Tag: traffic

Behavioral observations as a new Tesla driver

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

To cut to the chase, I bought a Tesla.  Okay, it’s really my wife’s car and she’ll be the one making the payments on it, but on paper, I’m the purchaser, since I don’t have student loans and my credit was more optimal to get the financing done.  But we have a Tesla, and I get to drive it around every now and then.

It hasn’t been long, but it’s definitely a fun new toy to drive around in.  There’s definitely an adjustment period getting used to regenerative braking, and how you can literally drive with your foot on a single pedal.  The feeling of there being no gears shifting at all as you accelerate, and the sheer lack of sound of motors or smells of exhaust definitely makes you feel like you’re driving a spaceship.

Without question, there’s still a treasure chest worth of experience yet to be tapped as far as diving deeper into ownership of our Tesla, and I’m sure weeks, months and maybe years down the line, there will be functions and features that we’ll still be discovering, and hopefully none that will have been gamechangers early in our ownership.

But the point of this post is about behavioral observations that I’ve had, now that I’ve been driving around in the Tesla myself for a few weeks now.  I didn’t really think much about it after experiencing some observations, I guess I can kind of understand what’s going on around me whenever I, or my wife are riding around in the Tesla.

  1. Surrounding drivers are more aggressive. This is really the big thing that I’ve noticed the most when driving around myself.  Turning on a turn signal to initiate a lane change, way more frequently than I’ve noticed in any other car I’ve been in or driven, results in adjacent drivers stepping on the gas to forcibly deny me entry.  If at a merge point, surrounding drivers are noticeably more aggressive and out to make sure they get ahead of me, regardless of our spatial positioning.  At stop lights, in just the last two weeks, I’ve had more people act like they’re Brian O’Connor on me, and turn a green light into an impromptu drag race, and seemingly make a point of getting in front of me like they just won the le Mans.  I’m all like, buddy, I’m still trying to learn the pedal of this car, I’m definitely not trying to get in any races here.  Plus, I’m 40 with kids, I’m long past caring about 95% of red light matchups.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’ve pushed the pedal a few times, and the acceleration is staggering.  In most cases, I probably could smoke a lot of the cars that have gone Dom Toretto on me, but just because I could doesn’t mean that I am, especially where I’m still new to this and learning about the car.

    But I don’t know if it’s the color of the car, or the notion that all Tesla drivers must be rich assholes, but it’s pretty undeniable that drivers all around me, when I’m in the Tesla, have their aggression ramped up like that one cheat code in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City where you can make everyone super aggressive.

Continue reading “Behavioral observations as a new Tesla driver” →

All streaks come to an end eventually

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The last time I was in any sort of car collision, it was like in 2002.  Completely my own fault and fortunately didn’t involve anyone else, just me being a dumbass with a new-ish car, thinking I was invincible.  But over the last two decades, I’ve been fortunate to not have gotten any incidents by my own fault, as well as fortunate to not have been victim to someone else’s shitty driving capabilities.

Welp, two decades worth of incident avoidance came to an end the other day, when some dumbass managed to tap my rear fender and cause damage to my six-month old car.

TL;DR nobody was hurt and honestly, my car is actually in almost an unblemished state.  Just my rear passenger rim has a few scuffs that looks more like I scraped a curb parallel parking rather than getting hit on the highway.  The other guy’s shit Camry on the other hand looks like they’ve been in a collision because their car is light colored, plus they’re the ones who hit me, contrary to the driver’s immediate accusation when we pulled over to assess the situation.

In short, the above exit is where the incident occurred.  I was in the left exit lane to I-285, and the other person was right where the truck is in this screen grab from Google street view.  I’m passing them and then suddenly I feel the bump, and it actually took me a second to register that I’d just been hit.  For a brief second, I thought about continuing because it wasn’t a big hit by any stretch of imagination, but rational thinking prevailed and we both pulled over immediately, lest anyone get accused of a hit and run.

As mentioned, my car barely had any damage.  Their car on the other hand, although just as superficial of a wound that didn’t impact their ability to drive, by virtue of having a light-colored car, is more noticeable.  I immediately snapped pictures of the impact point of both cars and their license plate, and asked if they were alright.  Naturally, they were as it wasn’t more than a small tap, but the normal world isn’t a video game, and small taps in moving vehicles still need to be examined for rational people.

The driver of the other car, and his mail-order 90 day fiancé looking girlfriend didn’t waste any time in accusing me of hitting him, claiming I was trying to cut them off, and I calmly disagreed since I had my own exit lane, there was no reason for me to cut them off if I wanted to pass them.  I explained that I wasn’t going to play the blame game, and that we would most likely tell our insurance companies our respective stories and we’ll let them deal with the situation.

I mean seriously?  The laws of physics would say I would have had to have done some pretty intricate driving to have hit them in the point of impact and amount of damage, but from his driver’s seat, a sneeze, a jerk, or maybe he was getting a road beej from his mail-order side piece, was more than easy enough for him to have jerked his wheel to the left for a nano-second enough to have tapped me while I was passing.

Here’s fuel to the perfect storm of failure though; I’m in the midst of switching phones, so the phone I had on my person had no network signal.  Yes, I’m reminded after the fact that any phone regardless of network connectivity still has the capability of dialing 911, but I wasn’t thinking about it at the moment of incident, so I didn’t call the cops.  The other guy wasn’t calling the cops, either because he knew he caused the incident, or maybe because he was a black male and I get why he’d not want to bring a cop out.  Maybe both, who knows.  Either way, no police report occurred, which means that no matter the actual fault, most likely nothing is going to happen, and it’s a push both legally and with insurance.

So it’s extra fortunate that my car basically had no damage because I’d hate to have to pay a deductible to get superficial scuffs removed or a new rim, and have an accident reported on my VIN, because it’s most likely nothing can happen given the end result.

But all the same, I was involved in a collision, the first in two fucking decades, and naturally it’s because some dumb shithead was a bad driver, and not because I caused it.  In the grand spectrum of things, it’s fortunate that my car had no actionable damage and nobody was hurt, but I’m still full of piss and vinegar because it wasn’t my fault, and it completely derailed my entire day and makes me feel like my feeling of confidence and superiority in driving ability is wounded because I still fell victim to someone else’s recklessness.

Welp, it’s been a while

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ordinary news: massive accident on I-285 shuts down the entire interstate for 10 hours.  Brog news: tractor trailer involved in the crash was carrying beer

As the subject line reads, it’s been a while since I came across a story about a truck crash on Georgia’s highways.  Obviously I live under a rock and don’t really keep my eyes peeled for these, and in all fairness, it was mythical wife who came across it, and it didn’t really pique my interest until the mention about the part where the tractor trailer that was involved in this whole fracas, was carrying beer.

Not that it really matters anymore, because I’m long past the days of where I had intrinsically remembered every type of consumable that had spilled onto Georgia highways, but still, it’s always a tickle to go back in time a little bit to find some inspiration to write on account of booze spilling all over the roads.

The thing is, where this crash occurred, at Ashford-Dunwoody on I-285, this is probably one of the most infamous exits in the state.  Not only is the specific spot a logistical disaster nightmare zone, because it’s close to where GA-400 intersects and that’s a state route that will never seemingly get its shit together or never not be tampered with at any given point in time, for whatever reason, shit just keeps happening here.  Most notably, a few years ago, it’s where an armored truck carrying like $385,000 or some large sum of cash, the doors just popped open and people were basically getting out of their cars in the middle of traffic to try and snatch as much cash as they could, regardless of how illegal it was to do so.

The details of this entire thing are what was the most compelling thing about it, regardless of the presence of beer.  The fire apparently raged so hot, that it created all sorts of structural concerns of the asphalt as well as the integrity of the bridge that it occurred under.  Obviously, it hasn’t been that long since Atlanta was the laughing stock of the country again, for the whole I-85 bridge collapse, and I’m sure GADOT was having flashback and PTSD about the risk of something like that happening again, so they clearly erred on the side of caution when they shut down the highway to assess the damage, lest the bridge over I-285 collapsed, taking out a pretty substantial surface street vein.

All things considered, it was no Japan fixing a lake-sized sinkhole in 7 days impressive, but the fact that GADOT was actually able to get I-285 up and running again in 7 hours is still substantial and for ‘Murican standards, pretty impressive.

Kind of one of the worst days ever in a long time

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[transcribed on my phone while I was laying awake in a sweltering house at 3 in the morning]

  • Couldn’t really work due to all sorts of conflicting appointments to do
  • Work team building function sucked up even more time in which I would have preferred to have gotten some actual work done than swing golf clubs when I don’t golf
  • Had to rush pack and head to the airport to which of course there was hellacious traffic because Atlanta
  • Atlanta’s airport logistics are never the same each time you visit and my risk of missing my flights due to being unable to check bags increase with every passing minute
  • Successfully getting our baggage checked was probably the only good part of the day
  • The plane ride from hell where #1 pissed herself during the taxi time in which nobody can access restrooms and then 30 minutes later, shit herself, requiring me to change her out of soiled clothes and into a spare outfit in the confines of a tiny airplane lavatory
  • Also #2 was a squirmy handful the entire flight because she was bored, hungry and past her bedtime and I’m pondering how much I hate air traveling with an infant and a toddler and never want to do it again
  • My dad’s house turned out to have turned into a house of horrors with no working refrigerator, no hot water from certain outlets and worse off, no working air conditioning. It was literally 84F upstairs, resulting in numerous people to sleep in the dungeon of my old basement to have any chance at staying sane

I went to bed after a cold shower feeling dejected, embarrassed and miserable at the circumstances of my surroundings and that I had to subject other people to them, much less my wife, kids and mother-in-law.  Need to figure out how to salvage the rest of this trip’s lodging situation even if it means relocating to a hotel or my mom’s place.

Getting a Peach Pass was one of the best choices I’ve ever made

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve noticed that the more I get older, the more monetary value I put on my time. 

I still reminisce about a story quite some time ago when mythical then-girlfriend and I were at Epcot and in typical Florida fashion, it started pouring.  As we were leaving the park, unsurprisingly there was a massive line of people waiting for the complimentary shuttle back to the hotel.  I said fuck that, and immediately hailed an Uber, and it turned out that an Uber was right there and picked up the fare as they had just dropped someone off.  Ten minutes and ten dollars later, we were back at the hotel where we could dry off, clean up and settle in for a relaxing evening, instead of the likely hour we’d have had to have waited just to not have to pay for transport.

That shit happened maybe seven years ago, and I still look back fondly at that memory as a good example of how much I value my time over money.

Anyway, I recently got a PeachPass, which is Georgia’s equivalent of a FastPass, SunPass, or whatever Pass exists in your states that basically allows the driver to hop into lanes of lesser traffic for a flexible fee, effectively having monetized the ability to buy your way into lesser traffic.

I used to abhor the idea of the PeachPass or any sort of FastPass in general, because it’s a flagrant cash grab by whatever region it’s implemented in, and a poor excuse to avoid having to build mass transit or any other superior infrastructure.  Clearly though, the judgment of myself and anyone else who might’ve felt similarly isn’t ever going to change things, and as I said, as I’ve gotten older, the more I’m willing to pay in order to save myself some time.

So I got a PeachPass, primarily because there was the possibility that mythical wife and I were going to go to drive down to Florida for a Disney trip, and as it is compatible with Florida’s SunPass system, and we could’ve avoided the obnoxious tolls in the Orlando area.  But also because Gwinnett County exists, and I hoped having a PeachPass would help give us the option to nope the fuck out of the perpetual traffic going north or south, whenever we visit the family in South Carolina.

Anyway, coming back from a trip to Savannah, there was some build up starting to form on the south end of the city.  And fewer things suck than getting hit with traffic on the tail end of a road trip, especially the magnitude of Atlanta’s jurassic traffic.  But lo and behold, at this stretch of I-75 had a set of express lanes, that happened to be headed in my direction, so there was no better time like this present to break in my new PeachPass.  I jumped into the express lanes, and for the next 6-8 miles, watched with the most smug and satisfied glee, as I soared past the congestion going 70 miles an hour.  And it cost me, $2.22, for saving maybe 10 minutes of time and a whole lot more in aggravation and annoyance.

I genuinely felt as if I could chub up from such immense satisfaction, and much to the feined dismay of mythical wife, my reference to Colin Robinson’s euphoric joy at watching the community board meeting devolve, as an accurate analogy to how I felt having just PeachPass’d my way past a logjam, was met with rolling eyes.

Seriously though, I may have had to have paid actual money for this bullshit system, but god as my witness, it was one of the best $2.22 I’ve ever spent.

I look forward to other opportunities in the future, and hope that I’ll again experience the utmost joy and smug satisfaction of PeachPassing the fuck past some stupid bullshit traffic in another time.  One of the best decisions I’ve made in a while.

Georgia pushing real hard to take the title from Florida

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In news that just about anyone probably could have seen coming, Bubba Kemp went ahead and lifted the shelter-in-place order for Georgia, save for the obvious exceptions of people with any sort of immunocompromised circumstances (or the morbidly obese, for some reason).  I’m actually amazed that Bubba has (or more realistically, someone in his office has) enough common sense to have any exceptions at all, since he’s doing his very best to kill as many Georgians as possible, it seems.

In spite of the fact that coronavirus is going absolutely nowhere, hasn’t slowed one bit, and has statistically reached the point where more Americans have died from coronavirus, than Americans killed in the Vietnam War (over 50,000).  Also in spite of the fact that his lord, savior and god-king, the Baked Potato in Charge has publicly lambasted him numerous times by name at this point, I’m getting the sense that Bubba’s good ol’ boy pride is kicking in at this point, and despite the fact that he has no dignity to begin with based on how much teat-suckling he’s done to the Potato administration, I think he’s making a gamble to demonstrate what little cojones he’s got by continuing to double and triple down on his choices to kill Georgians.

The latter is actually very amusing to me, and I love the optics of Bubba acting like a kid who’s mom is pissed at him, and trying so hard to drag in straw men arguments and deflect as much criticism as he possibly can.  All while the Baked Potato in Charge continues to rain haymakers on him from Washington, continuously using his full name to draw emphasis in front of cameras of national networks, deliberately making sure that everyone knows who the country’s biggest clown is right now and how it’s not himself.

I have this escalating fantasy that this pathetic feud is actually making Georgia Republicans disenchanted, or at least very confused on whom to support, between the head cheese of the state, or their god-king in the Baked Potato, and it’s going to be like a lion in a herd of gazelle, where they don’t know who to throw their allegiances to in future elections, become overwhelmed, and then don’t act at all, allowing all the gazelle to escape safely, which in this analogy means defeat for the clowns.  But politics is anything but prone to fantasy, so even in spite of this, I can’t imagine racist Beckys and Trents still won’t vote red just because they don’t know how to do anything else.

Anyway, in news that kind of came out nowhere on the other hand, Bubba Kemp’s office has decided that it’s no longer necessary for teenagers to take road tests anymore in order to acquire their drivers licenses.  Obviously, this is a frightening decision, that further feeds the narrative that Bubba is really trying his best to kill Georgians, because the last thing the state needs on top of coronavirus, are 15 and 16-year olds being given drivers licenses without formal testing, and hitting the roads.

Continue reading “Georgia pushing real hard to take the title from Florida” →

No better way to start the new year

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Than with a Pepsi truck crashing on 285, dumping its contents all over the place and tying up traffic for hours.  This wreck actually impacted my commute this morning too, but I’m an early riser and somehow managed to avoid the worst of it; I figured it was just the whole world returning to work at the same time causing logjams.

Frankly, this wreck couldn’t really have been in a worse place at a worse time, considering it happened right at the 285/75 interchange, during the morning rush.  From what vague details there are, it sounds like the driver fell asleep at the wheel and veered off the road; they’re banged up, but fortunately still alive, but it leads me to wonder that this particular trucking company must not be one of those that employs a co-driver, which specifically is meant to prevent incidents like this from possibly occurring.

But whatever, it’s Pepsi, and Pepsi is second-rate, especially here in the land of Coke.  In almost a prideful way, it’s entertaining to see the visuals of a wrecked-up Pepsi truck, as if Pepsi done fucked up and came to the wrong neighborhood and immediately paid for it.  As if they knew that they were in hostile territory, tried to circumvent the city by taking 285, but were too late, and blown off the road barely after getting onto the bypass.

What’s interesting to me is that of the photos I’ve seen, the vast majority of the spilled cargo appears to be Dr. Pepper.  So it’s pretty clear that this is a truck that had no intention of really unloading here, because in Georgia, Dr. Pepper is a Coke product, showing up at all fountains and Freestyles under the Coke umbrella.  It also puts me in a conflicted position, because although it’s fun to dunk on Pepsi, I have no qualms with Dr. Pepper.  So it’s kind of sad to see large portions of Dr. Pepper go down the drain, but fuck them for being in a Pepsi truck.

Either way, this marks the first post of 2020, and in spite of the sentiments of new years and new beginnings, it’s pretty much business as usual at the brog.  Glorifying dumb shit like truck crashes and the hypocrisy of Georgia and other shitheads, that is when I’m not talking about professional wrestling, baseball players getting owned, or TLC programming.

Happy New Year!