I used to think that New Orleans had the worst driver in the United States. I had driven all over the east coast in cities like Charlotte, North Carolina and Atlanta Georgia and still couldn’t comfortably compare them to New Orleans. People in New Orleans were unbelievably aggressive. They would pull right out in front of you and dare you to run into them. People would scream and holler at you from behind the safety of their car windows, flipping you the bird and all kind of crazy antics for something as simple as not moving over and letting them get around you. You had to constantly be on guard for some idiot who might have had a fight with his wife that morning and is looking for someone to pick a fight with. You never knew when some big redneck was going to jump out of his car and run right up to your window screaming at you and trying to get you out of your car. Some people don’t seem to have any problem resorting to violence these days. You see evidence of it all of the time if you just pay attention to the evening news.
I guess road rage is a product of the fast paced life that we find ourselves wrapped up in as we go through our everyday existence. Everyone seems to be in an incredible hurry to get to wherever they are going. It’s easy to get caught up in this type of behavior if you aren’t constantly on guard. I have to fight the urge to get upset constantly while driving around the city at all hours of the day in the process of doing the things that my company sees fit to pay me a very handsome salary for.
I moved to Houston a couple of years ago and quickly came to realize that New Orleans is not necessarily the league leader for road rage and aggressive driving. Houston is full of the most aggressive drivers that I have ever witnessed in my entire 50 years on the face of this planet. You have to be somewhat aggressive yourself in order to keep from getting completely run off of the road around here. There are supposedly around 6 million people living in and around Houston, which makes it either the 3rd or 4th largest city in the United States. One of the major differences that I can see between here and New Orleans is people’s reluctance to get out of their vehicles around here. I can only attribute this behavior to the fact that Texans seem to have an affinity for firearms and their right to use them. There have been several instances where people have walked away scott free after blowing someone away claiming that they were trying to “car-jack” them, or take their vehicle by force. Aside from that, people are constantly cutting you off in traffic and most seem to have developed a love affair with their horn (which I have a real problem with).
I also ride a motorcycle, which brings up an entirely different set of problems. Texas is one of the few states that still allows bikers to ride without a helmet, which I understand to a point. There are pro’s and con’s when it comes to the many discussions about motorcycle safety and wearing a helmet. Suffice it to say that I am one of the people who likes to ride without one and do so as often as I can. They claim that if you have a direct impact to the head at more than 30 miles per hour, the helmet won’t save you and you definitely are more aware of your surroundings when you are not wearing one.
This brings me to the incident that happened to me today that sparked this little tirade. I was riding on a beltline street that encircles one of the more popular shopping malls west of Houston going about 30 miles per hour when an older couple on a Ford Expedition pulled out of a side street coming right through a stop sign in front of me. I grabbed both the front and back brakes locking up both the front and rear wheels which caused me to go into a slide. I had no other choice but to lay the bike down on it’s left side and it immediately flipped back over onto the right side throwing me right up next to the side of the offending party’s vehicle.
The bike only had a few dings because it was for the most part protected by the engine guard that comes on the front of the frame of most Harley Davidson cruisers. I think the guard is scraped and bent a little on the right side, but otherwise seems to be intact. I, on the other hand have a sore knee and a sore back, which I can assure you will be quite worse by tomorrow.
The problem is that most people will stop at a red light or stop sign, turn and look right at you and pull out like they don’t even see you. Most of the time you as a rider can read the road ahead and anticipate when someone is likely to do something like that, but there are times when you simply can’t do anything about it. Fortunately for me, I didn’t land on my head…..this time, and no, I wasn’t wearing a helmet.
Being a motorcycle enthusiast and living in the Houston area, (believe me, there are many) you tend to try to stay outside of the beltway and in the suburban or further out in the country areas, mainly because of the dense concentration of traffic as you get closer to Houston proper. This is a common rule-of-thumb for most of the guys that I ride with.
I belong to an industry specific motorcycle club in the Houston area. We have regular meetings and a fairly large membership. The club usually breaks up into smaller groups as certain members develop friendships among themselves. We have a core group of 6 to 8 members who ride together fairly often and usually stay well west of town where the traffic is light and the roads are curvy and more fun to ride on. As far as I can remember, there were only a few close calls, but no one has actually had to lay their bike down or has had anything that you could categorize as an “accident”. This was only the second time in my life that I have ever laid a motorcycle down to avoid a serious accident and fortunately, both times I was traveling at a manageable speed. I have owned more than a few bikes over the years and consider myself a very good rider.
No one is immune to something out of the ordinary happening to them. You can do everything right and still have something bad happen to you. If I could suggest something to young and inexperienced riders it would be to get some motorcycle rider training before you put yourselves at the mercy of those aggressive drivers out there and never take anything for granted, because just when you think that everything is going right, something could jump up and bite you in the ass.
And maybe we should think about wearing a helmet…………………
Naaahhhh.. Not me.
I guess road rage is a product of the fast paced life that we find ourselves wrapped up in as we go through our everyday existence. Everyone seems to be in an incredible hurry to get to wherever they are going. It’s easy to get caught up in this type of behavior if you aren’t constantly on guard. I have to fight the urge to get upset constantly while driving around the city at all hours of the day in the process of doing the things that my company sees fit to pay me a very handsome salary for.
I moved to Houston a couple of years ago and quickly came to realize that New Orleans is not necessarily the league leader for road rage and aggressive driving. Houston is full of the most aggressive drivers that I have ever witnessed in my entire 50 years on the face of this planet. You have to be somewhat aggressive yourself in order to keep from getting completely run off of the road around here. There are supposedly around 6 million people living in and around Houston, which makes it either the 3rd or 4th largest city in the United States. One of the major differences that I can see between here and New Orleans is people’s reluctance to get out of their vehicles around here. I can only attribute this behavior to the fact that Texans seem to have an affinity for firearms and their right to use them. There have been several instances where people have walked away scott free after blowing someone away claiming that they were trying to “car-jack” them, or take their vehicle by force. Aside from that, people are constantly cutting you off in traffic and most seem to have developed a love affair with their horn (which I have a real problem with).
I also ride a motorcycle, which brings up an entirely different set of problems. Texas is one of the few states that still allows bikers to ride without a helmet, which I understand to a point. There are pro’s and con’s when it comes to the many discussions about motorcycle safety and wearing a helmet. Suffice it to say that I am one of the people who likes to ride without one and do so as often as I can. They claim that if you have a direct impact to the head at more than 30 miles per hour, the helmet won’t save you and you definitely are more aware of your surroundings when you are not wearing one.
This brings me to the incident that happened to me today that sparked this little tirade. I was riding on a beltline street that encircles one of the more popular shopping malls west of Houston going about 30 miles per hour when an older couple on a Ford Expedition pulled out of a side street coming right through a stop sign in front of me. I grabbed both the front and back brakes locking up both the front and rear wheels which caused me to go into a slide. I had no other choice but to lay the bike down on it’s left side and it immediately flipped back over onto the right side throwing me right up next to the side of the offending party’s vehicle.
The bike only had a few dings because it was for the most part protected by the engine guard that comes on the front of the frame of most Harley Davidson cruisers. I think the guard is scraped and bent a little on the right side, but otherwise seems to be intact. I, on the other hand have a sore knee and a sore back, which I can assure you will be quite worse by tomorrow.
The problem is that most people will stop at a red light or stop sign, turn and look right at you and pull out like they don’t even see you. Most of the time you as a rider can read the road ahead and anticipate when someone is likely to do something like that, but there are times when you simply can’t do anything about it. Fortunately for me, I didn’t land on my head…..this time, and no, I wasn’t wearing a helmet.
Being a motorcycle enthusiast and living in the Houston area, (believe me, there are many) you tend to try to stay outside of the beltway and in the suburban or further out in the country areas, mainly because of the dense concentration of traffic as you get closer to Houston proper. This is a common rule-of-thumb for most of the guys that I ride with.
I belong to an industry specific motorcycle club in the Houston area. We have regular meetings and a fairly large membership. The club usually breaks up into smaller groups as certain members develop friendships among themselves. We have a core group of 6 to 8 members who ride together fairly often and usually stay well west of town where the traffic is light and the roads are curvy and more fun to ride on. As far as I can remember, there were only a few close calls, but no one has actually had to lay their bike down or has had anything that you could categorize as an “accident”. This was only the second time in my life that I have ever laid a motorcycle down to avoid a serious accident and fortunately, both times I was traveling at a manageable speed. I have owned more than a few bikes over the years and consider myself a very good rider.
No one is immune to something out of the ordinary happening to them. You can do everything right and still have something bad happen to you. If I could suggest something to young and inexperienced riders it would be to get some motorcycle rider training before you put yourselves at the mercy of those aggressive drivers out there and never take anything for granted, because just when you think that everything is going right, something could jump up and bite you in the ass.
And maybe we should think about wearing a helmet…………………
Naaahhhh.. Not me.
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