Tampa is quickly becoming a magnet for the world's worst drivers. Both the Brandon and New Tampa areas basically blew up over the last decade, and for the most part, especially in Brandon, road expansion did keep up with the increase in population. Brandon only gets really nasty from 4:30-6:30 PM, with nearly no morning rush hour. Nearly all of that evening traffic is at a huge mall, which is to be expected since the damn thing is about half the total area of Brandon.
New Tampa is a completely different story. My mental health has deteriorated to the point of dementia; I regularly flail around in my room attempting to avoid mentally retarded or completely inebriated soccer moms driving Escalades that are a complete figment of my imagination. I used to live on Fletcher Ave, only a few miles from USF, but my place turned into everyone's, whether they were friend or foe, "hangout place." I put up with a year of that shit, then I moved north to New Tampa, got cheaper rent, AND a nicer apartment.
I swear to God, in three months of living here, I have yet to get on Bruce B Downs Blvd and not want to murder every other driver on the road in the most gruesome way possible. It takes most drivers about 2 miles to accelerate to the speed limit, 45 MPH, on a 4-lane (two in each direction) road that is the main artery in and out of the entire fucking suburb. 2 MILES. I usually get to my destination, onto the highway, whatever, before I ever break 30 MPH.
Most of these rich pricks drive E500s and 550is that are way, way more than capable of a half-fucking hour quarter mile, and their shitty driving backs traffic up to the point that it starts to fuck with the way the signals are supposed to be timed. That exacerbates the very minute amount of congestion that would otherwise exist simply because we need an extra lane or two, to about completely un-fucking-drivable. People living here have some aversion to using their gas pedal, perhaps it's a myth vilifying it that is passed down from the suburb gods to scare the children of the next generation.
I used to live even further north, a few counties away, around nothing but retirees and other assorted geezers, and they were better drivers. New Tampa is the home of the rolling roadblock; two dickwads going 15 MPH under the speed limit blocking off both lanes and causing 50 cars to miss the signal, backing up every other signal for 3 miles that are also very sensitively timed to maximize flow. Want to pass either dickwad? Move over to the left lane, and watch as the dickwad on the left continues to idle his car, before remembering where the accelerator is and speeding up about a mile down the road. This very deeply upsets right lane dickwad, who through some bout of instant superpowers, suddenly becomes Mario Andretti and keeps left lane dickwad in check, matching his speed exactly. I think they meet secretly to figure out how to make traffic deteriorate to the point of scaring everyone else away.
But, if you get on the road in between dickwad waves, there is no traffic! I know what real traffic is, I've been downtown, I've seen the 405, I've been to New York. Real traffic is when there's gridlock for miles. Here, the only problem is the overwhelming majority of drivers who are dyslexic and are perhaps aiming for 4.5 MPH, or a covert group of underground metric loyalists who secretly drive around at 45 km/h to piss off us imperial peons. Looking down at the road from a highway overpass, you can see cars roll away from a traffic light so slowly that barely 15 cars make it through in each lane. These lights stay green for at least 2 minutes, I could get 50 cars through, and have the last one explode so brightly that Jack Bauer would smile.
People turning right off BBD to other four lane highways, or turning right onto BBD, will move over to the left lane, before even reaching their terminal speed of 40 MPH under the speed limit (remember, it's 45), for absolutely no fucking reason. Anyone getting off I-75 northbound and turning right onto eastbound BBD does not understand a basic traffic sign nor do they have the level of intelligence required to realize, after passing through the same area time and time again, that the lane we're getting onto exists *gasp* just for us! People slow to a crawl (bout 20-ish) and then slowly get onto BBD, and then slowly cut off everyone in the next two lanes over as they find their resting place in the left most lane at the dainty speed of I CAN RUN FASTER. People merging onto I-75 from BBD regularly try and merge into 80 MPH highway traffic at the same 5 MPH they were moseying along at off the highway, get in accidents, and wonder why highway traffic rear ended them. SPEED THE FUCK UP ASSHOLES. :| I hate this place.
New Tampa is a completely different story. My mental health has deteriorated to the point of dementia; I regularly flail around in my room attempting to avoid mentally retarded or completely inebriated soccer moms driving Escalades that are a complete figment of my imagination. I used to live on Fletcher Ave, only a few miles from USF, but my place turned into everyone's, whether they were friend or foe, "hangout place." I put up with a year of that shit, then I moved north to New Tampa, got cheaper rent, AND a nicer apartment.
I swear to God, in three months of living here, I have yet to get on Bruce B Downs Blvd and not want to murder every other driver on the road in the most gruesome way possible. It takes most drivers about 2 miles to accelerate to the speed limit, 45 MPH, on a 4-lane (two in each direction) road that is the main artery in and out of the entire fucking suburb. 2 MILES. I usually get to my destination, onto the highway, whatever, before I ever break 30 MPH.
Most of these rich pricks drive E500s and 550is that are way, way more than capable of a half-fucking hour quarter mile, and their shitty driving backs traffic up to the point that it starts to fuck with the way the signals are supposed to be timed. That exacerbates the very minute amount of congestion that would otherwise exist simply because we need an extra lane or two, to about completely un-fucking-drivable. People living here have some aversion to using their gas pedal, perhaps it's a myth vilifying it that is passed down from the suburb gods to scare the children of the next generation.
I used to live even further north, a few counties away, around nothing but retirees and other assorted geezers, and they were better drivers. New Tampa is the home of the rolling roadblock; two dickwads going 15 MPH under the speed limit blocking off both lanes and causing 50 cars to miss the signal, backing up every other signal for 3 miles that are also very sensitively timed to maximize flow. Want to pass either dickwad? Move over to the left lane, and watch as the dickwad on the left continues to idle his car, before remembering where the accelerator is and speeding up about a mile down the road. This very deeply upsets right lane dickwad, who through some bout of instant superpowers, suddenly becomes Mario Andretti and keeps left lane dickwad in check, matching his speed exactly. I think they meet secretly to figure out how to make traffic deteriorate to the point of scaring everyone else away.
But, if you get on the road in between dickwad waves, there is no traffic! I know what real traffic is, I've been downtown, I've seen the 405, I've been to New York. Real traffic is when there's gridlock for miles. Here, the only problem is the overwhelming majority of drivers who are dyslexic and are perhaps aiming for 4.5 MPH, or a covert group of underground metric loyalists who secretly drive around at 45 km/h to piss off us imperial peons. Looking down at the road from a highway overpass, you can see cars roll away from a traffic light so slowly that barely 15 cars make it through in each lane. These lights stay green for at least 2 minutes, I could get 50 cars through, and have the last one explode so brightly that Jack Bauer would smile.
People turning right off BBD to other four lane highways, or turning right onto BBD, will move over to the left lane, before even reaching their terminal speed of 40 MPH under the speed limit (remember, it's 45), for absolutely no fucking reason. Anyone getting off I-75 northbound and turning right onto eastbound BBD does not understand a basic traffic sign nor do they have the level of intelligence required to realize, after passing through the same area time and time again, that the lane we're getting onto exists *gasp* just for us! People slow to a crawl (bout 20-ish) and then slowly get onto BBD, and then slowly cut off everyone in the next two lanes over as they find their resting place in the left most lane at the dainty speed of I CAN RUN FASTER. People merging onto I-75 from BBD regularly try and merge into 80 MPH highway traffic at the same 5 MPH they were moseying along at off the highway, get in accidents, and wonder why highway traffic rear ended them. SPEED THE FUCK UP ASSHOLES. :| I hate this place.