The pet peeve thread

[Motor City Sonics]

The film you get on your car this time of year. I HATE IT SO MUCH.

[chasfh]

Well, this is a new one.

There's been a trend wherein, when you call a phone number for live customer service, they tell you "rather than waiting, we can call you back when a customer service rep is available." I've used this system before and it has worked just fine.

Until today, at least. We chose that option, waited about 20 minutes for the callback, and then they had us wait on the phone yet another 10 minutes for a CSR to get on the phone.

I did get 20 minutes of my life back to do what I wanted to waiting for the call, but then having to wait another ten minutes after they called me back? It doesn't completely defeat the purpose, but it does run up somewhat of a lead on the purpose.

[chasfh]

When people wait for their rideshare right on the corner.

It's an issue here in the city before there's a state law requiring drivers come to a stop at an intersection when they see someone about the cross the street. So when I see someone on the corner looking back and forth, it looks like they're checking for traffic before crossing. So I stop to let them cross. Then they stand there for a few seconds and eventually see me looking at them expectantly, and they glare/shrug toward me as if to say, "so are you my ride or what?" Meanwhile the guy stopped behind me is honking the horn. So I feel sheepish and drive on. It's annoying, but just another new thing to get used to, I guess.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

When people wait for their rideshare right on the corner.

It's an issue here in the city before there's a state law requiring drivers come to a stop at an intersection when they see someone about the cross the street. So when I see someone on the corner looking back and forth, it looks like they're checking for traffic before crossing. So I stop to let them cross. Then they stand there for a few seconds and eventually see me looking at them expectantly, and they glare/shrug toward me as if to say, "so are you my ride or what?" Meanwhile the guy stopped behind me is honking the horn. So I feel sheepish and drive on. It's annoying, but just another new thing to get used to, I guess.

More or less the same issue with bus stops at corners, which is where they love to put them in A^2. Are you walking or waiting?

[chasfh]

12 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

More or less the same issue with bus stops at corners, which is where they love to put them in A^2. Are you walking or waiting?

The flip side of this is, when you see someone at the corner and you stop, and you wait for a couple seconds before noticing they are looking away and not really paying attention to you, so you determine they must not be crossing. But just as you’ve committed your foot to moving from the brake to the accelerator, they pick that exact microsecond to start crossing after all. It’s once you drive beyond them that you hear a muffled “expletive!” coming through your closed car windows. 

[oblong]

My wife gets mad at me when we are running and I am apparently too aggressive at not yielding when I have the right of way... my theory is if you hesitate then the car takes that as you yielding.   I only do that when I have the right of way but she will slow up a little.  If we are approaching a four way stop in residential areas I run through but if I have a stop sign and they don't I will alter my route to go behind them so they don't have to worry about me.  I hate stop/starting when running.  Once I stop I need about 30 seconds to recalibrate my breathing.  

It's also fun when running to make people stop who you can tell had no intention of stopping.  And you'd be surprised at the number of drivers who think,  when waiting at a light to turn green, think they have the right of way once it turns green to turn right, against your white Walk sign as you start crossing.  Happens at few times a week.  

[gehringer_2]

6 minutes ago, oblong said:

My wife gets mad at me when we are running and I am apparently too aggressive at not yielding when I have the right of way..

There is view among some cyclists I have ridden with that you need to 'take the space' the law allows you. My take is the that law on paper can't trump the laws of physics, which say you are pretty much dead when the other guy doesn't know the rules you want to play by....🙄

[oblong]

3 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

There is view among some cyclists I have ridden with that you need to 'take the space' the law allows you. My take is the that law on paper can't trump the laws of physics, which say you are pretty much dead when the other guy doesn't know the rules you want to play by....🙄

I grew up watching the Dukes of Hazzard and have the "Jumping on the hood" thing down to a science... at least I did 40 years ago.

 

[casimir]

8 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

There is view among some cyclists I have ridden with that you need to 'take the space' the law allows you. My take is the that law on paper can't trump the laws of physics, which say you are pretty much dead when the other guy doesn't know the rules you want to play by....🙄

1000%.  I'm lucky enough to have a couple of rails to trails and bike paths within metroparks in close proximity, so I stick to those.  If I'm on a road (1) its not a high traffic one, (2) I ain't on that road for long if I don't have to be, and (3) I'm going into the opposite direction so that I can see what I'm sharing the lane with.

[Biff Mayhem]

25 minutes ago, oblong said:

I grew up watching the Dukes of Hazzard and have the "Jumping on the hood" thing down to a science... at least I did 40 years ago.

 

I need to see video of you practicing in the interest of science.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

My wife gets mad at me when we are running and I am apparently too aggressive at not yielding when I have the right of way... my theory is if you hesitate then the car takes that as you yielding.   I only do that when I have the right of way but she will slow up a little.  If we are approaching a four way stop in residential areas I run through but if I have a stop sign and they don't I will alter my route to go behind them so they don't have to worry about me.  I hate stop/starting when running.  Once I stop I need about 30 seconds to recalibrate my breathing.  

It's also fun when running to make people stop who you can tell had no intention of stopping.  And you'd be surprised at the number of drivers who think,  when waiting at a light to turn green, think they have the right of way once it turns green to turn right, against your white Walk sign as you start crossing.  Happens at few times a week.  

I've waited in the right lane for people to cross before turning once I get the green, and I have experienced cars behind me honking at me, presumably because they felt I could have rushed a turn in front of the pedestrain starting to cross. To paraphrase Matthew 26:11, "For ye have the dickheads always with you ..."

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

There is view among some cyclists I have ridden with that you need to 'take the space' the law allows you. My take is the that law on paper can't trump the laws of physics, which say you are pretty much dead when the other guy doesn't know the rules you want to play by....🙄

While it is certainly possible for a car to go "off the rails", as it were, and hit pedestrians and bicycles who should be safe well within their space, whenever I see one of those white-painted bicycle memorials at street corners, commemorating a cyclist killed by a car there, I always wonder about the circumstances that led to it. Did the bicyclist challenge the car unnecessarily? I see too much of that in the city.

I have a hypothesis, admittedly founded only by my own anecdotal experience, that maybe 80% of all car-bicycle crashes could have been avoided had the bicyclist taken more than their fair share of care. I've seen far too many bicyclists just blithely ride in front of cars (and trucks!) without even looking, assuming that since they have the right of way, all the cars around them are bound to cede the space to them. But while they may actually have that right of way, what they don't have is the size and weight advantage against a car, and when a car and bicycle collide, the bike always loses.

That's why I believe a bicyclist should always take more than their share of responsibility and cede to a car that appears to insist on taking the space, even if the bike has the legal right of way to it. Sure, the bicyclist can curse and gesticulate toward the car for taking that right of way from them, but hey, at least they will live to do so.

[chasfh]

Here's an example of what I mean. I took this video while trying our a car security camera. Thank god for the guy I saw him through the (ahem) driving rain!

 

Edited February 28, 2022 by chasfh

[oblong]

17 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I've waited in the right lane for people to cross before turning once I get the green, and I have experienced cars behind me honking at me, presumably because they felt I could have rushed a turn in front of the pedestrain starting to cross. To paraphrase Matthew 26:11, "For ye have the dickheads always with you ..."

When I was in Chicago last month I was reminded that it seems like there the cars are more aggressive, at least in the downtown area where I've only been, in turning right and ignoring pedestrians.    they do like you said.  When the crosswalk switches to walk I start walking and I did see some cars try to sneak in before I could get out into the median.  LIke I'm supposed to give them that.  I also remembered the thing i've only observed there where a car will start to turn, with no intention of completing the turn, just to sort of put the stake down that whatever happens with the light and # of pedestrians, once it's clear I am turning since I am already halfway there.  

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, chasfh said:

 

That's why I believe a bicyclist should always take more than their share of responsibility and cede to a car that appears to insist on taking the space, even if the bike has the legal right of way to it. Sure, the bicyclist can curse and gesticulate toward the car for taking that right of way from them, but hey, at least they will live to do so.

indeed. There is a human factors engineering issue here that I think traffic designers in places like A^2 that try to be aggressively bike/pedestrian friendly ignore at the peril of those very pedestrians/riders they think they are helping. When when pedestrians and bikes appear in a driver's visual field in the company of other larger, faster moving vehicles, the human brain is simply *never* going to assign the same attention weight to the those smaller slower objects. That is just the reality of human perceptual hardware, and when traffic designers try to manufacture more *rights* for peds/bikes on the existing road system without actually creating structural spatial isolation, it's bound to increase the danger to the very people they are trying to prioritize.

[gehringer_2]

8 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Here's an example of what I mean. I took this video while trying our a car security car. Thank god for the guy I saw him through the (ahem) driving rain!

 

yeah - this one is just bad cyclist training - never *ever* pass a car on the right at a corner

[Shades of Deivi Cruz]

Not directly related, but this drivers discussion reminds me of when I was first helping my son learn to drive on the highway. I told him there are two types of drivers: psychos driving faster than me and idiots driving slower than me. Assume every other vehicle either has an idiot or a psycho behind the wheel and you will be fine.

[gehringer_2]

20 minutes ago, oblong said:

When I was in Chicago last month I was reminded that it seems like there the cars are more aggressive, at least in the downtown area where I've only been, in turning right and ignoring pedestrians.    they do like you said.  When the crosswalk switches to walk I start walking and I did see some cars try to sneak in before I could get out into the median.  LIke I'm upposed to give them that.  I also remembered the thing i've only observed there where a car will start to turn, with no intention of completing the turn, just to sort of put the stake down that whatever happens with the light and # of pedestrians, once it's clear I am turning since I am already halfway there.  

I have noticed a new thing - I don't know if this is a local thing only or catching on everywhere,  but at corners with crossing signals, the signs now go to 'walk' during the dead time when the light is red in all four directions instead of when the corresponding light turns green. This puts the pedestrians into the crosswalk while traffic is clear in all directions and increases their visibility considerably - esp for right turning traffic. An idea that actually works - and it's only been maybe 80 yrs since we've had 'walk/don't walk' signs!

Edited February 28, 2022 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

19 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

yeah - this one is just bad cyclist training - never *ever* pass a car on the right at a corner

I think a lot of the bike memorials were just that: cyclist trying to pass a car on its right going through an intersection, and then the car turns right, right into them. I've seen bike-car crashes described that way in the media a few times.

[chasfh]

25 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

indeed. There is a human factors engineering issue here that I think traffic designers in places like A^2 that try to be aggressively bike/pedestrian friendly ignore at the peril of those very pedestrians/riders they think they are helping. When when pedestrians and bikes appear in a driver's visual field in the company of other larger, faster moving vehicles, the human brain is simply *never* going to assign the same attention weight to the those smaller slower objects. That is just the reality of human perceptual hardware, and when traffic designers try to manufacture more *rights* for peds/bikes on the existing road system without actually creating structural spatial isolation, it's bound to increase the danger to the very people they are trying to prioritize.

Speaking of structural spatial isolation, we are seeing more and more of these in the city.

[gehringer_2]

1 minute ago, chasfh said:

Speaking of structural spatial isolation, we are seeing more and more of these in the city.

yeah - this is the right way to do it. Too bad we start from a point of not having enough road in the city to begin with!

[oblong]

17 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I have noticed a new thing - I don't know if this is a local thing only or catching on everywhere,  but at corners with crossing signals, the signs now go to 'walk' during the dead time when the light is red in all four directions instead of when the corresponding light turns green. This puts the pedestrians into the crosswalk while traffic is clear in all directions and increases their visibility considerably - esp for right turning traffic. An idea that actually works - and it's only been maybe 80 yrs since we've had 'walk/don't walk' signs!

"We can't do that, you make all the white men who have to get to work late just to help all all the poor immigrants and owmen who can't afford or don't need cars"

[chasfh]

16 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I have noticed a new thing - I don't know if this is a local thing only or catching on everywhere,  but at corners with crossing signals, the signs now go to 'walk' during the dead time when the light is red in all four directions instead of when the corresponding light turns green. This puts the pedestrians into the crosswalk while traffic is clear in all directions and increases their visibility considerably - esp for right turning traffic. An idea that actually works - and it's only been maybe 80 yrs since we've had 'walk/don't walk' signs!

Hardly anyone learns the proper right of way etiquette when it comes to walk/don't walk.

Many people in the city operate under the assumption that "the pedestrian is always right". Not literally 100% of the time, of course: sometimes a pedestrian will walk right into the intersection against the light, seemingly daring cars to run into them. Nobody supports a pedestrian's right there. Super easy to see they're in the wrong.

When it comes to Walk/Don't Walk, though, there's technically a clear legal delineation of right of way that's basically never taught. When the the light is green and the Walk sign is on, pedestrians have the right of way, obviously. But once it changes to Don't Walk during the green light, the right of way shifts to the car, and the pedestrian is supposed to wait for the cars at that point. The idea is that both pedestrians and cars should have a fair chance of proceeding through the green light. IRL, however, pedestrians still walk with the green light even through the Don't Walk, unaware or unconcerned of the shift in right of way, and drivers can't simply hit them out of protest. Drivers either have to wait (and stew), or take their chances weaving through pedestrians, and regardless that the right of way is theirs, no amount of indignant righteousness will absolve them of the asshattery attended to that decision.

But, there are IRL exceptions to the legality of the right of way which is supposed to protect people in a dispute. If you the car ignore the right of way and hit someone, clearly your fault. If you the pedestrian ignore the right of way and a car hits you ... well, technically, you're at fault, but in reality, the car is still going to get the blame.

[gehringer_2]

15 minutes ago, chasfh said:

But, there are IRL exceptions to the legality of the right of way which is supposed to protect people in a dispute. If you the car ignore the right of way and hit someone, clearly your fault. If you the pedestrian ignore the right of way and a car hits you ... well, technically, you're at fault, but in reality, the car is still going to get the blame.

As far as I know (which isn't always very!), 'Last clear chance' doctrine applies in MI. That states that even if someone violated your right of way, or any other traffic rule for that matter, (or more technically was contributory negligent) you could still be found liable if you had a clear opportunity to avoid the accident and didn't.

[chasfh]

So it looks like more health providers are layering on yet another announcement between the time you call and the moment they even give you the option to press the right numbers to speak to the right CSR.

By now I've gotten used to every health provider's automated phone answering system announcing (very slowly, of course), "if you are experiencing a medical emergency, please hang up and dial 911". And in the past two years, I have also gotten used to hearing an additional (very slowly read) admonishment regarding COVID-19.

Lately, thought, it seems they've layered on yet another additional slowly-read announcement, and this one is a promotional announcement: "Did you know that you can now use the MyChart website to schedule appointments, pay your bills, communicate to doctors, blah blah blah. It's a fast and easy way to manage blah blah blah blah blah. Go to (read very slowly) w-w-w-dot-mychart-dot-hospital name-dot-com-slash-your neck wide open out of the frustration of waiting at least two minutes to get through all these announcements.

And, of course, if you press "0" or "1" to shortcut your way past the announcements to get to a person immediately, the announcements start all over from the very beginning, and if you try shortcut past it too many times, e.g., twice, the system hangs up on you, and you have to start over.

Bonus peeve:

After you finally get through all the announcements and they start giving you the numerous numbers to press for specific issues (after very slowly telling you to listen to all options in their entirety as their menu has recently changed--natch!), the first three always seem to be about how to pay your open balance, set up financing, etc. So, in essence: "Press 1 to give us money; press 2 to give us money, press 3 to give us money ..."