mikehope

My pet hate is when there are road works going on there is no warning, the other day I was driving up a hill came over the crest and there was a truck stopped in front of me so I stopped and waited for it to move on ( I thought there was a stop sign or something) after a couple of minutes i leaned out the window and I could just see a couple of cones closing the road just around the bend!!
No warning, No diversion, nothing!!!!
So basically you have to do a 3 point turn and try to figure out another way to get where you are going.
Why are there no "Road ahead closed, follow diversion" signs???

warksgirl

Also in relation to tv adverts, the disclaimers at the end of them, in particular, for the drug and medication products.

"This can have side effects such as nausea, sleeplessness, constipation, headaches, etc., etc..."

Some of the side effects seem worse than the ailment the medication is meant to treat!

It's so annoying.

elfman

Amen on the roundabouts and road signage. Also the condition of the road surface, even on interstates, is sometimes more akin to what you'd find in sub-Saharan Africa than in the richest country on the planet.

The thoughtlessness and vapidity of TV scheduling winds me up, as do the endless fcking adverts - it's not just the quantity and frequency, but the repitition: they basically show the same commercial two or even three times in the same break, sometimes even back to back. What I find really strange is the way (at least on our cable system) that you sometimes see the first half second of an advert, or even a whole second, long enough for you to recognise what the ad is for, before it then abruptly cuts to a completely different ad and the one they started to show disappears. That happens all the time whenever I watch telly. Anybody else noticed that?

Also:
Stingy vacation allowances
The complexity of the tax system
Being asked if I'm Australian
The NY Yankees calling themselves "the most famous sports team in the world"
Fox news channel - what a shower of shite
Republicans in general
I'm sure I can come up with some others given a few minutes.

Englishmum

Well, I used to complain about repeats in the Uk......but then I came here.

Why on Earth do they show programmes like the "Apprentice" on a Thursday night (although they inexplicably changed it one week to a Wednesday) and then show it *again* in prime time in the same week on a Saturday night?

Do they not realise that most people have VCRs or even Tivo's?

Celtic_Angel

LOL do you happen to be welsh?

Bob

Or cancel the good one and leave the shite ones running...

Celtic_Angel

ooh ohh you just reminded me ...... Jay Leno repeats!! WTF!

elfman

Nope, English

Pulaski

That tale reminds me of the time that I was trying to return a Penske truck (mercifully only a 15 footer!) to a depot in Newark. I didn't have a road map, nor a cell phone, and I was following Mrs P, who had the map. I missed the turn into the Penske depot! ..... and it was on the slip to one of those not-quite-interstate freeways with a concrete barrier in the median, so no left turns. I needed to get off and turn back, but the exit ramp I took led onto another of those no-left-turn freeways. Eventually I found an exit, then I had to find a place to turn around, I took a right and another right. By now I was several miles, and as many turns, away from the depot.

Did I mention it was getting dark?

Please oh PLEASE, GIVE ME MORE ROUNDABOUTS!

I made it back, eventually, managing to retrace my route without any hiccoughs. I now have a cell phone, make sure to take a map with me, even if it is only a mapquest.com one, and I have mostly managed ever since to avoid the armpit of the world that is Newark, New Jersey!

Englishmum

Every single time I drive back from Newark airport (like tonight when my husband decided to phone me from his office in NYC at 2.30pm to tell me that he was going to fly on the 6.30pm flight to Geneva and could I pack a case of clothes/shaving kit/IPOD for him and take it to EWR at 5pm where he would meet me at the international departures floor....grrrrrr) there is the nightmare section of the I-78 West where two major lanes - one from the airport exit road - merge into one lane and 500 yards later (no signage on the tarmac and as the road bends) the fast lane suddenly becomes an 'exit lane only' to the dodgy/drug infested area of Hillside in Newark. Cars and huge lorries are zooming along at high speed then suddenly realise that they're in the 'local exit only' lane, which immediately has a downhill exit ramp.

They all then try to merge into the middle lane but a few of them usually become a cropper and if they're lucky they become stranded and hope someone will let them in......or if unlucky they crash into the concrete dividing barrier which is not lit nor has any reflective strips. :scared:

Franklin

I appreciate your post about returning a rent-truck. When I moved to Chicago my ex-wife and I had a really bad experience hiring a truck. We rented a truck to pick up our stuff that we shipped over from Bath, England. It arrived at some huge depot in Chicago. After getting a letter telling us our stuff had arrived we hired said truck. They gave us a monster size truck in error, we told them it was too big but they insisted it was the right truck and we would not have to pay extra ("our" truck was not available or was already rented out ... some b/s).

So off we went, got the truck and drove out of the depot as I fingered through the paper work; blow me, I noticed that the starting mileage was way out ... by several thousands of miles - the ex-wife agreed (she was driving) ... to cut a long story short we got stuck in a "3 point turn" ... finally got back out of the "3 point turn" but still traveling away from the depot ... took us ages to find our way back to correct the obvious error. Got back and the guy at the depot told us they take the starting miles reading of a mile-ometer on one of the truck's rear wheels ... so the mileage reading inside the cab was meaningless.

Anyway, we told them we had to go under the "L" to get our stuff back to our apartment, they said it would get under the "L". Nope it didn't (the "L" in question was an elevated section of train track on the north side of Chicago, they had our address (we lived on Inner Lake Shore Drive near Foster Beach) - near the L line that headed out of Chicago and terminated at Evanston about 10 miles along the lake front heading north out of Chicago) ... oh, we got stuck over and over again ... couldn't find a bridge with enough clearance and had to reverse back along streets with heavy traffic ... the locals at one bridge brought out their deck-chairs - I kid you not.

But we did not damage the roof or peel it back by striking a bridge but we had to detour and detour and detour to find a bridge with enough clearance ... we got dehydrated and tempers frayed, "it was all my fault" of course .... Then we got back to the depot a new guy was on the desk and insisted we pay more because we took out a bigger truck than we ordered and it was our fault - by now I was not in the mood for games or a scam and told them so.

I yelled at him: listen buddy, we argued that it was the wrong size and we wanted the size we ordered, not the monster you gave us and it gave us hell because we told you we needed a truck that could go under the L line near our home, we told you the bridge we had to go under and your truck was not fit for the purpose intended and we have every right to sue your butt and report you to the cops for extortion and conspiracy to scam innocent members of the public in a vulnerable state (I repeated UCC article 2, Uniform Commercial Code covering sales/contracts). I don't know if my law school legal theory was totally spot on but it shut him up! What a bunch of scumbags ... welcome to the more seedy side of Chicago!

dunroving

That's another pet peeve - you can't use PERFECTLY INNOCUOUS phrases like the above without getting strange looks (first time I said this one in the US was in front of a class of college students ... you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife).

Franklin

*LOL* ... cute! My mother's pet peeve is the phrases often heard like, "Awesome". My mum says, "How can anything and everything be awesome?" Just takes the differential meaning away ... "I got here on foot". Awesome. "I got here in a Viper with a V10 blown engine". Awesome. "I arrived by chopper". Awesome. "I just walked here." Awesome.

Ash UK/US

Americans excessive use ofone or two words, example...

I like thought I would get online tonight because the house is like totally quiet and I like needed to check my mail because I like totally thought I would have lots but there was like totally none...

Patrick

The complete misuse of the English language, for example

Miller Light - More Taste, less filling - and all that goes with that advertising campaign. How can something have more taste? It either has a different taste or or tastes better than xxxx but it cannot possibly have more taste? it has a taste, good or bad and thats it.

The war on Terror - terror is a weapon of war and not an enemy, saying you at war with terror is like declaring war on sarcasm!

The New England Patriots have the winningest record in the NFL. No they don't they hold the record for the most wins. Is Brighton the most happeningest place in Britain, are my halogen bulbs are the lightingest etc



My pet peeve for this website (as most of you will know) is moderators moving threads for no reason or censoring posts they disagree with. Stop it moderators, your job is to moderate not meddle.

Patrick