Cars - For Car Enthusiasts

Yield doesn't mean stop

It means go unless not clear (ie stop when not clear)

If there's no oncoming traffic, then you keep going. If there is then you have to stop to allow the traffic to pass before continuing (or enter safely before said traffic reaches you).

This is fundamentally how roundabout entrances also work. You're supposed enter when you have enough time to accelerate into an open slot. You don't have to wait until it is completely clear, nor do you have to explicitly stop at an entrance.

Roundabouts. Why don't people understand these? You wait for the car already in the circle to go, then you can go.

ZIPPER! ZIPPER MERGE YOU STUPID FUCKING COCKS!

As an add on to your post. People that think AWD means they can drive in the snow. AWD helps to prevent them from getting stuck, it does not help them slow down

Deliberately riding in someone's blind-spot for gods know how long is not only unsafe, it's also fucking obnoxious. It might not be legally your "fault" if you do this and get sideswiped for it, but you brought it on yourself. Doubly so if the person you're pacing has had their signal on the entire time and all you're doing is blocking them from changing lanes.

You need to speed up when changing lanes.

Blinkers. Firstly, just using them at all, but also:

You need to let your blinkers blink a couple seconds before changing lanes. You don’t turn your blinkers on while changing lanes. You need to give the people beside you a second to notice your intention. One of my most hated features of newer cars is that quick 3-blink signal a lot of them have where you can tap the turn signal and it only blinks a couple times then turns itself off. People mostly use that AS they change lanes which defeats the whole purpose of a signal.

Also: Turn your blinkers on BEFORE you make the right or left hand turn, not as you are doing it. The other people at the 4-way need to understand your intention.

Your turn signal is a courtesy to let others know not to pull up behind you in the turn lane if they wanna go straight. It should be on once you approach a red light, not when you realize you need to tell the person behind you why you aren't going through the intersection. This leads to frustration in others and can cause dangerous driving.

Failing to activate a turn signal before a light turns green should be a punishable offense. I know there's no good way to enforce it, but you should have escalating repercussions; begin with a fine, escalate the value of the fines, eventually suspend the license.

Drive slower when it's snowing... Also, put your lights on near dusk. It's more for other drivers to see you better.

I have replaced a car lengths or seconds guidance with looking as far as I can ahead to predict what the cars near me will be doing on the next 30 seconds or so. If I see brake lights half a mile ahead, that means the car inb front of me will probably be slowing down in about 30 seconds. So I take my foot off the accelerator and cover (but don't press) my brake pedal.

Traffic on the interstate it really pretty predictable IF you spend a significant amount of time looking far ahead instead of only at the far in front of you. Obviously keep watching the car on front of you, but not ONLY that.

Yield sign. It means stop if there are cars, pretty simple concept.

If I start blinking well before I turn from a multi-lane road, and if the lane next to us is open, I don't understand why so many people slow behind me instead of passing me in the other lane. I'm probably signaling so early because I know I'm going to bleed speed before the turn (to reduce brake wear), and I'm going to turn slowly and smoothly like I'm chauffeuring my grandma. When the person who stayed behind me (instead of conveniently passing) runs up my ass and there's still an empty lane beside us, now I'm prolonging my turn just hoping they'll get so impatient they finally go around. Maybe they'll learn something?

I live in an area that has a lot of stoplights. Guess how fast you have to drive to beat them? From 35 to 40 mph, or 60 to 65 mph. I simply did some math after timing a couple of streets. It is not perfect, but it will beat most. Guess which one people want to drive at? 50 mph. Guess which is the safest and most economical? It is 30 mph. Guess what is the most common speed by everyone? 50 mph because by law gives us 10 mph difference from speed limit before we get flagged. Guess how badly stopping from a high speed and waiting then accelerate literally every mile of stop lights does to mpg? Instead of a healthy 40 mpg, depending on if the people who accelerate aggressively don't have slow drivers like me in the group, then people are getting 15 to 25 mpg.

I end up having people swerve around me and accelerate aggressively only to stop at the light, but they are either in front of me or at the front waiting to hit the pedal to the metal to get up to their comfortable cruising speed. I drive electric and don't care about the amazing 0-60 acceleration but rather drive slowly and coast to a stop(as little regeneration as possible by staying at 0 kw usage) I usually get 5 m/kwh and could get up to 6 if I did 30 mph but I just try to follow the flow of traffic and the posted speed limit.

People riding my ass annoy me because I have to trust they are paying enough attention to not rear-end me. Surprisingly, I haven't gotten into an accident.

State specific, but in mine, left turns on red are ok onto one-ways/freeway onramps.

For car distance I've seen 2-3 seconds start to be recommended, since people are not good at judging distance. So counting how long it takes to reach the same fixed point as the car ahead.