In Roslindale, an angry driver is angry

In areas where people complain. Although this is an area where people go through the stop sign, there are very few crashes here that I can recall off the top of my head.

He says the guy caught up to his car at Washington Street and West Roxbury Parkway - so plenty of time for the guy to stew and steam - rolled down his window at the light, and yelled that he hoped Murphy and his kids "would fucking die!" As you can see, Murphy caught him in mid-exclamation.

This guy is apparently well known in the area, and has harassed people before.

What I don't understand is this: if he appeared to be "half in the bag already" then why did the victim not call the cops and report him as an impaired driver?

Are you the Egg Man?

... that other neighborhood residents, having seen the photo, corroborate the fact that this is an angry, impatient and dangerous driver.

The number of times I've used my horn in the past year could probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. The number of times I've used it in anger is almost nil for my lifetime. I don't even like it if someone honks the horn because they're too lazy to get out of their car to go to the door when they're picking someone up.

I'm no saint. I've had folks honk at ME, for what I considered no good reason, and I've reacted with less than kind words. That's the thing, though. I figure if beeping gets me riled enough to spout invective, then what good will it do if I beep at someone else? So I save it for alerting someone in danger or once in a great while a very slight tap if someone is texting or otherwise occupied at a light that turned green a while back (and I wish I had some other means at my disposal to signal such a driver.)

Anyway, this is way off the path of the conversation at hand. I just wanted to let Waquiot know the truth was hit upon, although how it happened I'm not quite sure :-)

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogsot.com

Speed limits are a MAXIMUM speed, not a minimum.

You are also NOT ENTITLED to have those in front of you drive at the speed limit.

In the most egregious example in my memory of a driver doing this, she was using NH plates.

But they're harder to spot. You can often tell UberX from the phone mount and passengers in the back. The Uber Blacks and SUVs tend to be pretty distinctive looking and have livery plates. Don't trust anyone who is being paid to drive in this city.

The taxi tariff rewards cab drivers for zooming up to red lights. You're paid X per yard traveled, plus Y per second when the cab is not in motion.

So, if you are 200 yards from a traffic light, and you just coast up to it like a sane driver, arriving as it turns green, you get paid for 200 yards worth of travel. But if you race up to it and slam on the brakes, you get paid for the 200 yards plus the 10 seconds of wait time. Over the course of a week, it adds up.

Not Critical Mass per se. SFO police were doing stop sign enforcement costing EVERYONE $240 for not stopping at stop signs. In CA and NY cyclists actually have to pay tickets or face having their driving licenses suspended, unlike Massachusetts. The fine is the same no matter the color of your skin or the type of vehicle you operate.

Protesters coordinated two events. I'm not sure how many enforcement events police coordinated, probably only a few more. The cyclists interfering with traffic with traffic flow was due to a problem in the law allowing cyclists to use the whole travel lane and not keep to the right ;-). Fixing that would have fixed the blockade!
Story here:
http://district5diary.blogspot.com/2015/08/walking-back-crackdown-on-cyc...

Probably not.

It's a lot easier to shout profanities when traffic is completely stopped. When someone's moving at "screaming" speeds, how would you even know?

I'm sorry,

No you're not.

but this behavior is worse in Boston and metro than anywhere else in the country.

Others who have driven elsewhere disagree with you. Myself, I doubt anyone really has the data points to make such a statement. Certainly I don't think you have extensive driving experience everywhere else in the country -- that would be impossible, wouldn't it?

> Carty said this guy is a peach

I can't find the post you are referring to. All I see is a post saying we have no right to suspect that the story is true without getting the angry guy's side of the story.

But I too live in the neighborhood. And I have seen angry, impatient guys of just this sort. So, I don't find the story improbable at all.

Of course it's my name. Just ask my brother Hand.

when the JP ones were put in - the Hyde Sq area, specifically. They're on Mozart, Wyman, and Forbes. And the then Neighborhood Liaison pointed out during a community meeting that these speed bumps met DPW standards vs those installed in Cambridge. And I remember people elsewhere in JP were unhappy that these were installed first.

I don't recall the City having a complaint about the speed bumps, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

and your neighbors the legal authority to place obstructions on a public street?

... on or behind the car.

not because there is a real need to control the assignment of right of way at a given location, but because people have decided that it's necessary to slow traffic down for no good reason. Our Great and General Court didn't exactly help matters in the mid 1980s by allowing cities and towns to install stop signs on their streets without approval from the state DOT - see Chapter 689 of the Acts of 1986 (while such signs still have to conform to MUTCD requirements and guidance, local cities and towns tend to conveniently ignore that requirement).

When drivers encounter locations where stop signs are placed for no legitimate reason, they tend to start disregarding stop signs at all locations. Same goes for speed limits that are set unrealistically low in the name of "safety".