My point was that people should not use the carpool lane to tailgate people while going 80-90 mph. What possibly can be gained from that? It’s incredibly dangerous. And the carpool lanes in California only have a few entrances and exits.
You’re just being an asshole when you do that to someone. And you are well on your way to making yourself a dead asshole.
There is no such rule, written or unwritten. You have no inherent right to go faster than the speed limit. If it is safe to do so, many people do, and often law enforcement is content to permit it. However, if there is someone going slower in front of you, it is no longer safe to drive faster than they are, and you are obliged to slow down, or change lanes. That is the only rule I conform to, no matter how many times you flash your lights or flip me off. Remember, I can go slower.
I’ve driven in both northern and southern California, but it hadn’t really occurred to me until now this carpool lane difference. In southern California, you can only exit and enter the carpool lane at given points, indicated by a dotted line. In northern California, you can enter and exit a carpool lane wherever you want, resulting in our unique version of asshattery: imbeciles suddenly dodging in or out of a lane which might be traveling 30 mph faster than its neighboring lane, as well as illegally using it to pass traffic jams. These illegal single-driver passers are especially abrupt and rude in their lane-changing. One of them caused me to slam on my brakes yesterday morning, and my carefully-prepared lunch went flying and got all mangled in the passenger footwell. Turdbrain.
People in Southern California will use the carpool lane as a passing lane even if they are a single driver.
The Highway Patrol loves seeing that. That’s an easy ticket to give out and the recipient is an automatic loser if s/he goes to court to fight it. And I think it’s close to $300 to pay that off.
NOTE: In Northern California, there are no solid lines, no yellow lines and no barriers between regular traffic and Carpool lane traffic. Carpool lanes ALL revert to regular lanes after specific times.
That having been said, In Northern California, please move out of the way before some nutcase causes an accident because you think 65 mph is the proper speed, even though traffic behind, in front of, and to the right of you is moving 20-25 mph faster.
To amend my original statement: If in your jurisdiction, there is a solid line, a double line, or some sort of barrier between yourself and normal traffic, be safe, don’t tailgate and be patient with the person in front of you who is constrained by said line.
Sam
$271 to be exact. That’s always stuck with me because it’s such an odd number.
The only freeway in Southern California I know of that has a setup like that for its carpool lane is the Antelope Valley Freeway (SR 14) between Palmdale and Santa Clarita.
And those do allow unlimited entries and exits to that lane, but during rush hour, you would be hard pressed to do that.
Horseshit. The responsibility for dangerous driving conditions lies with the driver who is acting legally and safely? I’m sick and tired of hearing this nonsense. People go on and on about personal responsibility, but it seems to disappear as soon as they get on the freeway in two-ton heap of high-speed heavy machinery. Driving conditions are unsafe? It’s not MY fault, it’s that jerk obeying the law who’s putting me in danger! What a bunch of baloney.
I’ll say it again: I have no seen the least bit of evidence supporting this piece of conventional wisdom. Obviously, in the case of extreme speed differences (I’m talking about the 40 mph range), there is some truth to it. But 65 to 85 miles per hour? I submit that speeding up from the former speed to the latter only puts you in greater danger. I know that I feel a very real difference in my ability to take in information and react to conditions at those two speeds. Driving at 65 while the traffic around me is moving 20 mph faster is unpleasant, but I feel considerably less safe at 80, since I need to focus a considerably greater portion of my attention simply on controlling the car and keeping it on the road, which means I have less attention to give other drivers and vehicles.
Of course, in a carpool lane, it makes even less sense to call this a safety problem, since the faster drivers can’t even pass or change lanes. Once again, if you think it’s rude, fine. I can understand that, but the claim that driving slower than traffic is somehow contributing to unsafe driving conditions is ridiculous on its face. Blame the jack-offs who are breaking the law and endangering others, not the law-abiding driver doing his best to preserve their (and possibly their family’s) safety on the highway.
And unless I’m mistaken, they just kicked it up to $341.
Except the carpool lane isn’t a “go faster” lane, it’s a “less traffic” lane there specifically to reward/encourage carpooling. Carpool lanes do not operate by default at speeds faster than the ‘fast’ lane (assuming traffic is flowing normally).
Absolutely not baloney.
Go drive 65 in the lane second from the left. Ask yourself whether you’d rather be getting passed by a row of traffic doing 80, or have a guy going 65 next to you while cars zoom up behind him, pass you BOTH on the right, cut back in front of you, and then back in front of him.
I suspect this is your answer: those speeder should slow down and go the speed limit and that way we’d all be safer.
Well, you’ll have to excuse me while I drive in the real world and actually ride in traffic like this 60 minutes a day.
I don’t care who is wrong or right. I care about what’s better practice on the road, and if you think going 65 in the passing lane during rush hour inspires safe driving, you’re either very unobservant, or you don’t spend much time in traffic.
In any traffic where the carpool lane actually matters, the carpool lane is the only one moving faster than a crawl. It’s simply not the same situation you’re talking about, when someone is simply driving slow in the left lane. (Where I agree you, incidentally.) If all the normal lanes are 20 mph bumper to bumper, someone going 75 mph in the carpool lane does not have the option to simply move over and let someone going 100 mph pass.
Unfortunately, that’s actually not the law.
Under the Reduced Speeds heading of the California Driver’s Handbook, it says:
My instructor at the Pizza 4U Great Comedians Traffic School* explained it this way: the enforcement guidelines given to the CHP stipulate that their main job is to do away with any unsafe situations as quickly as possible.
So let’s say you’re driving in the left (#1) lane at 65mph on a fairly clear road. A few speed demons wanting to go faster start lining up behind you, tailgating, honking, flashing lights. A CHP car appears on the scene. Will they begin picking off cars from the tail of your little caravan, or pick you off from the head of the line for not moving over to the right?
Apparently they will pick you off, because that will break up the unsafe tailgating situation the quickest. They can then decide case by case if the any speeders are creating an unsafe condition themselves (remember, while they were behind you, they weren’t speeding yet). The logic that you were doing the limit and therefore, those attempting to go faster are trying to break the law seems not to apply here. An unsafe situation exists, and the sooner they get you out of the way, the sooner it ends. Otherwise, there could be an accident if someone hits the brakes for no particular reason (the official pasttime of Southern California).
And this is why I think traffic laws need to be severely reformed.
If laws are put in place so that a person can get fined for “causing” an unsafe situation by obeying the law, therefore impeding others who wish to break it and express their displeasure by themselves driving unsafely, then where the fuck is any sense of logic, reason, or respect for the law?
Note that I agree that, as far as safety goes, any given individual is responsible for his/her safety, and while tailgaters are causing an unsafe situation, the lead car has the power to diffuse a dangerous situation by shifting to another lane. It hurts the pride and sense of ‘what’s right’ perhaps, but it’s still the right thing to do.
Ah yes, the Brown Shorts.
I beg to differ. No where in your cite does it say you may exceed the speed limit. “Normal and reasonable” does not include exceeding the speed limit. Your cite would apply to someone going 55 in the left lane when the speed limit is 65.
Perhaps even by RAISING speed limits so that the person who is now still going 65 out of some sort ill-founded fear of the law won’t mind going 75.
65 is just too slow for a lot of people, especially those in the same traffic on the same roads, with the same amount of congestion and circumstances, day after day after day.
For a 30 mile ride on the interstate, the difference between 65 and 80 works out to about 5 minutes per commute, 10 minutes a day, 50 minutes a week, over 40 HOURS a year. An extra week of vacation, basically.
It might sound silly because it’s only small chunks per day, but that’s 10 minutes of sleep, 10 minutes of exercise, 10 minutes of extra reading, every single day.
And so you’re saying, in this scenario, that the slower driver is somehow at fault for others driving like assholes? Cause that’s sure what it sounds like, and I simply don’t buy it. To answer your question, no I would prefer to not be in such a position. But I will place the blame squarely where it belongs: on the people choosing to drive dangerously in order to pass a slower driver.
I would further suggest that, if you think that ten extra minutes to sleep or read in a day is worth a probably quantitative increase in the liklihood of a deadly accident occurring during your commute, then you need to reevaluate how you budget your time, and you prioritize things in general. Me, I’d rather take an extra ten minutes and know that I’m that much more likely to survive my trip. Actually, I’d rather not drive at all and take two or three times as long to get to work on my bicycle (a lot safer and a lot more fun). But lots of people do drive to work, and I’ve had to do so for a couple of jobs, myself. Given the options of getting to work a few minutes quicker OR getting to work a little bit more safely, I know which one I would choose.
Let me make myself clear unless you missed it in my first paragraph: the slower driver is not somehow responsible for the irresponsible and/or reckless behavior of other motorists. No way, no how. Personal responsibility is big in this country. I think that this is a good thing. And yet, for some reason, that vanishes on the freeway. I think that driving would be much safer if we could (gasp!) acknowledge the responsibility of operating a deadly weapon and act accordingly. Instead, it’s the other guy’s fault - particularly the slow one who is not endangering him or herself. I don’t think that’s right.
Don’t listen to 'im JohnBckWLD, I laughed!
Actually, you can expect them to target the poor souls who can’t bear slowing to the speed limit for even a moment, and zoom around the legal driver at 80 mph or more.
Traffic school must be one hell of an attraction. 