Here in North Carolina the drivers are polite and drive fast. This is helped by the police typically not booking people until you are 15mph over the limit. Other states around here are much stricter like Virgina and South Carolina.

Some NC drivers have the same problem you dientified of not pulling over when a faster car is behind them but those people are usually on cell phones.

All in all North Carolina is a good state to drive in compared to toehrs I have driven in (Ohio, WV, Virginia, Illinois).

I can speak to Oklahoma versus Texas (North Texas anyway). You'd think it would be about the same, given the similar geography. But all North Texans know that the damn Okies are too slow and sit oblivious in the passing lane, while all Okies know the crazy Texans are too damn aggressive. The differences in traffic between Dallas and Oklahoma City are significant. I hate to admit it, but the Okies are much more polite drivers. They let you in when you need to merge, and when they know a lane is going to end soon, they come on over, and let each other in. Down here people never want to let you in, and many of them always wait until the last possible second to abandon the lane that is ending. They see other people merging early as an opportunity to jump ahead in line. They don't give a damn that it cause longer delays for everyone, if they can get ahead of five or ten people by waiting until the last second and dorcing themselves in, they'll do it. Their other favorite trick in heavy traffic is to exit the freeway and speed along the service road and then re-enter the freeway at the next entrance. Again, they don't realize or care that if everyone just stayed put, it would all flow more smoothly. But they're perfectly content to screw a hundred other people if it saves them 30 seconds.

All in all, I'd say Dallas is pretty much just like LA, which I have driven several times. Perhaps a little worse.

There are even differences within Texas. Rural areas are pretty much what you would expect. In my opinion, everything south of Austin feels like driving in Mexico City (or so I would imagine). Almost instantly you notice people are going either way too fast or way too slow, and there is no regard to lane discipline. People even invent new lanes where none actually exist.

My points of reference are Pennsylvania vs. Virginia.

First off, Pennsylvania drivers are more relaxed than Virginia drivers. The reason for this is easy: In Virginia, every local cop has a radar gun, and civilian use of radar detectors is illegal. They like their fish tightly packed in a barrel before starting shooting. In Pennsylvania, only the state police are allowed radar guns, and radar detectors are legal - for cars, at least.

Virginia drivers don't have a clue on how to drive in anything but dry, sunny weather. Say the word 'snow' and the accident start to happen. Don't even ask about freezing rain.

On the other hand, in rural areas at least (where I've lived in both states) Virginia drivers are more polite, more apt to use a turn signal. They're also way more liable to pull over and assist a stranded motorist.

After ten years of living with Virginia motor vehicle enforcement, I have to credit them with completely killing my love of fine cars - after all, if you're going to get a ticket (I've never seen a VA cop get out of his car and give a warning) for driving the slightest bit passionately, what's the use of owning anything more than white bread on four wheels?

VA traffic enforcement has me looking at moving back to PA.

ahightower,
you forgot to mention, turn signals in Dallas don't mean you are changing lanes, it means drivers in the other lane are to hit the gas and close the gap.
Exits ramps are any place your car/truck is able to get to the frontage road, no pavement required.
In Dallas, freezing rain is cloudy skies and 40 degrees or less.

Any state I've driven in, rural drivers are more polite than urban drivers.

On my several cross country drives two states jumped out as being really different: California and Texas. California drivers seem very scared. They drive slow and erratic. Like they have something to be afraid of. Crossing into California from Nevada makes the difference crystal clear. I don't know why Californians themselves always say that people drive fast in California. I have found the opposite to be the case. Especially in North California.

The other stand out state is Texas. Texans are by far the most patient and polite drivers on this continent. I can't say it isn't irritating to me at times but on average I love driving in Texas.

Fastest, craziest, most impatient drivers I have found? Chicago! By far the most demanding driving conditions outside of Eastern Europe. Poor roads, too.

The hill thing is so true. I grew up in the sierras so I got used to speeding/gearing up for hills. Not so in most of california where a hill seems to mean "attempt to keep the throttle depressed the same no matter the incline or decline."

FWIW, considering the traffic, I find LA drivers are not that agressive. SD drivers are straight fools when it's raining or there is anything to see on either side of the road (cops have someone pulled over, a turkey, a shoe on the median, you name it...these tools slow down to look). Still, when I head north to Sacramento/San Fran I'm blown away by how passive and unhurried the drivers are...it seems like they're all drinking Oregonian Kool-Aid.

Driving in Houston/Dallas is like driving in NASCAR. But at least they've got good roads unlike Chicago.

Austin is a much better place to drive. You find a lot more patient and smart drivers plus the terrain is a driver's delight! No wonder we've seen a lot many exotic cars around here ... and yes they do go fast and they cops here recognize it as passion :-)

I drove once in CO from Denver to Breckenridge and back. Fantastic terrain out there too with great roads.

Right on, norm. Maybe that's why they don't use signals here, if you put it on, they'll close the gap. Better to take them by surprise.

I drive between milwaukee and chicago regularly.

Clear differance, Wisconsin drivers are left lane hogs that never get out of the way... they feel that the speed limit is 65, and by god, thats what they'll do in any lane.

They also dont know how to go up 'hills', and we dont have hills, by a change in grade will cause a 5-10mpg decrease in speed, and they are afraid of traffic.

Illionis/chicago drivers on the other hand dont respect anyone.

The road is yours, get out of the way, I'm late, your making me later.

On the freeway, speedlimit? its actaully fun to drive, but I'm always worried about the 5-0, theres construction, 45mph? LOL, 65 MIN, speed limt 65, do 80.

you can really fly with 2-3x as much traffic as you can in Wisconsin, however wisconin has cranker cops, who seem to only pull over when you go more then 10mph over the limit. (its like 98% of all speed tickets are for 10+)

On city streets, chicago is like its freeways, go fast, dont stop, milwaukee is much more 'laid' back. But get a wisconsin driver into chicago, and you can see the fear in their eyes.

Karl, your Colorado description would apply to Oregon drivers, which (save for the California "imports") drive pretty close to the speed limits and are more courteous than the generally aggressive S.Calif drivers I used to deal with.

And yes, S.Calif drivers become dazed by any weather other than a blue sky. The summer-only race tires worn by many of their vehicles don't help rainy day driving either.

My points of reference are CA and MA.

There is a reason MA drivers are often referred to as "Massholes." Certainly the rudest drivers, and often times just bad drivers. Examples: People often go slow on single lane roads until the passing lane, and then speed up to try to prevent anyone from passing. Pulling out in front of you and then going 10 mph under the speed limit, going slow in the fast lane, in general oblivious to all cars around them.

The other thing I've noticed in the last few winters is a lot of newer cars on the road with low profile summer tires, such as BMW's with sport packages. Of course when it snows and the roads aren't immediately covered with salt, these cars end up stuck on the side of the road. The normal routine here is to have a separate set of wheels/tires for winter if you drive a car with sport wheels/tires. Not doing so seems like a complete lack of common sense.

On the regional differences in yellow-light behaviour:

I live in Washington DC. Yellow lights do not mean "stop, unless it is not safe to do so" they mean very little. I go through lights, after contemplating to stop or not, and see that two or three other cars have followed me through. I drive past a red-light camera every day on my way to work, and every day someone sets it off.

I used to live in Philadelphia. Not only did yellow lights mean nothing at all (you will get rear-ended), a just-turned-red light can be gone through with a simple "toot-toot" on the horn. It is also implied that if the lead car in a Funeral Cortege goes through an intersection, then all cars following will go through, regardless of the light turning to yellow (or red).

I also used to live in Montana. I went back there for work earlier this year, and accelerated through a yellow (too used to the East-coast fear of getting rear-ended), and I could see pedestrians turn their heads to see the "crazy person who just went through the light."

Not knowing how to get the hell out of the way when they should is major peeve of mine, but that's almost universal.

Karl-

LA's traffic woes are 40% failure to yield, 30% poorly designed freeway interchanges, 30% volume. Awful.

I find LA's drivers to be less aggressive but far more clueless than most other big city drivers (NYC & Boston are the worst). Ironically, that statement applies more to the people driving SLOWLY than it does to people driving quickly. Case in point: LA's one of very few big cities where one can find folks doing 50 mph on the freeway at any given time of the day in any lane on the freeway.

Out on the open road, though, I CAN'T STAND OAKIES!!! For whatever reason, every time WITHOUT FAIL the car blocking traffic, merging slowly, or doing something else ridiculous has Oklahoma plates. I hate generalizations & I wouldn't throw that out there if it were not true...and trust me, after all the times I've done it, I'm LOOKING for a way to let them off the hook...but it hasn't happened yet.

I've always been impressed at what they're able to do down in Chicago. Many a time I've been doing 25 over the limit, getting passed by more than I'm passing, and wondering at what speed I get my license revoked. They have speed cameras in construction zones, hasn't seemed to change anything.

I went to LA for two weeks for work, and everyone here laughed that as soon as a drop of rain his the road, all hell brakes loose. Sure enough. People here (Milwaukee) drive faster in a foot of snow than people in LA drive during a sprinkling. Otherwise I didn't think California people drove that fast. If I was doing 10 over (obviously not betwen 6am and 9 pm) I was passing the majority.

I make it to Denver pretty often, I always thought people there drove "normal"... for better or worse.

Now Jamaica, that was some interesting driving. I learned a few new tricks there....

My frame of reference is Tennessee, Ohio and Chicagoland.

Tennessee -- Drivers don't pay attention to where they are going, but are generally polite, drive at a reasonable pace and use turn signals. It is not uncommon to see drivers make a sudden exit off the interstate from three lanes to the left. But at least they signal!

Ohio -- Use the horn more than Tennessee drivers. Generally not very skilled. Can't drive in the snow (Cincinnati area), and are not overtly rude.

Chicagoland -- Only thing slowing people down around here are the craters and speed bumps built into the roads. I actually drive slower here than in Ohio because of them. Very agressvive (but less so than Philadelphia), turn signals are optional. All that gives the cops around here plenty of opportunities to find revenue, which they do more frequently than any other place I have lived.

"First, they (Californians) don't know how to get the hell out of the way when they should. Ironic that they tend to drive faster that Coloradans, but when someone even faster comes along behind them they purposely ignore the car riding their butt. "

Absolutely, if, I'm in the fast lane doing 80 and you're coming up behind me doing 85-90, I ain't getting out of your way, slow down or you can go round me.... especially if you have a better car than mine or a big ass truck or SUV.....and there's a fairly good chance I'm gonna roll my window down and flip you the bird if you start tail-gating me....hell I might just drop down to 70 just to really piss you off!

...needed to vent, bad commute this morning.

I wonder how much of it is down to road design. I swear I see very different behaviors on three of the local freeways (in the San Francisco Bay Area)... 680/280 is uniformly fast and relatively polite (it has wide lanes and shoulders, and it's curvy and kind of scenic). 880, a narrow, industrial-looking freeway with lots of trucks, is more stressful. There are much greater speed differentials because (unlike 680) you have a bunch of people doing 55, lots of tailgating and desperate passing maneuvers... I'd say it's our closest equivalent to an LA freeway. Then we have 101, which is perplexing. There are a lot of people on 101 that leave ridiculously long braking distances and unless you take 101 frequently you're not ready for them - you always figure the guy in front of you isn't going to brake yet because he has so much space in front of him. All of these freeways cross each other, yet they're different in character.

Same thing on surface streets. In San Jose, people drive at or below the speed limit on 40mph main streets and it drives me crazy. Some are illegal immigrants - no way they'd risk getting pulled over for speeding by 5mph - others are new to the area and no one ever told them that 5-10 over was the norm, and some of the old-timers date back to San Jose's orchard era and they're slow too. Most nearby cities drive faster.

In Northern California in general, I'd say following distances are a bit longer than in LA; we have the same problem with hills as they do; but we're good in the rain. (Again, that could be a road thing - the drainage on LA freeways is abysmal.) Everyone's in a hurry to leave as soon as the light turns green, but there are very few red light runners.

ddastardly-

Sorry, but you & everyone else would be much better off if you'd yield to someone else going faster. Think of how you would feel if you, doing 80 mph, came up on someone in the fast lane doing 75. The other person could say the exact same thing you said in your post...and you'd get the same treatment you wanted to give that person this morning.

It isn't worth it - just move.

I learned to drive in chicago...

my teacher actually yelled at me for going the speed limit. said at least 5mph.

there are only 2 things keeping me from going faster in chicago:

car
fear of lossing license, and even then, to keep up, i'm regularly 20+mph over the limit, it would be stupid to go slower

Roar02ram,

I was being sarcastic as living in California you see that behaviour all the time. I hate being tailgated and it does seem to me that SUVs and Trucks are usually the ones who tailgate me. I usually move out of the way, as I know it's the sensible thing to do amd not worth the risk of injury.

L.A. drivers are the most aggressive in California, but their average speed are not that high. I can easily pass most of the people by doing almost 80mph. Some L.A. drivers were driving extremely slow. I don't understand why.

I live in Sacramento. Drivers are polite here and they moves to the right lane if they see faster cars coming. How nice that is!! They do speed. The fast lane can be around 75-82 depending on where.

Bay area is roughly the same as Sacramento except Bay area drivers are more rude, but they do yield.

Massachusetts drivers are different, for that we can be grateful. Fast, aggressive, and clueless when conditions are bad and the vehicle inappropriate; slow and erratic the rest of the time. In the left lane will follow faster traffic, suddenly speed up to tailgate, then dawdle after traffic in front pulls over. That's if they don't swerve suddenly into righthand lanes, thereby screwing up someone else's passes of slower traffic.

The scariest sight is a Volvo with Massachusetts plates, a driver who hates cars, thinks nobody has a right to ruin the planet by driving, and shows utter disregard for everybody else on the road.

There was an old saying among my racing buddies, the only thing scarier than a clapped out pickup truck with New Mexico plates driven by a drunk, a Texas Cadillac or Suburban driven by a wannabe cowboy, or a rusted AMC Eagle driven by a West Virgina hillbilly was a Volvo with Mass plates. That sure hasn't changed in a long time.

LA drivers are horribly aggressive or passive-aggressive. They will block the fast lane as a "keeper of the speed" or to just try and make someone else as miserable as they are.
People tailgate, cut off others and just continue the cycle of road rage. I am sure that aggressive driving accounts for many more accidents than given credit for.

There simply is a lack of courtesy and prevalent "I'm right, you're wrong" mentality here. There is no consideration that using a car as a weapon can actually destroy someone's family.

Sometimes I honestly fear for my wife. She is a good driver that follows the rules and drives defensively ... which is offensive to some drivers, imagine that!

I'm glad someone pointed out Oregon. When driving there, I was surprised how orderly and courteous everyone was. It was refreshing and restored my faith in humanity just a little bit more than life here in LA.

Karl, right now I'm in Jamaica and I would like to share this with everybody. They use the car horn for everything. They drive loaded with people with their loaded Toyota's, Nissan's & Mitsubishi vans and cutting inside everybodyelse. There is no regard for safe distance behind a car. They follow the car in front pretty much bumper to bumper. Since I'm used to it when I used to leave in south america many years ago many of my USA fellow passegers were very affraid.

The roads are narrow with a whole lot of blind corners. Sometimes you can barely fit two small compact cars. So imagine a big Peterbuilt vs. Toyota Corolla.

Anyway, for me was a blast and my wife enjoyed too.

Kentucky:

1) All the slow people drive in the "fast lane".

2) Weaving in and out of your lane is acceptable as long as the person is on the phone or doing other various activities while driving.

3)People drive under the speed limit and wont get over for others to pass.

4)Running a red light is acceptable. The local gov't will just make all red lights stay red longer for the "runners" to make it safely through the intesection.

5)Someone can pull out in front of me and give me the finger. WTF?

6) Green means hit your brakes and red means floor it.

7) Just because you own a Mustang GT 5.0 doesnt mean you will take my 3.2L Acura CL-S 6MT.

Although Im being a bit sarcastic, all of these unfortunately do have truth to them.

West Virginia:

1. Speed due to the lack of policeman (like 95 in a 70 MPH)

2. Slows drive in the fast lane

3. Known to pass in the median in bad traffic (not bumper to bumper of course)

4. Say that Ohio drivers suck (which they don't)

5. Don't expect for people to stop at 4 way stops

Key to LA driving: You always have the right of way, you never have the right of way.

OH-people are generally pretty good drivers, but it can really vary from rural to urban areas. The joke around Toledo is when somebody flies around you, you look for their Michigan license plate. Ohio looks for speeders, but going 75 in the fast lane is slow to Michiganders.

MI-I think people drive as fast ast hey can to get out of their pot-holed hell of a highway system.

I've split my existence between california and idaho. Californians definetly seem to handle freeways better and traffic for that matter. People here tend to be very nice though when driving which is great. Whats fun is seeing people from california come up here and freak out during the winter hehe. Snow totally freaks them out.

Try Atlanta, GA. Quite possibly the worst set of drivers in the world. I've been to almost every state in the lower 48, and haven't experienced anything like it. They are truly crazy.

PA drivers are much better be comparison but still don't know how to use the left lane for passing. On a 3 lane highway, you'll have 3 cars driving the same speed, neck and neck- very frustrating.

It is too bad none of the driving criminals we are all writing about read these type of blogs. But hey if you happen to live in Oklahoma and you are reading this blog, Move to the right!!
I have never lived anywhere where people just cruise in the left hand lane like they do in Oklahoma.
Once more, if you are not passing someone, move over. I don't care if you are doing 100mph, if there is an open lane to your right get in it!

@ohdriver1: I have to admit, OH has better roads than MI. So, you're telling me that Ohio Troopers aren't really targeting MI license plates? It's just we drive faster? And all this time I though it had to do with the OSU-UM rivalry!

@12rings: You're right, but the driving criminals don't get it anyway.

I've driven in a number of states and, while there are differences, there are a lot of similarities. Seems we're all subject to the "left lane hogs", which I used to believe were primarily FL drivers, but now have become quite common everywhere.

I've lived in IL for a while and Chicagoland always seems to be the hurry up and wait region. I try to avoid the area anywhere near "rush hour." Too much construction, which makes me almost appreciate MDOT. In Detroit area, MDOT are the folks that bring you complete closures of I-75 and I-96 while also doing work on I-696 and M-102. MDOT taught me the meaning of "you can't get there from here."

I actually have a number of peeves, which I think are similar to most others. It boils down to stupid people shouldn't get licenses.

Please consider my rant at stupid people shouldn't get licenses.

Missed the link to stupid people shouldn't get licenses.