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Worst Cities to Drive In?

Jarrett

Most Obnoxious Member 2016
It's a well known fact that city driving absolutely disgusts me. You have to weave around to make sure you stay on course for your exit, half the crap's under construction, and with all those stupid people you have to share the road with, it's no fun. At all. But some cities I can do as if they're just a minor inconvenience whereas some of them have actually threatened my safety on the road, leaving my defensive driving as the only thin line between life and death. So what are the worst cities to drive in?

5. St. Louis- The drivers here are actually fairly civil, my issue with this one is just the fact that it's horribly designed. You have like 6-way intersections downtown, situations where only one lane lets you continue on the highway, stuff crisscrossing everywhere, whoever designed this city needs a new job. I've never been able to traverse it westbound without getting lost, one time it even reduced Ben and Emily to a couple of children bickering over directions.

4. Cincinnati- Ah, Cincinasty, admit it, you probably expected this to be higher. And honestly, it probably should be. This city was plagued with multiple infrastructure problems over the years (abandoned subway tunnels running under the city that never opened, politicians bickering about who builds a new bridge while the old one endangers people, good stuff) and as a result, some really bad driving habits developed here. Drivers here just think they can do everything suddenly, be it slam on the brakes or put their blinker on after two wheels have already darted into the other lane. Luckily a bypass does exist in 275 so while it still has the annoying drivers, it doesn't have the rapid traffic flow or badly designed exits everywhere.

3. Philadelphia- Imagine bumper-to-bumper traffic full of Jersey drivers (drivers with Cinci habits but taken to the absolute extreme) that won't let you in, drive too slowly, and think the idea is to pack it in as close as possible on the highway. Not to mention some genius decided there needed to be a giant toll plaza downtown where you stop in the middle of a big urban area full of interchanges and pay a toll. No, City of Philadelphia, YOU should be paying ME to drive through this nightmare!

2. Providence- By far the worst drivers I've ever encounter. These idiots do everything in the books! Swerving, darting, clustering, if you were told not to do it in driver's ed they do it. And it shows, we saw roughly 5 wrecks just driving through to New Bedford. Their exits have the worst design ever, basically requiring you to dart to get on or off. One of only two cities where I legitimately felt in danger driving. Luckily, this one is like pulling a tooth where it only hurts for a bit. Unlike the worst city I've ever driven in...

1. New York City- The people are insane. It's full of tolls and the like. the numerous ways to get through the city are guaranteed to confuse the heck out of your GPS, and it goes on for literally a full hour. And there's no effective bypass around any of it. I literally felt like someone was going to take me into a concrete wall the whole drive. My girlfriend actually thinks I have anxiety now because of how much this place stressed me out to drive in. Never go here. Ever.

So what are the worst city driving experiences you've ever had? Post away!
 

ECG

East Coast(er) General
Staff member
Administrator
Definitely no U.S. cities no my list, but then I'm not basic. :wink:

Many of my friends say Mexico City, but I always enjoy driving there even if the traffic jams can be pretty bad. I'm used to New York City, where I also don't mind driving since I know how to get around the worst parts.
I would have to go with Istanbul and Cairo for the worst I've driven in. It's a free-for-all in both and the Turks and Egyptians have a knack of creating an extra lane no matter the width of the street.
I also hate driving around Los Angeles. Downtown is a breeze, but the parking lots they call Interstates absolutely suck unless you have a passenger and can use the HOV lanes.
 

tomahawk

Strata Poster
When every city you drive in is horrible, maybe it's not the other drivers...just saying...

Seeing as I live in the cesspool of traffic known as LA, it is at the top of my list. The roads suck, they refuse to expand them to only make limited public transport that is not a realistic option unless you live in downtown area/want a 3 hour commute each way, and no matter what time, it's reemed. I live right next to (can see it out my window right now) one of the worst stretches of freeways in the nation. From Orange County to Riverside County, it's dubbed the Corona Crawl, a 10 mile corridor that is only way directly between those areas that from 1pm-8pm the average speed is 10 mph. **** you.

St. Louis is straight dog ****, but that's because it's St. Louis.

The worst drivers? Now that's a completely different subject, but Ohio and the Charlotte metro drivers are leaps and bounds ahead of ****. At least in LA, the legal ones go the speed limit, but those two areas are just full of a bunch of **** tards who clearly never took driving classes.

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Jarrett

Most Obnoxious Member 2016
When every city you drive in is horrible, maybe it's not the other drivers...just saying...
Actually not every city I drive in is horrible. Cinci's literally the only Ohio city I've ever had any issue with, all the rest are fine. Louisville, Springfield MO, Springfield MA, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Hamilton (though it did confuse my GPS once I had no problems handling it), Albany, and others I've had no problems with. The only one I had any issue with that I never mentioned in my list was Detroit.

Someone making a list of the worst things they've encountered and then claiming that they have a problem with all of them in general is idiotic. It's like saying you're too fat to fit into all coasters when someone discusses the worst times they've had fitting into coasters. ;)
 

Ben

CF Legend
Yeah it's you Jarrett.

American cities really aren't that bad, you should try going to the Middle East or Asia.

I want to watch a TV show where you drive around somewhere like Dubai, or Ho Chi Minh, or Bangkok.

That is a show I would watch every day. I would TiVo that ****.
 

Jarrett

Most Obnoxious Member 2016
^Compared to the rest of the world, I'm aware. I'm sure after a nice cruise through Shanghai or something I'd be wishing I was back at home cutting through Cinci. But while I might not be the best city driver out there, I will admit that others I didn't mention are easier and I've never had any problem with them.

I would imagine drivers in the parts of the world you mention are full of the behavior I usually see from international students at school. They get to the US and forget driving laws exist and dart around and slam their brakes on and cut people off and all that. I think I even saw a group of Kuwaiti students just drive on over a tree lawn leaving the parking lot to get around a stop sign once. On campus they're horrible to share the road with and I could easily see a city full of drivers like them being multiple times worse than even the worst day in NYC.

But I'd gladly drive through Istanbul for your entertainment. Might even bring Ben and Emily to scream at each other and resolve unfinished business in St. Louis, that whole thing would be comedy gold if you weren't in the car with us.
 
Jarrett, I'd hardly call your driving defensive... I drove with you for about fifteen seconds to a Waffle House and you drove like a 95 year old grandmother :p

I don't think any city really comes to mind. Weaving through traffic doesn't really worry me, it's constant traffic jams I hate. New York City and Chicago are up there on that list.
 

DelPiero

Strata Poster
I used to work in London driving everywhere so driving in big cities doesn't phase me. NYC wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, everywhere else I've driven in the States is fine, Boston was a bit of a PITA and I wasn't keen on Miami but they weren't a nightmare.
Paris and Rome are awful though, Rome because you're guaranteed to hit some tw@ on a moped and Paris coz it's full of idiots.
 

Bat Fastard

Hyper Poster
Chicago traffic wasn't as bad as I thought. San Antonio and Dallas rush hour makes me want to shoot myself however. The drivers aren't bad or anything, it's just all that stop and go for so long was a pain in the ass. It didn't help at all the fact that we went in my car, a Mustang with a decently heavy clutch.
 

Ian

From CoasterForce
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
Italy. I hate Italy for driving.
 

TilenB

Strata Poster
Ian said:
Italy. I hate Italy for driving.
This guy. Although I haven't driven in Italy myself, it seems to be one of the countries where regulations apply the least and every **** crossroad has its own rules...

Poslano z mojega ONEPLUS A3003 z uporabo Tapatalk
 

jay37415

Mega Poster
I used to be a truck driver that traveled most of the US. I always hated Atlanta. Southern drivers have this NASCAR mentality.
 

YUNG_CHOPPA

Mega Poster
If we talking about traffic, then that would be Atlanta because my dad went there with his buddy from california a couple years ago for a falcons vs 49ers game, and he called me asking me to look up what peachtree road they where on, they're GPS couldnt even help. :lol: Turns out they literally have 71 roads in atlanta with the name peachtree in it...

If we talking about just driving through a city, MEMPHIS. Right when you get into the city limits from olive branch (where our hotel was) you in the ghetto. seeing the characters that walk on the side of that highway will scare you...and i'm from the hood in new orleans and I'm saying that. There could be one street in Memphis with beautiful houses & then the next street over it's completely ghetto. It's so weird. Memphis is kinda lame anyway, BBQ is overrated, graceland is only cool to say that you did it, & beale street is fun during the day but at night it's a TON of homeless people...even more than bourbon street here in new orleans. I know not all homeless people are bad but a lot are schizophrenic & it's not really fun to see people like that. Oh yeah and if you're ever in Memphis, get a banana supreme from jerry's sno cones on the north side. They're the best dessert I've ever had, but they have MS-13 in that neighborhood so be careful when you get one. Sorry if I got a little of topic from driving :lol:
 

Intricks

Strata Poster
Phoenix drivers are kinda annoying I suppose. Always cutting infront of you, constantly on their phone while driving (I think AZ has very lax phone-in-hand laws).

New Jersey as a whole was pretty interesting to drive in. Its not everyday you see a mini-van peel out from a parking lot just to do a u-turn at the light.

While I was oversea's in High School, the drivers in Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland didnt seem all that bad. Granted this was done while In a tour bus and not physically driving, so there is that.

I guess Phoenix would be the worst Ive ever dealt with while driving.
 

10WaTT

Hyper Poster
Belgium was terrible, saw 4 crashes in the space of 10 minutes driving.

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Ketchup

Mega Poster
Only driven in the UK, Iceland, Belgium and France and all 4 countries have high driving standards.

From what I've seen though as a passenger, I would probably put Marrakech in Morocco at #1.

Driving standards in America seem to be far worse than Western European drivers from what I've seen, but isn't that partly because the driving test in most states is basically a formality unlike in say the UK where you actually have to reach a passable standard of safety? (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here).
 

Tomatron

Giga Poster
Didn't drive there, but from travelling on coaches and motorcycles, China was hysterically bad. The fact that I didn't see anyone get run over or lose a leg is testament to how lucky everyone was when I was there.
 

Will

Strata Poster
Montreal is... an experience - but in fairness, I quite enjoyed it once I got used to it.

I've been lucky and not had to drive in that many, but Leeds, Brussels and (of course) London are among those I avoid wherever possible. The ring road around Brussels is worse than the M25.
 
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