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Two things I hate:

1. Pedestrians walking out in front of traffic when it's not their turn to go. Why do they do this? Do they have a death wish? I fully realize pedestrians need to walk wherever they're going, but there are crosswalks (many with crossing lights) to do this. If it's a car's turn to go and you're on foot, do not step out into the street.

Yes, cars are supposed to stop for pedestrians. However, that doesn't mean they necessarily will. Are you willing to bet your life on the hope that some moron driver -- who may or may not be drunk and/or talking on their cell phone -- will see you and stop accordingly?

2. People who just stand there, in the way, without a clue you're trying to get past them. It seems so many people are wrapped up in themselves and their own little world that they're completely oblivious to what's going on around them. Perhaps this also explains the complaint up above, as well.

DeadPoolX wrote:2. People who just stand there, in the way, without a clue you're trying to get past them. It seems so many people are wrapped up in themselves and their own little world that they're completely oblivious to what's going on around them. Perhaps this also explains the complaint up above, as well.

And people who do this on purpose.

On the flip side of the driver/pedestrian issue, I hate drivers that don't look for pedestrians when they're making a turn and the pedestrian has the right-of-way (i.e. on a crosswalk, with the walk signal). There have been times I would have been hit, if I had trusted the drivers to drive like they are supposed to. Thankfully, I don't trust them to be that considerate and I always make sure I've made eye-contact with a turning driver before I try to cross. On the other hand, I do appreciate it when they actually do pay attention and wait. Those drivers deserve a gold star!

The problem with traffic issues is that both the pedestrian and the driver need to be more aware of what they're supposed to be doing and be more considerate of the other side. Both need to look where they're going and only go when it's clear. People are just too self-absorbed all around.

Maiandra wrote:On the flip side of the driver/pedestrian issue, I hate drivers that don't look for pedestrians when they're making a turn and the pedestrian has the right-of-way (i.e. on a crosswalk, with the walk signal). There have been times I would have been hit, if I had trusted the drivers to drive like they are supposed to. Thankfully, I don't trust them to be that considerate and I always make sure I've made eye-contact with a turning driver before I try to cross. On the other hand, I do appreciate it when they actually do pay attention and wait. Those drivers deserve a gold star!

The problem with traffic issues is that both the pedestrian and the driver need to be more aware of what they're supposed to be doing and be more considerate of the other side. Both need to look where they're going and only go when it's clear. People are just too self-absorbed all around.

I agree. However, I think the pedestrian needs to be a bit more aware. I'm not saying this as someone who prefers to drive; I'm merely looking at the situation logically. If a person comes into contact with a vehicle, the chances of that individual living or at least, surviving in any decent shape or form, is slim.

As you said, drivers can't be trusted to stop regardless of who has the right-of-way. Therefore, the responsibility is on the pedestrian, simply because if they get hit, they'll probably die. At worst, the driver will be sued by the pedestrian's family. That's not exactly an equal or fair exchange.

What I loathe is drivers who tend to treat cyclists as non existent. But then I can't complain too much and I have to say I loathe the people who act like the whole damn road is theirs to cycle on.

I don't mind cyclists so long as they stay off busy roads. It's extremely annoying to drive so slow you see tortoises walk past you, simply because you have to stay behind a cyclist.

Another one while driving home today...

Situation: Driving 70+ mph on a highway, keeping up with the pace of traffic. That's a normal day.

Annoyance: When a pick-up truck that is driving in font of you, swerves into another lane to avoid the slow car in front of him without hitting their breaks or putting on their turn signal. All of this leaves me slamming on my breaks, unknowing there was a slow poke in front of the truck, because I'm still going the same speed as the truck.

Jules wrote:Another one while driving home today...

Situation: Driving 70+ mph on a highway, keeping up with the pace of traffic. That's a normal day.

Annoyance: When a pick-up truck that is driving in font of you, swerves into another lane to avoid the slow car in front of him without hitting their breaks or putting on their turn signal. All of this leaves me slamming on my breaks, unknowing there was a slow poke in front of the truck, because I'm still going the same speed as the truck.

On the subject of trucks, I have a couple of comments to make:

1. Once while driving on Beltway 8 (a toll road in Houston), I ended up moving between two large trucks. That may have not been the brightest thing to do, but I was in a hurry to get home. The trucks, for reasons unknown, started moving towards the middle lane (which I was in) and apparently didn't see me. Fortunately, my car can be shifted into "sports drive" which creates a large burst of speed, effectively making it go very, very fast. I sped up and out of the way of those two trucks, but if I hadn't, I would've probably been squished.

2. On the road trip to our current location in Canada, Maia and I were plagued with large trucks climbing up on our rear or attempting to pass us without any warning. The worst part was driving at night. We were driving were there were very few lights (sometimes none), so we had to activate our brights. When doing this you're supposed to shut them off when you see a car coming the opposite direction. Well, aside from the trucks once again tailgating, when a truck came by in the opposing lane, they wouldn't even give me time to shut down my high beams. They'd immediately flash their lights at me, which rapidly became annoying.

Some of the things mentioned in this thread are more on the dangerous side than mere annoyances. Trucks, for example, are such monolithic things - the drivers are supposed to take due care, and I'm sure some do, but I've been in a similar experience, DPX, to your "nearly being squashed" situation. I was in the inner lane - this was in my first year of driving, and my car was a cute little mini which I nicknamed "The Frog". The truck in the middle lane simply began moving into my lane. I honked frantically; I assessed my options - no way to slow down as there was a tailgater behind me - so for the first and only time of my life I drove over the curb and partially onto the footpath where fortunately there were no pedestrians.

If I hadn't, I would have had a catastrophic encounter with the truck.

Of course it was scary rather than annoying - but even at the time, amongst all the terror-induced flood of adrenaline, I had room for a little bit of disbelieving outrage that the truck driver continued on his merry way in that inner lane without ever having noticed me, and then changed lanes back to the middle lane about 15-20 seconds later for no particular reason.

Oh well... I worked out quite a while ago that we feel annoyed when a situation is affecting US personally rather than affecting other people in general, so it helps me not to become too upset if I put things into a broader perspective. Often the pinpricks of life are quite trivial but we magnify them in importance. Mind you, I do NOT believe we should never react, never experience change of emotions, never indicate personal responses and feelings (both positive and negative). While that might remove symptoms of stress, it also desensitises us - either that, or we're holding in a lot of tension.

We need to express feelings - but the trick is to find that balance between expressing them and letting them control us.

Another thing that does frankly annoy me - when a so-called News or Current Affairs programme clearly presents only half the story, judiciously edited to present only one viewpoint. That, and obviously synthetic syrupy sympathy from pre-recorded automatic messages on the phone, or automated responses purporting to be from a real person but actually sent by an email algorithm bot from a company such as eBay, or a letter sent out by a company in response to a complaint...

Faux empathy in general is irritating. Corporations, whose purpose after all is to make ever-larger profits at the expense of consumers, are irritating in their communications. You cannot reason with a corporation - it has machinery in place to put off all attempts to reason - and the only thing to do when you have a legitimate complaint is to rely on the Trade Practices Act as administered by Consumer Affairs/Office of Fair Trading and the Ombudsman for that particular service.

I believe in fairness and I believe in dealing with people who take responsibility for what they do. Small wonder corporations do not cut the mustard for me.

I think it's dumb -- in addition to being annoying -- when a news article claims to have something new in it, when the content is really old news.

For instance, I found this article in The Globe & Mail a little while ago that talked about treating stomach and intestinal disorders. When I read it, the article really said that "the medical community must find a way to treat these problems."

Wow... I never would've thought of that!

I mean really... was that article even necessary?

Why do people think that a lot of small pages is better for dialup? I had nothing but dialup until August 2005, and 5 small pages take like 100 times longer to load than one large page, not just 5 times longer, at least in my experience...

It's to do with the file size of the html page or equivalent. A badly designed page can take a long time to load. A poor connection loading five average-sized pages will have its own problems.

What annoys me with driving is that drivers that turn without singling and people who pick their ass in the passing lane/turning lane on a standard 4 lane highway (not limited access) when they are not turning or passing they are just driving. When I was going to school one day this driver did something that really annoyed me the light was green then all of a sudden he stopped to let a pedestrian go by and I know that pedestrians have the right of way but the light was green and I had to slam on my breaks.

When you get those sammiches that you take a bite, and it all falls out the back...

Bleh. I know what you mean, Tawmis... one of my pet peeves (which is similar to yours) has to do with the Subway sandwich shop, which is a shame because their sandwiches are pretty good: whenever I go to Subway, the person behind the counter gets my order wrong. Has this happened to anyone else? Granted, I've only been there a couple of times for a sandwich, but still... *shrug*

The first time I asked for no olives or mushrooms and I got both olives and mushrooms. The second time I asked for no salami (I got salami), and I specifically asked for pickles - and voila, no pickles.

So what's going on? Maybe it's just that both of these incidents happened at the same Subway. So maybe I should try another one? *shrug*