Houston's (Unwritten) Driving Rules

A couple of weeks back, while I was in Las Vegas, Houston Chronicle Staff Writer Jhair Romero penned the following "explainer" (A term that I hate but here we are).

Every Houston Driver Knows 'Rubbernecking'. What Other Unwritten Rules are Out There?

Now, this article is behind the Chronicle's paywall so I won't block quote the body of the article, but I do think it OK to put up the question that he asks at the end.

Tell us about the rest of them, the other unwritten rules of driving in Houston. What habits and courtesies and routine traffic infractions do you spot on our roads every day?

This question got me to thinking. What DO we see on Houston roads on our commutes, driving to the store, doing our level-best to get the heck out of Dodge during Houston Live Stock Show & Rodeo season?

I will say, this list has changed mightily post-COVID lock downs. I have said several times, both on this blog and on Xitter, that I'm working under the theory that the National Response to COVID broke society into pieces. As a matter of fact, most of the things that you're going to see listed below are further evidence of that.

So, without wasting any more of your time. I give you the Top 5 Unwritten Rules of (Bad) Houston driving. These might not be exclusive to Houston, but they are legion now and happen frequently on a daily basis.

Finally, before I get fully into this list, I present my Houston driving credentials. I commute to work around 20 miles one-way three times per week. The drive takes approximately 35 minutes during the early AM hours (think 5:30AM) and around 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours in the afternoon (think 3:30-4:00 PM) I also drive around NW Houston A LOT, and I make the drive up North a few times per month for various reasons. I also drive to the Airports, mostly IAH but occasionally Hobby, and I've been known to drive down to NRG on occasion for various events.

Let's get into it.

Number 1: Line Cutting.

You are familiar with this one. You have to make an exit. Unfortunately in the lane to actually exit there is a back-up, due to traffic on the feeder road or heavy traffic on the Freeway you're exiting to (Aside: Houstonians cannot merge.) or some other exit. You see the back-up, move your car over, dutifully, into line and inch forward waiting your turn.

Suddenly, a car in the lane next to you on left flies by, then suddenly turns on their blinker and cuts off the cars in line, close to the actual exit, often almost causing a collision and making the exiting traffic hit their brakes to avoid it.

You have just experience the Houston Line-Cutter. The scourge of Freeway driving and one of the most self-centered, selfish, moves that a driver can make. Nothing says "My time means everything and your time and safety mean nothing to me" than this move. Tesla drivers LOVE this move, as do Chevrolet and Ford Pickup drivers and luxury sedan owners. It must be in the vehicles Owner's manual that you have to perfect this move in order to own one.

The funny thing is, these drivers get the MOST frustrated with you if you do not let them cut-in. Prior to the Pandemic Lock-Downs, I used to put up some resistance. However, one day I saw a driver run his car into the concrete barrier and the car beside him to cut in and I have since just backed off and let them go. Also, Houston drivers are very shooty right now, and one car length in front is JUST NOT WORTH GETTING SHOT over.

I don't remember this being as prevalent pre-COVID as it is now, but now it's Legion. I've a feeling it's only going to get worse.

Number 2: Right (or Left) turns from a non-turn lane.

This one is closely related to Number 1 but it can be much more likely to result in a collision.

You're in the lane to turn (right or left) your lane is a dedicated turn lane and the one next to you is not an optional turn lane (it's go straight only). Your turn arrow, or light, turns green and off you go.  Suddenly, the car next to you also turns and tries to race you to the lane.

To be honest, you're not expecting this and they don't have their turn indicator blinking so you have no warning. You catch them out of the corner of your eye and then, amazingly, they have the audacity to lay on their horn at YOU. They scream at you, glare, you're seriously worried a road rage incident is upcoming despite the fact that you have done nothing wrong.

That's the thing about these people, they don't care that they're breaking traffic laws, all they care about is that they want to get where they are going and they will not take responsibility for either a) not wanting to wait in the line for the turn lane or b) admitting that they effed up and found themselves in the incorrect lane due to inattention or lack of prior planning and are more than willing to run you off the road than to just go straight and work their way back to where they want to go.

Number 3: Stop Signs Optional

The "California Stop" is a well documented event that long pre-dated COVID. Rolling a Stop sign was a right of passage for young drivers in West Texas where I grew up. I'm not referring to that however. What I'm mentioning here is just blowing through a Stop without even a tap of the brakes, without checking for oncoming traffic or pedestrians or anything.

This phenomenon has gotten so bad I saw on my local NextDoor page that the Sheriff's office actual did some Stop Sign enforcement in our area and pulled over 7 drivers in a 20 minute span.

I once had the driver of a huge GMC pickup run the sign and LOOK RIGHT AT ME while he was doing so. Knowing that, if I did not let him go (despite the fact that I had been there, had come to a stop and was preparing to go) we would have been in a collision.

The Government has a term that it calls "knowing and willful". What they mean by this is that what you did was intentional, or that you just failed to take the basic care that an idiot would take. Most of the people running Stop signs are knowing and willfully doing so and could care less who, or what, they could hit.

Number 4: We don't need no stinking lights.

There is a line from the 80's movie Star Man where Jeff Bridges, playing an alien stuck on Earth who is trying to get home, drives Karen Allen's car for the first time suggesting that he knew how to drive by watching her. As he's driving he comes up to a traffic light that turns yellow. At that point he guns the throttle and blows through the light just after it turns red, almost causing a collision.

Allen freaks out and asks him what he was doing. "I thought you knew how to drive?!?"

Bridges Responds, I do, "Red Light Stop, Green Light Go, Yellow light Go, very fast."

I'm not suggesting that none of us have ever done this. I know that I have and I'm sure you have as well.

What we've morphed into in Houston is Green Light Go, Yellow Light Go, very fast, Red Light Go, even faster. I've seen drivers blow through Red Lights that have been turned for over 10 seconds. I've seen drivers just blow through a light that I've been sitting at Red for 30 seconds.

The worst transgressors are the drivers (usually pickups) who go into the turn-only lane to get around cars in the main lanes only to drive straight on without stopping. Either that or on the shoulder. One time I saw a car move over into the oncoming traffic lane to run the light.

The problem has gotten so bad that you now have to utilize what the wife and I have been calling the "Houston 5 second delay" before rolling forward on any Green Light at some intersections. Of course, this will most-times get you honked at by the drivers behind you who would much rather see you plow into the cross-traffic running the light than wait behind you as you let them clear the intersection.

Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.

Number 5: Pass, Brake and Turn.

This last one is one that, sadly I admit, is the one that tends to infuriate me the most. Let's say you're driving along in the right lane of a 4 lane road. Suddenly a car shoots past you in the left lane. Once past you they immediate cut you off and then, in a move of stunningly poor judgement, slam on their brakes and proceed to run right, directly in front of you causing you to have to slam on your brakes to avoid a collision. Whether they actually use their turn signal or not is optional, sometimes yes, sometimes no, but the end-result is always that your front collision detection system is going off.

This maneuver is especially egregious if there is no car behind you for quite some distance.

I believe that some of the drivers who attempt this move are intentionally trying to cause a collision. Either they upside-down on the vehicle they purchased or they just cannot afford payments or they just would like an insurance settlement. The others, much like every other bad driver on this list, are just selfish and don't care.

At the end of the day driving a vehicle in traffic is part of a large social contract. We agree to follow the rules and regulations of the road in return for the privilege of driving on them. We also agree to operate courteously and safely out of respect for our fellow drivers. Once this social contract is breached then driving becomes a free-for-all, collisions increase and insurance rates skyrocket  (if the drivers are insured at all which, increasingly, they are not.)

Sadly what passes for driving now in Houston has little to do with honoring this contract, much as functioning in polite society has become something of a lost art. I would even argue that polite society itself has become somewhat of an archaic idea, much like intelligent social media posts or quality, hard-hitting journalism.

Society is broken, the bonds that joined us are irreparably frayed. What we're left with is a selfish, me-mongering husk of a city where the people don't care and the rules are optional. Gone is the gentle raising of the index finger and a polite nod to another driver as they move over to let you down a residential street when cars are parked on the side and only one care can get through, what is increasingly replacing that is anger, bitterness and, increasingly, road rage.

I'm unsure how to fix this, outside of some Righteous traffic policing by law enforcement which doesn't seem likely at this point, but that a fix is needed seems to be beyond a doubt.

Maybe outfit us all with bazookas and allow the taking out of one transgressor a year?

Too much?    OK, yeah.  But we need to find some way to return some civility to the roads. If nothing else for the well-being of our new, increasingly overpriced vehicles.

News Round-Up (08/27/2026)

 I keep meaning to get this blog back up and running well, life keeps getting in the way. (Maybe I should just give up and call it a blogeer?)

Still, on to the news.....

Let's start off with social media, where the fights over it are going to be (mostly) inconsequential to the real world, but hilarious to watch play out. 

If you don't believe me. I give you OreoGate Which is (most assuredly) one of those "things that never really happened" but has people all up in arms.

To paraphrase an old joke. What do you call 1000 influencers at the bottom of the sea? A good start.

Dems giving primary election victories to Democratic Socialists for elections in red states seems like a pathway for the GOP to retain control of Congress even during a horrible election cycle. That's a bold strategy Cotton, let's see if it works out.

SmartTVs are trash, but they're just about the only option you have. Now computer monitors are moving in the same direction. Tech companies are a menace. Also, the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report is proving more prescient than Sci-Fi.

Dan Patrick seems to be running more of a future unemployment benefits campaign than an actual re-election campaign at this point. To be perfectly honest, good riddance to him.

Get the feeling that wholesale changes are coming for the Astros. The problem is that I have zero faith the current regime has the wherewithal to turn it around. The Golden Age is over. We're getting close to a return to the Uncle Drayton years.

Imagine having the gall to pen this column and NOT ONCE mention exploding budgets at the municipal level. It's either intentional, or the guy really is the idiot I think him to be.

I've a feeling the Social Security Fix at this point is going to require an "All of the Above" strategy (benefits cuts, partial private accounts, tax increases, raising of the retirement age). Sadly, it might even require more draconian fixes than that. (Whatever it is, don't expect it until somewhere around 2031. Because that's how our Ruling Class works. There are still a few election cycles to milk this remaining on the calendar.)

Farewell NFL Pro Bowl (Games) I'd like to pretend that we'll miss you but......we won't.

The Chron's Democratic Socialist Columnist is Having yet another case of the angries. When all you write about is how mad you are that things aren't going your way, are you even really a columnist any longer? Or are you just ranting? This is a good example of a paycheck that could be gotten rid of and replaced with the hiring of an actual journalist on a local beat.

Retraction is (probably) the best path forward for HISD but, of course, the parents would have kittens and the local media would bemoan the closing of "historic" schools in ever-shrinking neighborhoods. So, nothing will happen then and the wheezing beast will continue to lumber along.

Speaking of wheezing beasts. LAS passenger traffic continues to decline. Add that to the upcoming draconian water cuts that the Feds are suggesting Nevada will have to absorb and it appears that Donald Trump might FINALLY get his revenge on the gaming industry in which, as a casino owner, he utterly failed.

To really understand the WNBA, you first need to recognize that It is NOT a sports league. Not even close. In reality it is a Political Platform for the sad and crazy. But not a sports league.

And finally.....

RIP to Dolly Parton and Tim Curry Two all-time legends, both gone at 80 after lives well lived. Go listen to "I Will Always Love You", "Jolene" and then go watch Clue.

Put me in the "Change the Calendar" Camp Please.

With the Kentucky Derby coming up this weekend (and the time of year that people pay a little attention to horse racing) the annual debate around changing the Triple Crown Calendar is on again.

Put me firmly in the "let's change it up" category.

First Saturday in May: Kentucky Derby

Memorial Day: Preakness

Weekend of July 4th: Belmont.

Yes, I understand that this would have an impact on later racing, but not much when you really think about it.

The biggest issue would be the timing of the "next" big race, the Grade 1 Haskell. But the Saratoga meet is several weeks and it could be bumped back some. After that the next big race is the Travers, in late August.  I see no reason why those dates cannot get shifted some. Again, the meet at the Spa is several weeks in length.

The problem with this argument is, as it has always been in horse racing, that shifting these races around would require coordination between the various racing State entities. Such as thing just does not happen in horse racing. The States are selfish, silly, and lack the capacity to take a long view of the sport. So, while the solution seems easy, it's probably going to be more difficult than it should be and eventually come way too late for it to matter.

Horse racing is whistling past the graveyard right now. Irrelevant except for one Saturday in May (and for two more races IF the same horse wins, and all but ignored the rest of the year. That's too bad of course, how many people would be a fan of horses like Skippylongstockings or White Abbario if only they knew to pay attention to them, but it's where the industry seems bent on heading.

There are many other problems in the sport, horrible gambling product being front and center, but the inability of the State Racing Commissions to work and play well with others is at the top.

And this ignores States like Texas, whose rules are designed to end the industry all together within it's borders.

News Round-Up (03/18/2026)

 What is rapidly becoming my one time per month post. (Life gets busy and in the way y'all)

Some in the World are starting to say that It's time to move on, WITHOUT the United States. OK. While I'm all for more countries pitching in and, you know, paying for things, I'm not sure you really can move on sans what is still (just) the World's largest economy.  But, good luck with that.

It's always funny when the Media thinks that they have "discovered" something that's been going on for decades. They bump their chests, perform a King Kong style celebration dance and then.....disappear when the party they prefer does the same thing. We have spent decades electing a group of horrid people to rule us. Nothing will change until that key issue is fixed.

Derek Stevens Rising He's certainly having his moment in the Sun.  He's the one casino owner who I've personally met (his brother as well) and he is a personable guy.  That said, his attitude toward gaming has certainly damaged Downtown odds, if not visitor counts.

The Hollowing out of the TSA. I'm not entirely sure this is a bad thing.  There are already private groups who do a better job, probably much cheaper.  I feel for the employees, it's not their fault that our horrid rulers won't pay them, but perhaps a rethink of airport security is long overdue?

The Public Unraveling of Lina Hidalgo is a sad watch. What's worse is that she's still (sort of) in charge of Texas largest County.  In a perfect world, yes, should would have resigned when it became clear she was not up to the job.  We do not live in a perfect World unfortunately.  Hopefully, when her term is up, she can go back to community organizing and just kind of slip out of the public eye.  I think that would be better for her mentally.

Tillman wants Caesars. To be honest, it would probably be a good thing for them. Of course, the BlackJack would suck but everything else would probably improve.

Wow, The long outlived it's expiration date Chron Ed Board is REALLY mad that Whitmire has stopped speaking to them. I do think it's fair to ask, at this point, what purpose this wheezing, outdated group really serves?  Wouldn't it be better to shut it down and redeploy the resources to news?

Mea Culpa, I quit reading the Chron's restaurant section long ago, but this story, Centering on the controversy surrounding Noma's in LA peaked my attention.  The biggest issue here is that we convinced Chefs that they were Rock Stars, and they were totally unprepared to deal with the celebrity.

The Great Sort in Real Life. Single Party States are typically poorly ran, but you do understand why people would not wish to be ruled by those who do not share their values.

College Sports seems dead-set on killing itself  and They keep finding new depths in which to dig. All of these changes, like the changes to the College Football Playoff, are designed to create guardrails to protect the large conferences.  This year there was actual debate as to whether or not 17-16 Auburn deserved a bid.  In case you are wondering, the answer is "no, they were not deserving". (They should not have even been seriously considered)

I did not have The Chron pushing for the release of sex-offenders on my Bingo card of news items this week.  But here we are.

Speaking of "on my news Bingo Card" Chris Tomlinson writing a column where he doesn't know what he's talking about is always on there.  He's ostensibly the "Business Columnist" but he seems to know very little about....actual business. (Especially not the oil and gas business, which is Houston's largest industry)

This is a tragic story that also highlights why Jasmine Crockett should be allowed nowhere near the levers of power. Notice that she takes zero responsibility for hiring this man.  Incredible.

Apparently, Harris County has "solved" it's felony case backlog. Much like former Mayor Annise Parker "eliminated" the homeless problem in Houston.  By sweeping it under the rug.  In Parker's case she just relocated them, in Teare's case he just dismissed them.

A lot of us have been sounding the warning bells about the sad state of political polling for a while now. It's good to see the media finally get a clue.

And finally.....

Houston is trash(y).

Enjoy your Spring y'all.

BadBetting: The Answer is NOT Prohibition.

Game Fixing and Rumors of Game Fixing. American Sports, it seems, is breaking, already broken or just hopelessly doomed to be caught up in scandal.

Unsurprisingly, the most oft-called for fix is prohibition.

Americans have always loved them some prohibition. There's nothing that Americans don't like that they don't petition the government to ban. Never mind that other people might enjoy it harmlessly, or that a vast majority of sports bettors partake in the entertainment relatively harmlessly, although very seldom profitably it should be noted. Nope, let's just ban it because I don't like it.

Alternatively, Trump's Big Beautiful Bill created an unfair tax burden by limiting the deductions of gambling losses to 90%. What this creates is a situation where a gambler could be taxed on "winnings" that they never actually won.

Let me explain.  Let's say you play on a slot machine and you get very lucky and win a jackpot of $2000. You are happy, the machine locks up and you have to wait, provide some identification, sign some paperwork (a W2-G usually) and then a nice slot attendant comes out and pays you $2000 in cash. They then stand there and it is customary to tip them (at least $20) for that service. If you're sitting at a bar, say, a video poker machine, then it's also customary to tip the bar staff for your win. (Irony, under the One Big Beautiful Bill those tips are not considered taxable income).

Then, you continue to gamble and, given the laws of advantage and the house edge, you continue to play but lose that $2000 back to the casino.  You go home happy because of the gambler's fallacy, you remember the win and the adrenaline rush that it caused, the congratulations of those around you as you're paid out, the rush of having the machine lock up, then you go home and go back about your life.

Then, tax day comes and you realize just much that jackpot is going to cost you. First, you have to enter that W2-G as income. $2000 worth. If you take the standard deduction, which many do, then you are pretty much shit out of luck because prior tax changes made the deduction of gambling losses below the line calculations. That means that you cannot deduct said losses UNLESS you itemize.

But, here's the kicker, when you take your losses (which will often be more than the wins that you claim) you can only take $1800 of them by law.  That means that you are taxed on $200 of income that you never really "won". Think about that for a minute, and the fairness of it.

This is a simple, and low, example but, for many gamblers, the tax on unearned income could be four, five or even six figures given volumes and win. 

Here's where things get tricky. Many Americans are OK with this unfair taxation because it's a tax on gambling which many consider to be a "sin". So, Americans have a long history of punishing things unfairly that they take personal issue with.

If the response is not to punish it (through higher taxation at times, sometimes punitive) then the playbook for the USA has historically been to ban it.

And that has not worked out well over the years.

Prohibition of alcohol led to a massive underground market that was controlled by the mafia. Prohibition of drugs led to the rise of the cartels. Prohibition of sports gambling (prior to the Supreme Court's PASPA decision) led to the rise of massive offshore gambling rings that still operate today. Even the legalization of sports gaming however did not end the illegal market. In fact, in many ways, the underground betting market has thrived since sports betting became "legal".

Clearly then, the answer is not as simple as a sports betting prohibition. Nor is it as clear-cut as legalization in all 50 States. The problem is not that sports gambling exists, it's HOW the books are allowed to operate, and the regulatory agencies (State Gaming Control Boards) that are in place to govern them.

Dennis Miller once had a great line regarding prohibition. "You can outlaw all of the bad things in the world and people will still spin around on their lawn until the see God." The key is not prohibiting things we don't like. it's ensuring that legal things with the potential for harm, are regulated in a safe, simple, meaningful way.

I understand that, for people of a certain political ilk, regulation is viewed as a "bad thing" which should be avoided at all cost and, for people of another political ilk, there's no such thing as "too much" regulation even if said regulation is nonsensical and messy.

But I believe that good regulation can happen, provided it's done thoughtfully and designed to be implemented simply.  Here are a few ideas on how to start* fixing this issue.

1. Advertising restrictions.  We currently have restrictions on the advertisement of a host of things. From alcohol to cigarettes to almost whatever else you can think of. Putting guardrails around how and when a sports book can advertise seems a reasonable step that's pretty easy to enforce.

2. A stop to predatory practices. If you're a bartender you have an obligation to not overserve your clientele and let them get into a car. If you're a sports book you should be under the same obligation to not overserve your clients. Unfortunately the model for modern sports books is "block or bankrupt" where they plan to just limit or refuse the bets of bettors who might win, and bankrupt the poor souls who cannot. They do this through VIP services and retention bonuses for those who try and step away. Putting a stop to this practice would not be difficult.  I will say this however, limiting or banning is a stickier wicket. by outlawing that practice books would be forced to reduce their betting menus which would be horrible for bettors, reducing choice and limiting lines where weaknesses can be found.

3. Implement gaming control boards who are more than just rubber stamps for the books. Almost every week there is a new story of a book refusing to honor a bet or cancelling wagers because they claim it was "an obvious error". In many cases however these errors were not obvious until after the fact. In some cases the books just don't want to pay out grossly negative outcomes. In almost all of these cases the local gaming control agencies side with the books and allow them to void the bets, or not pay out. Strengthening the mission of the Gaming Control Boards to include gambler's rights could go a long way in preventing this.

4. A more robust tracking system for problem gaming. This should go without saying. With all of the AI and algorithms these books use identifying potential problem gamblers is not difficult. It's time to stop allowing these books (and casinos FWIW) to pay lip-service to responsible gambling and forcing them to start taking it seriously.

Of course, there are several other steps that could be taken which I'm not going to go in here, as I said earlier, the above suggestions are just a "start*" not a full on subscription for a fix. The problem people have is thinking that you can just ban something and the issue goes away. If anything, now that people have started gambling, if you outlaw legal gambling the illegal problem will get worse.

The issue with that? In MOST (not all but most) cases the alleged improprieties and fixing has been discovered through internal investigations of unusual betting patterns, self-reported by legal sports books. Illegal books, or bookies, would be highly unlikely to report the same, leaving the bad actors unreported and, in many cases, undiscovered. They would just move on to another unregulated shop to continue the scam.

Sports betting is something that needs to be fixed to the extent possible, not prohibited. Sadly, there will always be people who have their lives ruined by it, just as there are those whose lives are ruined by alcohol, drugs, junk food you name it. The key is to limit the damage as much as possible, and have resources available to help those that want out.

News Round-Up (01/07/2026)

To start, Happy New Year!!  With 2025 (thankfully) in our rearview mirrors hopefully the New Year brings us less shittery than we witnessed last year.  I doubt it, but one can hope.  Not a promising start however......

Restaurants you never heard of, and will probably never visit, continue to open and close in Houston Heights - Most of the time the phrase "exciting new concept" can be met with a yawn and a 1-2year lifespan expectation.

Houston Sports Bar Loft18 closes citing crime as a factor. - Houston is crumbling. I went to Loft18 once and it was, to be fair, pretty busy. Changes in leadership are the obvious solution but too many keep voting in the same cast of idiots.

So, the Ed Board thinks that the "solution" to the bodies in the Bayous problem is to appoint a Czar. No, just no. Yet another log on the "Shutter the Ed Board" smoldering fire.

The media's EV delusion still continues to amaze me. Tesla, despite Elon Musk's political divisiveness, continues to do OK, but the future is going to be in the Hybrid space. The Chron's growing army of Child Reporters seem incapable of performing this type of market analysis.

Calling the Texans defense "once elite" based on one game where the Colts scored primarily against the backups is rich. The Texans still have an elite defense, battling the Seahawks for the best in the league. Certainly they are the best in the AFC. The Texans offense on the other hand.......

Nebraska signs former UNLV QB Colandrea - Colandrea announced that he was entering the Portal only two days after saying he was going to stay in Las Vegas. His announcement came before the Portal opened, suggesting that someone had tampered with him. Was it Nebraska? Who knows, because they did pivot to him after losing out on the former Notre Dame QB. Still, College Football is a wasteland right now and their are really no rules because they're not being enforced.

MOAR Police on patrol. Houston's roads are rules optional right now. Almost as bad as College Football. Red Lights are suggestions, spatial awareness is all but gone, and line-cutting is at epidemic proportions. Never mind the uninsured drivers and unsafe vehicles littering the road. Dedicated Traffic Divisions could help, but not solve, this problem.

Chris Hollins is running his pre-campaign through the media. - He thinks shenanigans like this paint him in a positive light. They don't.

I, for one, will be glad to see this "Dry January" trend come to an end. - If you want a drink, have a drink. If you don't, then don't. Simple.  As for me, I'm off to have a bourbon tonight.

And finally....

'We're the Government and we're here to help" - All your base are belong to us ha ha ha.