159 replies to this topic

[OctoberLily]

I've driven in Southern California, Boston MA, San Francisco, East Bay and I have to say that they have their fair share of problems with rude drivers and speeders.

I've lived in the Sacto area for approx. 18 years and have noticed that traffic etiquette has gotten worse with growth of the cities. Folsom used to be a nice quiet country road drive. People were polite and would waive you in - now, people take pains to cut you off or run you down.

I've seen landrovers and SUV mom's speed up to RED LIGHTS and just go through them like they didn't exist. Every week there is an accident by Iron Point and Priarie City Road. Mind you these are not teenagers getting into these accidents but adults!

Broadstone Parkway and Iron Point Road is the worse. People stop at the red light - look around - and then just go through them. Being the curious george that I am, I try to catch up to these people and look at their license plates to see where the heck these people come from. I've noticed that 9 out of 10 of the red light runners are NOT SACRAMENTO LOCALS. They come from Illinois, MA, Bay and LA.

My insurance rates for the past 18 years has tripled!! Sigh!
It's not a coincidence that Sacramento has also grown three times it's size.

[Susan&Rich]

We are transplants from San Francisco. There were more cars but we don't remember the rudeness we are experiencing here in Folsom and Highway 50. The reckless drivers are of all shapes and sizes. Interestingly, we noticed that the bigger cars are more aggressive. And often, we have seen moms driving kids in their SUV's, talking on the cell phone, and rushing to go somewhere.

We recognize that this area is growing with additional cars on the road each day. Every household has a minimum of two cars. It appears people are too inpatient with each other creating a dangerous problem on our streets and highways. We don't have enough CHP personnel to patrol our freeways. All of us have to practice more defensive driving so that we can enjoy living longer.

[Steve Heard]

I've noticed the rude drivers, but haven't seen it limited to SUV's or out of towners. As for Iron Point and Prarie City, we have a high school, shopping center, Intel, and the High School there. The area attracts a lot of cars.

My wife has an SUV (not one of those super-sized ones), and actually drives it cautiously, because she's afraid of tipping it over.

I work at Wales and East Bidwell. In our office, we know to wait a second or two after the light changes before crossing East Bidwell. This is because about half the time, a car blows through the intersection right after the light changes.

Everybody's in a hurry.

[Chad Vander Veen]

It's official. Fair Oaks & Howe is California's most dangerous intersection and 10th in the nation. Check State Farm's website for more info

[folsomBlondie]

QUOTE (c_vanderveen @ Feb 10 2004, 07:55 AM)

It's official. Fair Oaks & Howe is California's most dangerous intersection and 10th in the nation. Check State Farm's website for more info

This is old news Chad. I knew about it 5 years ago my friend.

[Terry]

There have been many previous posts regarding rude drivers, failure to obey traffic laws, and in general just plain rude people in Folsom and Sacramento county in general.

Spouse and I often comment on people who think they are so SPECIAL that they can:

1. Blow through stop signs.
2. Blow through yellow/red lights.
3. Change lanes without signalling
4. Change lanes without regard for the vehicle already in the lane.
5. Speeding.
6. Failure to yield to pedestrians, including those in MARKED crosswalks.

Further rudeness and that "I'm special" mentality is also observed:

1. Huge SUVs and trucks in parking spaces marked "compact"
2. Trucks with loads extending out the back parked in a spot where the load extends into the driveway. This happens most often at Baja Fresh across from Intel during lunch. For some reason these construction types park right in front with their loads and the load extends into the roadway!
3. Vehicles without handicapped placards parked in handicapped spaces.
4. People who leave their store carts in handicapped spaces or the striped spaces NEXT to handicapped spaces. Do they not understand the striped space is for wheelchair lifts?
5. People who leave their store carts in ANY parking space, instead of returning them to the cart corral.
6. People who take up two parking spaces, or park cross-wise over several parking spaces so they don't have to back up (happens mostly at video stores when dropping off videos).
7. People who think the red zone in parking lots is for waiting for passengers - this happens at every grocery store in town - we've seen it at Raley's, Home Depot, Borders - there is not a single location in Folsom where people can't grasp the concept of a red zone. Aren't they special?!
8. People who do not understand merge signs and lanes. If you're in the lane that ends, you have to merge when it's safe, and you have to yield to the vehicles in the through lane.
9. Oh, and pedestrians aren't off the hook either - what about those pedestrians who take their sweet time crossing. They seem to visibly slow when they see a car coming!

What is wrong with people? And as a life-long resident I have to admit that these changes have come with the growth, and the affluence that has invaded our previously polite and blue-collar community. People have a sense of entitlement now that they didn't previously have - and that include entitlement to disobey rules of the road and general politeness when it suits them.

[Chad Vander Veen]

FYI everyone, pedestrians have the right of way ONLY in a crosswalk. Otherwise they are fair game

[tony]

c vanderveen:

You are only partially correct on 2 accounts: 1) While peestrians do not have the right of way outside of crosswalks, this "shall not relieve the
driver of a vehicle from the duty to exercise due care for the safety of any pedestrian upon a roadway". (CVC Section 21954 (b). Pedestrians are never fair game in the eyes of the law (all evidence to the contrary, as motorists are routinely let off the hook for killing pedestrians and bicyclists), and 2) crosswalks exist at every leg of every intersection, whether marked or not, unless pedestrians are specifically prohibited by signs (which is way too often the case).

As for my pet peeves: 1) people who park on sidewalks and in bike lanes (especially in front of the high school on Iron Point where there are signs specifically prohibiting stoppping, and people daily stop under the signs to drop off their children. 2) the speed limit on Iron Point in front of the high school is 25 mph when children are present -- I have never seen anyone drive 25 mph during the morning drop-off period. The few times I have driven through there (at 25 mph) people have honked, tailgated and generally been rude (I've also been passed by school buses and police cars in this 25 mph zone; therein lies part of the problem).

Here's a question for you all: since people seem to be in agreement that there is a general lack of respect for traffic laws in this town, what do y'all think about using red light cameras like they do in the city and county of
Sacramento adn many other cities. The legal hurdles seem to have been cleared, and they have proven to be effective in reducing accidents at intersections (the worst and most common kinds in suburbia). The system is generally revenue neutral (i.e., the city would neither make nor lose money by installing the automatic enforcement). It is purely an issue of traffic safety. I think this would haev a huge effect on encouraging people to pay attention to traffic laws, and perhaps free up the traffic cops to enforce speed limits here and there (like on Sibley).

[john]

I'm against traffic cameras... while I understand the concept, sometimes it is safer to run a light which is yellow (but you know is going to turn red when you're in the intersection), than to slam on the brakes and get rear-ended. That's something you can explain to a police officer, you cannot explain that to a camera.

I really think traffic cameras are just Big Brother - we should be letting humans make decisions over right and wrong, not machines.

[Terry]

I would fully support red-light cameras, however, I don't believe it replaces traffic officers, and Folsom PC currently is understaffed in the area of traffic patrol.

How about we start posting Folsom traffic offenses in a new topic on this site. Date, time, vehicle descriptions (license plate if possible), driver descriptions, and type of offense witnessed?

I don't think there's a privacy issue because these would be personal observations on public property.

Might increase awareness of traffic issues in Folsom.

[DalOwnerX3]

George Carlin once proposed a solution to bad drivers - give everybody a gun that shoots suction cup darts. Whenever somebody drives badly, people can shot a suction cup dart at the gun. The police would the pull over those with the most darts on their cars.

[Eric]

I've heard & read about several theories about traffic light cameras & how to get out of those tickets. First, and I doubt this works anymore, you can go to court and call the camera as a witness... since it can't come in and testify against you, you're off. Another one involves driving your spouse's car & vice versa. I guess the way it goes is that if you get your pic taken, the ticket would go to your spouse, who would say they weren't driving & since you don't have to testify against your spouse, you get out of it...
Personally, I agree w/ John, but try to avoid all intersections w/ those cameras just to be safe

[melloguy]

Driving has gotten worse in my 11 years here, but I'm with Chad - nowhere near as bad as SoCal. I find myself leaving earlier and earlier to avoid traffic when I have to drive to downtown Sac. Sometimes I wonder if the Council use their original hometowns as a measuring stick for how much traffic this area can handle...

Latest pet peeve - people who insist on blocking intersections. We now have several locations in town - Riley at Persifer and Auburn-Folsom at Hillswood come to mind immediately - where traffic often blocks the intersection. Are drivers blocking the intersection so they won't lose a single car length to someone trying to get in?

What's even worse is when you leave a space at the intersection and someone cuts over from the adjacent lane (or on Riley, the shoulder!) because they think the space has been specially reserved for them.

CHP officer told me in traffic school about 20 years ago that one major problem is every driver thinks they are the best driver and therefore in the right most of the time. We took a poll with a 1-10 rating, in traffic school mind you, and only two people rated themselves as a 4, everyone else was higher including two 10s. Always amazed me that someone could think they were a 10 as a driver and were sitting in traffic school for an infraction.

Anyone want to post a poll - How would you rate yourself as a driver - scale of 1-10?

[Steve Heard]

Tony

As a parent of a Folsom High student, I can tell you it is damned difficult to drop your kids off in the morning or pick them up in the afternoon.

The school doesn't want us using the parking lot, and the vice principal has been seen blocking the entrance with her body. The residents of the neighborhood don't want us dropping off or parking by their homes, Prairie City and Iron Point have 'no parking' and 'no stopping' signs. Our only choice, and the one tolerated by the police, is to ignore the signs and pick up and drop off on Iron Point, right under the signs that tell us not to.

There are about 2300 kids at FHS, and they all have to be to school at the same time. What else can parents do? Make the kids walk?

By the way, in my 2 years of doing this, I have yet to see a bicycle go by in that bike lane while I am parked near it (not in it).

For the record, I support the red light cameras. I see their effects when I am in Sacramento. People actually stop at the intersections.

[Terry]

Stevethedad states "There are about 2300 kids at FHS, and they all have to be to school at the same time. What else can parents do? Make the kids walk?"


What's wrong with letting them walk? Even a mile one way is not that far and it sure is good for physical fitness! Further, if school buses aren't available (I think they are), the City transit service provides bus service to and from the high school. Get one ticket for stopping/parking illegally and you would have paid for the annual fare for your student.

And it seems that you believe that since you've never seen a bike in the bikelane, you should be able to park there. Let's see.........did I previously say something about people thinking they are "entitled" ..........you just proved my point.