What drives you mad as driver or passenger?

Gary Richards writes the column Roadshow for the San Jose Mercury News.  This one titled Driven Mad, spread out on the front page of 23rd August issue, had us chuckling because we thought he was writing about road behavior in the Philippines, specifically in Metro Manila.

http://www.mercurynews.com

 The laughs have something to do with Fil-Am balikbayans expressing utter disgust of Manila drivers each time they come a-visiting (and they're scared to drive here) .  Now we know better. They could be doing any of the TOP TEN Driving Peeves culled from inputs sent by 500 Roadshow readers:

"1.  Bad merging -- either too slow or too sudden.
"2.  Road boulders -- slowpokes in the fast lane.
"3.  Not using turn signals
"4.  Tailgating.
"5.  Using exit lanes as passing lanes.
"6.  Texting/cell phone use.
"7.  Flipping cigarette butts out window.
"8.  Running red lights.
"9.  Bypassing cars waiting in exit lane and cutting in front of them.
"10. Tie: Carpool cheats and bicyclists who ignore stop signs."

San Jose, CA and Metro Manila drivers are at par in road behavior!  

Item 4 is the "nakabuntot" in Pinoy traffic slang, and it's the most frequent offense of drivers in SBMA who think that, since they are in a convoy of excursionists, they all should behave like a train at a STOP intersection.

Item 10 need to be qualified though since carpooling would probably take a lifetime to weave into our culture. There's just a few bicyclists on the road except the Sunday racing clubs but the Philippine counterpart are the tricycle drivers who think that they're the kings of the road and drive like hell with nary a thought of their passengers' safety.

You can read this particular column at http://www.mercurynews.com/mr-roadshow/ci_15862639?nclick_check=1.