Houston's Rotten Drivers

[Perimeter285]

Can someone tell me why people in such a large city (fourth largest in the U.S. as we all remember) drive so slowly? I've lived here nearly four years, and it still never ceases to amaze me how slowly the traffic moves even when it's not heavy. It just kills me to drive along a freeway where everyone is going 20 MPH and there's about 10 car lengths between each car. Seriously, you have to TRY to drive that slowly, and I see it all over the city, all of the time. I think it's pretty sad when I pass people like they're standing still when I'm going the SPEED LIMIT. Am I the only person that has anywhere to be?

I've surely never seen anyone in comparably sized cities (Dallas, Atlanta, etc.) drive like that. Any ideas on why it's like this and what can be done about it?

[Jeebus]

What I can't stand is when I keep two car lengths distance between myselft and the car in front of me, and some twit behind me takes that as a sign to pass and merge into that space. As if the 20 feet they just gained is going to shave anytime off their commute.

Of course I won't even get started about women using cell-phones & applying make-up, or men using PDA's or reading the newspaper.

[musicman]

Can someone tell me why people in such a large city (fourth largest in the U.S. as we all remember) drive so slowly? I've lived here nearly four years, and it still never ceases to amaze me how slowly the traffic moves even when it's not heavy. It just kills me to drive along a freeway where everyone is going 20 MPH and there's about 10 car lengths between each car. Seriously, you have to TRY to drive that slowly, and I see it all over the city, all of the time. I think it's pretty sad when I pass people like they're standing still when I'm going the SPEED LIMIT. Am I the only person that has anywhere to be?

I've surely never seen anyone in comparably sized cities (Dallas, Atlanta, etc.) drive like that. Any ideas on why it's like this and what can be done about it?

such generalizations. is our infrastructure like a 3rd world country too?

Edited November 4, 2006 by musicman

[houstonmacbro]

yeah, i dread 45N at rush hour. there is NOTHING that prevents the traffic from moving at 50 mph or faster from 59@main to west road, but some magical (sinister?) force seems to make it slow to a crawl.

at first i used to think it was an accident .. now i know it is just ... well, not sure what it is.

[Perimeter285]

Generalizations? I've lived here for four years. I'm describing what I deal with on a daily basis. And I love Houston, but yes, aesthetically, some of our infrastructure is third world (rust covered freeway columns, for example). When you care about a place, you admit it's faults so that you can hopefully change them.

I totally agree about the "sinister force" that magically slows traffic to a crawl in certain spots all over town. That's exactly what I'm getting at.

[TheNiche]

yeah, i dread 45N at rush hour. there is NOTHING that prevents the traffic from moving at 50 mph or faster from 59@main to west road, but some magical (sinister?) force seems to make it slow to a crawl.

at first i used to think it was an accident .. now i know it is just ... well, not sure what it is.

The sinister force has several explanations.

Sometimes it results from poor freeway design where vision is partly obscured or where there are simulataneous grade changes and lane curvature. Good example: northbound Dallas Street underpass. What happens there is that many people tap their brakes on the curve and grade change, and everybody behind them follows suit, expecting that they might need to slow down or stop up ahead because of traffic, which they can't see.

Another problem that afflicts really large freeways with high capacities is that there is a high rate of lane change. After all, for everyone that drives in the left lane of a freeway with four mainlanes and dedicated merge lanes on the side, they're going to have to change lanes a total of at least 10 times (if they're not jockeying for a better position during their commute). If a freeway is near capacity with tens of thousand of vehicles traveling on it at the same instant and there is a lot of shuffling going on, that can slow down the flow of traffic very easily.

And then there's the moment when a freeway's capacity is just a *little* bit over the congestion point in terms of capacity. That happens frequently all over town. It is harder to notice in some places than others because "a *little* over capacity" is quickly replaced by "a *lot* over capacity".

[musicman]

get behind me then...i maintain 70.

[Gary]

I travel alot, and i don't see Houston as that much different from other freeway dominated cities.

[TJones]

I was doin' at least 80 this morning on I-10 west, on my way to work. Very light traffic. All of the sudden I see this little Asian woman in a friggin' Saturn ION doin' no less than 90, whiz by and then instead of staying in the fast lane she acts like she is in a scene from the Fast and Furious, and just starts weaving in and out of what traffic there was, and almost Pitt manuvered about 3 cars with her erratic driving.

[CDeb]

I see Houston as quite the opposite.

Whenever I come in on 290, I am quite content doing 70. Then I get to Barker Cypress, the traffic gets heavier, and I had better speed up to near 80 lest I get shoved right off the road.

[mpbro]

I think it's a general unpredictability of the drivers that's the problem. People change lanes without signaling (much less looking), pass on the right (or shoulder), pull out in front of fast traffic, etc. When you can't trust what the others around you are doing, you have to slow down.

LA is the prime counterexample. They tailgate and drive really fast, but they are at least fairly predictable. I imagine their freeway system, slow as it is, probably accomodates far more cars per day per mile of freeway...

[Perimeter285]

For all you people that are getting run off the road by fast-moving traffic in the Houston area, please tell me where that happens. I would gladly move there. What I see most of the time in the areas I drive is sloooooooooooow traffic.

Another problem I think is people's disregard for the concept of left lane = fast lane. I see people driving all different speeds at all different points on the freeways. 50 MPH in the left lane, 90 MPH in the right lane, 30 MPH in the center lanes. No wonder traffic here is such a cluster-(you know what).

I think what I'm getting at is that we'll never be able to build our way out of traffic congestion because bad driving is the majority of the problem.

[TJones]

For all you people that are getting run off the road by fast-moving traffic in the Houston area, please tell me where that happens. I would gladly move there. What I see most of the time in the areas I drive is sloooooooooooow traffic.

Another problem I think is people's disregard for the concept of left lane = fast lane. I see people driving all different speeds at all different points on the freeways. 50 MPH in the left lane, 90 MPH in the right lane, 30 MPH in the center lanes. No wonder traffic here is such a cluster-(you know what).

I think what I'm getting at is that we'll never be able to build our way out of traffic congestion because bad driving is the majority of the problem.

The problem is that there are no laws like I believe they have in New Jersey about which lane is used for what. No signs designating which lane is best to use and how to be courteous to other drivers by using those specified lanes. People are just ignorant of good road etiquette. I have lived here my whole life, i know Yankees get very frustrated by the seemingly endless number of drivers who don't understand that the far left lane next to the HOV is for fast drivers who travel at least the stated maximum speed limit posted. These people believe that since there are 4 lanes of traffic that faster vehicles can just go around. Where there are still others who take the meaning of the Freeway to mean that all lanes are "free" to use as they choose and that the Highway is the only road where those rules apply.

[CDeb]

For all you people that are getting run off the road by fast-moving traffic in the Houston area, please tell me where that happens. I would gladly move there.

Like I said, try 290 (during off-peak, when it's not a parking lot, of course).

Another problem I think is people's disregard for the concept of left lane = fast lane. I see people driving all different speeds at all different points on the freeways. 50 MPH in the left lane, 90 MPH in the right lane, 30 MPH in the center lanes. No wonder traffic here is such a cluster-(you know what).

A near-universal problem, in my experience, especially on rural highways, and on the rise with the advent of cell phones.

Edited November 4, 2006 by CDeb

[houstonmacbro]

For all you people that are getting run off the road by fast-moving traffic in the Houston area, please tell me where that happens. I would gladly move there. What I see most of the time in the areas I drive is sloooooooooooow traffic.

Another problem I think is people's disregard for the concept of left lane = fast lane. I see people driving all different speeds at all different points on the freeways. 50 MPH in the left lane, 90 MPH in the right lane, 30 MPH in the center lanes. No wonder traffic here is such a cluster-(you know what).

I think what I'm getting at is that we'll never be able to build our way out of traffic congestion because bad driving is the majority of the problem.

sometimes it is almost impossible to get OUT of the fast lane. when you have a 1 cylinder honda (just kidding) like me and get stuck there, and people are whizzing past you on the right side instead of giving you a chance to get out of the lane, what are you to do?

[nmainguy]

Rotten drivers? Anyone who drives out of the garage at the Chinese Consulate on Montrose. One morning a car-full of Chinese came out of the garage and turned south on Montrose driving about 20 mph, never looking left or right. The driver was gripping the wheel like she was terrified. She continued south, ran the red light at Richmond; by the time I got to the Mecom Fountain she was circling it in the middle lane never yielding or stopping. I looked in my rearview mirror after narrowly escaping her on Main and saw she was continuing to circle the fountain with busses, cars, trucks all swerving and slamming on breaks to avoid these lunatics. This was not the first time I've had the "privlidge" of seeing these maniacs blasting out of the consulate as they proceed to terrorize the streets of Houston.

[TJones]

nmain, I believe it is pronounced, "plivridge"

Chalk up another one that I will be on the spit in hell for.

[musicman]

nmain...i just don't know what to say.....

[MiDTOWNeR]

Dare I even consider adding to this thread?

Edited November 5, 2006 by MiDTOWNeR

[musicman]

Dare I even consider adding to this thread?

LOL you can dare but don't!

[Perimeter285]

TJones, I hope you're not implying that I'M a yankee! Born and raised in the South, thank you. You don't have to be from the North to know stupid driving when you see it.

I don't know about this Chinese consulate or whatever, but I think Houston's high immigrant population also contributes to the problem. Anyone who's driven in Mexico knows how chaotic it can be. That chaos has just been imported...along with people who drive 10 under the speed limit to avoid any confrontations with the police, INS, etc. But I digress...I seriously don't want this forum to become a discussion on immigration.

A point brought up earlier about the design of Houston's freeways contributing to mysterious slowdowns is a very good one. Houston's freeways are famous for cramming as many lanes as possible into narrow rights-of-way with huge mainlane humps passing over the surface streets so that nobody can see what's ahead of them and continuous feeder roads with innumerable driveways with cars turning in and out of businesses directly onto the freeway with way too many entrance and exit ramps for the mainlanes where there's barely one foot between the travel lane and the barrier wall and no landscape barrier between the freeway and the commercial mess all of which contributes to a severe case of claustrophobia. PHEW! Just thinking about it raises my blood pressure, and this is the situation that most of us drive in every day!

[musicman]

PHEW! Just thinking about it raises my blood pressure, and this is the situation that most of us drive in every day!

when i ride a metro bus, my blood pressure goes up more than it does when i ride in a car. i know they go thru more red lights than i do!

Edited November 5, 2006 by musicman

[Guest Marty]

I think the most rotten driver i seen was a lady about 35 years old reading a book while she was driving down the Eastex freeway @ Mount Houston. She would read for 5 seconds and look at the road for 5 seconds. I watch this for about a minute.

[MiDTOWNeR]

I think Houston's high immigrant population also contributes to the problem.

When it comes to drastic speed differences amongst vehicles in a particular given stretch of freeway, I totally see what your saying. It is often the pick-up old or BRAND spankin' new and bigger than my house filled with pax of a particular ethnicity going waaaaay under the speed limit.

A point brought up earlier about the design of Houston's freeways contributing to mysterious slowdowns is a very good one.

I agree with this as well. Niche had some interesting points that I would have never thought of.

Houston's freeways are famous for cramming as many lanes as possible into narrow rights-of-way

It seems some of the older freeways are a bit more tight on space in this regard...the lanes on the 45 (the norht freeway) between beltway 8 to 610 seem very narrow to me. However, the 59N from Downtown out beyond beltway 8 is quite spacious with large emergency lanes on both sides of each direction.

with huge mainlane humps passing over the surface streets so that nobody can see what's ahead of them

I dont care for the humps. When I want to change lanes, I wait till I am up on the hump so I can see what my best options are for getting around the clump of cars before making a spur of the moment move that it is just going to get me stuck behind the next slowest car. I find people on Houston freeways are very quick to change lanes when they come up on you without considering that perhaps you have slowed for a reason. They then get stuck furthter back or having to get back behind you due to there too quick of a reaction lane change.

and continuous feeder roads with innumerable driveways with cars turning in and out of businesses directly onto the freeway with way too many entrance and exit ramps for the mainlanes where there's barely one foot between the travel lane and the barrier wall and no landscape barrier between the freeway and the commercial mess all of which contributes to a severe case of claustrophobia. PHEW! Just thinking about it raises my blood pressure, and this is the situation that most of us drive in every day!

The feeder road thing is interesting in itself. You have traffic zooming along at say 55 on the feeder but wait, I need to slow down to turn into the DQ....without a right turn lane....While someone else has just exited the freeway and trying to get to the right lane on the feeder, but because I am slowing to get a hunger buster at the DQ the cars behind are bailing to the left lanes to keep from having to slow down.but wait...those cars just coming off the freeway wanting the Right lane..a bit of a clusterf*ck. Once I get my Hunger Buster and want back on the freeway, the entrance to the freeway is like 100 feet away and across 3 lanes on the feeder, so I have to get across the 3 lanes and up to freeway speed by the time i reach the freewya entrance. Fun fun fun.

I have noticed that with the feeder system there are fewer entrances and exits to the freeways...which help the surface street intersection back ups from reaching back to the freeway itself...This is Good. But with fewer entrances and exits you have more vehicles vying for limited entrances and exits which can cause a more significant slowdown as these cars reach the exit and then you have a greater number of cars assimilating into the flow of the freeway traffic when entering the freeway.

Not to sound full of myself but let me remind everyone that these are my opinions. And just that. I have only my personal experiences to draw from for what I have written. I am not pretending to be an authority on this subject or that I know more than anyone else. If any of what I have written seems to be negative about Houston, it is not my intention to suggest that Houston is the ONLY town with whatever negativity I may have expressed, but in my personal experience said example just bares mentioning in that it may be more noticeable or prevalant in Houston...of course......based on experinces only.

With that said. I have mentioned before that there is a bit of a lack of norms when on the freeways here. Somone may put on their signal to get in my lane...I slow or just dont accelerate so that they may do so. They stay in their lane with their signal on. I can see them checking their mirrors, I am STILL staying back so that they may get over. After what seems like an eternity, I finally just proceed. The point is, that people are so used to not being let in that they are dumfounded when someone does let them in, and therefore do not know how to act quick enough to make it all worthwhile. Now certainly, I realize that there are times when I may catch someones signal going on and they are indeed counting on me passing them before they plan on changing lanes. Thats normal freeway behaviour and I can recognize that. But more often than not, when I try to accomadate someone on the freeway they take forever in figuring out what the heck is going on...so it becomes worthless. Things happen quick on the freeway, and unfortunately the culture here does not allow people to learn these little things that make freeway driving so much easier.

Of course, the fast lane....exists sometimes but more often than not..it doesn't. Argue all you want, but People seriously need to get out of the fast lane.

One way that I find people very accomodating is on the surface streets when traffic is backed up quite a bit at a stoplight. I find people very willing to let you in when pulling on to the street from a parking lot. People in Houston seem very aware to not block secondary intersections without a light when traffic is backed up beyond it. These are very nice gestures and very much appreciated. Makes me wonder why they cant learn to drive on the freeways better.

Something with freeway design here that I have noticed is the lack of through lanes. For example, the 59 S continues under 610 to inside the loop. The 59S approaching the 610 is mostly 4 & 5 lanes. But for the split at the 610 59S goes down to 3 lanes, while 610 gets 3 lanes. Why can;t the 59S stay at the 4 or 5 origianl lanes. Someone had mentioned having to change lanes a lot. Well, this would be an example. Even though you are satying on the original freeway, not exiting to the 610, you may still have to make a lane change. The brand new 610W travelling north at the 10 does the same thing. the 610west loop N as it goes past uptown is 4 lanes, but goes down to 3 lanes to continue n 610N and 2 lanes to get onto the 10. So again, one who may be staying on the 610 may HAVE to change lanes even though they are still on the 610. It seems that the assumption that X% of traffic will exit /enter at that point is the driving force and I am sure a cost cutter, but severely influences the overall flow at that point and approaching at that point of the freeway.

The battery on my laptop is going byebye...

[Perimeter285]

Wow...I couldn't possibly respond to all that, but excellent point about how the feeder roads cause so much chaos, and how few through lanes there are. Your final statement pretty hits a really good point: this city is loaded with cheapest possible solutions to enormous problems. I'm not saying that throwing money at problems fixes them. I don't want to pay more and more taxes. But when you can just look at a structure, whether it be a freeway or whatever, and think "cheap," then you know there's a problem.

[2112]

Can someone tell me why people in such a large city (fourth largest in the U.S. as we all remember) drive so slowly? I've lived here nearly four years, and it still never ceases to amaze me how slowly the traffic moves even when it's not heavy. It just kills me to drive along a freeway where everyone is going 20 MPH and there's about 10 car lengths between each car. Seriously, you have to TRY to drive that slowly, and I see it all over the city, all of the time. I think it's pretty sad when I pass people like they're standing still when I'm going the SPEED LIMIT. Am I the only person that has anywhere to be?

I've surely never seen anyone in comparably sized cities (Dallas, Atlanta, etc.) drive like that. Any ideas on why it's like this and what can be done about it?

Is it just me? Or does this seem like the opposite of reality. I am driving all the time here, have been for 20 years, and traffic seems to be a nice average of between 60 and 80 miles per hour on the freeways. Looking at the sheer number of cars on a 14 lane freeway...that's a pretty good pace considering the constant exits, merging, turns, ramps, tailgaters, large 18-wheelers, and busses all around. Now granted, cronically congested areas...which are plentyfold...will get slow. Did you expect 70mph on Westheimer on a Saturday? Did you expect that during rush hour? Rush hour means parking lots which mean everybody crawls. And sure, for every 100 drivers going 70 or 80mph, there is the ocasional granny that should not have been there to begin with, going 50. But I am constantly being tailgated at 70mph if not downright passed by cars going 90. And Saturday nights...well - Sunday mornings really - at 2:30am...are downright dangerous...I have seen enough people flying at +100mph, enough overturned and totaled vehicles, and enough dead bodies on the freeways in the last 20 years to understand that there is definetly a speeding issue in this city, every Friday and Saturday night.

Your example of "everyone" going 20 mph on a freeway with 10 car lengths between each car....well, that's not even believable, and the use of such a questionable example - to me at least - smells more of either gross exageration, or more likely: someone with another agenda, i.e., that attitude we have all experienced of someone who coming here allready had a stereotype embeded in thier mind that Houston, or Texas, is "slow", and just looking for any example to prove thier case, even if it was not the norm, all the while ignoring the reality all around. The truth is that "slow" is everywhere...I saw it in NYC, in Mexico City, in Dallas, in SA, in Seattle, and in San Francisco. There were slow lines, slow drivers on bridges, slow cabies, slow embracing of new ideas, slow this, slow that. I saw closed-mindedness in those cities. And I sometimes see closed-mindeness here too. But there was also everything else in those cities that made them great cities. Things that made each city seem ahead of the others, even in Dallas.

Why Houston seems to attract constant negativity has remained a mystery to me, especially when you look at the other cities, and see that they too suffer from the same "issues". The only explanation I see is that the stereotype and false generalization machine is alive and well, I guess.

Edited November 5, 2006 by 2112

[houstonmacbro]

I think the most rotten driver i seen was a lady about 35 years old reading a book while she was driving down the Eastex freeway @ Mount Houston. She would read for 5 seconds and look at the road for 5 seconds. I watch this for about a minute.

so YOU were watching HER instead of keeping YOUR eyes on the ROAD?

shame!

[Guest Marty]

so YOU were watching HER instead of keeping YOUR eyes on the ROAD?

shame!

I was a passenger on the way home from work. This was about 1992. She was a hotty too. My last post did sound hypocritical didn't it

Edited November 5, 2006 by Marty

[houstonmacbro]

naw.

hey, another thing that is really whack about our freeways and their poor design is this.

i live right about hollowtree @ 145N. there is an exit for 1960 about 2-3 miles north of 1960 so by the time cars get to where i am trying to get on the freeway (hollowtree) they are zooming in the 60s, 70s, 80s mph range (even though they are going to be stopping at 1960 a few blocks up the street).

this makes it almost impossible (again, i have a lawnmower engine in my honda) to enter the freeway without feeling like i am in some sort of race to beat them, or risk being cursed out from the people behind me, who are wondering why on earth i have not turned to get on the freeway.

[Guest Marty]

When i was into CB i would hear all the time that there was a major wreak at Airtex @ I-45 three times a day or more. People drive way to fast on that strip of freeway.