What exactly is a Clover? Probably, you already know – having met him (or her) many times already. Or rather, been delayed, impeded or imperiled by one. Clovers are the pebble in our shoes, the bur in our saddles… the zit that just won’t pop, no matter how hard you squeeze it. They constitute a recurrent petty aggravation which manifests almost every time we venture out for a drive.
For example:
* The Clover who butts into traffic, then drives at a snail’s pace –
This is the Clover who abruptly pulls in front of you from a sidestreet or parking lot – as if he’s in a big hurry – and then shows he’s not. He darts in at the last possible second, forcing you to stomp your brakes to avoid hitting him – and then proceeds (typically) at a speed just below the already under-posted speed limit. This Clover is clearly not in a hurry – and thus, might have waited to merge until after you passed – but (being a Clover) he is driven by a sulfurous, demonic urge to get ahead of you – in order to block you in. This Clover cannot simply be a person with a weak sense of spatial relationships; that might account for the poorly timed and executed merge. But it cannot explain away the deliberate slow-down maneuver that follows. This jerk knows he’s holding up the line.
And delights in it.
Here’s a video of a cop Clover:
* The no-signal Clover –
Now it’s your turn to merge from a sidestreet. As you wait for an opening to do so, you find yourself waiting out a car that’s coming toward you from your left. He’s not signaling, so you assume he’s intending to proceed past you. But just before he gets to where you are, he starts to turn – without having signaled – thus very effectively preventing you from using the moment to merge. Meantime, the hole in traffic has closed up again – and now you’re stuck waiting for the next opportunity to merge. 
Which hopefully will not be scotched by the next no-signal Clover.
* The won’t-move-over Clover –
This one’s related to the no-signal Clover and also the most infamous of all Clovers – the left lane hogging Clover (see Taxonomy I for more about this Clover).
He’s sees you up ahead, waiting to make a right-hand turn from a sidestreet onto the road he’s, on but won’t move over to the left lane to give you room to do it. He stays planted in the right lane – even though the left lane is empty – even though he could easily slide over. Because even this small measure of common courtesy is too much for Clover to extend to fellow motorists. The road is his – and you can wait. This Clover adds minutes to your commute every day – and so, takes away days from your life when the total sum of a lifetime’s Clovering is calculated.
* The won’t-pass ’em Clover –
He’s the guy who won’t pass a bicyclist unless two-thirds of the opposing lane of traffic is clear – so he can straddle the double yellow and then inch by the cyclist at a Cloveritic (super slow) speed. This species of Clover has incited much misplaced rage at bicyclists – who are (usually) not the problem. Most traffic lanes are sufficiently wide enough to allow a car to safely – and quickly – pass a cyclist, without danger to either (and without the car needing to cross the double yellow into the opposing lane of traffic). But one of the characteristics of a Clover is incompetence – which manifests as excessive timidity. A Clover will therefore often refuse to pass – for miles, sometimes – or he will pass frantically, in a herky-jerky way, crowding the bike off the road – or crowding any car coming the opposite direction. Most of the time in such a situation, Clover will simply stay put – refusing to pass a cyclist struggling to maintain 15 MPH on a 45 MPH road.
With a dozen understandably angry non-Clovers stacked up behind him.
* Obey The Law Clover –
Even though Clovers often disobey “the law” when it suits them (examples include flouting “the law” about failing to yield to faster-moving traffic) they absolutely insist that others obey “the law” . . . the laws they approve of, that is. They are so insistent, in fact, that they will often attempt to enforce “the law” (the ones they like) themselves. As when they speed up to prevent you from passing them. Even if it means they must “speed” to do so. But again, Clover can be very subjective when it comes to obeying “the law.” Clovers will also honk their horns vituperatively – and flash their high beams – if you do succeed in passing them. Of course, it never seems to occur to Clover that frantic honking of horns and flashing of high beams constitutes more of a hazard than your passing maneuver. Nor that it is often against the law to obnoxiously honk horns and flash high beams at other drivers.
* The stop-on-hills-in-snow Clover –
Clovers don’t know their own limits – and expect you to work around theirs. They will venture out in a blizzard, even though they are terrified of driving in snow and have no clue how to do it. Or worse, think they do – but don’t – as is made plain by their obvious incomprehension of the concept of maintaining momentum. You’ll be making your way up a hill – and up ahead, a Clover. Who is riding his brakes. If his tail begins to slide a little, he brakes more. Sometimes, he will simply stop in the middle of the road. He won’t pull off the road first, though.
More often than not, this sort of Clover will be driving something with AWD or even 4WD.
* The multi-task incapable Clover –
The system of traffic laws in the US is based on Clover – on his incapacity. If Clover can’t make a right turn without a green light to make it “safe” for him to proceed, then no one else may proceed until the light goes green. If Clover can’t deal with a faster than Model T Ford pace, no one else may drive faster than a Model T’s pace. Now we have the manufactured “safety issue” of people who talk on their cell phones or text while driving. Manufactured, because it’s an issue only for Clovers.
Just as their are people whose driving is faultless even though they’ve consumed a beer or two during the prior hour, so there are people who can maintain control of their vehicles – and their situational awareness – while having a phone conversation, even while texting. Yet Clovers have decreed that because some people (Clovers) can’t handle it, no one will be allowed to do it. And those who do are to be punished for doing it – even if they haven’t done anything in terms of their actual driving. Even if, to put a finer point on it, their actual driving is faultless.
Soon, everything will be forbidden. Cars will be driven by computers – and the computers will be controlled by Clovers.
But even then, Clover will probably not be satisfied.
To view Clovers in action, visit our video gallery at www.clovercam.com – where you will also find additional educational material on the nature of Clover, his characteristics and habits. Send us your videos of Clovers, too!
Throw it in the Woods?
I had a left-lane clover in front of me one day who nearly lost his car when he road raged at me. Picture a 4 lane road (each direction) with two hundred yards of clear space in front of a rolling roadblock. I’m behind the lead car – a 5.0 liter Mustang in the far left lane. I’m driving a 90 HP VW Golf, and just itching to do my normal 15 MPH over instead of 5 under. After I flash him several times and honk several times, he speeds up, pulls right and lets me pass after about 3 miles of blockage.
But when I’m 100 yards ahead, I look in my rear view mirror and a yellow bullet with black racing stripes is coming at me at and doing at least 30 MPH over what I’m doing. I touched my brakes to warn him, but didn’t actually slow down. He backed off, then came at me again even faster. This time I mashed my break pedal flat, and his panicked efforts to avoid rear ending me at high speed ended up in 2 beautiful 360s plus another half turn so that when he came to a stop, he was on the right shoulder pointing back at the oncoming traffic. I would never have done that if the rolling roadblock was not still on and far behind me, thus giving the idiot enough space to careen out of control without hitting anybody. Hopefully, he learned something from it.
I know the limits of my car, and often drive it to just beneath them, so I wasn’t worried about him hitting me. I could have moved left towards the concrete barrier and out of the way in time if he had not done a panic swerve. Still, it was exciting when it happened.
The first characteristic of a Clover is his fanatical worship of anything decreed by his ruling class. If there is a pamphlet or a PSA from his government on how to determine his ass from a hole in the ground, then that is the beginning and the end of how to accomplish that task.
Sure, his Dad has thirty years experience digging holes. And his neighbor is a proctologist. That doesn’t matter, the Clover smugly quotes chapter and verse from the rulebook and committee report about ass and holes, eager to correct them both should either dare to blaspheme the divine gospel of government experts.
The second characteristic of the Clover is his desire to wield state power with his own hands, whenever he feels it’s necessary. Besides the omnipotent ruling class telling us what to do in every situation, he also reserves the right to call himself into action as a second hand ruler, being just one rung below the ruling class himself.
When on the highway, he deputizes himself as a volunteer traffic cop. When at the restaurant, he appoints himself as a temporary health inspector. He dreams only of catching and punishing all the violators of infinite obscure and mundane rules each of which is crucially important to our well being and self protection.
– – – – – – – – –
The Whole Solution In Just Two Minutes – Larken Rose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-sRbR2QQ7w
For those who asked for a quick summary of the main point of The Most Dangerous Superstition and most of what I talk about.
-Answers to Questions-
1) Don’t let the media tell you who “anarchists” are. Their combination of dishonesty, propaganda, and incompetence, makes them worse that worthless. (For example, as you know, real anarchists obviously DON’T ask for “government” programs.) 2) For me, it wasn’t a matter of which would work better, but a matter of figuring out that legitimate “government” is an absolute logical impossibility.
Despite the propaganda we were all taught, the Constitution sought to create a ruling class, albeit a theoretically “limited” one. It pretended to give Congress the right to steal, among other things. No “government” has EVER been only about protecting rights. An organization which did that would not BE “government.”
It isn’t just two incompatible cultures (though that certainly adds to it). It’s about the U.S. military initiating violence all over the damn planet. 3) It’s also it being the biggest authoritarian monster.
4) The gang of thugs which poses the biggest threat to Americans is, hands down, the gang they IMAGINE to be “government.” There isn’t another gang in the world that would have a prayer against 100,000,000 armed Americans. 5) This video was about the BELIEF in “government,” which applies all over the world, and all through history. On practical issues, I mostly talk about the U.S. parasites, because they’re the ones violently extorting and controlling the people around here.
1) Each person has to follow his own judgment, even if his understanding is incomplete and imperfect (which it always is). To NOT follow one’s own conscience is to intentionally do what one thinks is WRONG. 2) Though many churches are authoritarian, religion can exist without authoritarianism. “Government” can’t. 3) Violence, while justified and necessary for self-defense, doesn’t fix the problem. The BELIEF in “government” is the problem, and you can’t change a belief with a bullet.
“Government” is NOT “just an organization.” It is a gang which is imagined to have the moral right to violently extort and otherwise control everyone else in a geographical location. No one here is arguing against structure or organization. We are arguing against the INITIATION OF VIOLENCE, which is absolutely and completely inherent in the very concept of “government.” It doesn’t matter how hard you try NOT to see that obvious truth; it will still be true.
That’s why I’m not trying to do away with any particular regime or ruler, but trying to do away with the BELIEF in the horrendously destructive superstition of “authority.” And if the majority doesn’t believe that myth, then it’s next to impossible to dominate and enslave them. Ultimately, the problem is NOT that nasty people believe in “authority,” but that otherwise GOOD people believe in it. Fix that, and tyranny is finished. (That’s the whole point of “The Most Dangerous Superstition.”)
It is possible to kill FALSE ideas, such as “authority.” I know several thousand people (including me) who have undergone “superstitionectomies,” and the deprogramming seems to be contagious. Not many people believe the earth is flat anymore. Some day, they won’t believe in “government” for the exact same reason: reality proves it’s not real.
Just as with everything else, humanity as a whole will come to understand self-ownership, WITHOUT the majority ever rationally reaching that conclusion. The thinking people will eventually drag the sheep along, as they have done over and over again in the past. The reason most people know the earth is (almost) spherical, for example, is NOT because they figured it out, but because smarter people told them.
You’re making basic unsupported assertions, and talking as if the whole world should blindly believe them because you said so. Here, watch, I can do it too: “Only people with red hair are humans. If everyone else was too, that would murder all civilization!” Do you have any actual reasoning behind your assertions? So far I haven’t seen any.
You speak of “control,” when there is no such thing. You talk as if “government” serves as a check AGAINST conflict and stupidity, when it only AMPLIFIES those things. Without the belief in “authority,” even people with drastically different beliefs and priorities can peacefully coexist, even in relatively close proximity. Most people usually try to avoid violent conflict, while “government” is ENTIRELY about coercive subjugation.
Don’t confuse leadership with violent subjugation. Lots of people like just doing what they’re told. A minority want to be entrepreneurs, and many prefer being employees. But that still doesn’t require violence. I’m not saying people won’t be stupid, but I am saying that stupidity will be far LESS dangerous if it didn’t have the beast called “government” to use to attack others. Yes, ultimately people have to be taught how to be responsible, rational adults, instead of stupid, obedient slaves.
“Government” isn’t about “formalized discourse,” or a “consistent dialog.” It’s about a ruling class issuing commands, backed by the threat of force against any who disobey. And that’s ALL it is, regardless of all the BS you were taught in an effort to make violent domination look legitimate and civilized. And yes, “anarchy” MEANS the absence of a ruling class.
Without “government” there would be force? “Government” IS force. And no, two people agreeing on standards of behavior is NOT “the beginnings of government.” Two people imagining a third to be their rightful lord and master is the beginning of “government,” and the end of morality. And to say that a LACK of an authoritarian ruling class is what “leads to suppression of the human potential” is just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
No one is claiming universal altruism. You’re the one claiming that taking SOME of the people you don’t trust to run their own lives, and giving them the permission and power to violently run everyone else’s lives, will improve things. And you pretty much have to ignore all of recorded history to stick by that ridiculous lie.
Thanks for the provably false assertion. Show me 200,000,000+ murders committed in the last century “by individuals for their own purposes.” Then show me the several TRILLION dollars worth of private theft. Then show me the two MILLION Americans kidnapped and caged by private crooks. Will you just ignore the provable reality, because it conflicts with your preconceived notions? Your so-called “ground rules” (statism) are the arch enemy of humanity.
And if they have our consent, why do they have “enforcers”? How many bombs, tanks, guns and mercenaries does it take to make a consensual relationship work?
One of my favorite questions to ask religious people is this: Which of the following best describes the attitude of your god?: 1) Obey me, or I will punish you! 2) I want what’s best for you, and here’s how you should behave to accomplish that. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many people have been ditching the former in favor of the latter: a non-authoritarian god. So yes, religion can exist without the myth of “authority.” “Government” can’t.
A “right” is actually a statement of a negative: something that it’s NOT okay to forcibly prevent someone from doing. For example, if you have the “right” to freedom of speech, it just means no one should forcibly shut you up. Conversely, if I don’t have the right to rob you, it means it WOULD be justified for someone to use force to STOP me from robbing you.
Sorry, but the idea of a “servant government” is inherently insane. If there’s a gang that has the RIGHT to boss you around and take your money, it’s not your servant. And if it CAN’T do those things, it’s not “government.” Things like “servant government,” “representative government,” and my person favorite, “we are the government,” are complete BS that we’re taught to memorize and regurgitate, so that we put up with being enslaved.
Well, it’s hard to thoroughly explain the whole world in two minutes, but yes, the whole notion of “collective” rights is part of the bogus authoritarian mythology. A billion people who each DON’T have a right to steal, can’t give such a right to anyone else. And that simple point makes the entire myth of “government” fall apart. The second thing you mentioned is basically the communist mentality: that ownership comes from “need.” That’s a separate, but equally bogus notion.
Dear Tor,
Agree.
What Larken Rose was talking about was the same thing I was talking to Ed about in that other thread.
The Conventional Wisdom or CW. The CW overlaps with the Truth, but is not necessarily equivalent to the Truth. It can be. But it doesn’t have to be.
It does however provide a revealing indicator of what the “consensus reality” is at the moment. And given the ugly reality of “might makes right,” it does matter.
Bottom line? I agree with what you are getting at. If what Larken Rose is saying became the CW, government would be a thing of the past.
Hi,
I’ve got an aggressive clover in my neighborhood. Once, he drove very slowly down the road. I was following him (we were going 20 mph) and because he thought I was too close he stepped on the brakes. So, I tried to pass him and he sped up angrily (with his MB E 300). Then later he came to my door. I actually apologized and he left.
The other day I was following another person who drove slowly up the same road; and he was following us. He followed me home, again, and said that “if that person I was following had been his son, he would…” at that point I blew up and I told him to leave. I really wasn’t doing anything unsafe. or threatening, but, man, the guy is a self-appointed enforcer of his own law, and one can tell that he’s really itching for a real showdown.
Wow, you have some brave clovers around there!
Beppe Grillo – 8th most popular personal blog in the world(BBC)
http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/
World Rank: 2,629 Alexa
– Hopefully this comedian can help eliminate the entire joke of the Euro Peon Union.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCk2i4h0GS0
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Beppe-Grillo/quotes/
“No political party must be under any illusion. Even if they did not all act in the same way, there is rage against them.”
“This plague that touches and pollutes those who have no other sources of information is paid for by the victims themselves, as the government provides (direct and indirect) contributions to the newspapers and through the license fee and the taxes for the RAI (TV and radio) for a disgraceful public service”
“he’s really itching for a real showdown.”
Don’t worry. He’ll probably get what he’s looking for and I doubt he’ll come out of it as well as he thinks he will. People like him are begging others to whip their asses. They usually get what they’re begging for, in my experience.
The world is over-run with common chimpanzee type humans. The rare bonobo chimpanzee type humans are being hounded into extinction.
Although they’re close relatives, common chimps and bonobo chimps have strikingly different social dynamics: chimps society is prone to violence, while bonobos are relatively peaceful. Why?
The reason is 2 million years ago, the Bonobos became wealthy and lived a life devoted to pleasure, due the fact that they enjoyed a far greater availability of food than the common chimps. This occurred after a lengthy drought wiped out the preferred food plants of gorillas who moved elsewhere and left the bonobos in the undisputed position atop the food chain. Their additional time for play and recreation encouraged the divergent evolution of today’s chimp and bonobo societies.
Because the bonobos had their part of the forest to themselves, they could exploit the fiber foods that had previously been eaten by gorillas. With this additional food to tide them over between fruit trees, they could travel in larger, more stable parties, and form strong social bonds.
Bonobos have easygoing ways, sexual equality, female bonding, and a great zeal for recreational sex. Bonobo society is marked by the strong bonds that develop between unrelated females and by almost constant sexual activity amongst all members of a group. Bonobos use sex to reinforce bonds within the group and to resolve conflict. These behaviors offer evolutionary advantages that encourage more advanced and less arduous lives and greater social accomplishment
Infanticide is almost unknown among bonobos. Their constant sexual activity obscures paternity, removing the incentive for infanticide, and the pervasive bonding of female bonobos, who form coalitions for mutual support and protection, removes the opportunity. Preventing infanticide is a huge evolutionary advantage for bonobo females, because more of their offspring will survive.
Male dominance plays a big role in common chimp society. Disputes are often resolved by threatening displays or by fighting. Female common chimps lead a life much more solitary than that their bonobo cousins, and are sometimes harassed by the much larger males.
Sex is strictly about reproduction, and reproductive tactics can include infanticide of any offspring unrelated to a male chimp. Infanticidal individuals remove potential competitors to their own offspring, and the mother, without an infant to care for, will become available for mating again much sooner. The common chimps had more difficulty finding food and had to compete with gorillas. This resulted in the common chimps having a society more prone to violence.
Kanzi – A Bonobo Chimpanzee Genius
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBlDGX95eys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPDg4W01EgY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVRsGcpmKYQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF3VYGjL3Mo
Bonobos – Greater Satisfaction and Less Conflict
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82GUjPConiE
Bonobo Chimps have the time to figure out the truth of matters and to do things in a pleasurable way in their own time.
Common Chimps are rushed and must rely on beliefs and copied rituals of dominant group members. They are constantly under pressure to get enough food and to initiate and respond to acts of violence from other common chimpanzees.
Modern Clover oppression springs from the Science Delusion. Clovers believe the lie that the principles of the universe have been discovered and are understood. He believes in a religious fashion that all that remains for science to do is to discover the precise details of these principles.
Here is the root of our new dark age of tyranny. Governments are good, because they use science, says the Clover. Clovers simply believe in whatever is called science by the ruling class, and cannot be reasoned with or shaken from this belief. The laws of science and the laws of man are one and the same, both to be equally obeyed.
The Science Delusion – Rupert Sheldrake
Well stated, tor. Clovers’ faith in scientific government is indeed held in a religious like fashion. Actually, it is fanatical, hence them being Clovers. They are governmental zealots. Government must be obeyed without question. To not do so is heresy and “off with their heads” to those who dare to think and act for themselves.
Jim Carrey – From My Co1d Dead Hands
Its pathetic really, seeing someone of Jim Carrey’s abilities and talents shill for the Firemarshall Bills of the NWO. The constant blackmail and threats inflicted on the wealthy celebrities warp their minds and blacken their hearts.
Sometimes, though a man acts the Clover, and is only a whore for the authoritarians, your best move is to take the lesson. Let the teachers teach. You can’t wish away the Clovers who know better how to live your life than you do. Understand their valid points and throw the rest in the woods.
Here’s another one:
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-seatbelt-inconvenient-inconvenience.html
Occasional belt users scored higher on aggressive driving than consistent users. “This result would be expected in that consistent seatbelt use should be indicative of safe driving, and safe drivers should theoretically drive less aggressively,” I wonder how exactly they define “aggressive” driving.
There was a pretty through study done at Virginia Commonwealth University by a research team in the mid-eighties, that looked into the likelihood of different classes of people getting into accidents.
They selected people who had been involved in crashes and went and interviewed them. Like a couple of thousand of them. The researchers went to great effort to factor everything that might be relevant — age, alcoholism, sex, race, economic status, job type, etc.
The study got published in a journal or two, and then promptly disappeared. I’ve been thinking of spending some quaity time at the VCU library in an effort to find it again, and put it up on Algore’s the internets.
Anyway, their conclusions *strongly* suggested the *average* impaired driver had about the same risk of causing an accident as the *average* person over 70, on a per-mile-driven basis.
This actually runs with my own experience. The five times in my life I was involved in serious crashes — none of which I was found at fault — four of the five at-fault drivers were well over 65. The other one was a hippie white soccer mom idiot tailgating me in a residential neighborhood while yakking on her sailfawn.
Most of the near-misses in my life were also older drivers.
But no one seems to want to get older age-impaired drivers off the road, do they?
Alcohol impairment in my opinion is *less* dangerous than age impairment + Cloverism.
These days, I think I’d also put sailfawn impairment before alcohol, also.
Hi Marc,
Yup –
Bad drivers don’t get better with age. Take a person who is marginal at 40 – and check back when they’re 70 and their visual acuity has deteriorated and their reflexes slowed and their already not-quick intellects addled some more by the passage of time.
Of course, older drivers are not necessarily bad drivers, either. Just as not everyone with “x” amount of alcohol in their system is meaningfully “impaired.” They may in fact be less impaired, in terms of their ability to safely control the car, then other people with less or even no alcohol in their system.
The thing Clover obstinately refuses to even consider is that individuals vary considerably – and his one-size-fist all solutions don’t account for – much less allow for – this.
There are 80 year olds who drive better than 25 year olds – and “drunks” who drive better than abstemious deacons.
It seems that all Clovers think traffic lights are for safety.
Many Clovers think traffic lights are not about making money for the state.
Clover’s overlords think otherwise:
“…Think it’s not about money? When we explained to his legislative aid that the best way to stop burdening the courts is to extend the yellow lights to ensure less inadvertent red light violations, she responded they couldn’t do that because “it would cut down on the revenue collected by the State”. That’s an exact quote.”
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/03/another-evil-california-scheme-to.html
Irish Town Legalizes Drinking and Driving
Law allows people to “to drive home from their nearest pub after having two or three drinks on little-used roads driving at very low speeds.”
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/weird/NATL-Irish-Town-Legalizes-Drinking-and-Driving-199867031.html
A very small sliver of sensibility, even if it only applies to old people living out in the countryside who come to town for shopping and a drink at a pub along with some company.
I wonder if someone over there got the idea from EPA or LRC? Whatever the case, it’s one small step for mankind. And I’ll bet it’s got the Clovers over there twisted all up in knots.
Funny DownshiftF. In the US we have the same laws. You would not get a DUI if you only had two or three drinks unless you are a very small person. So what is your point? Eric and others here think you should be able to have 5 or 6 drinks and still drive. They say it is fine to not stop a drunk driver unless he is all over the road. Two or three times the amount that affects your reaction time and decision making.
Tell me why it is a major offense to delay someone for a couple of seconds but killing someone or causing major accidents are OK? Where is the logic in that?
No, Clover. We argue that impairment for any reason – as evidenced by sloppy/reckless/incompetent driving – is a problem. Old, addled, inattentive – or drunk. The reason doesn’t matter.
You, on the other hand, fixate on one form of impairment – via alcohol. And not even that. Because you focus not on evidence of impairment, but on a generalized, one-size-fits-all standard that presumes impairment when meaningful impairment may not exist. I’ve explained t this distinction to you at length, several times.
But, once again:
I am a more competent – and therefore, safer – driver, even with a .08 BAC, than my father is with a 0.0 BAC. Because I start out with vastly better vision, much faster reflexes and a higher skill level. Even if you take away 40 percent of my ability, I am still a better driver than he is.
Yet, if he runs a red light he misjudged – because he has poor eyesight – and causes an accident, odds are he’ll just get a ticket. He will not be hounded to the gates of hell.
But if I merely get caught in a “sobriety checkpoint” – even if I have not wrecked, even if I have given no reason to suspect my driving is actually impaired to the point that I am dangerous behind the wheel – well, I will have a ton of bricks descend on my head.
Does this strike you as reasonable? Fair?
Of course not.
Do you have any common sense?
Clover….Actuarial tables, or standard distributions, are for calculating things like insurance eligibility & premiums. And they are designed to maintain a viable level in such domains. They don’t apply to individual rights. You seem to like to haphazardly & inappropriately conflate groups & individuals, with the intent to set levels with the lowest common denominator as gauge.
“Man’s got to know his limitations”, (& suffer the consequences of miscalculating those limitations) & “no harm, no foul” vs “We are the borg. And we really want resistance to be futile.”
ozymandias, tell me what gives you the right to miscalculate your own maximum limitations and thus endanger me or my family. What gives you the right?
There’s no “risk free rate”, let alone risk free existence. The compulsion to eliminate all risk is one you are free to exercise to whatever extent you are capable of within your own property domains – which does not include other people. Other people aren’t your property, clover.
So the real question is, what gives you the right to miscalculate my limitations & enjoin me into joining you in your padded room?
Asked & answered, clover.
I’ll only add, end with, “under the influence” is highly subjective, despite what the blackhats – & the cringers – are wont to insist, & the “objective standards” they love to impose.
“Flight” was only a movie, & maybe your experience, or imagination, disallows any such or similar reality, but when Denzel Washington’s character gets busted in the end, despite pulling off the heroic maneuver, in fact being the only one who could, & saving most of the passengers lives – for being “under the influence”, which had been sop in his case, for decades already – it was a silver cloud with a dark lining: the tptb would have preferred him “sober” & everyone dead because, “those are the rules”. I know you’re going to insist on missing the point, & you’re going to object, be unable to scale down to our conversation, but the character knew his limitations, & that they actually exceeded just about everyone else’s, & he comported himself accordingly, which is, mostly, unforgivable in today’s world.
Clover, re-read your statement:
“What gives you the right of making a mistake by having a couple of more drinks than you should have and kill my family?”
Italics added.
Notice the way you package deal two separate things – and assume as given that the one necessarily leads to the other?
“Having a few drinks” does not automatically mean a person is “endangering your family.” Much less “killing” them.
This fact has been pointed out to you endlessly.
You assume – and you generalize. Then, you criminalize based on your assumptions and generalizations. You want to punish people before they’ve caused harm – based on your subjective, arbitrary feelings that they might cause harm.
Try to think, man.
Consider, for example, this very similar generalizing:
Older people – a generalized group – tend to have poorer vision, slower reflexes and so on. On this basis, should there be “checkpoints” for people who appear to be over 60? Should all older drivers be restricted – including individual older people who are excellent drivers? According to your logic, they should be.
Women – as a matter of biology-based inherent differences – tend to have a weaker sense of spatial relationships and also attenuated visual acuity relative to the average man. Not every woman – but, generally. Should women – as a class – be restricted on account of this? Should there be “checkpoints” for women drivers?
Blacks – statistically, as a group – are more likely to be criminals than whites. So, is it right to presumptively treat all blacks as criminals?
Also: You might be a wife beater. Because anyone might be. To ensure the “safety” of your house, why not have cops do unannounced, random “checks”? The reasoning – the justification – is exactly the same as your justification for random and probable cause-free DUI “safety” checks on the roads.
I could go on, but to what end?
I hope you can see the conceptual connection – but I doubt it.
Asked & answered. Said that already.
Bet you loved “Minority Report”, love “Person of Interest”. Does precrime authoritarianism still do it for you, or have you anal’d up to preprecrime?
Cocoon yourself all you like. Do not be spinning others inside with you. You don’t have the moral authority, preemptive warrior.
Dear Oz,
Clovers love the status quo. They know that the conflation of “private” and “public” realms ensures that they can demand clover controls over others because the effects are “public.”
Some of the more aware clovers probably oppose market anarchism because if implemented it would privatize EVERYTHING and render their “neighborhood effects” pretexts for imposing controls on others invalid.
The real solution, as always, is the total privatization of human society. Which is another way of saying, the total honoring of the NAP.
Bevin…yes. The tragedy of the commons is the commons. And, as concepts go, “commons” has infectious haemophilia. Its an epidemic out there.
Dear Oz,
The more I look into the tragedy of the commons, the more I am convinced that minarchism is not the “realistic political compromise” that it is made out to be.
It really is a slippery slope that in time can only have one result — the bad that we have now, and the worse that we are heading toward.
Hi Bevin,
In re minarchism: I agree – and suggest it’s very important we never compromise in principle. That said, I would fall down on my knees in gratitude to rewind the status quo to even circa 1975 America. Before the rise of “safety” and “security” culture. When worshiping “the troops” was regarded as demented by most people. When there was some privacy. Some respect for civil liberties – that courts actually enforced. When you could fly without being felt up first. Or even made to show an ID (let alone questioned by some asshole in a uniform). When cops were not “LEOs” – and carried .38 wheelguns, not Glock .40s.
Being old enough to remember that lost world, the police state we live in today is rendered all the more horrible for me.
@Bevin
I believe you just became fully aware.
Now Clover and their thieving Government Terrorists will really hate you.
Dear Tony,
It’s been a long process.
Actually I converted to anarchism years ago, but continued to tolerate minarchism as “substantially in agreement.”
Lately I’ve become less optimistic about the compatibility of minarchism with anarchism.
As some fellow anarchists here have noted, after the Apocalypse, when it comes time to rebuild, what will the minarchists do to anarchists who refuse to dutifully become “citizens of their new republic,” i.e., slaves on their kinder, gentler tax farm?
Will they resort to coercion? Will they shoot at us?
I’ve guessed at what the answers might be, and they disturb me.
Eric…..The 70’s are what got me started studying. The aspects you cite were under less apparent encroachment, but that’s only because the blackhats were busy consolidating elsewhere. Inflation. Then Volcker’s ramping of interest rates (12% in ’80 to 23% by ’88?) to “cure” the inflation. Reagan’s libertarian sound bites while mushrooming debt to “buy the pot” from the soviets. “Peace dividend” promise: welshed.
Some reasons why the principle is not merely theoretical, & definitely not optional. Its reality. The way out is through – because the center will not hold. There will be shrapnel. Lots & lots of shrapnel.
Oh, agreed… but because the noose was looser, it at least felt freer.
Part of my political (my ethical) awakening was learning to detest Reagan. His phony “conservatism” … well, actually, it was authentic. Rah-rah patriotism (love – and never question – the government), militarism (“support the troops”) and corporate rape of the economy…
One should also never forget that it was Ronald Reagan who pushed for “gun control” in California after the Black Panthers exercised their right to bear arms by carrying them openly in public:
“As governor of California, Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act, which prohibited the carrying of firearms on your person, in your vehicle, and in any public place or on the street, and he also signed off on a 15-day waiting period for firearm purchases. After leaving the presidency, he supported the passage of the Brady bill that established by federal law a nationwide, uniform standard of a 7-day waiting period for the purchase of handguns to enable background checks on prospective buyers. He urged then President Bush to drop his opposition to the bill.”
As the Kaiser once put it:
I shit all over it…
And RR, too.
Dear Eric,
Yup. Being even slightly older than you, but younger than Tinsley, I remember clearly how much freer we felt back in the 60s and 70s.
I still remember walking onto airliners without all the East German STASI paranoia.
I remember taking my .22 target rifle on the high school school bus for Rifle Club practice, in Bethesda, Maryland. It was no big deal.
Try that today!
Clover, what gives you the right to endanger people by forcing them to take evasive action not to crash into you?
That’s why you are endangered and endanger others as a matter of course. Your method of driving fundamentally depends on others avoiding you because you are too lazy and impatient to bother with driving in a manner that doesn’t impose on others.
If safe roads were desired bad driving would be the focus. Bad driving from any cause, not just the causes you dislike. But you can’t have bad driving in general punished severely because that would put you in prison.
What’s worse is that you defend your piss-poor lazy driving but refuse to put it to the test by forcing a cop to avoid you.
Clover, what if one your neighbors wants to blow up his house for the insurance money?
http://fox59.com/2013/03/27/prosecutor-to-announce-murder-for-hire-indictment-against-richmond-hill-suspect/#axzz2Or4uN9Fh
Viewscreens in every home to keep you safe, eh Clover?
Hey Clover, you’re gonna need more laws to keep dogs from driving:
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/animal-rights/dog-puts-car-gear-drive-runs-over-pedestrian
Precisely.
I pity the poor fools that try to own me!
I will never again be someones milk cow!
This guy is pretty smart about the aftermath of the death and debt terror we face today – A new paradigm for the fully human…..
Dear Tony,
Watched the video. Not bad.
What do you know about “Bitcoins?”
I don’t see how it can possibly be something one can depend upon. It’s not backed by anything apparently.
Bitcoin is a scam…Always remember…”If you don’t hold it in your hand…You don’t own it”. He has a video in their that shows Bitcoin stock free falling to $0.01 in a matter of minutes. Buy silver and gold and keep them out of your owner’s banking system.
Dear Tony,
That was my take too.
They seem to be nothing more than promissory notes, IOUs.
I don’t see how making them electronic in form changes that reality in any substantive manner.
Oh, if only the Clovers of the world would take the time to read these short articles and spend a moment or two reflecting upon the meanings within:
Drunk Driving Laws Cause Drunk Driving Accidents
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/crovelli5.html
How To Convince Men To Drive Drunk
http://www.lewrockwell.com/crovelli/crovelli28.html
Drunk-Driving Laws Are Absurd
http://www.lewrockwell.com/crovelli/crovelli25.html
The Pathetic Argument for Prohibiting Drunk Driving
http://www.lewrockwell.com/crovelli/crovelli33.1.html
Also, in many States (all?) just a little bit of alcohol is enough to get a D.U.I. even in individuals larger than a small woman.
The official tag line is: “Buzzed driving IS drunk driving”
Can a full grown man get buzzed after drinking 12 ounces quickly? How about 24 ounces?
It’s my perception that a “drink” in Ireland is about 22 ounces – also known as a pint – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pint
If there’s a State in the unitedstate where a person can drink two or three of those and not get a D.U.I. – I would like to hear of it.
Children would NEVER understand any of the above information. Is it possible that Clovers can?
Something about Clover’s mind is defective. He is either literally dumb – has a below average IQ – or he is incapable of (or unable to) understand concepts. One such concept being that it’s unfair to punish someone who hasn’t caused harm because others have… or may have.
Everything about Clover is subjective and arbitrary. “The law” is the law… except when Clover decides it’s ok (for him) to flout it. He has already openly admitted – defended – his flouting of “the law” as regards yielding to faster-moving traffic and traffic that has the right-of-way. I have no doubt – none – that he has driven after having consumed some alcohol, too. But that’s ok – because the amount of alcohol Clover has consumed doesn’t constitute “drunk” driving. Yet I expect he’d be full of righteous outrage if we could travel back in time a little, change “the law” a little – such that it defined whatever quantity of alcohol Clover had consumed before driving as synonymous with “drunk” driving – and had Clover arrested and caged accordingly.
Clover is ok with “the law” – when it comports with his own notions and when he’s not its target. But what Clover doesn’t understand is that “the law” is based on precedent – and principles. That means it is fluid – and will eventually target him, too.
If armed men can threaten to cage/kill me for refusing to “buckle up” for safety, then they can – and eventually will – tell Clover what to eat, when and how much. They can – and will – micromanage every aspect of his life, as much as my life.
If I can be caged over non-crimes such as having an arbitrary percentage of alcohol in my system, then Clover can be caged for any number of non-crimes, too. I wonder how Clover will like it when he has to deal with “checkpoints” that “check” some aspect of his behavior he thinks is no one else’s business?
And with that, I think I understand the Clovarian-Collectivist mind just a bit more now. And how that mind justifies things, such as this:
Totalitarianism is the New Normal
“What has Hammami done to deserve a death sentence? He became a Twitter and YouTube star through his provocative tweets and political rapping. He is embarrassing Obama at whom he directs a stream of taunts and insults. For example, in response to the $5 million bounty, Hammami tweeted “As I’m a bit low on cash, how much is my left leg going for?” The $5 million is intended to silence him.” …
http://www.safehaven.com/article/29299/totalitarianism-is-the-new-normal
Of course, Marc said nothing of the sort.
He criticized (rightly) people who tailgate. Brent does not defend tailgating (and neither do I). Quite the opposite.
As usual, you cannot respond fairly to actual points made but instead go off on bizarre tangents of incoherence. If such is indicative of your intelligence, it does not speak highly of it.
“I bet you 100 million bucks on this one.”
HA! I haven’t heard anyone say that since I was twelve years old. … Or maybe it was ten?
“I bet you 100 million bucks on this one..”
Tell you what, Clover: When you pay me the other $100 million bucks you owe me, I’ll take this bet.
“Your lies are worthless…”
I certainly hope so!
Promising to give what one does not have. The very hallmark of the collectivist mindset, everywhere and always.
You now owe Eric at least 101 million dollars. Tailgating at ten feet is not right, but what is the root cause here? Blocking the passing lane.
What is unacceptable is trolling drivers like you who move out to pass but cannot complete their pass before other traffic reaches them. If someone ends up 10 feet off your ass in the passing lane and there is nobody in front of you, it’s because you did something wrong.
Clover, the problem is one of Cloveritic origin.
Thanks to Clover Law, people have been taught – threatened/browbeaten – to accept the idiot concept of the cruise control pass. To not “speed” when executing a pass. Driver A is stuck behind Driver B, who is operating at 48 in a 55. The speed limit is itself at least 5 MPH below the normal/average flow of traffic – so Driver A doing 48 is moving really slowly – and cars are stacking up behind him. But Driver B – browbeaten by Clover Law – has been taught (threatened/browbeaten) to not exceed the posted speed limit, even while attempting to pass. So, he edges over and creeps by – or tries to – at just a few MPH faster than the car he is trying to pass, never exceeding the sacred speed limit.
Of course, this makes passing almost impossible – as well as very unsafe, because the passing car stays too long in the opposing lane of traffic. And because even if Driver A manages to pass Driver B, the other cars stacked up behind remain stuck, becoming more and more frustrated – and adding tension does not improve “safety.” Some try to make it through, and end up tailgating Driver A. This is wrong – I am not defending the tailgater. But the problem is caused by Clover Law, as Brent has explained to you at length.
This is how it goes – because Driver A faces the Catch 22 of risking a ticket for “speeding” if he executes a safe pass – or he can attempt to execute a legal pass, which is all but impossible to do given the constraints of Clover Law.
Do you remember when automakers used to advertise the passing gear performance of their new cars, Clover?
Clover lies and is ignorant of the meaning of the term ‘root cause’.
Go block a cop.
Brent there is nothing you can come up with that is a legal defense for following someone by 10 feet over 65 mph. If you are incapable of keeping a safe distance from other cars do you really think you should be driving?
Clover,
Will you attempt a legal justification for forcing one’s way into traffic without the right of way?
Your arguments are not making much sense.
Clover, go troll a cop on the road. Do it.
Very rarely someone who wasn’t in mirror range ends up on my ass before I complete a pass. That someone is always driving a white car with Illinois state police graphics. If not that, something with Illinois state police license plates.
They choose a following distance of less than five feet. I can’t see the hood of their vehicle when they do they do this.
Clover, why don’t you go give them this lecture? I never argued it was right, I pointed out the condition is produced by poor lane usage. And honestly, if I wasn’t concerned about a ticket I could complete passes fast enough that even a 120mph driving cops couldn’t close on me. But that’s the doing of your kind too.
Mithrandir there is no law out there that says it is illegal to enter a road if you make someone take their foot off the accelerator for a second or two to be safe.
On very busy roadways it is a common courtesy to let people in also. Is common courtesy outside of a libertarians vocabulary? Are libertarians all about yourself and screw everyone else. Make the truck driver wait for few hours so he does not delay Mithrandir by a second or two.
You are a bunch of selfish brats.
Clover, you’ve been proved wrong – and a hypocrite – again.
You fulminate about obeying the law – yet ignore it when it suits you (e.g., your defense of failure to yield, as required by the law). You seem to think your opinion is the standard of correctness in all things. Nothing more. But you’re opinion and the law are at odds.
Then you call those you impose upon “selfish” – for taking umbrage at your insistence they accommodate you! That they accept your law-breaking (and lack of courtesy). Even as you lecture and preen to others about the sanctity of laws you think others should obey (or else) such as laws regarding “speeding.” I suspect you violate those laws, too – when it suits you. You only get indignant when others “speed” – which to you is when they drive faster than you think appropriate. When you drive a few MPH faster than the speed limit, it’s ok. But no one must ever drive any faster than Clover thinks is fast enough.
Of course, this is the sort of thing I expect from a person who no doubt thinks – as another example – that I am “selfish” for resenting the taxes in perpetuity I am forced at gunpoint to pay on “my” land in order to “help” pay for “our children’s schools.”
Clover, real politeness is not demanding anything of others in the first place.
Your backwards system was workable in small towns when there were only two cars on the road at any given time. In 21st century america that condition no longer exists and such backwards way of doing things failed to scale.
And yes clover, it is against the law to make another driver avoid you, because it means you violated a rule of right of way. Before I ran a camera a trucker pulled the kind of BS you endorse on me. Bad for him was that a cop was there to see it. I drove on, the trucker got pulled over.
So Clover, Again, go do it to a cop. If you believe in it, make cops avoid you. Go do it.
Two second google search:
New York happened to come up first:
§1143. Vehicle entering roadway.
The driver of a vehicle about to enter or cross a roadway from any place other than another roadway shall yield the right of way to all vehicles approaching on the roadway to be entered or crossed.
The driver of a vehicle about to enter or cross a roadway from any place other than another roadway shall yield the right of way to all vehicles approaching on the roadway to be entered or crossed.
Clovers purport to exalt “The Law.”
But they consistently violate this law and others, including “slower vehicles keep right” and “left lane for passing only” laws.
Their actions drown out their words, and reveal their utter contempt for either the rule of law or simple fair play.
Clovers, not libertarians, are the ones shot through and through with selfish, immature, and irresponsible attitudes.
Nice try guys but you lose. The only way a person would get a ticket in such a situation is if someone has to hit the brakes. Yes you do not pull directly in front of a car but if he is 5 or 6 seconds away then tell me the cop that would stop the driver?
Clover, the issue – which you endlessly avoid – is not whether someone gets a ticket. It is whether the law requires you to yield. It does. Period.
If you pull out/into traffic such that traffic has to brake, you are forcing them to yield to you. You are butting in – and you are breaking the law. The law you worship – and which you insist everyone always obey.
Except for yourself. When you decide it’s ok not to.
Clover, you have defended countless drivers that force the use of the brakes. Furthermore there is no way not to use the brakes because the problem is not only shoving their way in, they fail to accelerate as well.
Feel free to do any of the moves that you defend to a cop. See what happens.
Dear Brent,
If clover accepts your challenge to do his clover number on a cop, I REALLY want to see the video.
Shades of poetic justice a la “The Twilight Zone.”
Clover, prove your assertions. What? You can’t because I never typed any such thing? Awww.
Clovers sometimes *are* speeders. And they don’t know how to do it without endangering anyone.
A tailgater is a clover.
I don’t mind anyone speeding, as long as they don’t tailgate. Keep your distance, and within a few seconds I’ll complete my pass as planned and move back over to the right lane — where I am always found unless passing. And I pass often.
I’m not going to mash the gas for you — but I *will* be out of your way within a few seconds.
All I ask is that you have the courtesy to remain at a tolerable distance from my rear bumper while I’m finishing my pass.
If someone runs up behind me and tailgates, if he doesn’t accept the first warning flash of my hazard lights, the next thing is the undulating gas pedal: I alternately speed up slightly then slow down slightly. If they’re following too close, they have to brake. I don’t brake, I just get on-and-off the accelerator — until I complete my pass and move over. They *usually* get the message after a couple cycles and back off.
But then there are the “True AssClovers”; the especially aggressive ones. They come up behind you at a very high rate of speed, and without giving you even a few seconds to complete your pass, they get so close you’re sure their bumper is up under yours.
As they approach, they move all the way to the left edge of the road so as to make sure their enemy can see them plainly in the outside rearview mirror.
These pricks deserve the tow hitch.
They deserve the “ditch brake”: where you push on the brake pedal *hard*, so they have to panic brake so desperately they end up in the ditch.
No one should be so close that they’re vulnerable to that.
It is polite to complete a pass before anyone else reaches you. If a driver cannot do this, he should wait to pass.
Yes, I either complete a pass before someone reaches me or I wait.
The only time I am surprised by someone tailgating me when I am in the process of passing is when it’s a cop. Usually an Illinois state trooper who was doing a 120 mph or so.
I agree, Marc, that tailgating is always Cloveritic. Even when I’m stuck behind one I do not crowd him. It’s as dangerous for me as it is for him. I also think it’s poor tactics. You don’t want to arouse the Clover – much less give him any forewarning of your impending pass. Otherwise, he will often make every effort to prevent you from passing. So, hang back and maintain the appropriate following distance. Then, when your window opens, punch it. Get around the Clover fast – before he has time to react, ideally. This prevents him from speeding up to lock you in place behind him.
Then, you can wave him bye-bye in the mirror – this will really irritate the fill-bred Clover!
“Reacting to a passer in a negative way is not a clover move but an aggressive road rage driver move.”
Clover, if you honestly believe that – and behave accordingly, by deferring to other drivers trying to get past you – then you have taken a step on the journey toward shedding your Cloverhood.
Eric do you call someone like Brent a clover? He has had people pass him and and he gets furious and retaliates the best he can on the other driver. You are complaining about the road rage control freaks like Brent!
Clover, Brent has consistently proved himself to be the antithesis of an aggressive (passive or active) driver. That is, the antithesis of a Clover. He, unlike you, understands such concepts as yielding to faster-moving traffic, not interrupting or impeding the flow of traffic and basic common courtesy – all the things which you’ve consistently demonstrated you’ve got no comprehension of – or contempt for.
You’re lying Clover. Present your evidence. Prove your assertions. Oh, wait, you have none. You are projecting your feelings on me, again. You expose your true nature once again.
BTW, A polite person understands that once he passes he now is obligated not to slow those behind him. A clover does not and often passes to slow those he just passed.
‘clover’ covers a broad variety of control freak, authoritarian, and trolling behaviors. A clover is not logical, rational, or consistent. It’s named after you because you symbolize this mish mash of traits. Therefore it’s a loose term.
As to rage, notice how you frequently project rage on others. This says a lot about you. Passive aggressive and aggressive rage is part of the clover mentality.
So Brent, that 80 year old driver that enters a roadway and does not immediately get up to your 20 mph over the speed is in your words a control freak, authoritarian?
I do agree with what Badger said above and it is all about your driving and mentality!
“Are you saying you support abusive driving behaviors like this? That just because pissing on someone isn’t illegal, it’s OK to do it? Have you studied the term “sociopath” in enough detail to understand its application to people who do things like this??”
Clover, you exaggerate and dissemble to avoid dealing with the main point – which (again) is simply: It is both the law and common courtesy to yield to faster-moving traffic. That means not pulling in front of faster-moving traffic and expecting it to accommodate you.
What’s your problem, dude?
Why can’t you either:
Wait until you have enough time/space to merge at whatever speed you are comfortable with (and thus not impede others) or accelerate to match the speed of traffic, so as to not interrupt the flow of traffic?
Do you not see how passive aggressive you are? Your sense of entitlement? Your control freak-ism?
Myself, Brent – all the others here (literally, scores of people, not one of whom has come to your defense) – are not trying to impose anything on you. We’re simply trying to avoid you. But you insist on forcing yourself on us – on everyone.
And that is what makes you a 100 proof Clover.
What do you expect from a bratty little runt? Clover is a child that refuses to grow up.
Clover, you constantly defend people who insert themselves into the traffic stream and demand those already on the road yield to them. You have repeatedly argued that the person entering the road should not have to wait. What isn’t control-freak and self centered about this argument of yours? It’s the definition of self-centered behavior where a person demands the world come to a halt for him.
Age of the driver is your way of trying to create a sympathetic creature to get people to side with your ass-backwards clover-law vehicle code. What do you think a clover like yourself would do if I entered the road on my bicycle and made them immediately brake? You’d go into a fit of rage.
Why? Because you want everything done by some social order. The way you see as best based on who a driver is, what social group they belong to, instead of any rational or logical reasoning. Your priorities are social and political in nature. Thus authoritarian. Political. and ultimately sociopathic.
Have you ever pulled between two vehicles on the interstate or expressway when there was less than 4 seconds between them?
What do bratty liberal runts all have in common? They demand that everyone else live for them. Clover is a brat child.
Clover, I have been able to make successful left lane merges in down town chicago before half the ramps were eliminated in a stock 6 cylinder ford maverick when that car was in excess of 30 years old.
These were very short ramps merging into the passing lane with crappy visibility. Yet, I still accomplished these merges without forcing traffic to brake for me by timing gaps.
You are simply too lazy to put forth the effort required to merge properly and too selfish and impatient to wait for a gap suitable to your skills.
I’ve also seen countless truckers merge correctly so it’s not the vehicle that’s the problem. It’s a lazy impatient driver who believes might makes right, just like you.
Dood, I drive a 1.5 liter yaris and pass multiple clovers daily without ever exceeding 3k rpms. It’s not an engine power issue is an overt aggression (like my man mentioned somewhere on this page) issue.
Well, Clover, why is it ok for you to flout “the law” as regards yielding to traffic that has the right-of-way?
Clover,
You need to stop drinking the cooking sherry. You are not making any sense.
The little clover has the mind of a child doesn’t it? Alcohol would probably help it to grow up.
Hi Tony,
Children grow up – Clover never does.
Only clovers have ‘blind spots’.
Learn how to set your mirrors correctly.
Nobody taught me how to set mirrors correctly. I just knew because it’s logical that there should be overlap between all three mirrors such that there is no blind spot.
Learn:
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/how-to-adjust-your-mirrors-to-avoid-blind-spots
Michigan does have some common-sense traffic laws that do not exist in many other states. One such law is the ability for drivers to pass on the right IF the road has more than two lanes in each direction. The “right-turn-on-red” also applies to turning LEFT on to a one-way street. It can be frustrating to wait for a clover that will not exercise the legal left turn on red . . . Per an official Michigan State Police response, it is LEGAL to exceed the speed limit by whatever mph. when passing for up to 1000 feet.
As to people slowing down for police vehicles (when the police vehicle is travelling in the same direction), I ALWAYS pass them without incident. However, don’t try this in the speed trap capital of the United States (Livonia Michigan).
What’s with Florida? Is there something in the air down there that prevents people from using turn signals? Just an observation.
By the way, Eric, I love how you identified Clover’s comments by putting large green clovers all through his posts…… too funny!
It’s important to “know your Clover”!
And then there’s the clover who will tailgate you for miles and miles. There are no oncoming cars, lots of opportunity for passing. It is a two-lane country road, and it simply isn’t safe to go faster than 100 km an hour (‘official’ speed limit is 80). I usually travel at 100 kmh on those roads, but will not go faster.
So, there’s that damn tailgater. I hate tailgaters, especially at night, when they shine their lights right on my mirrors.
I do speed up a little, just to put some distance between myself and that idiot. He/she speeds up, too. Damn! So, at the next straight stretch I slow down, to let this person pass. No go, the moron slows down, too, and stays right on my tail.
Eventually I can’t take it any more, and pull over, and the car passes. I get back on the road, and soon catch up…….. the idiot is now going barely 80!
I swear this kind of person is just out to totally frustrate other drivers on purpose and gets a kick out of it.
Fortunately, I eventually came to an intersection, that allowed me to either go straight or turn right, with equal distance going home either way. I just had to wait to see whether this driver was turning or not, and do the opposite. And good riddance, too.
“So, at the next straight stretch I slow down, to let this person pass. No go, the moron slows down, too, and stays right on my tail.”
Living in a rural area, I suffer this form of Cloverism often. Why won’t they pass? I’ve even tried waving them around. Nothing.
I agree with your analysis that they get a kick out of it.
Best way to deal with it I’ve found is to either brake check them (works best f you’re driving an old truck) or, gradually slow down until you’re literally crawling. Keep this up as long as you can stand.
NYC is the only place in the US people know how to drive correctly. Too bad it’s an absolute police state.
Thanks eric for listing the Cloverisms of the road. And damn you too because now I can not go to sleep because you have pushed all my buttons! If I had the choice of immunity for beating to death either a child rapist or a Clover I swear I would have to flip a coin.
“… And damn you too because now I can not go to sleep because you have pushed all my buttons! If I had the choice of immunity for beating to death either a child rapist or a Clover I swear I would have to flip a coin.”
Well said!
And thanks for putting a smile on my face, even if it’s a short lived one.
“If I had the choice of immunity for beating to death either a child rapist or a Clover I swear I would have to flip a coin.”
Ha!
I’ll second that one….
Bwahaha! The granny on the wheelchair looks like something from an 80s movie. Be nice to your elders ya ingrates! Ahh…driving pet peeves, when the state opens some new and time and space saving shortcut road then dares you to use it properly by camping out patrol cars along the new road.
Cop ahead all lanes slow down syndrome when a cop comes along and everyone reduces their speed and no one dares speed up or pass the cop.
Thanks to those drivers who flash their lights to warn you about radar trap ahead, it has been a pleasure sharing the road with ya.
The one that gets me is the overly “nice” moron (with no disrespect to morons intended) who is driving in front of a line of traffic that is proceeding apace and suddenly decides to stop and let some right-turning vehicle out of a parking lot even though traffic ahead of him/her is flowing smoothly, This causes all behind to have to stop suddenly and unexpectedly for absolutely no reason except stupidity. I have actually witnessed this in my town. Incredible!
Here’s some good swine.
Back in my Army days, simply getting to work in the morning was dangerous (I lived in a nearby town). There’d be a line of traffic a dozen cars long, all staring blankly at the brake lights of the car in front of them, reacting as necessary, waiting for the caffeine to take effect.
Many times I was nearly the victim of the concertina effect caused by the moron behind the original slow clover at the front of the queue, tailgating but with slow reactions.
Since there was a straight some 1000m long on the trip, I eventually began using that to fly past this inept conga line at 200k’s as none of them would try and pass each other.
No way in hell I’d try and maintain some kind of road “rule” if it meant my demise.
Oh I forgot this one too. Here in CA, if it is snowy weather, they call it “chain control” meaning if you have 2WD you are required to install chains. If you have 4WD or AWD with M/S tires the overlords don’t require you to install chains. Now, here’s the best part, mandatory 25 MPH speed limit for EVERYONE. I was born and raised here so maybe I am good at driving in the snow, it can be fun if there’s no clovers so normally I will do around 40 to 50 depending on visibility, grip, yadayadayada. I have not been cited yet but talk about dumbing down and bringing everybody down to the lowest common denominator. Pretty hysterical the tourists from the CA valley that come here too, chaining the rear wheels on FWD’s, chaining all four with 4WD’s, or the worst, fixing/installing their chains in the middle of the fucking lane.
Let us not forget the passing lane douchebags. Around here in the Tahoe, CA area there are a lot of 7-8000 ft. passes with some pretty steep grades. On these roads they put in passing lanes where the topogaphry allows. You get behind say, three cars with a semi or RV leading the parade so you wait patiently for the passing lane. A soon as we arrive, semi pulls over and moron lead car just doesn’t seem to have any acceleration to swiftly pass. And I mean like a BMW X5 or Range Rover that you would assume has the torque and hp to accomplish such. Hell, even a regular car can do so if they DOWNSHIFT. What quantum physics formula is it to not comprehend that the faster your engine is turning, THE MORE POWER YOU HAVE AVAILABLE. Many times because of the lack of aptitude I have been screwed because the passing lane runs out by the time its my turn. God I need a drink after reading this shit. The only ones you talk about Eric that piss me off more are the hero cop beatdowns.
You’re right there. Many times I’ve dreamed of having a Mad Max car covered in spikes and shove ’em off the road. They have the engine power so they should be fair to others and use it.
I’ve been caught up behind idiots like this too many times to remember so I make sure and pass everyone before the passing lane if possible, otherwise I’m stuck behind the actual clover with everyone else over the next 20k’s, waiting for the next passing lane.
Eric,
It’s very generous of you to let Clover out of his cage every once in a while. It’s a nice reminder for us on how the mind of an authoritarian collectivist control freak operates in real time, as well.
My pleasure… well, er… uh… sort of!
two points:
the delay upon the stop light turning green is almost always because “we” are texting or emailing or scrolling on their phones. Look around at the people next to you at the light. Half of them have their heads down totally engrossed in their electronics.
Another new phenomenom is the guy turning left who will not enter the intersection but instead stays back at the white line waiting for the light to turn. They must be teaching this now in driving school because it’s becoming quite common. I have to stay back and wait an extra light because only one car gets through with this system.
Texas has a lot of 75 mph zones.
Cops are cool with everyone running 80. (yes, I know why).
Some people don’t personally agree with a 75mph speed limit so they drive 70 in the passing lane
. . . people with handicap license plates or placards are quite often marginal drivers . . .
Now that is assuming that everybody with a handicap is an idiot. I actually have a handicap placard, because I fractured my ankle ten years ago….. it never healed properly, and I have trouble walking.
This handicap didn’t affect my brain or driving ability, however.
Ursula, thanks for posing that. I’ll consider you the exception to the rule and will apply it to every encounter I have until they prove otherwise.
It shall be right up there with John Gault having a bad day and I’ll consider it a failure on my part if I get pissed off, which earns Clover points.
Never Ever give Clover points.
I stand by my statement. I had one just recently that sped up when I attempted to pass and then looked at me as if I were in the wrong for successfully passing. Here in Michigan, my encounters with handicapped drivers are usually that of the handicapped driver driving too slow for conditions, well below the posted speed limit.
The people with handicap placards who drive like idiots most likely have no real handicap, they’re just scamming the government for “free” money. As much as I hate the government, I hate the dipshits who scam like that…especially when they inconvenience me by driving like they’re mentally handicapped. Scratch that, they ARE mentally handicapped.
It will be nice when Google self-driving technology is used in most cities. Seven to 10 times better road utilization and no human error. Plus no stop lights or signs.
Just punch in your destination and forget about it. Then all these problems disappear.
Check this video out of intersection management with such a system: http://vimeo.com/37751380
Untitled from The Atlantic Cities on Vimeo.
Everyone thinks central control will be so nice…. for some reason people keep thinking centralized power will be run by benevolent experts with no evidence that it happens any more frequently than as a fluke of history.
The reality of centralized automated roads will be much different. The terms will be dictated by political control freaks mixed in with the desires and goals of corporate insiders.
The result will be something much like a combination of the Joan Claybrook and the privatization of Chicago’s parking meters. And that’s a best case scenario.
That’s cool. I wonder if something systematic like that could exist right now?
1)Engineer & Post roads as “Limited Liability Paygo Roads”
2)Install periodic Bitcoin settlement & access points throughout. Roads are free but each unique anonymous driver must patronize some of the sponsoring merchants of the road, or face a weekly service charge.
3) There are no rules or signs, your daily/weekly/lifetime driving performance and habits are plainly shown on your vehicle using a digital symbol system on your vehicle updated via machine learning algorithm. If you’re a really bad driver, a canned phrase system will announce your approach via vehicle mounted loudspeaker.
4)There will be a live updated app showing market price for mandatory safety tow & debris clearing should your vehicle block traffic due to collision or malfunction.
5) The roads have advisory lane demarcators that reflect most commonly observed actual driver behavior via machine learning.
6) Terms of use: Caveat vehiculum. You pay your own damage to your vehicle regardless of fault. All windows darkly tinted and must remain closed, to stop human interaction. Opening window, door, or leaving vehicle will forfeit your Bitcoin account. No vehicles will have horns, but instead 1000 word vocabulary “canned phrases” and digital symbol system to communicate to other drivers.
7) Fueling/Charging vehicles and side of the road repair vehicles are permitted to work the roadway.
8) You can rent a road system drone car or deluxe models in 10 min increments with a Bitcoin account. It’s brought to your location for a market based fee. A hired system driver is available as well.
9) If your driving becomes dangerously subpar enroute, your vehicle will ask you to select from a list of remedies including pulling off the road and having a hiring a driver to finish your drive. If you fail to comply, you Bitcoin account will be charged or possibly even forfeited.
A simple solution would be to require anybody who receives government benefits (social security, disability, etc.) to relinquish his driver’s license. If you’re too old/feeble to work, you’re too old/feeble to drive. Period.
Let’s add the “sudden fear of death” clover. You know the type. He’s tooling along, almost up to the speed limit, when he sees a curve up ahead. His dim little brain screams at him, “OH SHIT OH SHIT A FUCKING CURVE WE’RE ALL DOOMED”. He then stomps on his brakes, and slows to 10 mph to negotiate a curve that a kid on a tricycle could manage at 35.
Another is the CAN’T MERGE CLOVER who comes down the on-ramp with a large enough gap in traffic to accommodate those behind him as well as himself, but slows down and may even hit the brakes, leaving those behind him crawling and having to merge into a solid line of traffic.
Once, after passing a long line of traffic on two-lane Maryland Route 404, I blew past a very slow-moving Lincoln in my Corvette. I then drove at the limit plus 5 to 10 – much faster than he had been driving. The guy came up behind me, blowing his horn and flashing his headlights. Twice he attempted to pass me or force me onto the shoulder. Very slow drivers should exercise just a little common courtesy and occasionally pull over and let long lines of frustrated drivers pass them. It never seems to occur to them to do so.
John D in Spotsylvania
“the CAN’T MERGE CLOVER” – what’s worse is when they come to a dead stop at the entrance to the Interstate hyway. I’ve seen it a number of times. Yikes!
To be slightly fair to the Can’t Merge Clover though (only slightly) a certain large and well-known national trucking company tells its drivers if they move from the right lane to the left lane to let traffic merge, they’re fired!
A couple more to mention, fender bender, minor wreck with no injuries. Instead of pulling off the road and dealing with their bullshit paperwork there, they decide it’s “safer or the law” to leave both vehicles right there in the lane(s) thus causing major traffic jam. Why the fuck to we have to deal with “law” encforcement also in minor wrecks? Was a crime commited? On city freeways, same thing minor wreck, instead both parties are smart and get off the road but now, eeeevryoooone has to sloooooow down to lookey loo causing major traffic jam even though no lanes are blocked. Fucking infuriating that we have to share the world with these useless flaps of skin. Grocery stores are also clover magnets. The old fart in front of the check out line waits all the way until the cashier tells them the total before deciding its time to fish around for the checkbook. Then if you are lucky they will spend 5 to 10 minutes making a stink about a 75 cent coupon that didn’t register and the cashier has to call in the manager. Don’t worry, I’ll wait right here. Where do they come from and why are they alive? How do they function as adults?
JJ,
“Grocery stores are also clover magnets. The old fart in front of the check out line waits all the way until the cashier tells them the total before deciding its time to fish around for the checkbook.”
I deal with this at least once a week. Why can’t they anticipate? Why can’t they begin to write out their damn check before the total comes up? So that all they have to do is write in the damn total? And the coupon thing… lawsee!
Shhh, about the grocery store, next thing you know they’ll try to pass laws to put down yellow lines in the grocery isles and install grocery cart speed limit signs at the end of every isle, and stops signs too?
Yes, I know that has Nothing to do with waiting in line behind old slow people. That’s the point.
I don’t know about you all, but I try to look ahead and anticipate the old people’s position and go faster to not be in that spot behind them at the cash register. If I fail to do so, I try to make eye contact with the manager and they often open another checkout lane for me.
I so love the private sector.
Also, you could go shopping at night to avoid the old people, however; then ya gotta deal with the Wal-Mart types and that’s often worse, imho.
Just be thankful the old person is using a checkbook and not a food stamp card.
I don’t know if this counts as a clover, but the “wave you through even though I have the right of way” folks are bad. I guess they think they’re doing you a favor, but by breaking the conventions of the road it makes for a dangerous and annoying situation.
I biked to work for 15 years taking residential roads. It seemed monthly some clover (usually female) would wave me around them when I was behind them at a two way stop. Or they would stop in the middle of the road and wave to me to turn left in front of them. On top of it wasting everyone’s time (we all could’ve gone through the intersection in the time they wasted trying to wave me through), there’s no way I’m biking in front of some bozo when I don’t have the right of way. Several times I had to get off of my bike and stand there to indicate I was NOT going to risk getting squished. Then they yell they’re only trying to be nice. Screw nice – I just don’t want hit by a car.
They do this when I am bicycling. It complicates things at best and at worse they are waving me on into my death. No thanks. It takes awhile to convince them I don’t want to go blindly into the lane they made impossible for me to see the traffic in….
the “wave you through even though I have the right of way” folks <- yes, that counts! They try to get you to do the herky-jerky clover dance,… intentional or not.
"Several times I had to get off of my bike and stand there to indicate I was NOT going to risk getting squished." <- I thought I was the only one. Sometimes I almost feel bad because they act like they are doing me a favor, but they are clearly not.
“the “wave you through even though I have the right of way” folks are bad”
I encounter those types at 4 way stop sign intersections. They simply don’t know how to proceed at a 4 way.
I have another one for you. This is the clover going down a road with two lanes in each direction and he deliberately drives alongside the car next to him to ensure no one can go around. This clover especially likes to do it on roads where there are solid stripes, so no one can (legally) pass this rolling road block. I didn’t actually have to see this done. One of my own brothers told me how he enjoys doing it. As the Greaseman would say, “I shake my head ruuuuuuuuefully…”
VilePig tell us if you never see the problem then why bring it up if it almost never happens? Why do you think it is a major problem if it never occurs to you? I just bring this up because there are many people with video cameras out there and wouldn’t you think they could come up with dozens of their own examples? Why is it that people talk about it for hours when it almost never happens? Why spend hundreds of hours complaining about something that my happen once every few years and then only delay you slightly if at all? Tell me if the people that you say are blockers on the roadway and going the speed limit then how much are they slowing you down?
clover,
Whether something happens to you or not should not be the criteria in determining if something is a problem.
I never directly experienced murder, but murder is a problem.
Yes mithrandir and an asteroid may hit the earth and wipe us all out. Should we spend hundreds of hours complaining about it?
There are people here that are going into a rage about it. Tell me why if you never see it?
Clover you bring up an extremely good point– specifically that imaginary threats aren’t things that should guide policy or behavior. In this example the threat isn’t all that imaginary, but it’s unusual and it would be very difficult to legislate. It falls into the category of “poor socialization” rather than something like murder, which is pretty clear. It’s very unfortunate that so many legislators don’t understand this and instead make huge numbers of “laws” that attempt to “protect” individuals from bogymen of their own invention.
Running road blocks aren’t illegal. If they were folks would be looking at raised insurance rates for doing it. But they are in poor taste, reflect badly on the intelligence of the perpetrator, and are potentially harmful. People who do it qualify for “clover” badges, or at the very least “asshole of the moment”.
Are you saying you support abusive driving behaviors like this? That just because pissing on someone isn’t illegal, it’s OK to do it? Have you studied the term “sociopath” in enough detail to understand its application to people who do things like this?
The problem, Clover, is your definition of “abusive” driving – which you equate with any driving you personally do not agree with it, such as driving faster than any posted speed limit, ever. To you, a driver is “abusive” if he is (for example) driving 80 or 90 MPH on an Interstate highway with a posted speed limit of 65 or 70 – irrespective of his actual driving and irrespective of any other factor. The road may be virtually empty; it might be a bright clear day; the driver may be a very skilled driver, in full control of his modern vehicle – operating on a road designed for safe travel at 75 MPH assuming 1950s-era cars. All that matters to you is that he is “speeding.” That – ipso facto – constitutes “abusive” driving to you.
Meanwhile, you have no problem with the driver who is clearly not skilled – as evidenced by actions such as driving well below the flow of traffic, thereby creating a hazard for himself and others. Or who slows/stops on a hill during a blizzard – with the result that everyone else trying to ascend the grade gets stuck behind him. To you, such actions do not constitute “abusive” driving … because the driver (the Clover) isn’t “speeding.”
You’re also one of those people who believes they shouldn’t yield to faster-moving traffic if they are “doing the speed limit.”
You believe other drivers are obligated to accommodate themselves to you. To defer to you.
You have it all backwards.
Frontwards is as follows:
* Use your mirrors – in order to anticipate the need to yield to overtaking traffic. Yield before traffic overtakes you.
* When pulling into traffic, accelerate with enough rapidity so that oncoming traffic does not have to decelerate to accommodate you. If you (or your vehicle) cannot do this without forcing oncoming traffic to brake, then wait until you have sufficient space/time to merge at the pace you are comfortable with – without your preferences impeding others.
* Pay attention – and anticipate signals changing so that when they do change, you can proceed immediately. So that the others behind you can also make it through the light.
* Use your turn signals well in advance of actually turning.
* When you see a car attempting to enter the road from a sidestreet or merge lane, shift left to give them the space to merge.
These are examples of good driving practices, Clover. The opposite of the “obey the law” mantra you preach. And of the inconsideration – the dangerous driving – people such as yourself represent.
“…it is OK for hundreds of thousands of people to drive drunk?”
This is an example of Clover’s ends-justifies-the-means “thinking.” I put “thinking” in quotes for good reason, which I’ll now elaborate.
Millions of people get cancer every year – prostate cancer being one of the big “killers” (to use Clover phraseology). Far more so than “drunk” driving.
Well, shouldn’t “we” (that is, the police) “require” (that is, force) all males over say age 45 to get mandatory digital rectal examinations? Shouldn’t there be prostate checkpoints?
It would save millions of lives!
No?
An infringement of your liberty?
Buy, why?
Surely, it’s good for you – and safe? It means less “cost” for “society.” Right?
My guess is you would favor mandatory digital rectal exams. Because you’ve already expressed support for more or less exactly that – in the form of TSA “agents” (losers in blue costumes) pawing the cocks and clits of every/any passenger they please… in order to “keep us safe.”
There are all sorts of ways to keep us safe, Clover. To keep you safe, too. I am very worried about your diet, just for openers. I think “we” need to make sure you are not eating the “wrong” foods… or too much food.
And, you might be viewing kiddie pix on the Internet. I think “we” should have access to your computer – to your home, in fact. After all, “our kids” could be at risk.
Your logic is poor as usual. Tell me, if you say it is OK on an empty road to drive 20 or 30 mph over the limit, would you slow down to the limit if there are now hundreds of cars on that same roadway? Wouldn’t you then keep the same speed and tell the other drives to get the hell out of the way because you are coming through and cannot be slowed? There are many studies of human behavior and it is obvious you skip 90 percent of it and believe in only what benefits you.
“If you are incapable of taking your foot off the accelerator for a couple of seconds to safely let others on the roadway…”
And there you go, re-affirming your status as King Clover!
Merging traffic is obliged by both law and “common senses” (as you put it) to yield. But – being a Clover – you expect traffic to yield to you.
“Tell me if the people that you say are blockers on the roadway and going the speed limit then how much are they slowing you ”
Retard.
Now you got it!
No shit, VilePig, Those are especially irratating. Also are the ones who insist on doing that with you or staying in your blindspot.
Pig, there’s a variation on this one too– the clover who pulls up alongside you on the left as you approach a semi in front of you. The clover creeps up on you, then pulls up and matches speed with you just as you get into passing position, running you into the tail of the semi in front and keeping you.
Then the clover matches speed with the semi and the game (for clover) is won. This works best on divided freeways like I80 since you can’t pass the clover. It used to happen to me all the time until I noticed it wasn’t just happenstance, those twisted souls were doing it on purpose. Now when I see a creeping clover I accelerate and pull in front of it, then pass the truck. The telling factor is a real clover will keep playing this game with you until you his a desolate patch of road, put the hammer down for a few miles and leave him in the dust. I’ve actually had clovers of this ilk chase me at over 100mph just to stay in the game.
Hi Vile,
I encounter them all the time, too. And – The Greaseman! – now that takes me back!
Clover behavior can sometimes be explained by the clover engineers who developed an idiotic clover design for highway entry. Example: The loop I use to go to work, at one time had the entry at a 45 degree angle to the loop. This angle was perfect for being able to see approaching traffic on the loop, facillitating a smooth blending of traffic. They changed the angle of entry to a far more acute angle, such that it is virtually impossible to see approaching vehicles coming over the overpass, thereby disrupting smooth entry and turning me into a clover. I curse the clover engineers every morning now.
Road engineering has long been contaminated by government and political processes. This results in much of the bone head designs.
Back in the usenet days threads from the driving and autos groups would be cross posted over on the civil engineering/road building groups. It quickly became apparent they do their designs by tables created when government took everything over back in the 20s and 30s. It’s probably not universally true, but for a lot of things it clearly was.
“the clover who passes you in a big hurry and then swerves in front of you to make the exit.”
Yep, that’s the actively aggressive control freak.
OK Ed on, I understand now, a clover to you is every other driver than you! It is the slow driver, the aggressive fast driver, the guy that runs a red light as long as it is not you, the guy that passes on the right except for you, the guy that does not leave room for merging traffic except if it is you. A clover to you is anyone you disagree with at the time on the roadway.
“I understand now”
Liar.
Liar? clover might just be a bratty moron at this point.
My peeve has always been the clover who passes you in a big hurry and then swerves in front of you to make the exit.
If the fool would have just waited two seconds he could have casually exited without ever having to race ahead of you and pull an almost four wheel drift to make the exit. Neither then would you have had to even see his ugly face or his piece of crap car. Thank you.
Hi Eric, love your columns.
My favorite (i.e. most consistently infuriating) Clover maneuver is when they slow down while passing. I’ll be cruising along in the right lane coming up on a slow moving truck, getting ready to move into the left lane to pass when I see a car going faster than I am already in the left lane. That’s cool; I let him pass, move over behind him so we can both pass the truck, but when he gets beside the truck… HE SLOWS DOWN TO THE TRUCK’S SPEED! He then proceeds to drive beside the truck, sometimes FOR MILES! When he finally creeps past the truck, he cranks it back up to 80 mph.
I see this so often, I just want to talk with one of these guys. Is it intentional? Why do they do it? Help me to understand. Is it really just a control thing?
The aggressive, you can’t pass me types-it’s definitely intentional. I have a cure for them. I let them ride my ass and get all aggressive as I slowly increase my speed to a point where I know I can make the next turn, but it’s going to be really questionable for them. Then without any braking I drive hard into a nice hairpin at 4 wheel drift speed and observe the show in my rear view. That usually does the trick.
(Only do this if you can see oncoming traffic, and children are not playing on the outside of the turn, and preferably there is a nice soft field of clover for the offender to land in.)You can also drop a tire off in a big patch of gravel and shower them with a few reminders to back off.
The amazing thing though is the number who don’t learn, even after a few of these “lessons”. I am starting to wonder if they are even aware of what is going on. If I took it up the next notch would they just plow into the ditch or flip their car and be left wondering “what just happened?” I’m beginning to think that for some of them, the only meaningful measure for them is the two foot distance between their front bumper and my rear. Tires squealing, vehicle plowing and tipping are irrelevant. They simply MUST maintain that distance.
The slow down while passing types…they are off in their own little world. I used to really get pissed at theses people (well-I still do) until I was a passenger with a guy on a road trip for work. He did all the things I hate. Speed varying about 20 mph constantly, tail-gating, matching speed with the car beside him, blocking the passing lane-you name it. Every obnoxious clover behavior known to man. I was sinking down in the seat trying to hide myself from shame. Other drivers were giving us the evil eye…..and the guy was totally and utterly oblivious to it all. I would have said something, but he was my boss at the time. He was just a really-really bad driver and was not perceptive enough, or concerned enough to pay attention to what he was doing.
So where do we divide the clover from the really bad driver? Or does it overlap? Must it be intentional to be a clover behavior? Or is the act of passively sucking at something, while impeding everyone around you while completely unaware a clover too. One thing is certain, all of this is RUDE behavior. Is Clover simply an uncouth ill mannered buffoon, a petty tyrant, or both?
Wade-There is nothing more irritating than the driver that doesn’t understand how to maintain speed with the accelerator. These are the guys that should be using cruise control only. It is frustrating to get around these folks that fluctuate their speed by 10 mph or more, and always at the most inconvenient times.
They’re the ones that cause the concertina effect in traffic. Clover was complaining earlier that he was stuck for 3 hours when a “speeding” truck crashed into slow traffic ahead of him.
I was sure it was one of his buddies up ahead that was the cause and not the truck itself.
Driver Takes Revenge on Second Driver | Russian Road Rage Revenge
Russia is packed with clovers!
So, now libertarians are aggressive drivers. In my experience, actively aggressive drivers are control freaks, definitely not the libertarian type. Passively aggressive drivers are just the flip side of the coin from their road raging wild ass brothers.
Both types of driver are dangerous and you probably swing from behaving as one type to behaving as the other. It’s comical seeing the way you jump all over the place trying to make a point that would impress nobody but you.
There is no “safe, slow clover” driver. The slowpokes may avoid accidents themselves, but they cause accidents. Many seem to get some sort of twisted satisfaction from their behavior.
Ed on, you say the slower driver are who causes accident? Tell me how that is? From what I have seen it is aggressive driver that is the one that then causes the accident. Have you ever heard that you are supposed to be in control of your own vehicle? It is you that is supposed to drive safely to avoid others? In a recent video I saw a pick-up was tailgating a cop car. The cop car then slowed to try to get the truck off his rear end and the truck almost went through the cop car even though it only slowed slightly and did not do a hard stop. In that case the truck driver was not in control of his own vehicle but he was complaining the entire time about the cop car being wrong.
This is the video clover is babbling about:
Take note of Clover’s description of this video.
Clover,
You missed your calling. You should write fiction for a living. You seem to practice writing fiction on theses forums.
“Take note of Clover’s description of this video.”
Whoa, was his ever a contorted description of reality, Or wHAt?
Willful ignorance on display is a sad sad thing.
Clover’s problem is two-fold:
He is either not too bright (a definite possibility) or he’s just pig-headed and won’t think. He is one of those people you meet who “just knows” he’s right – and with whom it is impossible to have a conversation that’s based on logic and reason. Dealing with such a person is like trying to out-quack a duck.
“Grocery stores are also clover magnets. The old fart was complaining about the cop car being wrong. Grocery stores are also clover magnets. The old fart is the one that then causes the accident. ”
Lunatic.
Russia is packed with dash cams and thus their antics are captured for all to see. What’s funny is the clovers post their own antics.
What’s even funnier is that those ever-present Lada’s seem to cause most of the prangs.
Well, it’s probably because they’re a popular car. The lesson from Russia and Czechoslovakia is always have a dash cam running.
Wow, that is insane! It is a miracle that neither of those two idiots caused a terrible accident.
Here in Georgia there’s a move-over law for bicyclists, we are supposed to give them three feet of space when we pass. The other day I’m riding my motorcycle and all of a sudden an oncoming truck passes out of his lane and way into mine in order to give a bicyclist his “three feet”. All this because some drunk driver hit a bicyclist and so the Legislature had to “do something”.
Hi Joel,
Yup –
I ride, too – so I know exactly what you mean. Instead of expecting competence from cagers, the laws are continually dumbed-down to accommodate the worst of them. And people wonder why the performance level of the average driver continues to decline.
Expect idiocy from people and you will probably get it.
“Here in Georgia there’s a move-over law for bicyclists”
What’s worse is the law that we have to change lanes or slow down when going past some fatassed donut addict who pulled another driver over to collect revenue. On my trip home to Va from Atlanta a few days ago, it was a constant hassle, having to brake for dimbulbs who opted to swerve into the left lane without looking in the mirror when they saw a blue light.
I don’t move over or slow down when passing Porkie at his feeding time. The fucker is safe enough being off the road. He doesn’t need to create a traffic hazard by pulling someone over and making everyone else clear an extra lane for him.
It’s funny how some people will immediately slow down when they see a cop writing a ticket. Why not ignore a cop who is already tied up writing a ticket? He isn’t going to drop his ticket book and take off after anyone else.
Cops and politicians are as big a threat to highway safety as the piss-poor drivers who are the subject of this article. All of them belong in their own little country somewhere so they can annoy each other to death. The rest of us could live well and prosper right here.
Have you ever been on a bicycle and been brush passed by a large truck?
I have. In on instance I crashed because I gave the trucker some space so I had no where to go when he brush passed me and I started to get sucked under the wheels. In another instance I was lucky not to get sucked under.
The trucker passed incorrectly because you where there. But you blame the bicyclist/law. If it had been someone driving a car and the trucker came straight at you with a badly done pass who would you blame?
Very funny Brent. You are complaining about a truck that did not pass you correctly. Every post I have seen on here or other sites where you frequent says that the slower driver should get the hell out of the way and not slow others. Why are you on the road if you can not keep up? I guess you are a true hypocrite.
” Every post I have seen on here or other sites where you frequent ”
Stalker.
He probably gets paid by the feds to do exactly that.
You’re babbling and lying Clover. Prove your assertion.
Other sites? What are these ‘other sites’ would these be? The only way you could trace me to another website, because of the way I use handles and email addresses would either take government level data access on your part. Now Eric and Dom could do more than you, because they run this site, but you can’t.
Furthermore, why would you have a need to stalk little old me? All you’re doing is showing yourself to be everything you’ve been accused of being.
To Clover: (everyone in unison)
LIAR!
He’s just seen you post here a few times Brent but likes to exaggerate to try and make a point he’s incapable of.
He’s using hypocritical tactics to enable a reply on his part, such as complaining about YOU being slow on a bicycle for once in your life.
His form of argument I recognise immediately – ex-girlfriends!
That’s right Clover, you argue like a girl.
Never mind the law or whether the other driver is dangerous, it is actually unsafe for even the best driver to allow a cyclist much less distance for a couple of physical reasons:-
– The suction of the “canal boat effect” can pull the cyclist closer.
– Road conditions can make a cyclist shift to stay upright, leading to him needing a band to move within. English law precedents described this as “the cyclist is entitled to his wobble”.
Sure, a driver might pass a cyclist mere inches away – but that’s not under the control of either of them, so a driver who knows what he is doing allows more. On a motorbike I realised that many didn’t do that, so I often pretended not to know they were there long enough to veer further away than they thought they needed to pass safely.
The clover that really got to me was the I’m gonna see you one better type. On a rural road in Alabama, slow down behind a pokey. Move to the left when I see opposing traffic clear, what does this fellow do but start to speed up with me as I pass! I swear I kept accelerating, but he couldn’t bear the thought. Got within 300 feet of another guy before I made a mad dash back to right. Couldn’t figure out what the hell this guys problem was.
Hey Matt,
I dealt with one of these freaks just the other day – and posted about it. I had taken my old muscle car out of hibernation for a quick ride into town, which is about 14 miles down the road. The road is a rural highway with a 55 MPH speed limit. I roll up behind an older ’80s-era Chevy SUV. It’s a beater and the guy is running 47 or so, with the occasional burst up to 50. I did not crowd him; I figured he’s got a tired old car and is just nursing it along. No problem. I’ve driven sad old cars a lot myself. I figure I’ll just pass when I can, which opportunity comes up about two miles later. It’s a legal passing zone – broken double yellow. I commence to pass – not an obnoxious WOT banshee pass, just easing over and by him. The son of a bitch suddenly speeds up. A lot. We’re up to 80 when I decide – fuck this – and punch it. I had to get to 100 MPH to pass this asshole. And then he rides my ass. If I had not been in my antique muscle car – if I had been in my old truck – I would have nailed my brakes and taught the bastard a lesson.
I have no clue what’s going on in the heads of these defectives other than that they are borderline personalities just looking for an opportunity to screw with people.
For the fun of it.
Cover, you’re incoherent – as usual.
I asked you why you have a problem with yielding to faster-moving traffic – and whether you think a person is necessarily driving unsafely solely because he is exceeding an arbitrarily set velocity.
No answer – to either question.
Because, of course, you can’t directly answer- not without looking like an ass.
So, instead, you post dissembling non sequiturs.
You either cannot think – or you refuse to think.
Put another way, you’re either not very bright – or you’re just a petty control freak.
Again Eric, it was not me a clover that was not yielding to you it was one of your own kind! A clover does not drive 80 mph in a 55 mph zone so it was obviously an eric you are complaining about rather than a clover. I still wonder why you complain about the speed of other drivers when you say a person has the right to drive at the speed they want to. Are you requiring everyone to get off the road to allow you to speed? Would that not be harming the driver in front that has to get the hell off the road?
HAHAHAAHA!
clovers will do whatever speed it takes to maintain control. I’ve seen clovers hit speeds of a 100+ mph to block someone from getting ahead of them.
To be fair, anything would be incoherent if someone edited in “clover” at random points. It breaks the flow and makes it impossible to tell if a comment is a follow on or if two different people got marked the same.
“. clovers do not drive 80 mph in a 55 mph zone”
Liar.
Liar.
But of course. What else can a Clover do?
I guess we all could write a book on the Clovers. Living in the Phoenix area and driving to Bartlett lake,you have to drive thru Carefree. Of course,this is a 2 lane with double yellow and this particular day was a sunday. So,the bikers with their goofy helmets and stretch pants were out in force,probably 40 to 50 of them(cyclists,not Harley boys). So,they are in my lane and some were in the oncoming lane and would move over to oncoming traffic. But,I trailed them for a mile or so,knowing they saw me behind them and would not pull over. So,I tooted my horn and with great reluctance,they pulled over…..but not before getting the finger and being cursed at.Of course not to be outdone,I asked them,if I should stop and teach them manners. What gets me,they don’t pay for the roads with their bicycle license etc.and many,many times,I’ve seen them blow thru stop signs or red lights,yet they want the same respect. As a kid,I always yielded to vehicles,otherwise I’d be dead.
“with great reluctance,they pulled over…..but not before getting the finger and being cursed at.”
Well, see…. they were doing their part for the ‘virement by parking their Priuses and getting on their little bikes. Everyone is supposed to just fucking worship them for saving the planet. Don’t you even get it? 😉
I’m kind of happy about the implosion of Lance Armstrong – that is, of the cult that arose around his beatific persona. The Spandex King has fallen from his place on high!
Now, if only we could somehow put an end to barbed wire arm tatoos, Van Dyke beards and cRap “music.”
“The Spandex King has fallen from his place on high!”
Ahaha. I can picture ol’ Lance riding by himself, feeling despised by his former worshippers,while getting horns honked at him and hearing passing drivers yell, “THE ROAD IS FOR CARS, ASSHOLE” as they pass him.
I’m absolutely AMAZED (and sickened) by the sheer cavalier arrogance of Arizona cyclists. Mind you, I don’t mind sharing the road with them, even when they insist on riding in a group on a winding, two-lane country road with no shoulder. But fer cryin’ out loud, RIDE SINGLE FUCKING FILE! I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve driven the main highway near my house (a two-lane rural road) on a Sunday morning, only to run into a gaggle of a dozen cyclists RIDING LINE ABREAST. I just want to floor it and turn them all into organ donors! And needless to say, the bigger a “parade” of cars they create behind them, the slower the ride and the wider a formation they make. I’m surprised that I haven’t snapped yet and given in to my inner road rage demon…
I think the worst problem is that Clovers simply know that they can get away with Clovering as long as they don’t do it to a police officer- i.e. if they cut someone off or fail to signal, then he could give them a ticket, but if it’s Joe Citizen then they figure he can’t do anything so they just basically flip you off by breaking every traffic-law and common courtesy in their anti-social world at everyone else’s expense, i.e. “I can do whatever I want because I’m in my car.”
Hi Sarah,
“I think the worst problem is that Clovers simply know that they can get away with Clovering as long as they don’t do it to a police officer-”
Very true. I have even had a cop tell me as much.
I once sacrificed an entire Saturday to attend one of those DMV “driving schools” they assign you to as low-grade torture in exchange for dismissing a traffic ticket. Well, at one point, someone asked about the Old Fogey Clover who won’t pull over (or off). You know, the geezer doing 37 on a road with a 55 limit (and normal flow of traffic at 60-ish). The cops said: “We’ll all be old someday” – and told us to “be patient.”
In other words, it’s ok to create a rolling roadblock, impede the flow of traffic – both illegal, both objectively “safety” issues – provided you’re old.
To such a statement I would reply that then it would be acceptable to take the lane with a bicycle always.
The problem is that ‘speed kills’ is fundamentally unworkable philosophy. All too many things in the USA are like this. They are based on feelings, emotions, and conditioning but are unworkable logically. So what happens is this glossing over and making excuses for the glaring failures of the belief system. At least that’s what it looks like to me. I’ve learned it sure does piss people off when I point out these huge holes in things.
Hmmmm…
Sure there’s the occasional Clover everywhere. And it seems to me that in any location where there is a large percentage of government drones, the ranks of the Clovers is equally high.
The oblivious Clovers, inattentive, careless and clueless seem to be a near constant.
I think I have encountered the absolute highest concentration of Cloveristic drivers within 100 miles of Mordor-on-the-Potomac. State capitals also run a high Clover rate.
I’m talking about those dreadful Clovers that are attempting to control the flow of traffic around them or those Clovers that are actively impeding progress. Those types of Clover seems to be just bureaucrats on the road, acting out their miserable parts as a bureaucratic functionaries by attempting to control traffic as well.
Coincidence? Or just my bad luck?
It’s part of the typical liberal/Clover mentality: a desire to CONTROL others. Permeates virtually every issue:
– Some nutty young man snaps and commits a grand act of violence and cowardice in shooting up a school? Terrible tragedy, yes, and the ONLY positive thing is that the inevitable multimillions that would have been spent to put this cretin away for good (CT has no death penalty) were saved when he punched his own ticket. So, in the Clover’s mind, ALL legal gun owners are guilty as hell of this horrific crime…I’ve tired of those LIMEY twits, Piers Morgan and Martin Bashir, tell me that I have “blood on my hands” by virtue of exercising my Second Amendment rights.
— If “Speed Kills”, why not stop automotive technology at the Model T, which could do fifty at best? The same twits that presume to tell me I don’t NEED firearms (or, if they concede that I must have a firearm, it’s capabilities as to calibre, firing rate, magazine capacity, etc.), also presume to set an arbitrary speed limit, as if all hell and calamity will break loose should I go, say, 56 mph in a 55 zone! God Bless Sammy Hagar, and pass the Cabo Wabo rum!
— I too, have endured the stupidity of a driver, who is waiting on a side street, and had as much as a minute of clear road to already make his move, but just has to wait until he can pull out right in front and cause me to have to slam on the brakes! These control freaks should be relegated to riding the bus.
I think the worst part is that the kids just getting their license now are the worst of the clovers (In Michigan they have the stepped license program in which one fine = suspended license). Basically the government is mass producing them with each passing year.
“I think the worst part is that the kids just getting their license now are the worst of the clovers…”
Absolutely.
One of the major things that has changed – beyond the Cloveritic indoctrination and utter absence of meaningful training (by parents, especially – who as in so many other things have ceded this job to “the schools” – that is, to the government) is that they “learn” to drive in modern cars that a Bonobo chimp could operate. Automatic, power steering. Anyone – literally, anyone who has arms and legs – can get into a late-model, automatic equipped car, turn the ignition, put the lever in “D” and proceed.
They are not driving, though.
People my age – Gen X and before – had the advantage (most of us) of learning to drive in some old piece of shit that usually had a manual transmission, not-great brakes and an iffy suspension. A well-aged VW Bug for instance. Or an old Ford truck with a three on the tree. If you can master such a car, you have achieved a level of competence that puts you head and shoulders above skill level of the typical late-model Clover.
I have often expressed this condition, the condition of the vehicles and the laws by saying a dead cat could drive.
Back in 1999 someone started the rumor that Y2K would render all modern cars dead. Knowing it was false I stated that would be a good thing in forcing most of the idiots off the roads. Leaving only people with antique cars around.
I propose people are living in a bubble. When you drive a car with AC, sound proofing, automatic everything, and power everything, you lose a certain fear of your surroundings. That fear loss means lost situational awareness.
I fully broke out of that matrix when I was in college and started driving my 48 willys with no roof, windshield folded forward, manual, and shitty brakes. I became one with the road, rather than something floating down it.
BTW, mid 20s millenial here. been driving a 50+ year old vehicle with a suspension whos design is chalked up as a “mistake”, 55hp, a three on the tree, and 10 degrees of steering wheel play. I consider myself a motorist in that thing, not a driver.
Phil,
“BTW, mid 20s millenial here. been driving a 50+ year old vehicle with a suspension whos design is chalked up as a “mistake”, 55hp, a three on the tree, and 10 degrees of steering wheel play. ”
Hot damn, man – that shit gives me hope!
I learned to drive on my grandfather’s Ferguson 30, age 9 or 10. Probably would have been sooner if I lived on the farm instead of just visiting. Then I took driver’s ed in a 67 Belair with 3 on the tree. Got license and graduated to Dad’s 50hp VW Bus.
But I do subscribe to the Vince Lombardi school of defensive driving – the best defense is a good offense. I don’t mean in terms of aggression, just in being aware and not passive.
Also….unsynchronized transmissions which forces one to double clutch and teaches one the value of controlling the fuel foot! That is the most important lesson of driving which is missed today.
Well here in the UK they are suggesting if one gets six points within the first three years the whole test needs to be redone. Plus they are proposing limiting the number of passangers one can carry AND having a curfew on night driving.
They’ve done similar here for teens. When I was coming up, you could get a learner’s permit at 15-something and a full (unrestricted) license at 16.
Now, they have all sorts of rigmarole in place and IIRC correctly, most teens don’t get a full (unrestricted) license until they’re 17 or 18… and even then, there’s BS – such as “zero tolerance” of any alcohol at all – until 21.
Don’t forget those who sway their car out to the left before turning right. Also, there are those who stop in the left lane at a red light, and then only signal that they’re turning left when the light turns green, thus defeating the whole purpose of the turn signal and everybody behind them now has to try merging into the right lane to get past.
And then there’s the Clover who deliberately slows when going toward a green light. He/she times it so that they just barely making the light but forcing you, who is right behind them, to stop.
Or the Clover that sees you trying to enter the road from a side street and slows to make you wait. The traffic behind them catches up and it is impossible for you to get in.
The real problem with driving in this country is the fact that driving is considered a right not a privilege. If driving tests were stringent enough to keep the incompetent off the roads there would be fewer deaths. But, today, if your car starts you get a driver’s license, a 007 number to kill.
In my world: a person would have to go to a top quality driving school and have to master things like skid control on in all weather conditions. They would have to master speed, turning, passing and know the rules of the road. They would have a minimal understanding of the mechanics of their vehicle. Be able to do at least minor maintenance: change the oil; change fluids; change a tire; and know the signs of a malfunctioning engine, transmission. After a minimal two year course they would be issued a real driving license.
The WORST type of clover, is the one who decides they don’t like you for some reason, and so they STOP at a green light until it turns red, and then drive THROUGH it so you can’t without breaking the law as well.
Or they stop in the middle of the road! You know what kinds of driver I’m talking about.
Yep – and don’t forget the related Clover who refuses to notice the light has gone green for a long pause before he or she begins to proceed. They get through – but leave several others who otherwise would have cleared the light to wait another cycle.
I feel like an ass even though it isnt in my control for these sometimes. I have to slow down when approaching greens on some roads because the light cycle from yellow to red is too fast for me to be able to stop in time if it occurs (I have timed out many of these green cycles so I know pretty well if I can make it). People infront of me have also held up traffic lights for the entire green cycle staring at my car in their mirrors. And finally I cant signal due to not having signals. I use my hands like a cyclist when possible.
Even if I cant do much, feel bad man.
Forgot, talking abouta 50+ year old nash met.
Over time the yellow signal has been decreased in length in the official engineering methods. This was something I believe was arrived at by politics contaminating engineering processes. I believe this because the corrective action for a red light running problem was changed from methods to fix the timing and intersection to ‘use enforcement’.
In other words, a problem was created for government and its cronies to profit from.
There’s no proof the changes were made for those ends, only that the changes were made to a system that wasn’t broken in the first place and that’s what happened.
Phil,
Anyone driving an old car within its limitations gets no guff from me. It’s another character trait of Clovers that they – out of ignorance of older cars’ limitations, or just because they’re dicks – don’t adjust their driving to take into account the older car’s limitation. For example, they will ride the ass of a Model A just as aggressively as they will a brand-new Focus (or any other new car).
Yet, they won’t pass the A when the opportunity presents itself.
Phil, you just reminded me of an old Hoyt Axton song, “Speed Trap/ Outta State Cars” :
” When they get right up on toppa that green light, ol’ Charlie presses that secret button underneath the corner drugstore counter; That yellow light only lasts for a tenth of a second.”
BTW, I love the body style of those old Metropolitans. Waaaay too cool for school.
Eric, it’s the rule of clover projection. They project their situation, choices, and preferences on everyone else. So they think the antique car with the four wheel drum brakes can stop like their modern ABS radar equipped car.
As far as I know, it is still legal to enter an intersection for a left turn if the light is green and there is no left turn light, and then wait for an opening. If I am right, then there is the clover who doesn’t enter the intersection at those times, ensuring fewer people can make the left turn. I really cannot stand them.
One time, on my motorcycle, I was 4th or 5th back from that type of clover, so I did something risky and split the lane and passed everyone and entered the intersection. Yes, slap my knuckles with a ruler. But the clover was so embarrassed (maybe he was only a semi-clover) that he entered after me and soon there were 3 of us in the intersection at once.
This reminds me of another behavior. They don’t know how traffic signals operate and don’t stop on the sensor loops.
When I am bicycling, my bicycle doesn’t have enough iron in it to set off most traffic lights. Timid clover drivers pull up and stop so short they aren’t on a sensor. I have to convince them to move forward on to the sensors.
I am also seeing people who stop short of the sensors. Twice this week where my commute empties to a main road there has been a long line of cars that is highly unusual. I’ve turned around and went another way. I am sure this is due to something I’ve noticed happening more and more the last few drivers. Drivers stopping short of the sensors. Usually at that intersection because there isn’t a line painted for them. Just the sensor loops in the pavement. In the past I’ve gotten there when there were only a couple cars so I went around them and stopped on the sensors. The light would then trigger. Others are too timid to do this and I think that’s what must be happening.
The WORST type of clover, is the one who decides they don’t like you for some reason, and so they STOP at a green light until it turns red, and then drive THROUGH it so you can’t without breaking the law as well.
Or they stop in the middle of the road! You know what kinds of driver I’m talking about.
That’s the kind of Road Clover behavior for which I’d seriously consider making an exception to my opposition to capital punishment.
Nice. Is your name Adolf by chance?
Hi John,
I agree with you on the issue of competence – but approach the issue from a different perspective.
I used to support the German model – which is the one you describe – which requires driver candidates to successfully complete thorough driver training.
But why not just get rid of the Clovertic laws and let things sort themselves out naturally?
What I mean is, instead of treating everyone as a presumptive idiot, let’s hold the idiots – and only the idiots – responsible for their idiocy. If you cause an accident, it is objective proof that you are a poor driver. Hold that person responsible. But leave the drivers who do not cause accidents be.
If bad driving were not accommodated, bad driving would begin to disappear.
The system we have encourages poor driving by accommodating it – even sometimes rewarding it. Get rid of dumbed-down laws and dumbed-down drivers will soon be off the roads.
“The real problem with driving in this country is the fact that driving is considered a right not a privilege.”
To what country are you referring to? Certainly none that I’m familiar with.
Poor ol’ Clover!
Still can’t grasp that driving faster than the speed limit does not equal “aggressive driving” – or that impeding other drivers is the sine qua non of actually aggressive driving.
I can’t believe Eric let your ass in again! Why don’t you go back to the place you’ve been parked and remain there.
I say let clover in. It is good to have a sparring partner, no matter how inept.
Eric never said that ‘weaving through traffic’ was okay…. that is indeed aggressive driving and unsafe. He was simply saying that going above the speed limit when there is nothing in your way is perfectly safe. And I completely agree.
I am German, and in your eyes my older brother, who lives in Germany, is an aggressive driver. But even though he goes fast (which is not against the law there), he is not being stupid by weaving in and out of traffic.
Of course, as somebody else said, in Germany slow drivers actually stay over to the right….. they know how to drive according to their own ability and comfort zone.
If you can’t understand the difference between an idiot who weaves in and out of traffic, and a perfectly safe driver going above the ridiculously slow speed limit, then I guess there isn’t much hope for you.
I think you missed the point Eric was trying to make. That when you drive ‘slow and safe’ at the detriment of the flow of traffic (impeding) you are in actuality the aggressive driver. The flow of traffic, and flowing it as such, would be the passive response on the road way. To violate the spontaneous order because you see a little metal sign that says ‘thou shall not exceed X MPH’ is the act of aggression on the roadway.
We’re not talking about people who drive the speed limit. We’re talking about people who violate right-of-way to cut us off and pull out in front of us, and THEN either either go well below the speed-limit, or else insist on maintaining it AFTER they just broke the right-of-way law.
So in both cases they broke the law, but want to play traffic-cop.
Sarah, they follow what for this site I call ‘the clover law’.
These people are following the law as they believe it to be. They’ve never actually read the vehicle code. But they believe they are following the law and enforcing it. The clover law is this set of beliefs that is passed down verbally and no longer matches the written law. Many cops enforce clover law as well. Having to explain written law to a cop is an ‘interesting’ experience. My last clover law encounter with cop, the cop sited a Chicago newspaper as his source. We weren’t in Chicago and what he was enforcing upon me was something that failed to pass the Chicago city council and had no bearing upon anyone outside the city. But that’s how clover law works… it’s myth, legend, stuff that never passed, stuff from other places, and so on.
I encounter the clover law most apparently when bicycling. They clovers have all sorts of strange beliefs and are willing to kill a bicyclist to enforce them.
Clover, you are truly a marvel of muddled “thinking.”
You simply can’t grasp that driving faster than “x” MPH – that is, some arbitrary number posted on a sign – does not necessarily mean you are driving “too fast.”
You seem to think that one speed fits all – that speed to be issued as a diktat by bureaucrats and enforced by their badged goons.
One can be a terrible driver while driving the speed limit. And one can be an excellent driver while driving much faster than the speed limit.
Bad driving, as such, is the issue. Not “speed.”
Clover –
Why not try to avoid delaying anyone? What skin is it off your nose to yield to faster-moving traffic? Just move over or briefly pull off enough to let the car behind you get by you. (In case you’re wondering, yes, I do so myself when I am driving my truck and hauling things. I use this device called a rearview mirror. When I see another car coming up behind me, I pull off to the right a bit and wave them by. It’s not very hard, Clover. I am certain even you could do it. )
Your problem is you’re passive aggressive and territorial. You use your car to impose your notions of the “right” speed on other drivers. You believe your time is more valuable than other people’s time. That they can wait – or “should have left sooner.”
Fundamentally, you are an incredibly inconsiderate and selfish person.
I’d also like to ask you to directly answer the following question as regards “speeding” –
I am driving on an open road, a limited access highway. It is a bright clear day. No other traffic is present. The speed limit is 55 – but only a few years prior, was 70. I am doing 70, not wandering or weaving and there is no reason to suspect I am driving “unsafely.” I am merely driving faster than an arbitrary number – one that has been changed arbitrarily several times.
Do you believe I should be ticketed? If yes, why? Have I harmed anyone? Is there even a plausible case to be made that I might harm someone?
I suspect your answer will be a mishmash of “it’s the law” and “speed kills” – your usual, in other words.
“I was parked on the road for almost 3 hours while your safe speeding semi that was passing other vehicles could not stop for slowed vehicles ahead so he killed a few and delayed others for thousands of man hours. ”
Liar.
Clover’s problem is that he equates any exceeding of arbitrary velocity edicts as “unsafe,” ipso facto. By his logic, it would be “unsafe” to drive faster than 10 MPH – if that’s what the posted speed limit was. For Clover, “safety” is the speed limit – and vice versa. He is literally incapable of entertaining the idea that it’s at least possible that the speed limit does not necessarily mean that’s the absolute fastest anyone can drive without instantly becoming a danger to himself and everyone else. This holds true even when the speed limit is increased – then decreased – then increased again. It was “safe” (because legal) to drive 70 last year. But now it’s not “safe” (because it’s now illegal). Then it’s “safe” once more – because the law changed again.
We are not dealing with a high-level intellect here.
The speed limit is like a fetish or totem for Clover. I would not be surprised to discover he has a candle-lit shrine in his home centered on a “55 MPH” sign.
Ed on, I was there. I have thousands of witnesses because they were there sitting also. When there are major accidents on expressways you are often sitting there for hours.
The joke of all this is it is so rare that I ever see your so called lane blockers on the road that it is not even worth talking about. You ask others to display the video of your so called lane blockers and with their thousands of hours of video they may come up with a couple of times where they are delayed a few seconds. The fact is that libertarians want to control others and smoke rolls out of their ears when they can not.
I have not seen any solution rendered by any of those that say we need to get rid of traffic blockers that delay them for seconds. Do we put them in jail, fine them severely? If we do that why not lock up the aggressive drivers for life since they cause 100s of thousands of times in delays.
Libertarians often say they want to go back to the good old days. Why not go back to the horse and buggy times and you will never get furious of someone only driving 65 mph in the left lane.
All we want from you Clover, is for you to move over. To use your mirror – and when you see another car coming up behind you that obviously is traveling at a faster speed, for you to yield rather than ignore and obstruct.
Of course, I realize that’s asking too much.
“I was there. I have thousands of witnesses because they were there sitting also. ”
Bullshit, you liar. That never happened, except in your half empty head when you made it up to post it here.
Thousands of witnesses, my ass.
Clover also owes me (and Brent and Dom) “millions of dollars.” He’s welshed on several such bets.
“use your mirror – and when you see another car coming up behind you that obviously is traveling at a faster speed, for you to yield rather than ignore and obstruct.”
Eric, he will only yield for Porky, and he’ll sideswipe you when he does because he’s never looked in one of his side mirrors as long as he’s been driving.
What do you want to bet that the accident was actually caused by a Clover cutting off the semi so he had no chance to stop?
Clover, your arguments repeatedly boil down to might makes right. Your steadfast support of the larger vehicle’s driver means that any collision with a semi truck was the fault of the drivers of the smaller cars. That’s what you argue for time and time again without fail.
Thus, these delays you describe are the result of your system, operating the way you want it to.
You equate speeding and driving too fast. This is a bad connection to make.
The truck drver may have been driving to fast for the situation at hand, and may also have been speeding per the law. The problem was not caused because he broke the law, it was caused because he was driving at a speed where he was unable to react in time.
Contrarywise I could take my 48 jeep willys with no roll cage and no seatbelts (thank god I would prefer to be ejected) on a highway and do 60mph. That is too fast for it to be driven safely, but not breaking any law.
The point is speed limits are not handed down by god, they are put in place by the government. Wrecks arent caused by people breaking the law, they are caused by people doing something reckless or making a mistake. Just like murder isnt caused by people breaking laws against murder, they are caused by somebody killing somebody else.
What you do is come up behind these clovers that are crawling along at a snail pace in a semi and cut in the unmuffled “jake”! When the see just grill in their mirrors they dirty their pants and quickly get out of the way
So what caused those vehicles ahead to slow? One of your best buddies again, Clover?
Clover, “The only thing he was doing wrong was speeding.”
How do you know that? Did you witness the accident yourself or did you read the police report?
How do you know if a four wheeled clover did not abruptly pull in front of him so as to slow him down to the speed the clover thought he should be driving (as I have had happened to me on not a few occasions)?
There are many things that could have caused the accident so unless you witnessed it you do not really know.
Clover’s a human metronome. “speeding”…. “safety”…. repeat.
…“aggressive driving” – or that impeding other drivers is the sine qua non of actually aggressive driving.
What friction/expense rips more out of life’s bottom line, passive aggression, or overt aggression? Don’t neglect to account for how often, to what extent, the former metastasizes into the latter.
Tt was the submerged portion of pareto’s ice berg that tore open Titanic’s hull….
” I have spent hours parked on the road by accidents proved to be caused by aggressive drivers.”
Liar.
You mean collisions caused by clovers expecting other people to avoid them.
Exactly, kind of like this post by Brandonjin over on clovercam.com.
http://clovercam.com/?p=916
Thanks for the publicity Dom!!! :D:D
Thank you for posting it!
I can also just about guarantee you that Clover wouldn’t know where to find his turn signal if his life depended on it.
I most-often encounter the first example. If I get a larger vehicle (SUV?) will people respect me more on the roads? I think so.
I never really thought about the “won’t move over” scenario. Situations like that aren’t apparent in my area, but I’ll definitely try to avoid being the clover in the right lane. Thanks for the lesson.
But, what if you need to make a right right after that entering road?
I got some vids that are clover-cam worthy. Not sure what I’m waiting for… Don’t feel like defending my actions from clover I guess.
Send ’em in!
Post ’em!
Join the party!
Dear Brandon,
Upload ’em to YouTube, but close the comments feature and ratings.
That way people can watch, but can’t make BS comments.
Yeah Eric I joined the party again and uploaded one.
Bevin, I have the vid unlisted, so only clovercam viewers and my “contacts” can find it 😉
But clover is the only one that can make everything we post our fault.
Awesome! We need to get others posting, too. Please – everyone – tell your friends about Clover Cam! Urge them to record Clovers – and post them there!
SUV-clovers are the most common kind. Like one a-hole who would pull behind people in the left lane in his SUV and decide they weren’t moving fast enough, even if they were going over the speed limit, and so would shine his super-bright high-beams in their rear window to BULLY them into pulling over for him.
I had the same guy do it twice to me so I reported his license to the state police the second he passed.
This is subjective and anecdotal – based on my own observations and interactions:
SmooooVees – especially high-end ones – are almost always driven in a Cloveritic fashion. In the past – before there were SmooooVees – just pick-ups and 4x4s – they tended to be driven by people who knew how to drive.
Few things drive me up the wall more than being stuck staring at the LED taillights of some 400 hp SmoooVeee doing 39 MPH on a road with a 45 MPH speed limit.
Actually Sarah, the SUV was in the right here. The left lane is for passing and not for those going faster than the speed limit. Pass then get back into the right lane. Let the SUV go as fast as he wants. It is your responsibility to not impede him by blocking the left lane.
And, please, do not be a clover and snitch again.
Hear, hear, Skunkbear. I know in some states a “failure to keep right” is a ticketable offence. You don’t have an obligation to go faster, but you do have an obligation to keep right.
hey eric, the link http://www.clovercam.com goes to Page Not Found.
I just tried – and it works for me!
The problem is that when you coded the link you forgot to put http in front of it. Therefore some browsers interpret it as the url for this article with the link appended at the end of it. I always do full code for my external links when I do my blog.
Still having problems?
yep. but i can find it anyway because when i copied the website link it magically spouted a http:// 🙂
It’s time to name Cape Town’s clover-in-chief, Robin Carlisle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Carlisle (just in case it ever comes up). The man is an inexhaustible source of unbelievably bad ideas.
Some people might say articles like this one and the comments that follow are nothing but bitching, moaning and complaining while providing nothing of substance.
I think they would be wrong.
Reading EPA articles like this one has helped to make me a better driver.
I’m more efficient too, which leads to an increase in my productivity.
It’s also led to a lowering of tensions and such, something that’s contagious to others. In this way the world around me is just a bit better overall.
Now if only all the other drivers would read a bit of this stuff.
I can see it now: a private driving school instructor spending an hour going over clover behavior and how to avoid doing it.
That would be something.
Ok, now I’ve used up all my time I’ve gained.
I hope I made a positive difference, somewhere, somehow. Even if it’s just a little.
I think there is a driving school that teaches people to not drive like a closer. It is called getting your driving license in Germany.
I was there for a little over 2 weeks last month. Conditions didn’t matter. Without almost any exception everyone there knew how to drive very well. I consider myself a well above average driver in the US and over there I was barely average.
The easiest way to explain it was after driving with a colleague from our german plant and allowing him to explain a few of the less than intuitive signs I felt completely comfortable. I actually more at home driving there even though I didn’t know the roads and towns.
For the 2 weeks I never felt I was in danger or in an unsafe situation even when traveling at more than 140mph and bmw’s and audi’s were passing me.
I came back, landed in newark and felt instantly like everyone was aiming their cars at me.
The germans are far from perfect but they have pretty much eliminated the clover driver phenominom.
And most of all, Clover, they don’t put up with people who refuse to yield.
People like you.
Clover, there is no need to be “aggressive”* in Germany because there aren’t a bunch of control freaks like you on the road.
Driving in Germany is wonderful. People keep right except to pass. They accelerate swiftly. They use signals.
When you anti-destination league members aren’t on the roads everything is so much better.
*In clover language “aggressive” means driving in a manner to escape clover’s control.
Dear Brent,
Exactly.
Market anarchists, from Laozi to Rothbard, have long maintained that “Anarchy is order, government is chaos.”
Cloverite traffic laws such as the double nickle created chaos.
The relatively less confining traffic laws on the Autobahn, coupled with private sector German driving manners, increased order, increased efficiency. and yes, increased safety.
BrentP,
“*In clover language ‘aggressive’ means driving in a manner to escape clover’s control.”
A perfect sentence, Brent!
Eric, there needs to be an award/acknowledgement given to whoever makes the best statement on the topic being discussed.
I nominate this one from BrentP.
“Eric, there needs to be an award/acknowledgement given to whoever makes the best statement on the topic being discussed. ”
That is an excellent idea! We’ll see what we can do…
Clover,
it’s not aggression that is the problem, it is stupidity authoritarian behavior that is unsafe.
Tailgating absolutely does occur, when a rare clover gets in the way. They are likely shamed an ridiculed for being a dipshit.
Don’t refer to “aggressive drivers” as the problem, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. Nanny-state like behavior, legislation and meddling does not make anyone, anywhere safer on iota. Germany has many laws on their roads but they are common sense and apt. If you add them all up they amount to nothing more than outlawing “cloverism.”
Yeah Harry: Without sounding proud, I am a pretty good driver. I attribute that to three experiences I’ve had: 1) I drove a 26ft truck one summer in college, 2) I ride a motorcycle, 3) I’ve driven the Autobahn. Man, those three experiences taught me more about driving than anything! (Maybe I could drive in Italy as the piece-de-resistance…)
Oh, and one other thing, “Take the collision with the animal 10 times out of 10!” I say this to my kids, who are all learning to drive. Dunno how many cars I seen in the ditch, or wrapped around a tree because they swerved for some damn animal. (usually deer)
Tom,
I agree, with those 3 things it is very likely you are a very good driver.
I also used to ride a motorcycle, the awareness required and vulnerability associated with being on a bike makes you a better driver. I have often told people that they should take the motorcycle safety course if they live in PA. It’s “free” (you’ve already been forced at gunpoint to pay for it) and of the people I know that ride motorcycles, they are all above average drivers.
This was actually the first time I drove on the autobahn but I was taught to drive like a german. after WP, my pops was stationed in Germany for 4 years in the late 70’s. He didn’t have a car at the academy so other than 1/2 his senior year in HS he basically learned to drive while in Germany. He taught me to drive (started well before the arbitrary age required)as if we lived in Germany and it has served me very well (other than the occasional speeding tickets).
I even learned on a Porsche 924 (which in actuality was a Porsche/vw/audi hybrid) and my first car.
You Autobahn experienced drivers have me green with envy!
The Autobahn offers proof that 99% of amerikan’s on the road can operate a motor vehicle but only one percent can actually drive.
Re: Driving in Italy,
I found my time in Italy to be just fine with regards to drivers. I even bicycled across Italy when I was much younger and thought the drivers there were much better than those in Austin, TX where I lived at the time. But, they don’t dawdle and they don’t waste benzene (Italian for gasoline) fiddle-farting around either. My last time there, gasoline was 1.32 euro/liter. I imagine it’s even worse now. I think cloverism seems to be most rampant in the U.S.S.A.
Cloverism is, indeed (and most unfortunately) a very American characteristic.
Aw man that gave me road rage right here in my office. Two days ago I got the pull out in front clover but I ended up winning in my little mind. I was truckin along at 64 (65 is the magic number for porky) on a long two lane straightaway with virtually no traffic. This dumb bitch comes up on a side road, stops, waits, then pulls left right in front of me. No fucking traffic behind me!! So I do what I normally do in this situation and let my truck get right up in her business before I had to brake to accomodate her. And of course she decides that “we” must drive just south of 50 in a 55. One car coming the other way and when it passed I go to make my move and the bitch pulls half-way off the road and in complete fury is flipping me off. I just smiled at her and kept on. I sure hope I ruined her day. I just tell myself, don’t worry, she’ll die someday.
“in complete fury is flipping me off. I just smiled at her and kept on.”
I think, maybe, you’re supposed to flip her the OK sign back. ?
I had something like that, I was driving the speed-limit in order to make the light, and some slow-bitch is puttering along at about 15mph below it; so finally I pass her on the SINGLE yellow when I get to it, and she starts looking at me like “WTF ARE YOU DOING?” But it was too late, I missed the light anyway, and end up in front of her….and then the SECOND the light turns green, the bitch HONKS at me!
I had never flipped anyone off before that.
Pedestrians and bicyclists are pretty good examples of clovers too. Government decided it would be best to pave sidewalks so that pedestrians would be safe. To me that was a polite way of saying, “you pedestrians are too stupid to figure out how to walk on the shoulder when cars are coming thus avoiding either death or crippling.”
So, since government knows no bounds, the bicyclists want the same protection by demanding their own lane. Afterall, they can’t compete with cars in the driving lanes and sidewalks are for people who walk. So now there are sidewalks and a “half” lane reserved for bicyclists so that they can stay off the driving lanes.
Where I live, the pedestrians don’t like walking/jogging on the sidewalks because concrete is too hard. It hurts their feet, ankles, knees, hips, spine. So, the step off the sidewalk and into the bicyclist lane because asphalt is softer, thus easier on the joints. Now since the pedestrians are encroaching on the cyclist lane, the cyclist moves into the driving lane because the cyclist is too chicken-squat to tell the pedestrian to use the damn sidewalk. Government robbed a lot of people and spent a lot of money to make you your own special place to exercise and that is just not good enough for you.
Well, when the cyclists are in the middle of the driving lane because the pedestrians are in their lane, I am not chicken-squat about leaning on the horn and letting them know they are in the wrong lane.
So, I put it to you: am I doing the right thing, or am I just a 10 gallon d-bag?
I can handle either one. I have been called much worse things.
Don’t ever move to Cambridge, MA. This place is infested with bicyclists and pedestrians with a sense of entitlement.
“the cyclist is too chicken-squat to tell the pedestrian to use the damn sidewalk.”
Why would I tell them what to do? I’m not the boss of them.
“Well, when the cyclists are in the middle of the driving lane because the pedestrians are in their lane, I am not chicken-squat about leaning on the horn and letting them know they are in the wrong lane.”
Are you honking at the cyclist or the pedestrian?
Likely both?
It looks to me you might be acting clover on this one.
Is there a fine line between clover behavior and normal driving?
Or is it a car length-to-three feet?
Would it be different if it were two bicyclist driving staggered yet they took up that much space?
I was riding shotgun with a clover-leaning person once who would get mad when people merged in front of them – and yet kept pace – I said to the driver, “You don’t own that section of road in front of you. Relax.” …Things were better after that.
I can relate a bit though. Especially when I ride a bike on a BIKE path and the joggers or groups of gossiping/not-paying-attention people give me the evil eye for startling them when I round a bend and go wide to pass.
Two words: BICYCLE HORN.
I bought an air horn for my bicycle. I ride roads and stay off the dangerous sidewalks and street parallel bike paths. The horn is for cutting through AC, stereos, etc…. it really makes peds jump though. (I do use bike paths that go somewhere and are not glorified sidewalks)
“…the cyclist moves into the driving lane because the cyclist is too chicken-squat to tell the pedestrian to use the damn sidewalk.”
We don’t seem to have that problem down here in Miami-Dade…
Oh, Brevard—so that’s where all the chicken-squat cyclists I used to see years ago moved…
Ha!
The cyclists are not in the wrong lane, if they are in the lane that goes where they are going.
Here are a couple of examples from a few years ago here in Melbourne, where we drive on the left (except for the first couple of car lengths after turning right into a side street):-
– I was in the right lane at St. Kilda junction, coming from the city. A driver was angry with me for not staying in the left lane – but how else was I going to go south rather than south-east or north? Did he want me to cut across all the traffic once it got moving?
– I was in the middle lane heading north towards the bridge into the city. A driver was angry with me for not staying in the left lane – but that lane was marked “left lane must turn left”, and there wasn’t any way to reach the bridge if I did that.
Basically, bike lanes are not there to deny cyclists the chance to go where they don’t go.
The wait and wave clover meets the herky-jerky clover:
You’re at a stoplight. There’s a fair amount of cars lined up and waiting for green. You’re at the tail end of the line. On your right in a parking lot a is person with their signal light on patiently waiting to get into traffic. Then the light turns green.
The person in front of you decides to stay put and wait for the driver in the parking lot to pull in front of them.
The driver in the parking lot can see you’re the end of the line and waits. The driver in front of you waves at the driver in the parking lot trying to get them to go.
By the time the person in the parking lot pulls out, or the person in front of you decides to stop waiting, enough time has passed that either one of those drivers makes it through the light, but there’s not enough time for you to make it, so there you sit, waiting for the same light again.
I guess I could understand if the line of cars at the stoplight was miles long.
It gets even worse when the driver in the parking lot is a clover too and wants to go left and cannot see on-coming traffic and yet starts easing slowly/jerkingly out while the clover in front of you tries to wave them on. By the time the front end of the car reaches the dividing line the light has turned green and the traffic is coming so all three drivers have to sit and wait for the lights to change again.
So, you get to sit through three cycles of light changes, lucki you.
Heh
Or when the car they let in only ends up trying to make a right turn at the stoplight, only to have to wait for the pedestrians to cross.
I don’t really blame drivers in that case — they’re trying to be polite. I blame the fact that stoplights are freakin’ stupid ways to manage traffic and American road design should catch up with the rest of the world and take down the stupid lights and manage intersections instead with roundabouts.
“The stop-on-hills-in-snow Clover”
I live in a major river valley area with a lot of hills. This is a really frustrating one for me. And perhaps the most dangerous. In addition to the lacking the concept of maintaining momentum, they often lack the ability to counteract the road crowning on some hills by cocking the steering wheel slightly counter-clockwise. They feel the car sliding to the right and panic by slamming on the brakes rather than adjusting the steering wheel. “Thanks pal, you just screwed yourself and everyone behind you.”
Haha, this one can really burn me up.
I always felt that they should advertise American luxury cars as having “V8 power, to get you in the way and keep you there”.
The old geezers down here would drive those massive gunboats at speeds that would make an ox-drawn cart look like the pony express. When I was just out of high school, I had no idea the kind of horsepower those cars came with until I started working for a car rental agency whose bread-and-butter was renting El Dorados and Town Cars to various well-heeled snowbirds.
Needless to say, when making a run from the agency to the airport, I drove ’em like I stole ’em!
Yup!
The fulsome scurvy truth is that probably two thirds of the cars on the road are too powerful by two-thirds…. in terms of the power actually used by their owners. I can handle a slow-moving old Beetle. The car can’t move quickly. But is there anything more aggravating than being stuck behind some asshole Clover in a $40,000 (or $60,000) 300-plus hp “luxury-performance” car gimping along at 47-53 in a 55? Or which eases away from traffic lights at exactly the same (slow) speed as the car in the next lane, forming a rolling roadblock that prevents anyone who’d like to go faster from doing so?
This reminds me: you could have added “The ‘Senior Citizen’ Clover.” The key characteristic of this Clover isn’t so much their age by itself, but the road behavior that so many Clovers in this age group display. It’s essentially a mash-up of every other Clover aggravation you’ve listed here, with the common tie being this: these Clovers are CLEARLY physically and/or mentally unfit to be behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. The only reason most of them are is because they have no family, close friends, or caregivers to help get them off the road. Unfortunately, I live in a state (Arizona) that, along with its east coast counterpart (Florida) is home to more geezer snowbirds than any other state. Because the state government knows what side its bread is buttered on (i.e., geezer snowbirds are a large enough percentage of the population to constitute a powerful voting block), they can pretty much get away with whatever they please on the road.
The biggest problem with these is, that they could easily be stopped, if the rules changed.
Until recently I was under the illusion that the test administered to people turning 84 I think (here in Canada) was a road test…. but to my dismay found out that it was only a written test!
My mother-in-law just did that, and passed with flying colors…. but she will drive 50 km an hour in an 80 km zone. She also can’t see well enough to recognize her own friends across a large room!
Meaning, she really is unfit to drive. But she has passed the meaningless test, and is therefore officially fit to still drive.
You bring up a great point about driving tests and their validity of demonstrating competence.
The best example of this nonsense is the motorcycle riding test. I had to test in NC, SC, OH, and VA. And I can tell you that as a 30 year rider none of the test’s requirements had anything to do with real world riding.
The “test” is pretty meaningless as far as competancy is concerned. They only want you to jump through the circus hoops while paying the price of admission.
Many years ago between work and home there was this fossilized piece of old road that served as short cut. There was some difficulty involved. It required good acceleration to cross one arterial and then to make a left on to the next one. From stop signs of course.
This was also my bicycling route between work and home and was managable on bicycle but was more challenging than a clover’s usual driving.
So one day after work I am stuck behind a a big ass caddy with V8 badges. Floriduh plates. But this guy had to know the area. Nobody takes this route unless they know the area. The main road options are feet away and no map or GPS will take someone this way. First stop sign the geezer passes up numerous openings. Eventually he goes. Second stop sign. After he passes up a couple I start honking the horn when new ones present themselves. The wait at the first was several times longer than it should have and I wasn’t having it this time. So eventually geezer gets out of his caddy to ask me what my problem is. I tell him point blank: “You have a V8, USE IT”. Next opening geezer indeed uses the V8. I use mine and make it through the same opening even after stopping at the line.
At least I figured out the right words to get this guy motivated.
“You have a V8, USE IT”. – I like that, very smooth.
GREAT reply!
Thanks so much for raising my blood pressure, Eric! 😉 Every one of these examples is something I experience every day from incompetent drivers. IMHO, if there should be any cops (a big if), THIS is what they should be looking out for and ticketing.
I just experienced “the Clover who butts into traffic, then drives at a snail’s pace” this very night. Driving at 65 mph in the right lane of a rain-soaked four-lane highway (two in each direction), I noticed a car stopped on the shoulder up ahead about a quarter mile; it looked like he’d overshot the exit ramp and his backup lights were on, so I assumed he was trying to back up and then exit the highway. Then his backup lights went out, and he hadn’t gone far enough to take the off-ramp.
“You think he’s going to pull out into traffic now?” I asked myself, as I hovered my foot over the brake pedal, just in case.
You guessed it. Instead of driving on the shoulder to pick up speed, the dumbass pulled out into my lane and forced me to press hard on the brake pedal. I immediately glanced into my left rearview mirror and saw two oblivious dimwits (one a tailgater) speeding up instead of slowing down to give me an out; it was clear that switching lanes wasn’t an option.
I was in a controlled braking, and I didn’t want to risk a skid on the wet asphalt unless absolutely necessary, so I maintained brake pressure as the ever-larger car loomed in front of me. He was crawling like a tortoise.
I leaned on my horn. He didn’t seem to hear it, but I wouldn’t let up on it. I was almost on top of him now. In another half-second I’d have to slam the brake to the floor. At that instant he pulled back onto the shoulder, about three-quarters of the way. I was able to continue my controlled braking and move to the very left edge of my lane and get by him, shooting him a well-deserved, very dirty look.
Dear Steve,
One really frustrating aspect of clovers is that even after they have inconvenienced you — or even endangered your life, they are so clueless they don’t even realize the enormity of what they did.
If you get mad at them, they often act aggrieved! Like “What’s the matter with you?”
Hi Steve,
Exasperating, isn’t it? No cops around, of course – too busy looking for “safety” belt “violations” or running radar traps… and even if there had been probably they would have done nothing. If they had issued your Clover a ticket, it would not have been for “reckless driving” (which in this case would have been appropriate) much less cuffed and stuffed him then and there – as they routinely do to people who haven’t given any indication of “impaired” – much less “drunk” – driving… merely because they are discovered to have “x” BAC at a “sobriety” checkpoint.
One morning some years ago I am in the left lane approaching a left turn doing 40mph in a 40mph PSL zone. Mrs Clover comes out of a side street on the left and turns left directly in front of me at 10mph. She then proceeds at 15mph the same way I am going. Trouble is, just after the left turn the road narrows from four to two lanes. So I get in the right lane and pass her. V8 roaring. Mrs. Clover flags down a cop to pull me over. So I get a papers check as she goes by.
Of course the cop didn’t see any of it, but he took whatever she said as gospel.
I’m amazed that she managed to find a cop right there and then. On top of that wouldn’t you have been long gone?
I made a turn from the 40mph two lane to a 30mph two lane that often had cops looking for ways to meet their performance objectives. It was one of those cops she flagged down. The cop of course could do 100mph in a 30mph zone and he caught up to me at a red signal.