Dud drivers dish out plenty of aggravation

As I’ve written here before, general pet-peeve polls usually have irritating driving behaviors at the top of their lists. There’s plenty of aggravation to everyday living, but duds in the drivers’ seats seem to be causing a big share of it.

I’ve covered many of these bad behaviors, and have emphasized the worst ones more than once. Well, not to toot my own horn, but many bad habits I’ve warned drivers of last year are now at the forefront of hot driving topics.

Road Rage

These incidents are growing phenomena across the country and right here at home. There have been too many local examples of road rage, both publicized and not. After recounting my road rage experience in this column, many readers shared their own stories of woe — and these are the ones that don’t make the news.

The tragic occurrence in North Idaho over the Christmas Holiday was an example of road rage that made the news. My heart goes out to those involved for their losses. This is proof that these situations can escalate quickly, and get out of control easily.

It’s no wonder that Washington State Patrol Chief John R. Batiste has made road-rage reduction a top priority within the agency. Task force officers in special unmarked vehicles are dutifully taking on this project as we speak.

Tailgating

Not only is this at the top of many annoyance lists, last year I labeled it as the most rapidly growing bad driver behavior. I’ve noticed that the frequency and severity of these rear-end rides is on the upswing — and it isn’t just around town. I do a great deal of highway driving, and in 2005, I’ve never been followed so close, so often, while driving slightly over the limit. I know that NASCAR is growing in popularity, but that doesn’t mean that we have to adopt their bump-drafting technique!

Well I guess I’m not the only one shocked and miffed by this — local law enforcement agencies just announced that they would begin emphasis patrols to curtail the tailers. The explanation given for the program is that there has been an upswing in rear-end collision investigations by police — a predictable aspect of insufficient following distance.

Besides the collisions, this aggressive driving behavior is a catalyst to commit or cause road rage.

Cell Phones, Distraction

We drivers are already dividing our attention among many distractions, such as eating, rubbernecking, and smoking. Now that practically everyone has a cell phone, we’ve just added another big distraction to the list. In fact, cell phones are poised to take away the No. 1 spot from rubbernecking as the top accident-causing misdirection of driving attention.

Again, I wrote of this concern a couple of times last year, and declared that no one is as good a driver while talking on the phone.

Now, the state of Washington has just announced that there will be a new query on the vehicle accident reports: Were you on the phone when the accident occurred? Evidently, I’m not alone in the thought that drivers talking on cell phones may be causing wrecks.

Other Distraction

Please shun distractions, and keep focused on your driving even in parking lots. We were reminded of the dangers of backing a vehicle around pedestrians with a life lost in Post Falls this winter. Hopefully other lives will be saved because of it.

On that subject, look for back-of-vehicle camera systems, and back-up warning devices to proliferate as a result of these accidents happening nationwide.

Bad Intersections

You readers have pointed out, and I’ve reported, some bad intersections around our driving area. I hope we’ve played a small part here — the intersection at 7th & McClellan is now revised. You can no longer cross 7th on McClellan northbound. Readers and I felt that it was impossible to safely negotiate this maneuver due to restricted visibility — apparently the city of Spokane agrees.

Help

So I will report on the cutting edge of precision driving practices again in 2006. Of course, to do so properly requires your help. Please continue to send me your concerns, gripes, questions, and solutions this year — I can’t get by without you!