Tag: Utah Driving

Driving in Utah 2017 Edition

On By Rossj781In blog, featured, funny, humor, inspiration, life, Photography, travel, writingLeave a comment

It’s already deep into the Northern Utah winter and you know what that means: the god awful drivers and all of their glory are out of the roads. But this year isn’t like the past years; and with the amount of snow we’ve gotten compared to recent winter’s you better believe it!

This time, I’ve been stuck in it every day the last 2 weeks in a 60 mile commute (120 both ways). Now, the roads don’t have snow on them all of the time of course, that would be exaggerating, but typically in the early hours of the AM when I’m on the road they tend to be utterly hellish. For example, I don’t know why people do this out here on our roads, but when you’re in the passing lane, and a slow car is in front of you, they tend to not know when the hell to get over.

Say… you and the traffic in your lane is wanting to go around 80 mph, however the person in front of you only wants to go 7o mph. The speed limit is 7o so in any other lane that’s fine. Now when traffic wants to go 80, and everyone around you is tailgating you or passing you, and you’re still doing 70 or slower…maybe…… you should get the fuck in the other lane or drive faster! So I sit behind them as we’re slightly passing traffic in the next lane, and the asshole in front of me wants to keep holding traffic back, while I raptor screech at them from my own vehicle.

So, eventually the next lane clears up for a good stretch and the fool wants to keep going their snail speed. So, I say “to hell with it!” and take matters into my own hands proceed into the lane to the side of us to get ahead of them. Merge completed. I’m now filled with excitement; I’m going to pass these bastards! I speed up to get in front of this abomination in the passing (fast) lane next to me.

But hold up here; hold up… h-h-Hold up here! What in shit is this!? The slow car to the side of me is suddenly matching my speed? No, no, no! Why are they doing this, they’ve been doing 70 the last 4-5 miles and now they’re going nearly 80? That’s right, there seems to be some sort of mental disorder in our driver’s that they think they can’t allow people to get in front of or pass them.  Every other state I’ve been too, most people seem to know when they need to get over. In Utah, say adios to that logic!

So anyways, here I am sitting in my car wondering why the fuck this piece of work next to me suddenly wants to pull a different type of classic Utah dick move. Well wouldn’t you know it, a semi truck and another group of traffic are looming just ahead. So, I get back in the other lane to at least pass that upcoming cluster of vehicles. The car ahead is doing a cool 70 again… of course!

Eventually in this scenario I’ll manage to pass the moron, or they’ll miraculously catch the drift… after only 10-15 miles of holding up traffic in the lane, and get over whilst giving you the, “what did I do?” look as you pass them. Well, I’ll tell you what you did, not paying attention to your surroundings. Now Imagine this with snow, or very heavy rain. Fun, right?

Out of nowhere, all the same people that like going slow in general, always decide to go faster than what would be considered safe for these conditions. Granted, I avoid the fast lane, and often the middle lane in the crazy type of weather because you know, I like not dying and shit. And speak of the devil, What is that up the road? Oh, just the 5-6 car pile ups that were moved to the side of the road; or cars stuck in snow banks off the freeway. Even a few vehicles caught in more fatal accidents.

Well, it they’d have gotten their safety priorities straight, maybe they could’ve kept their happy asses alive on the road. It also doesn’t help that in this kind of weather you can barely see the white lines on the road you need to see to stay in your lane anyways. Going 80 mph through that certainly doesn’t help.

As mentioned earlier, most of this has in the AM going through the morning work rush past Salt Lake City and beyond. The way the freeway system and city layout is past there is certainly a major clusterfuck within it’s own accord which causes indefinitely more traffic, but more on that later. I’ve fortunately been getting off just early enough to beat the rush hour.

For now, we’ll keep seeing what more 2017 will bring to the table with our ‘wonderful’ drivers and if you ever have to come to Utah, or cut through, well…best of luck to you as always. Also, time it to where you’re nowhere near Salt Lake City, or the surrounding  valley during rush hour. If you are, you better have good car insurance!

To read the other articles in this series, click the following links below!

Original of the series:

https://rossj781.com/2015/10/24/another-day-driving-in-utah/

Previous two:

https://rossj781.com/2015/12/01/driving-in-utah-the-daily-struggle/

https://rossj781.com/2016/01/16/driving-in-utah-the-winter-edition/

Feel free to share and comment your opinions on the article. As always, I enjoy feedback from my readers!

~J. A. Ross

© RossJ781.com 01/21/2017

Driving In Utah: The Winter Edition

On By Rossj781In article, entertainment, feedly, humor, life, Photography, Reddit, travel, utah, Utah Driving, writing4 Comments

*This article contains some strong language*

Deep into another Utah Winter I find myself gripping my steering wheel a bit tighter in some areas. No, not because of the snow or the ice… but, from our terrible drivers. There’s certainly been a few times where I felt like my heart stopped, and got jump started again by the adrenaline rush of narrowly avoiding ramming into someone’s car. You know, that dipshit who ran the stop sign, or the one that just pulled out in front of you from nowhere, while you’re going 55 mph on the highway.

Now, snow and ice just add to their stupidity, but let’s be honest. It’s not that hard to drive in the snow. All you have to do is drive slow, keep your pacing from other cars, and pump your breaks a little. Anyone can do it, even folks from the South (yeah I’m calling you guys out a little, closing everything down for a 1/2 in. of snow. Come on!) It’s really no different than driving in a really heavy rain storm, and hydroplaning if you drive too fast.

Adding the weather into the mix of the already abysmal driving out here, they appear to insert their heads further up their asses to create the ultimate driving hell in Winter. From what I’ve been hearing in general, only the Florida, or Massachusetts drivers have the closest competition to Utah, in getting the crown for the worst of the worst. Just imagine the atrocities all of their driving ‘skills’ combined in one place. No roads would ever be safe again!

These people can’t even get up a hill in a basic snow storm. Don’t get me wrong, maybe a few have bald tires, or perhaps just the basic front wheel drive. But we’re talking jeeps,SUV’s, trucks…vehicles made for this weather. With that 4 or all wheel drive. I have all wheel drive for fuck’s sake, and I made it up the hill just fine. It was a little slippery of course, but you drive up it slow because the road did have a curve, this is the exception. Generally the rule for hills is to go up it with a fair speed and slow near your destination. None of that ‘in between’ shit, or going too slow. That’s how you get stuck.

Seriously though, we’re talking 8+ vehicles stranded on the side of the road. Fully capable vehicles, that could get up that hill, and there I was in mine. Passing them, chugg, chugg, chugging my way up. I saw a couple of them damn near rear-end each other. They must have forgot to pump those breaks to get some friction and avoid sliding so much. If it weren’t for me having to pick up my siblings and take them to school, I could’ve had a chance to make a video of the chaos. Just my luck eh?

When you get to a light, or stop signs, it’s always fun to watch people pull up to them too fast and you can tell they’re going, “Shit! Shit! Shit, shit, shit!!!” Followed by unintelligible screaming as they panic and barely stop in time. The people, including me, eyeballing them suspiciously as we pass on the main road thinking, “Alright there cowboy? That horse a little too wild for you?” Everybody will have a little bit of a hard time coming to a nice gentle stop, myself included. I’ll pull up to that stop sign sliding a bit. The difference is I cautiously pull up to the damn thing at a nice slow speed, once again pumping those brakes so that I gain back control of my car a lot quicker.

It’s always the experience driving out in Utah in general. People regularly saying, “Fuck you stop sign!”As they proceed to run it, then giving you the dirty look even though it was their mistake. Or those people that just pull into a parking spot half-fast (especially in winter where snow piles take up a lot of parking areas) and get out thinking, “Well, I’m kind of in my spot. Close enough.” Driver’s Ed is way too easy going in this state. That, and the exceptional amount of teenage kids on the roads compared to other states. (It’s Utah, they really like to screw… a little too much it seems.)

Perhaps it really is all of the poorly trained teenage drivers that make Utah’s roads a gamble every time you need to drive somewhere. Mentioned above, the driver’s ed is cake here. I feel like most of the trainers at the high schools simply don’t care. I’ve heard of a few of those sons of bitches falling asleep during some of the road testing. Not to mention plenty of stories of all other kinds of crazy nonsense that happens during these tests, and the kids still (surprise!) pass. I have friends that have passed and I’m still baffled how this happened…to this day.

Now throw all these people on the roads in the Winter, and that really adds to the ‘fun’. If you’re ever looking to visit Utah this time of the year, mainly to all those skiers, try Colorado. They got great skiing there too I hear, and you’re less likely to die on their roads! Now, some of you may not have a choice, and if that’s the case… don’t wreck!

Miss the last 2 articles? Here are the links:

https://rossj781.com/2015/10/24/another-day-driving-in-utah/

https://rossj781.com/2015/12/01/driving-in-utah-the-daily-struggle/

More humorous articles coming soon. If you have any bad driving experiences, or any opinions on the article, comment below. Thanks for reading!

~J. A. Ross

 

 

Driving In Utah- The Daily Struggle

On By Rossj781In blog, entertainment, featured, feedly, humor, life, Reddit, utah, writing3 Comments

*Article contains some strong language.*

Driving. It’s easy right? If you lived in Utah, you’d come to find that this isn’t the case. I don’t know how some of the people out here even manage to get dressed in the morning, let alone operate a vehicle. The daily amount of stupid you see on the roads out here is unimaginable.

We’ll start with blinkers. It’s like the blinker doesn’t even exist in Utah. “Blinker? What the heck is that?”people driving out here most likely think. It’s that damn thing on your steering wheel that tells us where (and when) the hell you’re wanting to turn. You know, so I don’t rear end someone when they suddenly decide they want to make a turn out of nowhere. I see it all the time.

They’ll glide on into the other lane, no blinker showing… and no fucks given. You then slam on your breaks to avoid wrecking. They speed up realizing that they might be an idiot, and don’t want the awkwardness of catching that red light up ahead, which may occur.

Now onto what I love to call ‘The Utah Dick Move’. This is where you’ll have a car going 10 miles under the speed limit in front of you. The person in the lane next to you can tell that you might want to get in their lane. “Well I can’t possibly let that happen” they must be saying to themselves.This would mean you’d be in front of them.

Their solution to this is simple: match the speed that you’re going so they drive next to you the entire time. Then the only way for you to get in front of them or to get over, is you’ll either have to ride the ass of the person in front of you, to get them going fast enough to move over. Or, your other option is to slow down, get in the other lane behind the other driver and then try to get them to hurry the hell up.

I mean, if you’re creeping up on someone and they’re going at or above the speed limit, that would make you the douche driver. But when they’re going 35-40 mph in a 50-55 mph zone, you aren’t too much in the wrong. You want to go the speed limit, it’s your right. It’s insane the amount of people that do this ‘dick move,’ just because they don’t like sharing their lane.

Another bizarre thing I’ve noticed out here, unlike other states I’ve driven in, the drivers here all love piling in one lane. It’s like they have a right turn 7 miles up the road so they all stay in that lane, leaving the other lane fairly empty. The only reason we even have a lot of traffic is there appears to be a love of creating traffic. Something’s certainly up in their brains.

People can also be very aggressive (and also very bad at driving) on the roads. The same assholes who were just going 35 mph in a normal 50 zone are the ones going 90 on the freeway. I’ve seen it too many times to count. It’s ironic right? This state is so fucking backwards on everything they do. From laws that are passed to our drivers. It’s like a whole other world out here,  but lacking of intelligent lifeforms.

Thanks for reading! If you’re new to my blog, the main purpose of this article (and the majority of the others) is to be more humorous for your enjoyment.

~J. A. Ross

 

 

Another Day Driving In Utah

On By Rossj781In Uncategorized4 Comments

Every state has bad drivers. But many states also have a much higher volume of  intelligent drivers to compensate. It seems that Utah loves to be different in this way, as well as many other things. Having this many bad drivers isn’t something our state should be proud of. But more on that later. Today alone, I saw many bad examples of horrendous driving. Like ‘what in the actual hell did I just see’ type of things! The main incident of bad driving I experienced today, was when I was trying to enter the freeway. As everyone knows, freeway entrances are made to enter the freeway while simply merging into a nice orderly line and then you all merge onto the main part of it.

Well, try to tell that to the dip shit teenage girl driving next to me; talking to her friend, in a car her parents bought for her. You know the type. Anyways, this bitch is literally driving side by side with me, and at this point, the two lanes for merging were gone. It was just one rather wide lane. I had already given up on being the one in front, so I had been slowing down while there was still plenty of room to do so, and get behind her. Wouldn’t you guess it, she was matching my speed slowing down as well, talking to her friend; still side by side with me. For about the last 10 seconds I had been motioning for her to hurry up and get in front of me. She paid no attention!

But when the lane really started to grow thin (normal size), little teenage dumb ass finally noticed she was driving a car on a busy freeway, and eventually saw me motioning for her to hurry the fuck up and go! We were at a point where we were entering the freeway at 25-30 mph, and I felt as if she was about to stop her car entirely. I was motioning for her to go at high volume now; obscenities blaring. She gets the picture (at last!), proceeding to hurry up and get in front of me. Moments later she puts the pedal to the metal, gunning it until she got to the freeway speed, in normal Utah fashion. There’s something in the water here.