I used to have a car with a very aggressive horn and never wanted to use it because it did sound like I was cussing something out. I couldn't get the light "beep beep" of communication, only the FUCK OFF ASSHOLE honk.

Now have a different car and can use the horn as a communication by short tap tap.

But the wave is the apology. I have had people accidentally cut me off and when I swerve to pass have gotten a wave and mouthed sorry.

Even just emoji. A thumbs up and a middle finger could be a good start.

Warning lights. In France people do a short blink with the hazard lights to say thank you or sorry.

"This situation is a lot like this other situation, and it did not work out there, and people tend to have similar emotions in these two scenarios"

Road rage is no more logical than league rage, which is why i compared the two. An illogical person hearing/maliciously using a tool intended for genuine apology will very quickly be rewritten as the "youre a coward" horn or "you should be telling me sorry" horn or something dumb

Well ideally you would change lanes where you have ample space to just fit in without impacting the traffic. Cutting in stopped traffic is more chaotic. But I agree that I don't think it's a big deal

If a trucker in Australia put on their hazards I'd be getting the fuck out of the way or given them some room because some shit was about to go down, you know, like a hazard.

There are many things in life that are inconvenient to others without harming them

Oh yeah that definitely won't get abused

Reminded me of the "game over" sounds that play when someone loses on The Price is Right.

This is not a blind choice between adding a minute to one person's commute or adding ten seconds to five people's commutes. This is a man who failed to do the most basic, bare minimum cost of driving around in a machine that can and does kill people on a regular basis: paying attention. Others shouldn't be endangered to save someone from an inconvenience. A sudden, illegal maneuver, even at low speed, introduces more danger and unpredictability where we want less. Why give MORE trust to someone who is actively engaged in demonstrating they should not be trusted?

You need 2 seconds between every vehicle, and to be able to fully see the vehicle in front of you. When changing lane, you need to fully see the vehicle in your side mirror, center mirror if it's a truck.

Come on people, that's all in the paper exam for your licence.

I heard this from the Balkans aswell, never seen it in Germany.

I think that’s fairly common everywhere

Hahaha not the way I hold my hand.
My palm is pointed at the person giving away.

Not in Belgium. People would have no idea what is going on if you do that here. They would probably think you are about to have to slam on your brakes (hazards are put on when you have to abruptly slow down)

I would say its common in Germany as well

This here. Once you are too late, you are too late. Just take the next exit and drive back.

No sorry could excuse a deadly accident.

It is all prescribed in the rules, they are precise. Even if they aren't precise, the judiciary decides what the rules mean, law has no ambiguity, and if there is, the ambiguity is resolved by a judge.

In my country it is forbidden to use your horn unless there is a dangerous situation.

No lol, it is the driver that makes the mistake that needs to accept the mistake, not the other way around.

Was going to point out something similar. A good driver occasionally misses an exit. A bad driver never does.

OP, if you're in the wrong lane and there are cars around you, you continue and find a way to get back on track in a thoughtout way. You don't just cut into a lane where people can't react to your action because they're supposed to pay attention to everything BUT you. It creates a dangerous situation, in your case probably not life threatening, but you could mess up someone's property to save 30 seconds.

This was my exact thought.

People who drive like they walk are either too stupid or ignorant to understand that there are over 3 LITERAL TONS of force being used to "just-squeeze-by, pardon-sorry."

To quote questionably-ethically-dubious Louis CK, "BuT ThAt'S nOt My FaVoRiTe WaY!!!

If you missed your turn, that sucks, now you spend an extra 2 - 4 minutes going the long way around.

Be better,, drive better, pay more attention. If you got unlucky and the road or signage sucks, oh well.

Most drivers already don't use or know 60% of the capabilities of their vehicles, adding more is just adding distractions to already crappy drivers.

Lane assists, cruise control, radar assists, parking assists, hazard lights, turn signals, oil pressure sensors, tire pressure sensors, fluid level sensors, driving modes, alternator charge readers, low gear throttle assists, hill assists, 'fog' lights, daylight driving lights, mirror defrosters, smooth braking modes...

I have been in so many cars and watched people just... Not use these tools and then complain about something related to it.

Can't fix stoopid

Well... that's true.

Yeah, but just think: a message screen on the back of the vehicle could be used to display distracting adverts carefully curated content from our trusted partners when it's not in use to a captive and unwilling delighted audience with the revenue being used to offset the cost of running the vehicle haha fuck you.

If you have time to activate your 4-way flashers before braking, you didn't need to. And if you need to abruptly brake and you reach for the 4 way flasher, it too late to brake.

Ope! Ope! Ope!

Traffic is generally bad in the city I live in. Years ago I was driving when someone accidentally cut me off. I started to get mad when suddenly the person who cut me off held up a sign I could see through their back window that said "Sorry!". The car belonged to a business and they gave their driver a sign on a handle they could hold up if they needed to. It immediately diffused the situation and made me smile. Little things in life really help.

You hit on another driving quote I love:

“Don’t be courteous, be predictable.”

Lol

Cutting in line is not against the law though. It's just considered rude, which is why OP wants a "sorry" honk

I believe OP is talking about cutting into a line of stopped vehicles, which is not against the law, but also considered rude (if you had a chance to cut in earlier but you didn't)

Because everybody makes mistakes, and based on what OP said this does not sound like the "endangering life" sort of situation. They're just cutting in line. More unpredictable, sure, but not dangerous.

If you came a minute late to your doctors appointment, should all doctors refuse to see you and force you to re-schedule? Or is the world a better place because there's a bit of lenience?

And how do you quickly enter text to display it? Seems very distracting.

Really important for you to understand: Not likely to kill you is not the same as not dangerous. So many people end up in low speed collisions which, while having an infinitesimal chance of death, cause them non-lethal pain, stress, financial harm, legal trouble. These are dangers. The existence of death does not negate the suffering which does not cause death.

And that is absolutely not analogous. The inattentive driver isn't analogous to someone coming in one minute late, and the other driver is not analogous to the doctor. He's doing an analog of coming in half an hour late, when the doctor has already made the reasonable assumption he is not coming, (He's already at the intersection by the time he's trying to make the lane change.) and started seeing the next patient. (The other patient is the other driver, following the expected rules of courtesy and appointment keeping.) He is then making an invasive entry into the doctor's exam room (analog to the space they each want to use, the turn lane) and expecting to be seen ahead of the person who was on time for their appointment. (cutting in on the mutually desired space without regard to anyone else) He was inattentive and failed to arrive on time. (He failed to get into the correct lane at an appropriate time) The only reason a person would let him barge in is out of fear he might be even more dumb, aggressive, and inconsiderate than he already appears and hurt them, whether through selfish ignorance or active malice.

I really don't think cutting in line is as big a deal as you make it sound. Inconvenient, and causing a non-zero amount of "suffering"? Sure. But only a few seconds of inconvenience at most. Literally just a few seconds. And maybe an infinitesimally increased risk of injury.

Judges disagree all the time and then it gets decided by the highest appellate court, potentially with a split vote.

The laws are not perfect by any means.

Not inconvenient to have someone safely and legally change lanes in front of you. They can get mad anyway because they're an asshole, but you don't need to apologize for an unreasonable person getting mad at you. "Im sorry you feel that way" i suppose is also correct in this case.

That is the thinking. It's like when a couple fights about something small like how much salt is in the meatloaf, but that's not actually the reason they're mad at each other. In school, they call this "critical thinking."

Hi! It's me. I'm the guy who reroutes and takes an extra 60 seconds rather than cut somebody off.

My dude im not driving my car through the doctors office. Please understand: driving is literally the only dangerous thing most of us do all day. You cannot compare it to being in a doctors office or anything else really.

I'm driving a two ton steel machine, the rules have to be much stricter than anything else I ever do or ever will do because I don't touch anything that weighs even close to a ton ever, much less drive it at 70MPH.

Well i dont play league lol. Do you drive a car in league?

Yeah but when people rage in a video game there isn't a big car accident lol

I use the bip many times per day as a "hey, the light went green a few seconds ago, maybe you should get off your phone and start driving" button. I make deliveries.

Honestly, as long as someone employs their flasher, I assume they made a mistake and I let them in. Don't use your blinker? Go fuck yourself.

No, but you do have to communicate with strangers in a hostile and competitive setting.

Good thing, too!

Yeah, yeah.
The older I get the more I have 'old man yells at clouds' moments. This was one of them.

Even if its a steel machine, slowly cutting into a lane of stopped cars is not dangerous. Why is this so hard to understand.

If it's not dangerous, then there's nothing to apologize for.