The 8 worst habits of bad Philly drivers (an incomplete list)

A survey ranking Philly as the worst big city for drivers in the U.S. struck a nerve with Philadelphians last week — the nerve in our eye that’s still twitching because of some road raging jabroni on the Schuylkill.

The WalletHub survey scored cities based on factors like commute times and gas prices, and while those things contribute to what it’s like to drive around here, it’s not what I think of when I think of bad Philly driving. I think of the visceral experiences that make me scream “What the actual [colorful string of expletives] dude?!?” at least seven times a week.

I think of the guy who cut across three lanes of traffic on Callowhill Street in front of me last week to make a left on a red light. Or the trash truck I saw completely blow a light on Fifth Street. Or the time a dad and his elementary school-age son both flipped me off on I-95 because I was driving too slow (i.e., 15 miles over the speed limit).

These are the things I want to commiserate about with my fellow Philly drivers (and pedestrians and cyclists). These are the things I want to name so we can denounce and shame those who make our city a more dangerous place. So I came up with my own list of peeves to share and I put the question out on social media: “What are the worst habits you see or the worst thing you’ve ever seen driving in Philly?”

Sometimes I think back to my early days of driving in Philly, when people who didn’t use their turn signals were my biggest pet peeve. Ah, I was as green as a go light in those days! While other dangerous roadway practices have superseded this one on my list, I remain absolutely flabbergasted at how many licensed motorists don’t seem to know what that little lever on the right of their steering wheel does. I’ve become so used to having to guess where people are going, I actually get excited when I see someone use their blinker now.

It takes a substantial amount of gall to block a lane of vehicular or bicycle traffic while you double park your car to go run in and do something. What are you doing? Nobody knows! But it’s obviously more important than whatever everybody else has to do.

It takes even more hubris to double park your car right next to open space, or to park it in the middle of a one-lane street, and yet, it happens all the time in Philly. So much so that we don’t even honk at the people who do it anymore. We’ve just resigned ourselves to this double parking bind.

When I was covering the Philadelphia Parallel Parking Association Championships recently, which aims to promote better parking practices in the city, a spectator near me was asked by a Visit Philly staffer what the litmus test is for earning your driving stripes in Philly.

“You’re not a true Philly driver until you’ve double parked for at least an hour,” the spectator said, as I held back tears and died a little inside.

Something I first noticed during the pandemic, and have seen pick up exponentially in the years since, are drivers who use turn lanes as passing lanes. I see this most often at stoplights. A driver who’s five cars back at a red light sees an empty turn lane, goes into it, and when the light turns green they step on the gas and pass the cars going straight. Way to go buddy! You really got one over on all of us. See you in about 20 seconds at the next red light.

I’ve also seen drivers using center dividing lanes as passing lanes (and as parking lanes in South Philly, of course). Folks on social media also bemoaned drivers who pass on the shoulder as well as in bike and parking lanes. This is not just a gross and incredibly self-serving practice, it’s incredibly dangerous too. I’d excommunicate everybody who does it if I could.

Texting while driving is terribly unsafe and also illegal but sadly, it’s nothing new. What I have noticed more recently — and others have too — is people watching videos while they’re driving. I can’t even believe I had to write that sentence it’s such a stupid thing to do, but here we are living in a society where a large chunk of the citizenry has the attention span of a tsetse fly and absolutely no self-awareness.

Just this year, I had an Uber driver who had one phone in his center counsel for directions and another one attached to the vent on the left of his steering wheel that he was watching videos on. I wanted to say something but by the time I noticed what was happening we were on the highway and I saw he was watching videos of Vladimir Putin. It was a Catch-22 in terms of personal safety calls.

Nobody goes the speed limit here. It’s a suggestion limit. And you know what Philadelphians don’t take kindly to? Suggestions and limits. Even school buses will pass you if you go 55 on 95.

God forbid you have to use a spare tire and can’t go above 50. You’re going to feel like Mr. Magoo driving a jalopy at the Indy 500.

What’s really terrifying is when you’re going 15 mph above the speed limit to keep up with the flow of traffic and someone comes flying by doing at least 30 mph more than you. People don’t even honor construction zone speed limits. There’s currently active construction on several parts of 95 where the speed limit is 45 mph, and nobody is going below 60. I fear for the lives of those workers every day.

The worst Philly drivers treat stop lights like stop signs and treat stop signs like yield signs, if they acknowledge them at all. I bet they’re on their way to do something important like cracking the secret to cold fusion!

These terrible drivers will also honk at you for stopping at a yellow light and honk at you for not going through a red light before it turns green. And if you dare use a stop sign as intended, well you best be prepared for their wrath then too.

One of the most mind-baffling things is when some idiot driver beeps at you for letting people cross the street. I’m sorry, sir, I don’t want to kill or maim people today, or any day. I didn’t think of how that would affect your commute before I went on the road. How selfish of me!

Sometimes you’ll be driving along in the left lane, say on Broad Street, when a motorist in the right lane suddenly decides that they need to go in the other direction. Without using their blinker to warn you (see the first item on this list) they make a random U-turn in front of you and into opposing traffic. This is a move I call the “F” U-turn because that’s exactly what the driver is saying to everyone else around them.

Roosevelt Boulevard may get all the glory when it comes to the worst Philly road for driving, but don’t sleep on Kelly and Lincoln Drives. Seriously, don’t sleep on them because despite being beautiful, they’re incredibly dangerous thanks to the people who drive on them like they’re in Grand Theft Auto.

Not only do these two winding roads have more twists and turns than an M. Night Shyamalan movie, the posted speed limit on them is 25 mph. You’d never know that though as you’re passed in a snowstorm by drivers doing 55 mph.

“There’s nothing quite like hitting Kelly Drive for the first time. It’s like you’re plopped down into a Mario Kart track in a beautiful gorge but you’re fighting for your life trying to survive as everyone goes twice the speed limit,” Paul Spencer of Rittenhouse Square said on Bluesky.

But just because someone drives fast does not mean they drive well, as Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow of Germantown wisely pointed out on Threads. Many of the people who hit Kelly and Lincoln Drives like they were race tracks “can’t stay inside a lane or maneuver the curves,” she said.