Are you a good/safe driver?

Abbey

Spork Queen
I HATE tailgators. I will intentionally go much slower just to annoy them. And, it DOES annoy them. ;)

Abbey
 

Andy

Active Member
muttmeister, I didn't know you could get a ticket if you were parked and the child unbuckled. I wish I would have known this on Friday. I sold an admission ticket to a mom whose child did unbuckled and came up front to say "Hi". She refused to move the car until he had rebuckled. She said, "I don't care if I am holding up traffic, I am not moving until he gets buckled up." I told her that I agree. Fortunately he was a great little kid and did rebuckle immediately. I had also told him that he needs to stay buckled. She said he usually waits until the car is parked before getting out but that is always in the garage. I suggested that they wait until the car is TURNED OFF before he gets to unbuckle. He was so cute and so angry with me - you should have seen the nasty look he gave me when I waved good-bye, like, "Don't you say goodbye to me."

So, anyone out there that are teaching kids when to unbuckle, maybe tell them not until you wave the keys at them. They can wave back and then unbuckle.
 

Sara PA

New Member
I got out of my last speeding ticket because I explained to the officer that I had just flown in from California and had gotten use to driving on the freeways. I hadn't realized I was driving as fast as I was, it seemed normal.

There must be some unwritten law that the first time an officer hears some lame excuse, they don't give a ticket because this guy told me he never heard THAT excuse before, gave me a stern warning and sent me on my way.
 

muttmeister

Well-Known Member
I didn't know you could get a ticket if you were parked and the child unbuckled
.
We weren't parked; we were driving down the highway. I really did try to keep my kids buckled in but they were smart enough to figure out how to unbuckle the thing long before they were old enough to be out of the carseat. And being that they were difficult children.......well, you can probably imagine how it went over when I told them they had to stay buckled in. I once stopped the car 5 times between home and town (only 7 miles) to rebuckle difficult child#1 into his carseat.
Thank God they are grown and I no longer have to fight that battle.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
I like to think I'm a fairly safe driver. I did get a couple of tickets years ago, decades ago. These days there are too many reasons for staying on or below the speed limit. Although there have been a few times when I forgot what time of day it was and was going a bit too fast through a school zone, but that was usually a school zone which was disguised. Our school zones are SUPPOSED to be to keep kids safe outside schools. But a lot of the real revenue-raisers we have, are outside schools alright, but on roads where there is absolutely no way a kid could get anywhere near the cars. Large fences topped with barbed wire block off pedestrian access in these places, with overpasses for pedestrians. Where these are on expressways, sometimes the speed limit can be 80 Km/hr or more, but during school zone times that can drop to 40 Km/hr. And if there is no change in the fences along the road, no sign of footpaths or pedestrian access anywhere, I get angry with the government.
I'm careful, though - I know the aim is to make money rather than just keep kids safe. I know they have cameras up.

We generally get to know where the speed cameras are, but these days we now have mobile speed cameras in unmarked cars. We can get booked even if we're not speeding, because these cameras are unreliable.

I tend to drive to the conditions and to the other traffic, but you have to watch that because other traffic often speeds.

I also hate tailgaters, especially at night with their lights on high beam. I will pull over to let cars pass me safely, rather than make them take stupid risks.

And we get deer too, in our little area anyway. They can do a lot of damage to a car. We have a few smaller roos (wallabies, really) in our area as well, but I've never hit one of those either. They do get hit, though and would do almost as much damage as a deer.

Out west you get the larger roos. And down near Canberra too, right into the city in fact. They are the bigger Grey Kangaroos, they would do as much damage as a deer.

Further west - the big reds and the euros, the biggest roos of all. They could take out a truck, even if it's been fitted with roo bars. Emus would do a fair bit of damage too, and they do like to run along the road beside cars, until they suddenly try to dash across the road in front of you. If it's a country dirt road (like driving on corrugated iron) then you're generally not going too fast, but it can still make a mess.

Flying birds are a hazard for us also. Some of our parrots are big and can break a windscreen. They also have a nasty habit of suddenly dipping lower as they fly across a road. It's like they're trying to play chicken with the traffic.

husband taught me to anticipate the traffic and it's a habit we've tried to instill in the kids. It can make a big difference in how you drive.

On Friday we're travelling north, driving for about five hours. We'll probably clock up a fair bit of mileage over the week, on mostly country roads and interstate highways. The main highway we'll be following is like a ring road around the entire country. It's got some dangerous places along it, but husband & I have driven it often and know it fairly well.

Marg
 
I read recently that a study revealed that most drivers believe that they are good drivers.... it's just those other drivers that are the problem LOL...

I've been driving 39 years - one accident and 5 speeding tickets. I've never been able to talk my way out of a speeding ticket. I quit trying after I got the 3rd one many, many years ago. Hmm.... maybe I'm one of those other drivers :)
 

amazeofgrace

A maze of Grace - that about sums it up
of course my passengers routinely wince and grab for the handles, perhaps I might take turns too tight sometimes, and come to think of it I have bad judgement on curbs, I have flattened a few tires that way, even bent the frame once, whoops
 

totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
When Montana was "Safe and Prudent" I think was how it was put... or something to that effect. In my 20's, I did drive my little GTI Rabbit as fast as she would go! To the Hot springs by Missoula... and they also had "one for the road" or travelers... not such a good idea for kids in there 20's going to hotsprings!!! I came out alive though. Luckily.
They have since changed both of those laws.
 

skeeter

New Member
I was about to answer "yes, I'm a good driver, it's all the other idiots out there that are the problem"!!!!

Seriously, I drive very defensively - you have to around here! No one uses a turn signal, no one stops at a stop sign or red light (we've in the argument stages of red light cameras now), one car will be going 80 on the highway and the next one 40, and god forbid you have one snow flake come down! No one knows how to get ON or OFF the highway.
I would much rather drive the highway than other streets and roads. I almost alway drive when we are all in the car so I do not get car sick (especially on twisty, turny roads). Highway I'll maybe go 5 miles over the speedlimit, city I'll go the speedlimit.

I've had two tickets and involved in one wreck during my years of driving. Both tickets were "questionable" to me - one was on a county line road, the officer was from one county, sitting in a private drive on the other side of the street (the other county) and clocked me going down a pretty substantial hill. The other was in a city park, on a January Saturday, at noon, when it was sleeting out. He got me 32 in a 25 - and I didn't see another car or person the entire time he had me pulled over.
The wreck wasn't my fault, I was hit from behind at a traffic light. I was at a complete stop, the person behind me didn't until he hit me.

I also never get lost. My husband makes jokes that I was a taxi cab driver in a past life.
 
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