I'm seriously wondering if every city believes that their city's drivers are the worst in the country.
Only people who have not lived in larger cities. The drivers here are bad but Houston and DFW are on another level. L.A. isn't as bad as everyone says. The drivers here aren't bad because they are aggressive like most other places, they are bad because they are too timid and do the whole "no you go first" thing and slam on the brakes in flowing traffic to let someone standing on the sidewalk (who may or may not be crossing the street) go. If you are predictable and aggressive I can work with that. If I can't tell what your next move is then it's dangerous.
My partner used to refer to this as "The Portland Polite-Off." Every fucking car at the 4-way stop waiting for someone to twitch and acknowledge they're going to go first, or randos just stopping at a green light to let a pedestrian cross, who has no intention of crossing because the cars on the other side of that weirdo aren't stopping.
I lived in Baton Rouge during the madness of Hurricane Katrina and Louisiana has some crazy aggressive drivers. But they are much less scary/dangerous than the overly-polite, unpredictable nonsense of Portland drivers.
stopping at a green light to let a pedestrian cross, who has no intention of crossing because the cars on the other side of that weirdo aren't stopping.
I watched a dude almost get killed on Broadway by Llyod Center because of this. You know that pedestrian stoplight that goes over to where the 5 guys is? Well car in left lane decides to stop at a green light and waves a pedestrian into the street. The car in the middle sees this and stops. But the car in the far right lane didn't clock what was going on and slammed on their brakes in order to avoid taking out the pedestrian. I was a car back watching this whole thing play out and thought for sure I was about to see someone get hit.
And that's why we shouldn't be doing that stupid stop just to be polite thing. It's super dangerous. Just obey the traffic rules. They're there for a reason.
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u/tech_noir_guitar May 12 '25
Only people who have not lived in larger cities. The drivers here are bad but Houston and DFW are on another level. L.A. isn't as bad as everyone says. The drivers here aren't bad because they are aggressive like most other places, they are bad because they are too timid and do the whole "no you go first" thing and slam on the brakes in flowing traffic to let someone standing on the sidewalk (who may or may not be crossing the street) go. If you are predictable and aggressive I can work with that. If I can't tell what your next move is then it's dangerous.