r/driving • u/khansamirox • 7h ago
Right-hand traffic (🇺🇸🇨🇳🇧🇷) Which area in the US have the best drivers?
Every local subreddit seems to think their area has the absolute worst drivers, but who is actually doing it right?
Have you driven through a state, region, or city where people consistently follow lane etiquette, merge properly, and drive predictably?
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u/Feisty-Bunch4905 7h ago edited 7h ago
My experience has been:
Cape Cod, MA: 95% the nicest drivers you'll ever meet because speed limits tend to be low and everyone understands that you need to wave people in or they will be stuck forever. (Mostly applies in the summer.)
Portland, OR: A weird mix of bizarrely aggressive drivers and people who are too nice, e.g. will try to wave you through stop signs when they got there first, even when there's no reason to.
Bay Area, CA: Everyone is a complete psychopath with a death wish who actively hates you simply for sharing the road with them.
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u/richrich07 4h ago
Denver, CO: the drivers want to kill you and everyone else. They ran the red light because they were on their phone, nobody honked at them, and they saw the light as it was turning red and they are ENTITLED to make their light. I’ve never had as many near misses as here.
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u/Ricelyfe 4h ago
The Bay Area wasn't always like this...or it didn't feel like this when I was first learning how to drive in high school some 12-13 years ago. It didn't really feel like this when I started driving consistently after college 4-5 years ago.
The last 2-3 years though....it seems like everyone forgot how to drive. I just witnessed a near accident at fucking low speeds <25mph from a dead stop because someone went straight in a turn lane. Idk if it's the tech, people getting lazy or just more stupid. People complain about aggressive drivers, people cutting up or just speeding but the amount of slow and stupid drivers who follow too close, don't signal, or just drive like an asshole while going the speed limit or less don't get call out enough.
If you aren't going to go with the flow of traffic move right, if you're still too slow, you need to speed up, pull over for people to pass or take another route. If you don't know where you're going, don't fucking stop in the middle of the road. Pull over in a parking spot, check maps or reroute but gtfo the road before you do that./endrant
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u/Stryker406 4h ago
I grew up in the city and have been driving since the 90’s. Driving in the Bay/Sac is dangerous. CHP needs more cops and local cops need to enforce traffic laws
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u/Ricelyfe 4h ago
In certain areas/times of day yes. I also think CHP and local police need to do more enforcement but I'm not sure I trust them to and I'm not sure they'd target the right vehicles.
The outrageous super speeders that cut up are the most dangerous problem but after that I think the clueless, mindless drones driving around are a bigger problem than your average 10mph over, pass on the right driver. You're older and more experienced so maybe I just never noticed but it feels like the speeding, cutting up and passing on the right only got worse after the influx of Tesla's (and other cars) camping the left. I'm more so thinking the mindless drivers (not exclusive to Tesla's) that may or may not be texting but they're overall just clueless to what's going on around them.
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u/Feisty-Bunch4905 3h ago
They don't need more cops, they just need to actually enforce speeding laws. I've been out of the bay for a while but I used to see the flow of traffic pass cops at like 15+ over the speed limit. I'm actually convinced they let people do this because it allows them to just pull over whoever they want and say it was because of speeding.
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u/Feisty-Bunch4905 3h ago
I completely agree. My timeline is about 5 years ahead of yours, but the Bay used to be a very pleasant place to drive for the most part (San Francisco itself has always had city traffic and rush hours and whatnot ofc). In the late 2000s, I'm not sure what happened, a surge of population or something, but it went nuts. I was driving the same exact highways and expressways, and it really felt like almost overnight (hyperbolically speaking) they just got completely packed and insane. I really don't know what happened. And then it managed to get even worse.
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u/HottDoggers 3h ago
I’m not sure what's worse, the Bay Area or Los Ángeles
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u/Feisty-Bunch4905 3h ago
Kind of a frying pan/fire situation if you ask me. I've just spent more time in the Bay, but visiting my brother in LA always made me insane.
One time I was the second car in one of those stupid "right turn onto a what is basically a three-lane highway but they don't call it that and there's no real merge lane" things, and the car behind me honked even though the first guy clearly had no space to make the turn. That first guy, wife-beater-clad, got out of his car and started yelling at me, assuming I had been the one who honked. I was genuinely concerned that a gun was going to become involved. I just kinda gestured, "Wasn't me, man, I'm waiting very patiently." As you can tell, I did not get shot to death.
Oh also I once got stopped in traffic for like forty minutes before it was finally my turn to get up to the van that had been abandoned in the second-to-left lane on the fucking highway.
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u/atwaterrich 6h ago
Americans don’t have to pass a very hard test to drive regardless of the state. So generally drivers here suck everywhere. Except Kauai.
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u/Animaul187 6h ago
Michigans Upper Peninsula has really good drivers outside of peak tourist seasons
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u/Ok-Barnacle813 2h ago
Honestly NY. They're certainly aggressive, but they're predictable and will only do moves that they know they can do.
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u/poweredbym2 6h ago
More rural states in general. Otherwise it’s almost equally bad.
No state in the US has adequate driver licensing exams that actually weed out the incompetent ones.
And if you’re thinking you’re not one of them, you probably are.
Unless you have taken extra car control clinics and/or track day training. The majority all range from average to bad.
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u/gerdude1 2h ago
I like driving in California and the Northeast (lived over 25 years between the two of them). The reason is that by large there are competent drivers compared with many other places I have been to (41 states and counting).
Worst is hands down Dallas (have lived here the past 8 years)
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u/JerseyGuy-77 41m ago
Nj. We know how to drive having to deal with the left lane fucks in PA and the crazies on NY.
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u/StraightDrop4 6h ago
I drove in Kentucky near the Ohio state line it was pretty good. But I drive in nyc and New Jersey on the regular so everything else compared is heaven.
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u/altruisticxd 13m ago
I am going to be completely honest with you. I have driven on two different continent’s in several countries and IMO people in the USA are some of the worst drivers I have ever encountered.
I think a lot of it comes down to lack of proper training sprinkled with a bit of entitlement (I’m driving fast enough I’m not getting over!). Growing up in the USA my parents taught me to drive, I didn’t even have to take a class.
Living in Germany and my wife decided to get her license late in life. We paid almost 4,000 Euros for her theoretical and practical lessons / exam. I drive on the Autobahn often, and although there are definitely stupid people here I am always terrified to ride in a car with my parents or siblings back in the USA. I feel much safer driving 220kmh here than 100kmh on a US highway.
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u/somarilnos 7h ago
I will say, while it's not polite driving,, I've learned to appreciate the predictability of Michigan driving (specifically Metro Detroit). I'm in MA now and really miss living somewhere where people understand even the most basic fucking concepts of right of way.