I think it’s fine. I prefer people pass me and if I don’t realize they are there a flash is a friendly reminder. I never want to be the fastest one on the road, that guy gets the tickets, so by all means pass me.
Since it hasn’t been mentioned it’s actually illegal to flash your headlights in many places. I think it has more to do with people doing it to warn or speed traps but the same law can apply to flashing the vehicle in front of you.
you’ll have to pardon me, i need further citation. i’ve talked to leos about the jfk assasination and they had some pretty “interesting” things to say.
mc
Fine with me. If you do a search you might be able to find it. If you do please share. If I do, I will share.
Flashing the lights is fine. The PIT maneuver not so much.
http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/right.html
Most states follow this uniform code, though it appears that AK, MD, NC, OH and SD do not.
except** bullit **made the claim that you can get a ticket is travelling at the speed limit
[QUOTE=Bullit]
. . .You can actually get a ticket if you are doing the limit in the passing lane . . .
[/QUOTE]
and i wanna see the cite! but i wont hold my breath!
mc
I use the flash-to-pass if I’m coming up behind someone who’s moving slower than me in the left lane, but IME, most drivers in the Midwest either (a) have no clue of what the flash is meant to communicate, (b) don’t notice it, or (c) don’t care, as nothing short of a Mad Max-style plow is going to dislodge them from the left lane.
Laws are written outlining what is illegal. PA’s driving code indicates that you must keep right except a) to pass; b) to move over to allow merging traffic; or c) when you are preparing to use an upcoming left-hand exit. There is no mention of speed limits at all, which mean they are irrelevant to the keep-right law.
interesting document. many of the links in it do not work for me. and the ones i read were limited to certain roads during certain situations. . .but it does seem as if there are circumstances where one might get a ticket doing the limit in the left lane. ignorance fought!(mine) thank you.
mc
While there is a park under it (Ft Lee side) where you can marvel at its beauty, traffic is never fun. Its never fun anywhere in the state and I’ve been in it all.
I just deleted about 20 ‘popular’ traffic jam times/places in state that would make you cringe.
That Said, I promise that I will update my status when Christie is either impeached or [del]rolled[/del] run out of Trenton.
I’m not familiar with this practice, as people tend to drive wherever they want to and as fast as they want to, both here in Minnesota and in California. I tend to drive the speed limit in the slow lane, and literally everybody passes me. Usually on the left, but there have been exceptions.
Your last point is what puts me in the “it’s rude” camp. I am getting over as soon as I safely can but I’m not going to go 80+ to roar around someone I am passing.
It doesn’t help that the flashers are almost always Masshole tailgaters. But even if it weren’t, I find it alarming, aggressive and rude.
In 1984, a man wrote a letter to the Washington Post in which he described his technique for driving on the notoriously clogged DC Beltway:
This WaPo article from 1999 continues…
The man’s name was John O. Nestor, and in the DC area the practice became known as “Nestoring.” He continued doing it until his death in 1999 (of renal failure, not a car accident or someone else’s road rage). Here’s his Wikipedia entry.
On that Wiki page is a link to another WaPo articleabout left-lane driving and light flashing that discusses Nestor in some depth.
And here’s an earlier column about left-lane driving from the same columnist: The Left Lane: The Other Side.
You guys should spend some time driving the roads of Thailand. You’d never complain about U.S. drivers again. Thailand has the 2nd highest traffic fatalities per capita in the world (although it’s a distant 2nd behind #1 Libya).
Flashing lights as an overtaking signal is common here, though (a) most drivers seldom check their mirrors, (b) many drivers respond by speeding up to make it harder for you to pass, and © some drivers have a handgun in their glove compartment for when they get annoyed.
On some roads there will be an extra slow lane for 100 meters or so to facilitate passing but (a) slow drivers never pull over into that lane, and (b) about the only rule-of-the-road drivers do follow here is not to use that “slow lane” for passing. Therefore most passing is accomplished by pulling into the opposite-direction lane. On-coming traffic is no hindrance — those drivers are expected to veer onto the shoulder to get out of the passer’s way. I once got a flat tire when an oncoming truck did that to me (and he wasn’t even passing anyone; he just found it convenient to drive down the middle of a two-lane road). My nephew wasn’t so lucky: he’s permanently scarred, in an incident where another passenger was killed.
Whereas many in this thread are complaining about wanting to go 70 mph when another driver is going only 60 or 65 mph; in Thailand the speed variations are much greater. In addition to those going 60 or 70, some drivers will be going 100 or more, some 30 or 40, and some going in the reverse direction, when it’s inconvenient to cross into the proper lane.
Anecdotes galore, but I’ll just repeat an amazing incident that has stuck in my memory from about 20 years ago. (One piece of good news is that driving skills have improved somewhat since then.) I was travelling northbound on the Asia Highway north of Bangkok. A truck and I were using both of the two northbound lanes; he was going 65, I’m 70 and passing him. Suddenly in the rear-view mirror I see two cars coming up Fast. Very fast. I want to get in the slow lane out of their way and wonder: Should I speed up and pull in in front of the truck? Or slow down and get behind him? Before I’d had time to consider, the cars were upon us. One raced past in the left-hand shoulder. The other car raced past in the right-hand shoulder. These are very narrow un-maintained shoulders, not “extra lanes.” In just a moment both cars were out of sight ahead of us — they must have been going 140 mph at least.
I wish I had that on film.
In Ohio, it’s actually still the law that you have to honk when passing someone across the yellow line (not in another lane going the same direction, though).
Nobody does it.
Making the rounds on FB, from the Rhode Island State Police and appropo to this discussion:
Virginia traffic code:
§ 46.2-842.1. Drivers to give way to certain overtaking vehicles on divided highways.
It shall be unlawful to fail to give way to overtaking traffic when driving a motor vehicle to the left and abreast of another motor vehicle on a divided highway. On audible or light signal, the driver of the overtaken vehicle shall move to the right to allow the overtaking vehicle to pass as soon as the overtaken vehicle can safely do so. A violation of this section shall not be construed as negligence per se in any civil action.
So in Virginia, it’s actually the law that you are supposed to move right if someone flashes their lights.
In Maryland driver’s ed I learned to toot the horn if passing on a two-lane road to make sure the driver was aware of me passing. (This would be just silly to do on a road with more than one lane in the same direction.)
