Every driver has some pet peeve about other drivers when they’re on the road. Something they see so many drivers do and wish they wouldn’t. The Road Warrior contacted people who drive as part of their jobs and this is what they listed:
CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow
“To me, it’s pretty simple,” Farrow says. “To this day, it’s texting and cell phone use even though it’s against the law.”
He says that when he’s driving a marked CHP car he rarely sees people on their cell phones. But when he hits the road in his personal car, he says it seems as if every other driver is on the cell phone or texting — and they’re looking around to see if an officer is nearby.
“We’re getting compliance, it’s just slow,” says Farrow, who’s been commissioner for nearly three years.
He compares cell phone and texting use to wearing seat belts: It took years for the public to consistently follow the law.
Rick Bigall, taxi driver for Yellow, George’s and Checker Cabs in Santa Rosa
“Red lights that last forever at intersections and that are not synchronized” with other intersections, especially at 3 in the morning, says Bigall, a cabbie for 35 years.
Sebastopol Police Chief Jeff Weaver
“It’s throwing cigarettes out the window of a vehicle,” Weaver says. “I hate it. I absolutely hate it.”
Sometimes, he says, he sees “people palm (their cigarette) and as they make a turn,” usually away from him, they stick their hand out their window and drop the cigarette, “but you can see it bounce on the road.”
Weaver says that when he’s off duty and in Sebastopol, he’ll call the police station and see if an officer is available to stop the litterbug and issue the driver a ticket. If he’s in another jurisdiction, he says, he writes down the license plate number, takes a good look at the driver and when he’s back in Sebastopol he’ll have an employee set up a photo lineup of five people, including the car’s registered owner. If he picks out the owner, he says, he’ll mail the owner a ticket.
He also will call the owner and ask if they were driving the car and tossed out the cigarette.
“All have admitted it,” Weaver says, noting he’s done this about half a dozen times in his 22-year career.
“Talk about the ultimate in arrogance — that the world is your ashtray.”
Stan Burford, KGO radio’s star traffic reporter
“Tough to pick just one,” he says. “Tailgating would be first, just ahead of driving at night with their lights off.”
Garret Moore, a Santa Rosa firefighter who drives Engine 1
“People talking on their cell phone. Some are driving along and not paying attention,” says Moore, who’s driven firetrucks for 29 years for either the city or the county.
His No. 2 pet peeve is when drivers don’t yield to his fire engine as it rushes to an emergency with lights and siren on.
Moore, who’s also driven taxis, says he’s amazed that when his firetruck is on a call, with its siren blaring, its horn honking, that people don’t immediately move to the right. “They probably are talking on their cell phone and talking louder as the noise (of the approaching firetruck) gets louder and then suddenly realize, oh, geez, what’s causing the noise and they pull over.”
But the unnerving part for Moore is he’s not sure the drivers will pull to the right as they’re suppose to. Some freeze and stop in the middle of the road, leaving Moore hoping that the driver doesn’t suddenly decide to pull one way or the other in front of his truck.
Justin Bowen, a paramedic with American Medical Reponse, which operates the Sonoma Life Support ambulances
“In general terms, it’s people not paying attention” while driving, says Bowen, who’s driven ambulances for 18 years and teaches defensive driving at SRJC. “Their minds are elsewhere.”
Like firefighter Moore, Bowen says it “can be a little scary” when drivers don’t pull over to the right as his ambulance is approaching and he doesn’t know what they’re going to do. Some even will slam on their brakes in the ambulance’s path, he says.
Leslie Allyn, owner of Santa Rosa’s Roadrunner Driving School
“It’s wrong-way bike riders. They’re such a hazard,” Allyn says.
Sometimes she says she’ll find herself driving with approaching traffic on the left and a bicyclist riding toward her on the right, perhaps weaving around parked cars, and it makes for a dangerous situation.
She says a lot of drivers don’t think about watching for bicyclists when one’s not in front of them, recalling a time when a student was stopped at a downtown Santa Rosa crosswalk for pedestrians and was about to drive on when suddenly a bicyclists came out between two buildings and dashed into the crosswalk. It was a close call.
“You’ve got to look ahead, you’ve got to anticipate the unexpected,” she says.
Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Doug Schlief, who helps oversee the traffic unit
Speeding, following too closely, cell phones and texting — all contribute to collisions, he says.
His message for drivers: “Just think, get off the phone and drive.”
