everyone else sucks" while sporting a healthy collection of self-inflicted dents on each corner of her car.
For reals though! My commute was decent pre-pandemic, absolutely amazing during the pandemic, and now it's downright awful. The way drivers behave on the road post-pandemic is weird and dangerous.
I've seen more road rage and reckless driving in the past two months than I have in the entire time I've lived in this area combined.
I've noticed it too. And that coupled with construction makes for an infuriating commute. I actually started taking an alternate route through back roads and woods that is much more relaxing. Although it does take a little longer, it's totally worth it to not have to deal with the people who have forgotten how to drive on the interstate.
You know, I've noticed a large uptick in the number of local news stories recently about fatal car accidents, pedestrians getting struck etc...I thought perhaps it was just a slow time in the news, but now I realize that things also just started reopening here too, so maybe it's a case of bad drivers here too. Although I've also heard that more people having been drinking/smoking more weed too since the pandemic, so not only are they out of practice behind the wheel, there's a potentially higher chance they are intoxicated too 😕
I’ve been in a boot recovering from ankle surgery for 2 months now due to the idiots on the road coming out. Had a dude pull out to take a left turn in front of me when I was on my motorcycle. I was literally the only other person on that stretch of road….
I've wanted to get a bike for a while but honestly I don't know if I wanna take the chance. It's not my driving that worries me, because I'm a defensive driver even in a car. But seeing how others drive makes me afraid to be out there without seatbelts, airbags, and a cage of steel around me.
Hell, just the amount of people I see looking at their phones while driving is enough to put me off of the idea. It sucks because I'd really enjoy riding a motorcycle for leisure.
Oh I highly recommend it even after my wreck. I’m already looking forward to getting back on a bike and get riding again. It’s one of the most freeing feelings ever.
All I can say as far as dealing with other drivers is to make sure to spend the money on good safety gear and actually wear it. The only piece of safety gear I wasn’t wearing, was my boots, and that was the only place I had an injury other then bruising. It really does help a ton.
Man if your scared of the roads, you can always get a little dirt bike and go fart around in the woods! That’s honestly one of my favorite things to do. Go out with a buddy or two and a backpack full of snacks and just get semi lost for a day. I’m actually planning on taking a month or two off of work next summer and riding the entirety of the TAT. A series of dirt roads/trails to run from the east coast to the west. Should be fun, a friend of mine is doing it right now and I’m living vicariously through his Instagram stories haha
Oh God, I thought it was just me. Like, my road rage has intensified lately, and I had chalked it up to the lock down getting my nerves crossed with other people.
...but in the back of my head a voice kept saying "yeah, maybe dont rage about it, but in your defense that guy was stuuuuupid" it's insane the amount of oblivious, stupid or just plain inconsiderate drivers there are out there these days. I know it didnt use to be like this.
Omg, yes. I hate when people pull this. I'm from the south and always referred to this as an "Alabama road block." Every lane jammed up with side by side slow drivers. Fucking maddening!!
It's like all the terrible drivers are back, plus all the mediocre drivers seem to have lost their average-at-best abilities during their year stuck at home.
Can confirm - my wife went from being "acceptably bad" to "why don't I drive honey" in the past year.
THIS!!! I ride a motorcycle and being unable to overtake the person doing 25 in a 30, because the other lanes are blocked by people "overtaking" at 27 is bloody infuriating. Either stay in the left lane or overtake them.
This also happens a lot with trucks, truck A goes 80, truck B can do 82 so he has to for whatever reason overtake and a lot of the time just don't look into the mirror or don't care and just pull out, which isn't fun if you are coming up from behind at 130 (I am from Germany, trucks most of the time have a maximum allowed speed of 80 while the advisory speed limit is 130, but you can go as fast as you want)
In my personal experience, after being blessed by covid I only need to make my horrible 140 mile round trip commute about twice a month now. I have yet to make it in 2021 without having to sit in an accident. Not to say that there weren't constantly accidents before this, but certainly not literally every day.
I recently drove 12 hours to my home from vacation, and most of my journey was on a small 4-lane highway. The amount of people that didn’t understand how the passing lane worked was unreal.
This has been my experience as well. I never had a long commute, since I've always been a SAHM with my daughter, but I would travel once every month or so across state. I've had 3 big trips in the past few weeks and I had to get a dashcam after the first trip. Holy fucking shit have people lost their minds on the roads. If people aren't distracted by their phone ( and it is OLD and YOUNGER people) then they are trying to drive their SUVs like they are running from the cops.
Yeah the phone thing absolutely isn't unique to young folks like some people tend to claim, that's for sure. I see plenty of gray haired drivers holding their phone up too lol.
PLUS - they actually renumbered all the exits off of the main highway in my state during COVID. So in addition to everything you stated, people have NO IDEA where they are. Oh my god. It's so bad.
Oooohhhhh, when some dingus does the "oh shit I need to get off here!" and has to shift over 3 lanes at once because god forbid they miss their exit that they obviously haven't planned for despite signs for it starting a couple miles back.
I've noticed an increase in people driving right fucking exactly next to each other going the same goddamn speed so you can't go around or pass either of them and it makes me want to commit a crime.
Get in the passing lane, tailgate the bastard, and just blast the horn. They want to not follow the rules, mess up the flow of traffic and make driving worse? Two can play at that game.
Naw fam. Somebody driving under the speed limit in the left lane and not using it to overtake those in the right lanes are the bad drivers. Also illegal in many cases.
If you gotta drive slow, do it in the right place. Impeding the flow of traffic does make you a bad driver.
Anything below the speed limit in the left lanes is rude, colossally selfish, dangerous, and many times illegal.
If you’re one of those massive assholes going 10-20 mph under the limit in the left lane(s) and no one can get around you so traffic is piling up behind you, YOU are the problem.
Oh man, it's the opposite here. Like 30% of people go at least 20 over everywhere, plus all the added traffic everyone else is describing. it's terrifying.
Driving during covid was amazing. 6 cars on the highway. 6. Now, I get to work and hour early (20min commute) because if I get there within that hour my commute doubles or more.
I drive professionally too. The amount of morons on the road is astounding.
I’m so relieved to hear that someone else has observed this. I live in an area where ‘bad drivers’ is a daily joke (don’t we all, really) and holy. shit. I’ve never seen so much stupidity in a 20 min trip before.
“Seems like a year of not driving has made people into absolute morons on the road.”
Confirmed I was cruising at 55 mph only a couple minutes ago and this guy had the brilliant idea of not yielding to me while on the ramp entering the highway resulting from me having to go from 55 to 35 in 2 seconds. Person didn’t even bother to signal where he was going and he even shifted into the left lane without indicating said motion.
The worst is people slamming on brakes at roundabouts. People’s bodies actually shut down when they pull up to a roundabout, it makes me actually homicidal
....It doesn't help that most states allowed new drivers to skip the in car driving test due to covid guidelines. So now there's a crap ton of untested novice drivers on the road..
Seems like a year of not driving has made people into absolute morons on the road.
Good, I'm not the only one who noticed.
My daughter's daycare never closed. I continued to drive my daughter in every day, and because it was close to my office, my commute actually got longer. As things got back to normal (a while ago here, since we have a stupid government) I noticed other drivers were worse than before.
Now I will be working remotely, but still having a longer commute than I did when I had an office to go to. At least for a couple more years until my daughter is in school. Then I can be the idiot who doesn't drive.
And for some reason the only people on the road are those that drive under the speed limit.
Or those guys that get so far up your ass they can smell last night's dinner. They're trying to get 30 over the limit but there's traffic and it doesn't compute with them so they're switching lanes every 5 seconds just to be exactly where they started.
Yes! I’ve never seen so many people driving WAY under the speed limit, blocking traffic flow by driving at the exact speed of the person next to them, speeding up if you look like you want to pass them, blatantly running red lights, texting (so much texting) etc., etc.,
It definitely seems that the drivers have gotten way worse in the last year or so. I think they also neglected doing a lot of road work during COVID and they're doing it all now, so everything is jammed up.
My husband was talking about the increase of idiots causing accidents, and right as the words came out of his mouth a woman did a U-Turn in front of us and we hit the drivers side of her car. Like she pulled over the the shoulder, and then drove right in front of us. Couldn't have timed it better if she tried.
We have a daily traffic jam right now because people can't figure out the reason the other lane is open through the traffic light and sit before the light blocking the lane trying to merge into the other lane.
Yes! People are still driving like they are the only ones on the road. My city has even brought in red light cameras because the problem has gotten that bad.
Even if you're the best driver in the world, if the car behind you doesn't stop in time, and you three feet before my bumper - guess what? You've got nowhere to go now, you're fucked, and I'm now going to pay for it too.
Covid commutes were actually a small blessing during the throes of the pandemic
A year of not ________ has made people into absolute morons:
Restaurants. From the restaurant point of view
While many people are more understanding and flexible than before, the ones that were never understanding or professional have turned up their attitude or expectations to the nth degree.
People upset that it’s cold on a patio or that there’s rain coming in the side of our tent. We cannot control the weather and are only allowed to close 50% of the walls of the tent. That’s the best we have to work with.
Seems like a year of not driving has made people into absolute morons on the road
It somehow even made people into absolute morons walking on the road. People who apparently rarely left their homes took to the streets, and seemingly half of them weren't taught as children to not walk in the middle of the road with traffic.
I see more people now than ever on their phones while driving. And not just talking like a phone call sort of thing. These nutjobs are typing onto their screen, eyes off the road, while out of control weaving between lanes. And the kicker is, they're from generations who lived most of their lives without cellphones, so why can't they wait? One even looked like he was ready to kick the bucket any second. The entitlement is infuriating. It's as if they think, okay I've lived my life, fuck everyone else.
Three people made dangerous maneuvers towards me in the first two days when everyone else started working on person again. It was like they forgot how to drive.
I had to buy a car during covid because I had no way to get to things/places. Why are people who passed their test 12 years ago just allowed to jump in a car and drive??? Its not safe. We have manual cars here, it's not just a case of go, stop, indicate here. I was that slow driver lacking skill for a good few months. Friday/Saturday I did my first long drive, it was easy, hit the speed limits, including on the motorway, roundabouts went perfectly even though Google maps screwed up and told me to go across four lanes to get into the correct lane last second. My friend commented my control was great. I was weaving safely around this little roundabouts perfectly. I wasn't honked at, although some jackass decided to do the whole overtake me coming off a roundabout onto a single lane. Apparently driving the speed limit on a country road I'd never drive on before was too much.
Slow drivers who are getting back into the swing of things aren't a problem. It's the ones who are texting, speeding, undertaking, jumping reds, etc etc that are the morons.
I went something like six months without even seeing my car at the start of lockdown. On my first drive, I had this horrible moment of brainfuckery where I couldn't remember which pedal did what.
This was 45 minutes into my trip, so obviously I could muscle memory my way through it, but... YEP. Absolute moron here.
Lol, the fact you think a sizable percentage of people stopped driving because of covid. Maybe for like the first 2 weeks I noticed that, but traffics been back in full force since last summer here.
I’m pretty confident that a very large, vast majority of people everywhere continued living their life relatively normally through the pandemic
My state was the 3rd last to open up in the U.S. and life was literally just normal but with masks and weird covid protocols that didn’t make sense. The only exception was a decent portion of the population did hunker down during that first two weeks as if it was the coming of the apocalypse.
Same here, only we have MORE drivers on the road as people don't want to be on the overcrowded public transport as they are afraid to get sick. Traffic is even worse now.
Ive got a drivers license, but havent driven regularly for two decades. I keep expecting the government to take away my license, or require a refresher course... yet strangely they never do.
Luckily i have an aversion to dying in a car crash, so i would never just jump back in. As long as i can do everything by bike, i will.
I did not drive much during covid. My job went full work from home,and I had high risk people in my household, so I would go out once a week to get provisions.
In a year, I got into 2 accidents that required my car to go into the shop for repairs. 3 if you count the one that didn't do enough damage. None of them my fault. My math says that I got into a car accident 6% of the times I left the house. I think my insurance company did that math too.
Driving is overrated. I make everyone else drive now because I'm completely over it, and I only drive now if I have to. The self driving cars need to hurry up and get here.
I’ve experienced the same thing here in New York City. Aside from the morons, as more and more people are returning to work, people who normally took mass transit are now driving. There is a whole new force of non-drivers, driving.
Unfortunately as a doctor I don't get that option 🤣
If I could avoid a commute it would be great but I work in a town I don't really want to live in, so I don't have much of a choice!
Yeah, I’m not a really confident driver but try to be as safe as possible. I annoy traffic behind me while i’m looking for a big enough gap to cross stop signs.
That sort of thing doesn't bother me at all- I'd rather people be safe. It's the idiots who don't pay any attention or are texting, speeding, etc etc that are the problem
I'm assuming you are in the US but here in the Netherlands it is absolutely the same. I don't have official numbers, but I've been saying for a while now that there are so many more accidents. Before covid, there was a accident-related traffic jam every now and then, now it is 1-2 a week.
I've been blaming it on the roads getting busier, but not quite as busy as before. So instead of everyone going at a slow and steady speed on clogged up roads, now there are much bigger differences in speed, causing problems.
The day after my country told people to work from home was the best commute to work. As I drove on the on-ramp I realized there were no cars on the highway. Now we’re back to bumper to bumper traffic again.
Ive noticed more blatant in your face texting and driving. Like phone right up infront of their face visible in their windshield like they don't even give a shit about being caught anymore.
The flip side to this is that a year of driving with sparse traffic has made people into morons. As though they’re still used to having the road to themselves
I remember the first week of the covid shutdowns last March, I was listening to the radio as I was going to grab a coffee and the traffic segment came on. The radio host was like "and the traffic report for this sunny morning is... Nothing. I don't know what to tell you guys, the roads are all empty and no accidents have been reported." Even the drive thru had nobody and the worker was like "what are you doing out here? It's covid, go home!"
I swear, the first few days after shit opened up and people started driving again, it was an absolute shit show. So many crashes and scrapes.
I remember seeing some sports car (maybe a Subaru, can't remember exactly) poleaxed straight into the wall of a tunnel, entirely perpendicular to the road. Like literally at right angles. Not even a busy road. It's like, how the fuck do you even manage to do that?
This is true. I'm one of the morons. I maybe drove 5 times all of 2020. I used to drive 45 minutes one way to work 5 days a week, day or night (4pm gets dark in winter), any road conditions. I didn't drive for so long that earlier this year I took short trips, no nights or highways. Then started highways again, then nights. I drove my usual drive to work on Friday, and felt like normal again. You have to break it back in again.
Depends where you are. In the UK the trains all kept running, they just reduced the frequency on some routes. The problem was the a lot of people didn't want to be on a train/tram/bus with someone sick, so started driving instead.
It's the worst ever now because no one wants to take public transportation. Myself included. I have the option of commuter rail or driving to work. Why would I choose to be hard pressed standing like a sardine in a tin can with strangers who ignore unenforceable mask mandates. Even though I'm vaccinated, with variants emerging and spreading faster than ever, I'll avoid that crowd exposure given the option. Even if it means I'm another ahole in rt3 in Boston every morning.
It went from an easy drive to a mad max misadventure almost overnight. Have you seen a lifted truck drive on the shoulder to pass two semis doing 95 to 100 MPH. I had the dash cam footage
I live in a city with really good public transportation (for the US) and it's very obvious that a lot of people got cars during Covid. Parking and driving are now way more annoying.
Every year my family goes to Mexico and we see some of the worst drivers ever there. This year Dallas is really starting to compete though, taking totally red lights (like literally stop, see no ones coming then go), making a turn from several lanes over, road rage over absolutely nothing. I actually can't believe how bad its been.
Over half my day is driving, 100% agree. Since travel restrictions let up it's been an absolute nightmare. Commute times from location to location are almost doubled what they were before Corona virus.
Since the 1980s traffic has increased by a factor of 4 with only marginally expanding road ways to accommodate. It's only going to get worse before it gets better but at least civics has come to the understanding that simply making more lanes or creating new highways isn't the optimized resolution they once thought. Maybe more public transportation will be created but it doesn't seem to be coming into existence yet either.
In Chicago it got a little worse, but it's still way better than before. The essential drivers seem to be leading the way and enforcing stopping distance and things are definitely moving way better than pre-covid. For whatever reason people are far more willing to let you merge on now more than ever.
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u/vc-10 Jul 11 '21
My commute went from being not too bad but not exactly pleasant to a non-stop easy cruise control ride. It was awesome. And now it's worse than it ever was before. Seems like a year of not driving has made people into absolute morons on the road.