Drivers in Florida

bachikarn said:
I live in Seattle now but grew up in Florida. I haven't driven in Miami a whole lot and it is definitely bad there, but I don't find driving in Seattle to be a whole lot better. I really hate it up here when someone is gown slow and then you go to overtake them, they speed up to prevent you from doing it. It's happened several times here.

The worst driving experience I've had was in Oregon driving down to Portland from Seattle. Two drivers got mega pissed when I got ahead of them cos they were going slowish in the left line. It was some crazy shit. They increased their speed dramatically, yelling at me, weaving in and out of traffic to get ahead of me.
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Can confirm this is really common up here, although I'm in eastern Washington. If someone is going under the speed limit on a 60mph road and a passing lane opens up, you have to either stay behind them or go 80+ to pass them.
 
Well, it's a state full of old people and college students/tourists. So yeah. But people in the south in general drive like fucking morons. Texas is a nightmare where people in massive trucks tailgate you at 80+ mph as if they're living out their NASCAR fantasies. You can drive quickly without being a stupid dick and putting lives at risk, but I guess people haven't figured that out yet.
 
Most anywhere on 95 is awful in Florida. One of my friends literally JUST got rear-ended because they were totally stopped on a jammed 95 exit.

Bam, car full-speed behind them rammed their car.

The trunk was totally destroyed, along with everything in it, and they had a concussion + cut head + broken foot/ankle. Thankfully they seem okay otherwise.
 
Since we're doing personal stories, there's this one time that I'm going down the freeway on the way to the airport once in florida, squeeking it a little late. There's a gas station to my right and I'm going about 60. See this car come up to the stop sign on the road next to it. I keep going, right of way and all that, not to mention I wouldn't have time to stop anyway. They just gun it to the middle of the road and ignore the stop sign and force me to t-bone them while ignoring the fucking stop sign. Total my car. The kicker is the chick driving the car didn't have a drivers license(WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU DRIVING?!? IT COSTS $50 AND A COUPLE HOURS, DAMMIT!), calls her husband who volunteers to take the fall for his wife and arrives at the scene before the cops(good thing too or I wouldn't get any insurance money). Suffice to say, I didn't make the flight.

There was also this one time a lot earlier than that I got rear ended pretty bad by a woman with her baby in the front seat. I was young so she got her husband on the phone who somehow convinced me that it was my fault I got rear ended so the cops didn't get involved. I was just freaking out that the baby coulda been killed and was thinking it could be my fault for stopping at the stop light.


Florida driving. Good times. Really.

jf DOOM said:
I'm a liability claims adjuster for a major insurance company, handling Florida Claims. You have no idea, how reckless and terrible of drivers some of these jokers can really be.
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Reminds me, I did some volunteer work in college in Florida to input police reports on traffic accidents into a database. Holy shit at the frequency of outright ridiculous crashes in those reports, had one where a 16 year old drove their car through a doctor's office. Overall the accidents skewed toward older folks, though.

Blizzard said:
Most anywhere on 95 is awful in Florida. One of my friends literally JUST got rear-ended because they were totally stopped on a jammed 95 exit.

Bam, car full-speed behind them rammed their car.

The trunk was totally destroyed, along with everything in it, and they had a concussion + cut head + broken foot/ankle. Thankfully they seem okay otherwise.
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I-95 is hell.
 
I think Oregon must be the opposite of Florida.

Imagine a state where people usually go 25 mph under the speed limit on the interstate, fight over the slow lane, and struggle to pass anyone thus blocking all traffic from going a decent speed. If one of their drivers get stuck in the left lane on I-5 they generally do not speed up to look for an opening and instead block all traffic in the left lane by going super slow.

It's a mind fuck. Oregon is awful to drive in. You think your state has a bad track record with turn signals? Just cross into Oregon and you'll reconsider.

I would rather drive in LA at rush hour than anywhere in Oregon at any time of day.

Try driving up hwy 101 on a day with light rain. Once you cross into Oregon it suddenly looks like a post apocalyptic world with overturned cars every few miles.
 
Grew up in Orlando but currently in Seattle (Bellevue). Traffic is definitely way worse in Seattle, but the drivers up here are seemingly more timid.

Speeding is just the norm in Florida. International Drive is a nightmare, I never, ever, ever want to be there.

I actually don't even have a car up here, which is kind of a pain sometimes but it's nice that the bus system is usable, even if it is pretty slow. I live <2 mi from work and the grocery so I bike everywhere most of the time and I love it.
 
I'm originally from Daytona, so I've had the distinct pleasure of driving I-95 and I-4 for most of my life. I feel like 95 is pretty easy aside from the asshole trucks. But I really feel like there's a good chance I'll die every time I get on I-4. People there just do not value life.
 
Yes, these FL drivers are trash. For so many different reasons.

- The majority exercise no common courtesy when it comes to cars that need to merge, most especially if you're coming in on a ramp. In fact, it is more likely they will speed up to keep you from merging in than slowing down to allow you in, even if they can clearly see you're about to run out of road.

- At least once a day, I see someone attempt to cross 3-4 lanes of traffic to get off on an exit. On the freeway, they do this within 60 yards of their exit, while going 70mph in traffic and force their way over. On the regular roads, they do this within 20 yards in full traffic, and force it. 3 lanes, no problem. Because fuck planning even 1 minute in advance for your turn/exit.

- The majority do not use their turn signal for any reason. Not when approaching their turn. Not when merging. Nothing. They just...do shit. It mine as well not even come installed on the car.

- The longest you can sit at a light that has turned green is approximately 2.36 seconds before someone blows the horn at you.

- People are happy to randomly drive 10mph below the speed limit in the fast lane.
 
Dreams-Visions said:
Yes, these FL drivers are trash. For so many different reasons.

- The majority exercise no common courtesy when it comes to cars that need to merge, most especially if you're coming in on a ramp. In fact, it is more likely they will speed up to keep you from merging in than slowing down to allow you in, even if they can clearly see you're about to run out of road.

- At least once a day, I see someone attempt to cross 3-4 lanes of traffic to get off on an exit. On the freeway, they do this within 60 yards of their exit, while going 70mph in traffic and force their way over. On the regular roads, they do this within 20 yards in full traffic, and force it. 3 lanes, no problem. Because fuck planning even 1 minute in advance for your turn/exit.

- The majority do not use their turn signal for any reason. Not when approaching their turn. Not when merging. Nothing. They just...do shit. It mine as well not even come installed on the car.

- The longest you can sit at a light that has turned green is approximately 2.36 seconds before someone blows the horn at you.

- People are happy to randomly drive 10mph below the speed limit in the fast lane.
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Oh I can also confirm the turn signal thing. Plus every time there's rain, and it sometimes rains a lot in Florida, you can pretty much GUARANTEE you'll see gray cars with their lights off just cruising along.
 
Blizzard said:
Oh I can also confirm the turn signal thing. Plus every time there's rain, and it sometimes rains a lot in Florida, you can pretty much GUARANTEE you'll see gray cars with their lights off just cruising along.
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And the opposite side of the spectrum where they put their fucking hazards on.
 
OnionPowder said:
And the opposite side of the spectrum where they put their fucking hazards on.
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I have zero problem with that if it's tropical storm conditions on I-95 and you can barely see anything. It may not be officially advised, but I'd rather have hazards flashing in front of me than not see the car.
 
Blizzard said:
Oh I can also confirm the turn signal thing. Plus every time there's rain, and it sometimes rains a lot in Florida, you can pretty much GUARANTEE you'll see gray cars with their lights off just cruising along.
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speaking of lights, don't get me started on these motherfuckers riding around with their brights on.
 
yeah, i love my city but our public transit is awful and it sucks to drive here - nobody uses turn signals (they basically let everyone know to speed up & pass you), and everyone's aggressive. ill confess; we have short green light windows at some intersections & i too will not hesitate to honk if you're not moving. oh, and even the cops say "keep the flow of traffic" so fuck speed limits on highways/etc.

i really can't wait for fully automated cars. and yeah, it's been said but avoid I-95...new times is right, you will likely die there.
 
Miami is a lawless place where even the police push 80 on The highway

And where using the turn signal insures that the other drivers won't let you in.
 
Blizzard said:
I have zero problem with that if it's tropical storm conditions on I-95 and you can barely see anything. It may not be officially advised, but I'd rather have hazards flashing in front of me than not see the car.
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Turning on headlights solves the visibility problem without the ambiguity that hazards cause because the turn signals no longer work to let people know about a lane change or something.

People with hazards on in that situation tells me they don't have a clue what they're doing and I need to get away from them as soon as I can.
 
iosefe said:
Miami is a lawless place where even the police push 80 on The highway

And where using the turn signal insures that the other drivers won't let you in.
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Can't agree withthis statement more.

Lived in Florida my whole life. From my experience Miami highways near the city are the absolute worst with Orlando being a close second. It's full of tourist trying to take in the sites while holding up their phones using gps driving like idiots switching lanes sporadically. The people that live there get annoyed so they speed like crazy. Tampa isn't that bad though. Sarasota is a close third with all of the retired people. I work out there and see so many fender benders from people who should have had their license removed years ago.
 
Grew up there, learned to survive on the roads there. Never use your indicators, it's a declaration to insult another driver by merging in front of them so the speed up to prevent that.

I'm living in Atlanta for about 8 years and I haven't seen as many accidents as I have in one year in Florida.
 
I've been terrified several times when driving in Florida thanks to experiences similar to some of the stuff mentioned here, but Michigan driving in the winter is still the worst driving experience of my life-- I live there and drive 500+ miles a week, and basically have PTSD from it.

One time in early January, on I-96 heading to Lansing, I suddenly started seeing cars flipped all over the side of the road, literally dozens of them for a stretch of 10 miles or so. A cop flies past me as I'm going 50 (limit is 70 here) and I see a fire truck moving in behind me so I move over a lane... only to continually slide off the road and then fucking flip over.

After another cop let me warm up in his car as I waited for the tow truck, we passed the same fire truck which had also fucking flipped over on the side of the freeway.
 
Blizzard said:
Oh I can also confirm the turn signal thing. Plus every time there's rain, and it sometimes rains a lot in Florida, you can pretty much GUARANTEE you'll see gray cars with their lights off just cruising along.
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You either see cars at night in bad rain with no lights on or some old fuck driving around at 2 p.m. with his high beams on for no reason.

It's like Florida wants you to see both extremes of the spectrum at all times.

I will admit though that I'm one of the honkers. The amount of lights in Florida that change from green to red within a millisecond are ridiculous. If I'm at one of those and you're not moving, I won't hesitate to honk.
 
When I drove to Disney World from Pennsylvania I remember that after we got into Florida we hit some construction and the interstate was down to one lane south and it was raining. This moron with Florida plates goes zooming by everyone on the shoulder. Later we got up farther and saw he spun out into a drainage pond off of the road.
 
It never used to be this bad. Then everyone else from all over the country and world moves here and ruined this state. Sucks.
 
MIMIC said:
Lived in Florida for 3 years and my only real complaint was the drivers. And they give the finger a LOT down there.
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Last week was driving in Orlando, used my turn signal while changing lanes and the middle aged white woman in a Jeep behind me still flicked me off. Put me on mega tilt.
 
Born and raised in Florida. Learned to drive there. I think a lot of things people hate about Florida drivers have to do with the tourists. People from out of state, country, etc. seemingly never have a GPS or a map because they drive slow as fuck and then recklessly cross like four lanes of traffic in half a second to catch their exit. The number of times I've seen people turn left out of the right turn lane in a rental car is astounding.

Also, this probably isn't true for every county or whatever, but in Sarasota i didn't have to know how to parallel park to get my license. So I can't imagine what other counties are leaving off the exam. It would explain a lot.
 
Another native, I'm used to it. Always assume the driver in front or next to you is about to do something stupid, they usually do.
 
Mister_Ruck said:
Also, this probably isn't true for every county or whatever, but in Sarasota i didn't have to know how to parallel park to get my license. So I can't imagine what other counties are leaving off the exam. It would explain a lot.
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Dade county here. No parallel either. Pretty sure that's for all Florida
 
twinturbo2 said:
On at least two separate occasions, I saw an old guy driving the wrong way down a street.
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there was this place I used to hang at in downtown Delray Beach that gave everyone at the bar a free shot when someone got pulled over for driving the wrong way down the one way street it was on.
it happened twice a night.
 
dickroach said:
there was this place I used to hang at in downtown Delray Beach that gave everyone at the bar a free shot when someone got pulled over for driving the wrong way down the one way street it was on.
it happened twice a night.
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I once saw someone near US1 and Broward Blvd driving backwards away from a light to turn around and go the other way.
 
People should probably be driving a little slower on the interstates for sure. But hey I made it from St Pete to Ashville NC in 11 hours. What was I gonna do stop for a hotel?
 
Mister_Ruck said:
Born and raised in Florida. Learned to drive there. I think a lot of things people hate about Florida drivers have to do with the tourists. People from out of state, country, etc. seemingly never have a GPS or a map because they drive slow as fuck and then recklessly cross like four lanes of traffic in half a second to catch their exit. The number of times I've seen people turn left out of the right turn lane in a rental car is astounding.

Also, this probably isn't true for every county or whatever, but in Sarasota i didn't have to know how to parallel park to get my license. So I can't imagine what other counties are leaving off the exam. It would explain a lot.
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Living in tourist saturated cities can drive people crazy.

I'd rather drive in Florida than Montreal; freakin' kamikaze drivers.
 
Unknown Soldier said:
There's really nothing bad about California if you just don't block the left lane when people want to go faster than you. All the freeways have 4+ lanes, so stay out of the far left one if you aren't into doing 90 and nobody will bother you.
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My aunt moved to the Palo Alto area and she was complaining about how bad the drivers are there and I really thought it was fine. People didn't seem to drive too fast or recklessly for the most part. I found driving around there to be pretty enjoyable actually. Obviously traffic in SF city was bad but doesn't feel like a fight for your life like driving in NYC.
 
If you're a real masochist, you'll drive in Houston.

Austin even. Although I guess Austin is like Orlando minus the tourists. The fact that both have only one major highway through the city (I-35 and I-4 respectively) is embarrassing. It would at least make sense if there was a competent mass transit system to make up for it.
 
SchrodingerC said:
No one cares to drive the speed limit, cops included. Stay out of the left lane on highways unless you are willing the break the speed limit. Typically people won't bug you if you stay in the right lanes.
Dealing with 1-4 and disney traffic weekly has ruined my patience with left lane campers.
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This... And the police will pull you over if you are going 10 under.
 
Dreams-Visions said:
Yes, these FL drivers are trash. For so many different reasons.

- The majority exercise no common courtesy when it comes to cars that need to merge, most especially if you're coming in on a ramp. In fact, it is more likely they will speed up to keep you from merging in than slowing down to allow you in, even if they can clearly see you're about to run out of road.
Click to expand...

You're supposed to speed up to match the traffic from the merging lane.

- At least once a day, I see someone attempt to cross 3-4 lanes of traffic to get off on an exit. On the freeway, they do this within 60 yards of their exit, while going 70mph in traffic and force their way over. On the regular roads, they do this within 20 yards in full traffic, and force it. 3 lanes, no problem. Because fuck planning even 1 minute in advance for your turn/exit.
Click to expand...

These are tourists.

- The majority do not use their turn signal for any reason. Not when approaching their turn. Not when merging. Nothing. They just...do shit. It mine as well not even come installed on the car.
Click to expand...

- The longest you can sit at a light that has turned green is approximately 2.36 seconds before someone blows the horn at you.
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These people are from Florida.

If you are not looking at the light, what are you doing? Why are you on the road?

- People are happy to randomly drive 10mph below the speed limit in the fast lane.
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Tourists
 
I haven't drove in Florida in 12 years but the most issues I had were with old people and their general lack of awareness leading to more than a few close calls along with driving below the minimum speed limit on I-75 even in the passing lane and not getting over into the right lane and some instances of being cut off. -_-

Living and driving in Florida also taught me to not trust turn signals unless I actually see them come on and then still be hesitant.
 
I've been driving in Florida for the last 12 years and really, it's fine.

Wait till you guys drive in Rome at 5 o'clock trying to get to a hotel. I saw a police car repeatedly ramming another car from behind trying to get him to enter a rotatory. no kidding.
 
Keyser Soze said:
I live in Europe, and Florida was the first US city I visited on holiday. When driving at home, I am usually always nice. I might slow to let a car out at an intersection when driving through a town... and some people do the same to me.

Driving in Florida in mid-2000s was akin to playing a Twisted Metal game. It felt like randomized madness.

In the last 5 years I have since driven in New York (which I was scared to at first), and also Seattle, but both seemed tame in comparison.

I have not seen Flordia in over 10 years though, so no idea what to expect now. Worse?
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Worse. Much much worse.
 
BlazinSkatinAxel said:
You're supposed to speed up to match the traffic from the merging lane.
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Yeah, exactly. On-ramps are for gaining speed to be able to match the traffic of the expressway. Drivers already on the expressway are not supposed to have to slow down to let new cars on.

To be fair, there are probably a number of city officials, engineers, and planners that deserve to be shot for how they've designed some of those ramps.
 
Here's another fun one. There is an intersection at Biscayne Boulevard and Miami Gardens Drive. it is parallel to a railroad and often people would try to cut left, by which I mean use the right lane that turns and get behind someone in the next Lane to the left and wait on the tracks just because they did not wish to wait in line.

As for the three left turning Lanes, the people in the Middle Lane usually try to merge right in the middle of the term and they've almost crashed me several times has I'm turning left


Miami drivers have a death wish
 
BlazinSkatinAxel said:
You're supposed to speed up to match the traffic from the merging lane.



These are tourists.





These people are from Florida.

If you are not looking at the light, what are you doing? Why are you on the road?
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1). Fuckers won't even let you in when you are doing over the speed limit. It's a game, I've been pushed off the road trying to merge. And they smile at you as they creep by not letting you in during rush hour.

2) smart people don't gun it immediately on green like it's a drag race. How many people do you see running a red light a day and you going too roll the dice on that? A couple seconds isn't going to hurt anyone.
 
Lived in Miami for 35 years. That's what you get when you mix nonstop traffic ( Get on I95 tomorrow morning OP), absurd tolls every 20 feet, and nonstop construction. It really is a horrible city to drive and live in.
 
After living in Orlando for like 5 years now.. this thread gives me life.

Though coming from NYC, driving here is much better. The drivers however, are not.

NYC: Aggressive as fuck, but mostly know what they're doing.
Orlando: herp derp.


LumpOfCole said:
International Drive is the final layer of Florida Driving Hell.
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Drive on International during Megacon was some of the worst driving I've experienced. I wanted to get out, set the car on fire and walk the rest of the way. Hell I wouldn't want to be caught over there on a regular day near 4pm.
Or 5pm. Or 6pm. OR 7. OR 8. OR 9
 
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