Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Pit Stop: You know what really grinds my gears? (Patreon Special Re-release)

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Pit Stop: You know what really grinds my gears? (Patreon Special Re-release) · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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We always have a blast chatting with our guests about all sorts of
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different topics, but sometimes we go off the rails and dig deeper into
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their automotive and motorsports pasts.
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As a bonus, let's go behind the scenes with this pit stop mini sode
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for some extra content that didn't quite fit in the main episode.
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Sit back, enjoy, and remember to like, subscribe, and
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support Brake Fix on Patreon.
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Now we're going to continue this conversation, but I want to get back to
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something that Tanya hit on, and that's, you know, having to pay attention to the
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cars beside you and now the cars above you, maybe we have to pay attention
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to the Tesla Hyperloop of cars below us too because the ground might, you
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know, fall into a sinkhole, who knows.
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I learned something this month, you know, driving in and out of
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the city because I don't, I don't drive in and out of the city a lot.
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I, I despise it.
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It's just one of those things.
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And, you know, I always love these moments of your revelation about people,
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other people's driving since you do it.
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So, Oh yes.
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Regularly during rush hour times.
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Yes.
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Granted.
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Being in the DMV, we have, like, not the worst, but if we're not the top
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three, we're definitely the top five worst, you know, traffic in the country.
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And I'm not afraid to drive on the roads because, as Brad knows, when
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we came up, and even Tanya, you learned to drive on the beltways.
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Some of the most probably dangerous roads, you know, here on the East
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Coast is driving around the DC and Baltimore beltways and things like that.
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So you just get used to it and you get used to the pandemonium and the
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chaos and everything that unfolds.
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But what I was reminded of this month, somebody said something to me.
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They go, you know, it takes so much concentration to drive.
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And I'm like, no, it doesn't.
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And I was actually really adamant about it.
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And they're like, what do you mean?
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I was like, it doesn't take any concentration to drive.
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It takes massive amounts of situational awareness and they're like, what, what,
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what, what are your race car drivers?
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Yeah.
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I think, you know, everything.
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And I said, no, it's very simple, but hold on.
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What's the difference.
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The difference is, is really key.
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Concentration involves massive amounts of focus and being like
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hyper, you know, engaged in the one thing that you're doing.
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But the situational awareness actually requires you to relax, to sit back,
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to look, to pay attention to the things that are going on around you.
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And the driving part becomes second nature.
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And the person I was talking to was like, what do you mean?
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That doesn't make sense.
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I said, it does.
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When you learn how to ride a bicycle, You know, in the beginning, yes,
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you have to concentrate on learning the functions of riding a bicycle,
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but it became second nature.
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The balance was there, the pedaling, when to shift gears, looking at
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the terrain, all these kinds of things, driving a car is the same.
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What happens for you on a bicycle is you need to be completely aware of your
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surroundings, traffic, cars, pedestrians, deer, whatever, it's the same.
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And so it takes massive amounts of situational awareness.
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So no, you don't understand.
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Takes a massive amount of concentration because how do you play Wordle on your
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phone and sing karaoke and scratch your butt and shave and eat a Big Mac and talk
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on the phone with people and be expected to drive the car all at the same time?
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There's only so much you can concentrate at one time.
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You can take wordle out of that equation for me, because I got a
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hundred percent on my first try.
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You're good to go.
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You're good to go, but I'm, I'm a retired.
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So to continue my rant.
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Okay.
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So massive amounts of situational awareness, and
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here's what I observed in my.
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My sojourn to the city, before you continue, yeah, it takes massive
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amounts of situational awareness.
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And what do they not teach in driver education, situational awareness.
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Exactly.
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That's why we have HPD, right?
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This is where you learn it, driving into city, driving into Baltimore, you know,
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doing the school runs, doing all this kind of stuff, had to go to the airport and
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all these kinds of crazy things, whatever.
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I want to talk about the crazy stuff that I spotted.
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Because driving for me is second nature, right?
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Shifting what I'm and I'm driving a manual transmission car, older
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car, all this kind of thing.
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I get an opportunity to spot things while I'm driving.
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It's complete lunacy.
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Okay.
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This 1, I couldn't believe it.
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I was sitting across an intersection behind some other cars and I
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looked out across the intersection.
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I see a car sitting in the left turn lane with its wheels cocked to the left.
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I'm like, okay, whatever.
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I don't know what this driver was doing.
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I don't know what they were thinking.
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Light turns green, turned a wheel more and drove straight into
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the guardrail, like hit the gas, turned right into the guardrail.
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And obviously the rubber necking starts and all this kind of thing.
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I was like, we're going to continue on with our day.
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I couldn't help but chuckle, but I was kind of like, you didn't know that your
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wheel was turned and then to turn like you're going to the parking spot and
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then just ram right into the guardrail.
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I was like, damn, but that wasn't the craziest thing I've seen.
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And probably not the craziest thing you've ever seen either on the road.
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Obviously you have the school runs and all these kinds of things.
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I had a, I had a SUV, one of these big Tahoe suburban things, drop
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anchor sideways in the middle of three lane road in the middle of the city.
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Like it was a police blockade to let their kid out.
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Entitled prick.
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Dude, I laid on the horn and the people next to me or looking at me like.
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I was, I don't know, skinning a deer in public or something.
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It was, they were, why are you honking the horn?
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He's in the middle of the freaking road blocking all of the traffic.
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You didn't understand that that's how that drop off line works.
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You're lucky he stopped.
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He didn't have to stop.
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Well, he stopped short.
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It just turned the wheel and I'm like, what the hell is going on?
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Like that's, that's Ferrari's first customer for their, uh, and then again,
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everybody's looking at me like I nuts.
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And then I'm driving a car with an exhaust.
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So I barely take off and then it's like, what is all this noise?
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I'm like, get out of here.
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Right.
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To make matters worse, I go a couple blocks further in the city and I
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hear the police and firetruck lights go off and I'm like, Oh, great.
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This is going to make things even more interesting.
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Now, when you hear that, you know, you're supposed to try to get out
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of the way, pay attention, whatever.
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And I kid you not, and I can't make this stuff up because of the blockade and
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the backup that had already occurred based on this, this drop off line,
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the fire truck decided it was going to drive down the oncoming traffic.
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Like it's a freaking Schwarzenegger movie.
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I'm amazed people didn't crash because there's cars everywhere
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and people are freaking out.
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And the fire truck goes barreling down the middle of the three
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lanes on the other side.
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And I'm just like, I'm in crazy town.
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Like, I don't know what to do right now.
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Is this a regular thing?
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Like, does this happen normally?
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Like I'm not used to this.
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out in, you know, rural areas where it's like backcountry
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roads and you're doing overland.
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We have fire trucks, we have stuff happen, you know, whatever.
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What?
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I mean, I, and I'm just excited to unfold like Fast and the Furious
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where suddenly a car is going to hit another car and do a barrel roll and
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there's going to be an explosion.
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And I'm like, I thought it was on a movie set.
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I'm like, this is on,
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And so it got me thinking, right?
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And my blood pressure is like through the roof at this point because I'm
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just like every, you know, people are, they don't know what's going on.
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They're not paying attention.
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And inevitably, there's always somebody with like a two year old Lexus that
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has their phone up to their chin.
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For the love of God, please somebody explain to me.
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Bluetooth has been available in vehicles since 2008.
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I have Bluetooth in my car.
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It's a 2003.
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I do not put the phone up to my chin ever.
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My hands are on my steering wheel or on my shifter.
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I don't understand.
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Brad, would you like to comment?
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Cause I know you have feelings about this, but the Bluetooth situation.
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What the fuck are you so stupid that you can't figure out how to just
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fucking connect, you can sit there and play fucking wordle on your phone and
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you can, you know, listen to Spotify.
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I, I don't know who pisses me off more.
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Is it the people that hold their phone in front of their face?
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They're the people that do that to talk on the phone.
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They're the people that face the phone towards them so they can FaceTime.
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Those people are fun.
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Then there's the people that have their earbuds in so they can't
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hear what's going on around them.
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Again, situational awareness isn't just seeing with your eyes, but
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it's hearing, you know, all the things that are going on in traffic.
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Maybe they would have heard that fire truck coming down the road at
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them on the other side of the road.
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It boggles my mind.
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Well, the best is like go to the dealer and have them show you
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how to connect to the Bluetooth.
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My only thinking is maybe it was a rental car.
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No, because every Lexus security, every Lexus, well, first of all, there's no
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Lexus rental cars unless you're doing like Hertz elite or whatever it is.
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But, and if it was a courtesy vehicle, it would have said courtesy,
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blah, blah, blah, on the back.
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Cause every Lexus.
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I've never seen one that doesn't do that, but I don't I don't get it is tech.
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I can't say anymore that the technology befuddles these people
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because they all have smartphones.
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It's not like they're on a star attack or on a razor or a Zach Morris phone.
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And it's like, You know, we just gave fire to cavemen.
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They got a goddamn iPhone.
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They know how to use it.
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Make the Bluetooth work.
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Put the phone down.
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If nothing else, you can.
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I don't care if you have a conversation in the car.
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It's no different than if you and I are not talking for 11 hours going
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to the National Corvette Museum.
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But the point is, why are you holding the goddamn thing in front of your face?
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And the FaceTime thing is legit.
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But what I thought was even more comical, and I.
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At first, I thought this one dude on the highway in the morning was
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like, he was FaceTiming, but you know what he was, what he was really
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doing, because I figured it out.
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Was he shaving?
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No, no, he was using his phone.
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I've seen that too.
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Yeah, no, no, no, no, that's shaving, man, they were doing that, they were shaving.
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No, I mean, shaving and using your phone as a mirror.
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Oh, that's a good, no, no, no, no, no, that's a good one, that's a good one.
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This was better because I, I laughed.
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So when you're driving East.
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in the morning.
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The sun is where?
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Oh my God.
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He was using a sun visor.
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Boom.
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You got it.
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He put the phone up to block the sun instead of putting the sun visor down.
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I mean, I mean, okay, I will put my hand up as a sun visor because
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at my height sitting in my car, the sun visor at certain Half hour
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windows or whatever during the day.
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It doesn't the sun visors useless.
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It's not blocking anything.
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Cause the sun's coming right at me.
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So I will hold a hand up.
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Oh, why the hell would I hold my phone up?
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Because it's always a phone is surgically affixed to your hand.
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Oh, okay.
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My phone's in my pocket on silent when I'm driving the phone stuff.
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I mean, I don't even know that the cops like bother anymore.
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It's like, whatever.
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I mean, I've almost come to accept it.
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It's like, everybody's on their phone in their car.
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I personally, it's like, do not call me when I'm in the car.
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I will not text you if I'm in a car that it does have hands free and I've
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got the thing on the steering wheel, I'll hit the button and answer the
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phone, but I'm not going to dial you.
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I I'll, you know, I don't even want to glance at it.
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That's like, I want to pay attention to what is going on around me
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because of all the other crazy people that are on the road.
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But it also got me thinking.
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Normally, I could be out and about with my Jeep, and I'm probably the same
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height as everybody else on the road.
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But this time, I spent a lot of time with an older vehicle,
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driving in and out of the city.
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And I used to joke all the time that, you know, even the Jeep, I'm invisible.
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I don't know why people don't see me.
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It's like, whatever.
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I don't know.
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It's a hippopotamus.
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I don't know how you can miss it.
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But in the golf, I started to realize.
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That I felt really small on the road compared to all the big
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trucks and the SUVs and even the Teslas and stuff like that.
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And I mentioned the I Pace and the Maverick and all
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these cars that I spotted.
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And I'm like, I'm in a station wagon.
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It's not really that small.
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So it got me thinking.
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I noticed some things.
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The newest pickup trucks are really big.
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And they look really big against pickup trucks that were already big.
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And I don't know if it's lift kits or whatever, but like the newest Silverado
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is massive, absolutely massive.
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And what, what dawned on me is when I looked at the mirrors, the mirrors on
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the new Silverado stood up almost eight inches from a tundra that was next to it.
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And that got me thinking Brad has a tundra.
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So I came home and I measured my car.
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I wanted to know how tall it was.
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My car, though, it is lowered two and a half inches from stock,
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which back that would be, that was a lot back in the early 2000s.
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You lowered your car two inches.
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That was a lot.
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It measures 53 inches at the tallest point, right above the driver,
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basically, you know, where the roof starts to slip at 53 inches.
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So that's just under four and a half feet tall.
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So I asked Brad, Brad, what's the belt line on your Tundra?
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51 inches.
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And where does that measure to the bottom of the window?
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Your mirrors are right about that point too, right?
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The mirrors for most vehicles.
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Yeah.
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It's right about the bottom of the mirrors, the bottom
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of the window, just about.
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So if I'm behind you, probably a really solid chance you can't see me.
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And if I'm next to you and you're have your phone in your face.
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You don't, you don't see me either, right?
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Well, so if you have your mirrors adjusted correctly, you can still see, but for
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the most part, yes, you're correct.
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You're not and it also and it also dawned on me that the new fords I think those
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double mirrors, the ones that hang down aren't just for blind spot and trailering.
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It's because the belt lines are so high.
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I think it's probably difficult to see other vehicles, but
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I also thought about it.
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My station wagon of normal cars that I have is not my lowest car.
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It got me actually really concerned that if I take my 914 on the road,
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I will be completely invisible.
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And here's the reason why I measured it at its tallest point, which is a very,
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very significant point on the vehicle.
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It measures 43 inches tall.
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I am basically on the ground.
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I want to put it in perspective, a GT 40.
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The reason it's called a GT 40 is it's 40 inches.
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from its tallest point to the ground.
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914 is only three inches taller, which is 10 inches lower than the
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wagon, which is already hard to see that car is going to disappear.
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So immediately I started to feel for every Miata driver on the planet.
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Because they, you can't see these cars and the belt lines just keep getting
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taller and taller and taller and I'm just like, then go to somewhere like
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Texas where everybody's got a monster truck and suddenly their bumper is
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literally in line with your head.
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Yeah.
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In golf.
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Yeah.
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Because many a time have I turned my head, looked out my window and
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go, dang, that's the license plate I'm staring at on the bumper.
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If I got T boned, I would die.
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Yeah.
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There's no, yeah.
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Hit in the head.
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Yeah.
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No crash protection at that point.
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You're just relying on the pillars to hold the car together at that point.
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Pretty much.
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Yeah.
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Like if I was ever T boned by one of those months, I would, I've
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no doubt in my mind I'd be dead.
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There's no way.
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I'd have a bumper straight.
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Into my skull.
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So we should start wearing our hats when we go out on the road.
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Well, then people say, well, see, you need an SUV.
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You'd be safe.
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Well, what if everybody didn't have giant SUVs and we'd all be safe, huh?
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But that puts it in perspective too.
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Even when I'm in my Jeep, that newest Silverado is so high up.
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It's above the belt line of the Jeep.
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It's so big.
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Like, I just don't understand.
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And it's, it's that model, Brad, you know, it's what I'm talking about.
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It's the latest one where the front end is basically completely square.
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It's like the modern square body.
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You know what I'm talking about?
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Is it what Kerwin just got?
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Yeah, it's freaking huge.
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And I'm like, I just do not understand.
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Now, man, maybe the one I saw, it could have been lifted.
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It didn't look like it.
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I didn't see anything because I'm literally like sitting underneath of it.
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I didn't see anything after market or out of place.
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So I'm kind of like, all right, whatever.
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But I'm like.
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Good God.
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And then next to the Tundra that was at the traffic light, I was
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like, the Tundra looks small.
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The Tundra is not a small truck, right?
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It's a full size.
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I'm like, holy smokes.
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I'm going to get people to benefit the doubt that maybe it's not
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that they don't use their mirrors.
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It's that I don't show up in their mirrors, but there's still a very high
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probability that nobody uses their mirrors when they're on the road.
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And that's a good point.
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You know what?
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Musk is a fricking genius.
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He didn't put mirrors on the side of the truck.
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Why waste the money putting mirrors when nobody uses them?
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Exactly.
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But that is a very valid point.
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And it's something else I wanted to bring up.
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I thought about that too, because there's a lot of Teslas in the city and stuff
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and electric cars and things like that.
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And it dawned on me, the fully autonomous thing with all these
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cameras and say, we don't have mirrors and the cars are driving themselves.
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The government's going to step in at some point and say, Okay.
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These cars need to be regulated.
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The speeds need to be regulated.
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They need to abide by the rules of the road, right?
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Which is going to have a twofold effect.
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People are going to be really pissed off that they have to drive
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everywhere at 55 miles an hour.
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But what's also going to happen, this is a little bit of my crystal ball coming out,
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is every one of these cars is equipped now with 360 degree view cameras and whatnot.
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And you're driving by in your Tundra gas powered or your old Volkswagen.
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And suddenly.
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Now we don't need to worry about the speed traps and the police,
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these camera equipped vehicles are the new traffic patrol because
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they're doing the speed limit.
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If you're passing them, you're breaking the law.
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So, it's like that episode of Sequest where Captain Bridger was riding
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his motorcycle and they scanned his license plate, you know, when he was
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going too fast, they go, Oh, we just deducted 500 bucks from your account,
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Captain Bridger, have a nice day.
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I mean, I know this is like total conspiracy theory.
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It got me a little bit concerned that how is this world going to work when
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there's this mixture of all these cars, old, new, classic and camera
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enabled and all this kind of stuff.
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It's going to be nuts.
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Things I also learned or reintroduced to was that putting on your turn
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signal is not the indication that you want to change lanes.
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It's the indication that the person in the lane next to you should suddenly
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accelerate and close the door.
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Oh, hell yeah.
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Oh yeah, hell yeah.
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That's why you do not put your turn signal on until the moment at which
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you can precisely change lanes, and then you flick it on and off
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and then you change fucking lanes.
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I don't get it, but it also made me realize, and I don't know if it's
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because of COVID or because traffic has changed, or maybe it's because doing
19:26
high performance driving, people get on you, oh, high performance drivers
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are aggressive, blah, blah, blah.
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No, we're not.
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Actually, I think we get it out of our system.
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The speeds on the roads.
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are way high, like too high.
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I will attest to having left the area for a number of years in
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coming back and it is an insanity.
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It did not used to be.
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People are buck wild for like no reason.
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I mean, you know, road that's limited at 55 miles an hour by
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sign, you're getting past doing 70.
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And it's like, what?
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Like, I already shouldn't be doing 70, but I'm being passed like I'm doing 55.
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Are you people all nuts?
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There are so many people that I see doing triple digits on the road.
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It's not even funny.
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The best part about that though, is first of all, nobody has
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any situational awareness.
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Nobody knows what anybody else is doing.
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They're going, there's the speed disparity and the variety of speeds
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on one road on a four lane road, the beltway and the right lane.
20:37
You'll have somebody going 55 in the second to right lane.
20:41
You'll have somebody doing 70 in the Second to left lane, you'll have
20:46
somebody doing 40 and then the left lane, you'll have somebody doing 120 all on
20:52
the same road at the exact same spot.
20:55
How the fuck does that work?
20:56
It doesn't.
20:57
And you know what else happens?
20:59
And I saw it even today.
21:00
And it happened multiple times.
21:02
There's somebody that's super gung ho, everybody's already flying.
21:06
And I'm sitting there going, you know what?
21:07
I want to conserve some fuel.
21:09
I put the cruise control on I'm rocking, you know, whatever, going along to
21:12
the beat of the car or the radio, and somebody goes blazing by you.
21:17
And I immediately get this grimace on my face because a, I've
21:20
had my eyes up the whole time.
21:21
I'm looking at all the traffic.
21:23
I can see the pockets ahead.
21:24
Even today, this guy flies up in this BMW.
21:28
At least a buck 20 and ends up planted behind a truck because
21:34
he can't see the traffic.
21:36
And here we come and just go right by him because the line in the right lane
21:42
was moving more consistently than when he was weaving in and out of traffic
21:46
and then got stuck behind this truck.
21:47
The reason we were in this mule train and the right lane to begin with was
21:52
because we couldn't get around the truck.
21:54
By ourselves.
21:55
So it's just and I've seen other things to where people do they fly
21:58
up and then suddenly they don't look ahead and they got slam on the brakes
22:02
and that's how people get rear ended.
22:03
They just, it's just because they don't have their eyes up.
22:06
They have either their eyes in their phone or in their crotch
22:09
or wherever the hell it is.
22:10
And it's like, it's like we always say, Okay.
22:13
You got to slow down to go faster.
22:15
But part of that is being aware of what's going on.
22:18
Look at the traffic.
22:20
And what bugs me about it all is it's not even the highways
22:23
where there's room to move.
22:25
It's when you get into the city, I should have been a drinking game.
22:28
I don't know how many times I said out loud to myself, you people drive
22:34
these freaking roads every day.
22:36
And you don't know what lane you need to be in.
22:38
You don't know where the traffic pattern is by now.
22:42
It's like certain sections.
22:43
You're like, this is the kid drop off lane.
22:45
Why the hell are you sitting in the right lane?
22:48
Those are my favorite people who do shit like that.
22:51
I'm like, why are you in this lane?
22:53
This lane backs up.
22:54
Like it's like when you're going 95 North to get.
22:57
To 6 95, the left.
22:59
You have to be in the left lane as you approach because it's a left exit ramp.
23:04
The number of people that effing sit in the left lane who aren't
23:07
taking the ramp and then cause like backup, it's like incredible.
23:11
I'm like, and then the lane, the lane next to it's open.
23:14
Like why are you in this lane clogging stuff?
23:16
Move over.
23:18
Do you not know?
23:19
Nevermind.
23:19
No.
23:20
You know what it is?
23:20
It's because you can't use your turn signal.
23:22
They don't know how to merge.
23:24
They can't turn speed, they don't turn signal.
23:26
There's lot.
23:27
There's a lot of people that have very interesting drives.
23:29
So I am 100 percent a cruise controller.
23:33
I cruise control in traffic.
23:37
I am like that much of a cruise controller, like traffic,
23:40
like congested traffic.
23:42
I will be cruise controlling.
23:43
Like I have gotten like to that level in my cruise control ability.
23:47
It's ridiculous a little bit.
23:48
But.
23:49
Any moment I even like as traffic slowing down, I'm like cruise control still on.
23:53
I'm adjusting.
23:54
It's great.
23:55
I am self driving.
23:57
All right.
23:58
So I'm very much try to be constant speed.
24:01
I might change lanes a lot, but I'll change lanes on their cruise control.
24:05
So it's like, I'm negotiating paying attention.
24:07
Like, okay, yes, I can make this move or no, I can't
24:10
depending on the other traffic.
24:11
But there are some people that they're literal driving style.
24:14
If you've noticed, because you can watch them, they.
24:17
We'll sit behind you.
24:19
And you're like, go around me.
24:20
Like, why are you like, get off me open.
24:25
If you've observed these people, and it's a lot of people to do this, I
24:28
don't understand why you would do this.
24:30
You change lanes.
24:31
They, they speed up, but they speed up to the point that there's another car.
24:35
And then they sit behind that car.
24:37
Yes, I have seen that.
24:38
It's the weirdest phenomenon.
24:40
And that's my point again.
24:41
And then, because then like two minutes later, I'm like, bye, I'm passing you
24:45
because you refused to change lanes.
24:48
And I haven't changed my speed because I'm still on cruise control.
24:53
Yeah.
24:54
Oh my God.
24:54
It's so nuts.
24:56
You know, and Jeremy Clarkson said it a long time ago that a lot of, you know,
25:00
fuel mileage and all that stuff is all about what you do with your right foot.
25:04
And if you're doing all this speed up and slow down shit, you're making it worse.
25:08
It's all about the law of averages.
25:09
So you're, you're not hypermiling where you're like putting in a neutral
25:12
and all that crazy stuff that some people do, but being consistent,
25:15
you're Even if you're doing 10 miles over, I don't advocate for speeding.
25:18
Right.
25:18
But let's just say you do the speed limiter, you're going with the flow
25:20
of traffic and you keep it that 65 miles an hour, you're still doing
25:25
a mile a minute rather than 30 seconds and then two minutes a mile.
25:30
And then changing your speed, you're, you're all over the map.
25:32
The law of averages is always going to win in that case, keep it consistent.
25:36
You're going to consume less fuel.
25:37
You're going to get there at the same time, if not probably sooner and
25:40
have less just anxiety and stress.
25:44
About driving, just chill the F out.
25:47
But, and if you were that in a hurry that you're running late, is your excuse
25:51
to why you're like being a tool down the road, leave five minutes earlier.
25:55
I don't want to hear this excuse.
25:57
It makes all the difference in the world to the time at which you leave.
26:01
And when I get it, shit happens, accidents happen, whatever.
26:04
The other thing that people are not good at, which is the opposite of what you're
26:07
talking about, because it's pretty much what you describe as an on off switch.
26:11
There is a vehicle.
26:12
I will drive to it and stop.
26:14
And then there's another vehicle.
26:15
I'll judge and stop.
26:16
They can't judge speed.
26:17
Merging is one of the most insane things that still drives me
26:22
nuts since I started driving.
26:24
And there's no, there's no excuse in the year 2022 with the level
26:28
of car that you can buy right now.
26:31
Because I can still get into my 1985 Audi and I promise you I will never
26:39
have a problem merging onto any road and at best I'm going to do 120 horsepower
26:46
on that thing on a downhill with Like a tailwind of a hurricane behind me.
26:50
Those people doing 70, 80, 90, 100, 120 miles an hour.
26:57
When it comes to merging, they're afraid of their accelerator pedal.
27:01
Right?
27:02
Yeah.
27:02
So why do you buy these big honking V8s and V whatever's?
27:06
You never press the gas pedal.
27:07
What a freaking waste.
27:09
So scared of the gas pedal when they're merging.
27:11
It's ridiculous.
27:12
Let me give you a top tip people.
27:14
Merging is really simple.
27:16
As soon as the wheels are perceived straight, slam on the gas!
27:20
It's that easy!
27:22
And pull into traffic, okay?
27:23
But also, keep your eyes up and look at the cars ahead of you.
27:26
No shit!
27:26
Judging speed, like, let's, let's be real, okay?
27:30
On the highway, outside of the people that are doing 120
27:34
miles an hour, there are there.
27:36
I mean, it is, it is unreal the number of people that are driving that fast.
27:39
It's mostly minivan drivers, I've come to determine.
27:42
Bye!
27:43
Let's just say the average speed on the Baltimore Beltway, as an
27:47
example, is 70 miles an hour.
27:48
That's not the posted speed limit, but let's just say it's 70.
27:51
What speed do you need to accelerate to to match the speed of moving traffic?
27:58
This is not a high school math problem or a train leaves Phoenix and leaves Boston.
28:03
And what time will they meet in ST Louis?
28:06
The answer is 70.
28:08
Okay.
28:09
Get to 70 miles an hour.
28:11
I don't know.
28:11
The answer is B at 45, but then suddenly slam on the brakes and come
28:15
to a complete stop at Pennsylvania.
28:17
At the end of the lane.
28:18
At the end of the on ramp.
28:21
Slam on the brakes.
28:22
Even though there's four carlings of space, you'd emerge into let me, you
28:29
get to the end, you slam on the brakes.
28:30
Let me give you another hot take.
28:32
Okay.
28:33
Because this is something they don't teach you in driving school.
28:35
It's something that I could teach you in about 10 seconds at the racetrack.
28:39
I want people to practice this.
28:41
I said this a million times, 95 percent of all off ramps, A are fun,
28:48
but B are designed to be late apex.
28:52
Now, if you don't know what that means, and you're listening to this podcast,
28:57
I don't know what to say, but for those that don't know, go look up what a late
29:02
apex is, go watch videos of what it is.
29:04
What I'm trying to tell you is stay left.
29:08
Most off ramps are to the right.
29:10
Stay left.
29:10
Go in a little deeper.
29:12
You don't have to late brake late or anything like that.
29:14
But if you take the curve slightly wider and pitch the car in, you will
29:19
naturally accelerate out of the ramp and begin to build speed safely.
29:25
You will not fly off the road.
29:27
It is actually worse if you try to hug the curbing.
29:32
On the ramp.
29:34
Okay.
29:35
I don't know how to stress this.
29:37
99 percent of all ramps are designed to be late apex.
29:42
I can't tell you the number of people that, and it's hilarious, especially
29:47
guys that you see on the road.
29:49
And if you're driving something unique or that makes noise or
29:52
whatever, they come up on you.
29:53
Cause there's those guys too, right?
29:55
I got my Ford V8.
29:58
I'm gonna show you on this soft ramp.
30:00
I will literally go in an off ramp with a 200 horsepower station wagon, not break.
30:06
And I will never see these people again.
30:07
And that's comes also from driving experience.
30:10
But the fact of the matter is if you learn to control the momentum, if you
30:14
understand the ramp, I don't need 500 horsepower to outrun you, especially on
30:19
an off ramp practice practice, but that requires you to put your freaking phone
30:23
down and drive the car speeds are up.
30:26
People don't look.
30:27
People don't merge.
30:29
I feel like we've got a t shirt design here.
30:31
Speeds are up, competence is down.
30:34
But on top of that, I want to end with one, I want to end with one thing,
30:38
and I kind of alluded to it earlier.
30:40
Speeds are up.
30:41
Confidence is down.
30:42
Competence is down.
30:43
Situational awareness.
30:44
Forget that noise.
30:45
Let's, let's, let's never existed.
30:47
Yeah.
30:47
Let's just play Wordle on our phones.
30:49
The morning, the morning, the morning.
30:52
So yes, we understand now that we can use a cell phone to
30:54
block the sun as we're driving.
30:57
I learned something new today.
30:59
Yeah.
30:59
Your car comes equipped with sun visors.
31:02
And they make these really cheap things called sunglasses.
31:04
You can buy pretty much any 7 Eleven or Walmart out there.
31:06
Yes!
31:07
Forgo the Starbucks one morning and buy a pair of sunglasses.
31:10
Okay.
31:11
Because I am convinced, I am absolutely convinced, that when people drive into
31:16
the sun, that the back of their retinas catch on fire as if they were a vampire.
31:24
Okay?
31:26
There is The road that you drive every day did not suddenly Oh,
31:33
to the center of the earth.
31:35
Okay.
31:36
People, people, please there.
31:39
Here's a technique.
31:40
The same thing at sunset.
31:42
Oh my God.
31:43
I get it.
31:43
Some people have issues, whatever you got to wear glasses and prescription
31:48
Coke bottles and whatever else.
31:50
There's a simple trick.
31:51
Lower your eyes a little bit.
31:53
Divert your eyes.
31:54
Focus on something on the edge of the road or a paint line.
31:59
What do you do in bad weather when you can hardly see?
32:01
Sit up more.
32:03
Yes!
32:04
Change your sun visor.
32:05
I was going to say, change your seating position.
32:08
Use, use like this, like your hand as if you have a baseball cap on.
32:12
Goodness sake, I don't, you guys are speaking foreign languages to me
32:16
because I don't have any of these sun problems that you know, you don't,
32:21
you're like, I had, I had this, I had this happen actually at sunset because,
32:27
and, and people, and it was very aggressive, like right at your eyes.
32:32
And I'm like, okay, whatever.
32:35
Big deal.
32:36
But everyone was like slamming on the brakes and I changed lanes over.
32:41
Unfortunately, I anticipated that the person was going to be slowing down,
32:45
but they ended up dropping anchor a little bit quicker than I was expecting.
32:49
So I had to bail out the lane again, but it was just like, and I bailed out the
32:53
lane and the lane I bailed into was empty.
32:55
So it's like, bye, um, kept going at the speed limit.
33:01
While everybody else was stopping for no reason, but it was just like,
33:05
are you all freaking kidding me?
33:07
Like, why are we stopping three lanes of traffic right now for the sun?
33:11
Yeah, it's, it's insane.
33:12
The road doesn't change.
33:13
And to your point about people passing on the shoulder, I
33:15
saw that I saw people pass.
33:16
Oh, I didn't pass anybody on the shoulder.
33:19
No, I saw people passing the shoulder.
33:21
I saw people passing in the merge lane.
33:23
Not even caring if people are coming down the ramp, they just get in
33:28
the shoulder and just drive down the merge lane without looking.
33:30
And I'm like, Oh my God.
33:32
I mean so much idiocracy, but I think the thing that really took the cake
33:35
today and it ties it back to something we talked about last month, which deals
33:39
with idiot drivers on the road today, as a matter of fact, Both my wife and I
33:44
witnessed somebody backing up on the road.
33:50
Like the highway.
33:52
Yeah.
33:52
So, but the best part is, it made me think again because it happened while
33:57
it was in the city multiple times.
33:59
I also come to realize that people have become so technologically dependent,
34:05
they don't know the back roads anymore.
34:08
They don't know the neighborhood roads, nor, well, well, but nor
34:13
are they willing to even bother.
34:16
And here's what's annoying.
34:18
And what I want to bring up, you're causing more issues by blocking the
34:24
second left lane to try to force yourself into the turn lane instead
34:29
of going down two blocks, making a left, making a left and making a
34:34
right and ending up on the same road.
34:37
And there's stuff like that too, where there were people that would just
34:40
want to make a U turn in the middle of traffic to get to the other side.
34:44
And I thought to myself, I know where all these roads go.
34:47
I don't need my GPS.
34:48
I don't need my phone.
34:49
But if you think about how a GPS is designed to work, it's like mail routes.
34:55
It puts you on the side of the road of where your destination is.
34:58
And so all the turns you take, it might seem ludicrous, is to get you
35:02
to that destination without having to impede the flow of traffic.
35:06
So if you think that way, it might be smart to to go around the block for a
35:12
change instead of trying to force yourself in the middle of traffic and make a u
35:16
turn and then cause everybody and their brother to be, you know, completely
35:20
pissed off at you, myself included.
35:22
There's a lot of lessons learned over the last month of driving in and out of
35:26
the city and I think the biggest one is I never want to do it again as long as
35:30
I live, but I know that I can't fulfill that promise and it is what it is.
35:35
My favorite are the people that pull up too far in the turn lane.
35:38
The light turns red, they put their car in reverse to back up so that they're
35:42
not blocking the traffic and the people that are coming and then they forget
35:45
that their car's in reverse and the light turns green and then they punch
35:50
the gas, they rear end you cause you're directly behind them, then it's your
35:56
fault because they backed into you because you were the person about it.
36:02
Yeah.
36:03
That's fun.
36:03
That never happens.
36:05
And also people that walk in mind, this happened to me and you don't really grind
36:09
my ears, people that walk down the middle of the road when they're looking at their
36:12
phone and I'm driving up and I stop in the middle of the road and they don't
36:16
see me and they keep walking and looking at their phone and walking and looking
36:21
at their phone and getting closer and getting closer and getting closer until
36:27
they're like, Two feet from the truck.
36:29
And then they look up and they're like,
36:33
Oh my God.
36:35
Well, that's because they've been playing.
36:37
They've been almost hit me.
36:38
You asshole.
36:39
Yeah.
36:39
They're looking for their Pokemon.
36:41
That's what I was going to say.
36:41
They're playing Pokemon go.
36:43
That's what the whole problem is.
36:44
She's playing Pokemon.
36:45
Get the fuck run over.
36:47
Yeah, right.
36:47
It's frog.
36:48
It was called Frogger in our days, Brad.
36:50
It's called Frogger.
36:51
So I'm going to end my rant on that.
36:53
But if you have other things that you'd love to rant about,
36:56
we'd love to hear about it.
36:57
So feel free to post on our right here at the tail end of our Patreon
37:01
minisode on Patreon, because there's always a good story out there.
37:05
When you're talking about crazy people on the road, man.
37:08
All right.
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