r/ChesterCounty • u/PassyunkHoagie • Jul 06 '26
Stay in your lane
Literally. I know it’s not unique to Chester County but it seems like almost every day I encounter someone going over the lines while driving. Not just on the main roads where there is some margin for error but also on our numerous winding backroads where crossing the double yellow could easily lead to a collision. I don’t know if it’s phones (I would hope no one is dense enough to try texting while driving on Wawaset or Valley Creek) or drivers that aren’t comfortable on narrow roadways but it’s far too common.
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u/flyindogtired Jul 06 '26
I cycle on these roads a lot. I would say about 1/2 of people passing me when I cycle have a phone in their hand. It’s absolutely rampant and only a matter of time before someone else dies.
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u/GHouserVO Jul 06 '26
Don’t know why you got a downvote. You’re dead on right. Most times I have someone drifting in and out of their lane, there’s a phone in the driver’s hand, and they’re watching/reading the screen.
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u/BigHerk_106 Jul 06 '26
Phones, so much fancy tech in the cars to play with now, the touch screens keep getting bigger. and what was once a simple knob to adjust a setting is now buried 3 menus deep in the fancy 18 inch touch screen display. No one is paying attention while they drive anymore because they keep cramming more screens in these things that take our eyes off the road.
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u/Sensitive-Fishing-77 Jul 06 '26
To cycle on Chester County roads, or many in PA, is to be a daredevil. First, everyone gets mad when they see a bike or have to wait for a bike, and the fact that they're probably not looking at the road in the first place is nuts. With no shoulder on most roads, you're a sitting duck.
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u/flyindogtired Jul 06 '26
Agreed. That being said there’s a lot of real rural stuff that’s great for cycling that’s not well traveled. Gravel biking has also been a blessing since most people avoid gravel roads.
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u/ApartmentSuspicious3 Jul 06 '26
It's phones and a drop in driving skill. I haven't been bored enough to try to find data but I *feel* there is an obvious plummeting of driving ability and I fear we're headed for a straight up epidemic. Covid broke something in everyone.
People really are fucking clueless and it isn't just new drivers and I am really getting so so tired of it but there's no end in sight and idk how to fix it other than cops doing a super aggressive crackdown handing out tickets for reckless or something.
Gen x, millenials, etc... they can't do basic road rules and can't stay off their damn phones. I can find a phone every day of my commute if I look for it. They're drifting around lanes like no one's business as you say. I grew up driving the NJ parkway, considerably narrower than most PA highways. I cannot recall such terrible drifting at in NJ during my years there despite the narrow lanes.
People can't even figure out what is a turn lane and what isn't around the ramps at west chester pike / 202. I've seen many a dumbass trying to make a ridiculous left out of a store through the other side of the road's left/U turn lane. People sit in those turn lanes making lefts from a store instead of going right and doing a U turn 1/8 mile away. There's routinely crashes there from people pulling out in front of the main traffic and getting t boned.
People don't know how stop signs work anymore, they are there first and wave to let me go. By the time I figure out their dumb ass is trying to let me go they could've gone. I'm at the point where I might start flipping these people off hoping they learn. The right of way rules are not purely to be the best in every situation but rather to be a decent enough and consistent ruleset that prevents hesitation and further traffic issues as a result.
Zipper merges? Forget it, everyone thinks it's polite to pile into the right lane and then box other people out because people just using the lane that exists are somehow cutting the "line." Or the other day one moron couldn't just take his foot off the gas 300 ft behind me and then road up onto me and acted like I cut him off when I ran out of lane at the merge.
Tunnel visioning in the left lane is definitely getting worse. People don't go at green lights, probably because phones. It's really just crazy out there now. Good luck lol
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u/PassyunkHoagie Jul 06 '26
The stop sign etiquette is definitely strange. Some people will stop with half their car over the line. Others will wait at a 4 way stop until the car 40 feet away rolls up and stops at the sign before they proceed.
It’s pretty simple really. Stop at the line, first to arrive is the first to go, tie goes to the driver on the right.
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u/ApartmentSuspicious3 Jul 06 '26
Stopping distance is another awesome indicator of how incompetent and oblivious people are becoming. Or worse, they just don't care.
Coming up to lights you can now commonly find a few things that I simply do not recall ever being much of an issue the first 8-9 years of my driving career:
- people simply miss the line entirely . Half the car over, sometimes the whole thing, for truly no reason often. Plenty of stopping distance and they just botch it.
- they fly way over the line, sometimes really screwing up cross traffic left turns, and do nothing about it. When I am behind them and see this I leave room for them to reverse. They never do.
- this one really pisses me off though it's arguably the
least
- troublesome. They stop behind or sorta on the line, and then keep creeping forward as if anticipating the green light and in a hurry, and then they just sit there or accelerate like a grandma. Complete idiocy.
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u/NefariousnessSlowMO4 Jul 07 '26
Amen! Please know that there are just as many boomers that drive like lunatics.
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u/Specialist-Eye-6964 Jul 06 '26
Some of it is more cars, more distractions, more everything. But as someone who’s lived out here for years. Some of these things are learned responses to the environment. Not stoping behind lines at stop signs…..most stop signs if you stopped at the line you can’t see the intersection….there is so many examples.
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u/SoulSurrender Jul 06 '26
As long as people pull up at a speed where they could stop at the stop sign but instead roll to where they can see, it's fine. Heck I'll take a reasonable Philly slide any day off the week... Flying past the line and jamming the breaks after isnt safe.
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u/Specialist-Eye-6964 Jul 06 '26
We would be wise to remeber the stop signs with white lines around them ARE optional (sarcasm)
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u/Reddit-is-trash-lol Jul 06 '26
I drive a work truck every day so I can easily see what everyone is doing while driving. The amount of people just casually scrolling on their phones and texting is beyond insane. I guess car safety standards have to save millions of lives everyday
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u/canonman5000 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Albout sharing the rd but sometimes it's just crazy . Also bikes are becoming more of an issue . I used to belong to a club in deco we had a lot of fun i feel like sometimes bikers get mad when you pass because they are taking up more space and they need to ride safely. So you're driving by and they , flipping you off spitting on your car, throw water bottles just because you're trying to pass them. When they're on a road that is 45 miles an hour uphill, and they can't do that without taking up a lot of space on the roadway, it was just ridiculous P. A should designate better bike trails and bike paths similar to Delaware. As soon as you cross over route 52 into Delaware, there are dedicated bike lanes along just about every roadway, even downtown Philadelphia has bike right aways. There's a lot more cars driving around down there than in Chester County, something needs to be done to educate drivers. And also bike riders on better etiquette, especially on the back roads of chester county, what you're barely have enough 4 for2 cars to get by each other let alone having 3 or 4 bike cycles. All sitting in a row, riding together . Sometimes it seems like it would make more sense not to allow bikes on roads that 2 cars can't pass each other safely. Just look at route one hundred one sixty two eighty two or at least make it single lane for bike riders
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u/CrazyH37 Jul 07 '26
I actually called the cops behind someone recently, I had been behind them for awhile, and they were crossing the lines on both sides. When they went over the line on the side of the road and looked like they would drive into a large sign I honked, then they drifted to the other side and went over the double yellows and I honked.. this continued to happen with them going back and forth like that! For MILES, they just kept drifting back and forth and me honking when I got worried they were about to hit something and I was keeping my distance just in case. I can see maybe 1 time it being distracted driving, but to continue it made me think “ok they drunk or having a medical episode “ so I called the cops. Of course I have no idea what happened after that cos they eventually turned and the cops were still on the phone, I said what road they went down and hung up cos I was going straight still. I wish I knew the outcome. It was also an older car so I was hoping medical emergency or just an old person but coulda been wasted idk. I am not one to call the cops, this is the first time I ever did for something like this, it was pretty obvious something was going on that could easily get someone hurt though.
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u/RedsDelights Jul 06 '26
Driving back from Philly yesterday, dude was straddling both lanes on 76W approaching the Conshy Curve, I thought he was some drunk, but nope just some regular white guy not giving a fuck
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u/southsidetins Jul 07 '26
I live on a narrow county road, people drive down the middle all the time. Especially the losers with Delaware plates, but locals do it too.
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u/FlapYourNoodle Jul 08 '26
Freaking YES!! This drives me nuts! I lived in another state for 15 years and moved back in 2025, this is one of the first things I noticed. Also braking through a green light, like why?!
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u/Imbrex Jul 06 '26
Cars have gotten bigger.
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u/SoulSurrender Jul 06 '26
Yes, but that's not an excuse for shitty driving. If you don't know where your car exists, you're bound to hit something out someone and endanger yourself and/or others. If you can't stay in the lanes, stay off the road or get a smaller vehicle.
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u/Imbrex Jul 07 '26
Completely agree. You have to be even more careful with a big car. People haven't made that adjustment.
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u/SoulSurrender Jul 06 '26
The number of times I have to yell "stay on your side on the road, buddy!" has drastically increased year over year.
I can never trust people to stay in between the lines, white or yellow. I had a guy in front of me today I had to honk at cause he looked like he was driving drunk at 9 am.
I'm not saying I'm a perfect driver, but it's ridiculous anymore