The irony is that I have been cut off by trucks uncounted times, and have seen trucks cut people off as well. But the State of Washington passed a law and posted signs warning car drivers of stiff fines if they cut off a truck! Know how many times I’ve cut off a truck in my life? None. Know how many times I’ve seen someone else cut off a truck? Very few. I haven’t noticed the signs recently, so maybe the law has lapsed. I don’t know. But it seemed very unfair to single out car drivers when the truckers are the problem.
What really pissed me off is the several times I’ve been hauling a heavy load with my Jeep. I come to a hill and have enough momentum to keep up my speed. Just as I’m about to overtake a truck, he decides he must pass the truck ahead of him – even though there are overtaking cars, including me, on his left. So I have to slam on the brakes, and I and everyone who comes up behind me are stuck behind this inconsiderate moron until he can pass. Miles and miles. And with a heavy trailer I can’t get past him very fast (which I could have done if he hadn’t cut me off) and get out of the way of people behind me.
Oh, and another thing: I don’t care that you pay $40,000 per year in road taxes. First, I pay road taxes too whenever I buy gas. Second, you should pay to use the road because you damage it a lot more than cars do. (Anyone who’s driven in the right lanes – where the trucks drive – of the 5 south of downtown L.A. will know the ‘wagon ruts’ trucks cause in the roadway.) Third, you’re being paid to drive on the freeways. You make money, you pay taxes. If you make money by using the freeways, then you should pay your fair share to maintain the roads that give you your livelihood. Or is that the ‘gummint stealin’ mah property!’?
My rant about British drivers:[ul][]Get into the slow lane, fucknut middle lane-only moron. It is illegal for me to pass you in the slow lane (though I will if I have to, which isn’t fair on me). Sitting in the middle lane forces all the traffic into the outer lane, which clogs up the motorway. Sure, you’re worried if you get into the slow lane you won’t be able to get out again. Know why? Because of arseholes like you! Fucking move over.[]Oy, lorry drivers. On a dual carriageway, the extra 0.01 mph that you have on the lorry in front of you will save you approximately 3 seconds in getting to the next junction in ten miles’ time. There is no need to overtake. Especially going uphill. You are clogging up the dual carriageway for hundreds and hundreds of other drivers, you selfish pricks. Just be patient until you get to the motorway.[/ul]Apart from that, nothing much else - we’re pretty good drivers on the whole (apart from the idiot boy racers and diminutive old-aged pensioners with big glasses and flat caps, hunched over the steering wheel).
If you’re overtaking cars to your right, then you’re not causing the person speeding up behind you to change inertia. You’re overtaking, so it’s your go. The person doing 85 is doing something that causes him to change inertia. If you’re doing 70 in the left lane and there’s room to move right and someone is speeding up behind you, then you are ‘soing something’ to make him change inertia because you don’t need to be there.
[QUOTE=jjimm]
My rant about British drivers:[ul][li]Get into the slow lane, fucknut middle lane-only moron.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
I’ll make a case for driving in the middle lane. (Incidentally, I haven’t heard ‘fast lane’ mentioned since I moved to Washington. Apparently there’s no concept of that here.) If one is in the slow lane (right lane here, or course) they are subject to merging traffic – and people don’t understand that they should be at freeway speed when they enter the freeway. In the fast lane one may impede traffic. The middle lane if for cruising. If you’re overtaking someone who is in the middle lane and there is merging traffic in the slow lane, move over into the fast lane to pass.
They are in the wrong if they expect you to change your inertia in this situation. If someone simply has to wait for a driver to make a reasonable move, like passing in a safe and timely fashion, I don’t think of it as a forced change of inertia.
I know there are speed limit signs but lets be realistic: if everyone around you is driving 10-20 mph over the posted limit and you are going exactly what is posted, then you are the hazard, not them. Do not drive in the left or middle lane. Hell, the right lane is filled with drivers going at least 5 over. Maybe you should just take side streets. At least get one of those giant triangular reflectors that the Amish put on their buggies.
Old joke: What do you call someone doing the speed limit on the expressway?
A hood ornament
Also, if you are going to pass a car, then complete the fucking pass. Do not stay alongside them so you tie up traffic behind you. You are not the pace car at Indy.
And do not try to do stupid things while driving if it distracts you from your main purpose at that moment, which should be to drive the fucking car. Don’t talk on the phone if you find the conversation more interesting than the fact that the car in front of you just slammed on his brakes. Do not eat if you will be dropping the food in your lap and burning your crotch. Do not put on makeup or shave because you are looking at your ugly mug, not at the semi that just swerved into your lane. Do not read newspapers, books or magazines. Glancing at the map is OK but don’t unfold the damn thing across your windshield.
I actually saw one moron talking on his cell (fortunately it was a headset), taking notes while shaving. He was steering with his knees. I saw a woman on the phone (no headset) putting on eyeliner. If she hit a pothole she would have jammed that pencil into her frontal lobe.
Really? I just recently moved to (eastern) WA and have found the drivers to be pretty damned good. Having grown up in NJ, I have some quite definite ideas on how one should (and shouldn’t) drive. (And I’d say that I am not a typical NJ driver; I got many more lessons about bad driving than good.)
IME, yes, people drive the speed limit. But that, I think, is hugely due to the (seemingly suicidal) deer population. Invariably, I’ve also found that people will not only try to get out of the way when you come up behind them, they’ll actually move slightly into the shoulder to let one pass (which I found to be the case in TX also when I lived there).
Perhaps you’re on the coast; I can’t speak to the driving qualities of people on that side of the Cascades…
Of course the day you “go with the flow” is the day the kindly law enforcement officer singles you out during quota week and cheerily gives you a citation.
Yep, I’m on the Wet Coast. I was at a DopeFest last week (actually, the only Dopers there were me and Danalan) and was talking to a woman there. She had been in SoCal and the drivers scared the crap out of her. She said though that ‘everyone seemed to know what they were doing’ and ‘everyone seemed to know what the other people were doing’. There was a remark in an old edition of Let’s Go: California about ‘the speedy and confident California drivers’. She admitted that she didn’t know The Rules. (She also couldn’t believe that motorcycling could be fun, what with going fast and all.) She’s a native Washingtonian.
Perhaps it’s different on the east side, and I can understand about the deer. But I come from a place where people drive fast and close together, and where the cops are less concerned about catching speeders than they are about catching jerks. So it’s been a bit of an adjustment. Now I’m not in the Porsche anymore and the Jeep does not encourage maneuvering. (It does encourage slower speeds due to greater fuel consumption.) I’m still taking it a little easy in the MG until I’m sure it’s broken in. But even with my relatively new conservative driving, drivers in Washington are sometimes a pain.
No, you should keep right. If you’re in the slow lane and you’re doing the speed limit, then it’s on the others to get around you. Just don’t pull out in front of them and appoint yourself Pace Car.
…and if you are going to overtake, look in your fucking mirror before pulling out. That blue thing is my car, approaching you at some speed. Drove the length of the A14 twice yesterday, so I’m having no sympathy whatsoever for fucking lorry drivers. It’s funny how the ones who cut you up like this are always British, never the foreign ones who’d have the minimal excuse of slightly obscured vision to the right side.
Another one to add to the rant: I’m in the fast lane, and I’d like to go faster. But the car right in front is doing 80, as is the car in front of that, and probably so on right down to the end of the motorway. So stop flashing your fucking headlights at me. (That was the M6.)
Well, dealing with that is simply about basic observation of the road ahead, and moving out to the middle lane if necessary to perform what will be a simple overtaking manoeuvere.
You have different rules where you are. Over here, our rules say that:
Also, people over here largely do get up to merge speed - and if everyone’s behaving themselves, it is polite for the person on the inner lane to pull into the middle lane to allow merging traffic in - and anyone behind them in the middle lane pulls out into the fast lane. That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway, and about 60% of people drive like that. The other 40% fuck it all up.
No, it would not be acceptable, especially on freeways. In this state, interstates are 70mph. You would be going 15mph under the flow of traffic, at least. This makes you a road hazard. Where traffic is moderate to heavy, one lane will be blocked behind you. People behind you will try to merge into the other lane, and their merging will slow down traffic in the other lane, too.
The police agree with me. My best friend’s father likes to drive 60mph on the interstates. He has been pulled over more than once by the state patrol and ordered to drive at the speed limit because he is causing a road hazard.
You know, jjimm, that’s one thing drivers do right here: moving over to allow on-merging traffic to enter the freeway. But many times they forget to move back.
In addition to all you said, such behaviour will quite possibly attract the extra hassle of police suspecting you of being drunk, and trying extra hard to concentrate and do nothing wrong.
I’ve driven below the posted limit in order to save fuel. If you stay in the slow lane and people can get around you I think it’s OK. OTOH I’ve been behind someone wh was doing 45 in the right lane – the only lane for transitioning from the 10 East to the 405 (whatever direction – I don’t recall). No way to pass on the left because of heavy, faster traffic. That driver was pulled over.
… Especially when trying to merge onto the Interstate, I’m running out of merge lane, the freeway is four lanes wide and there’s no one to your left for you to move over!
Was he ticketed? Was there a posted minimum speed on those roads?
I’ve been doing this for about a year now (driving 55 or speed limit, whichever is lower) and I haven’t been pulled over even once. Although I do speed up if I can’t stay in the right-most lane - e.g. where the freeway splits, and I need to be on the left 2 lanes because the other 2 lanes go elsewhere. Maybe that’s the type of place where your friend’s father got the warning?