30 Day Blog Challenge Day 22: My Pet Peeves

On day 22 of my challenge, I am to talk about pet peeves. I have quite a collection, but they all fall under the heading of thoughtlessness. People not taking the time to think about how their actions or inactions affect others. I hate to admit it, but they are all also driving related. This stuff is the top of my list. And I'm not talking about lots of traffic or people changing lanes in front of me. Those things are just going to happen and there's no use in getting upset about that. I'm talking about times when people are just plain not thinking and it makes life difficult.

 The first one that just kills me is when people don't use four-way stops correctly. I can see it coming. I'm approaching a four-way and I can see a car already stopped there, the driver looking at me. I pull up and they try to wave me through. By doing this, they've wasted their time and mine. So I've gotten to the point where I just freeze. I sit and stare at them until they finally go. At a four-way stop, you stop and if no one else has stopped, you just go. You don't need to wait until the other slots are filled. JUST GO! 

A related issue is people who stop and wave you across when you're trying to turn, only there's no one behind them for a mile. If you would just go ahead and pass through, I could make my turn more quickly than I have with your "help." JUST GO! 

And finally, I really want to throat punch people who sit at red lights in a right-turn-only lane with no traffic coming and don't turn right. I don't know about other states, but it's been legal to turn right on red for about as long as there have been cars. This isn't a new law that not everyone has heard about yet. JUST GO!

Another pet peeve that's an actual safety issue,and one that we really have problems with in my hometown of Parkersburg, WV is running red lights. There's an intersection downtown where the green light going one direction is extremely short because so few cars come from that direction. If everyone is paying attention and moves quickly, there's barely enough time for three cars to make it through. I've been at that intersection, especially around the holidays, when so many people run red lights that literally no one makes it through that green light before it turns. And that's not an exceptional situation. On more than one occasion, I've witnessed people run red lights so late after the light changed that they went through after someone from the other direction has already made it through the intersection. I've literally seen people weave in between cars.  And it seems like at least once a week that there's a news story about someone who is seriously hurt or killed by someone who ran a red light. I don't know if it happens more than usual here, but I can't imagine it getting much worse. To top it all off, I regularly see people do it right in front of a police car, yet I've never in all of my years of driving in Parkersburg, seen a cop pull over someone for running a red light. Until they do, I fear it's just going to keep getting worse. JUST DON'T GO!

So there you are. My pet peeves. What are yours?