This morning I read an article about raising the speed limit. It brought back memories of threads that have appeared on SDMB and some opinions expressed in those threads. The specific opinion recalled was that of drivers being justified in staying in the left lane when they were traveling at the speed limit. They seemed to think that they are helping maintain the law by blocking faster traffic.
So anyway along comes this articles, which says that speed limits may be too low and that instead of enforcing the speed limit law officers should be enforing other types of violations.
References to current thought by unnamed and un-referenced “traffic engineers” aside, this sounds like another diatribe by someone who thinks it’s his divine right to speed and that he’d have no problems if all those durn slow drivers would get off the road.
The safe speed on a given stretch of road logically depends on the engineering of that road. If 80% of people exceed the safe speed, they are the dangerous drivers. If the state in its wisdom for reasons of fuel conservation etc. decides that 65 mph is the limit, the driver doing 80 and flashing his brights is the dangerous driver, not the person who is in the passing lane at 70 trying to pass the guy in the right lane doing 55.
Favorite recent “left lane hogging” incident: I was traveling on a sparsely occupied stretch of interstate during rain showers, and abruptly ran into a stretch of very rutted right lane. I switched into the left lane at the legal limit to avoid the jouncing (remember, there were few cars on the road). One guy who evidently was seething with resentment that anyone would occupy the left lane at less than 90, even momentarily, went by me on the right and then cut back sharply into the left lane, missing my front bumper by inches. Brainy Dude was driving a Ford Focus; I was driving Mrs. J.'s Mazda Tribute (small to medium sized SUV). Guess who wins in a collision between those two vehicles?
Aggressive dumbos are the accident risk, not the people who drive at or even a little below the speed limit.
I have no problem with people driving as slow as they want. If they think 35 MPH on the interstate is the fastest safe speed, so be it. As long as they stay in the right lane, it’s all good. Though I’m unlikely to be sympathetic when they whine about all those “fast” people whizzing by then in the other lane at the ever-so-dangerous speed of 60 MPH.
As for 85% speed, that’s good most of the time. Certanly on divided roads not near residential areas, it ought to be the rule. In residential areas though, it probably needs to be a little slower than that. 5 or 10 mph slower, depending on the road and surroundings. Though I am not advocating a 15 or even a 25 MPH residential speed limit except in the most extreme cases (school zones come to mind). Almost everywhere, 35 MPH is a safe residential speed limit. I know many residential roads that 45 is very safe on, due to the distance between the yards/sidewalks and the street, lack of trees or hedges which gives excellent visibility, etc. And most of these are posted at 25.
Frankly, at least on the interstates, I would like to see a Montana style “any reasonable and safe speed for the current conditions” speed limit. If there’s no other traffic and not a soul around for miles and miles, why not be allowed to do 100? The only person you’re going to hurt is yourself, and I believe everyone has the right to hurt themselves as long as they don’t hurt anyone else doing it. It’s not the government’s job to put us in little padded cells where we can never experience the consequences of our own stupidity. Experiencing the consequences of our own stupidity is sometimes the only way people learn anything.
Of course, a Montana style speed limit requires people A) pay attention and B) exercise good judgement. These are not qualities I normally see in most drivers. There are of course the people who are talking on their cell phone, eating, looking at the paper, and trying to refasten their kid’s car seat - all at the same time - while failing very badly to actually drive. Good driving is not sitting down in the driver’s seat, turning the key, and then zoning out for an hour. And yet that is how 95% of people drive.
It’s a difficult and insoluable problem. Right now I think lawmakers most often say “well, 90% of people would be fine with 45 MPH here, but the remaining 10% of idiots will run over someone’s kid and not even notice they did it. So we’d better set the limit at 25.” I dislike this kind of reducing things to the lowest common denominator. I’d rather see the limit left at 45 and person who runs down the kid thrown in jail for life for vehicular homicide. Punish the people who are careless and stupid, don’t punish everyone pre-emptively. That kind of mentality ends in everyone being straight-jacketed and tossed in a padded room, since everyone will make a mistake eventually.
-Ben
Jackmannii, you mention the situation of a speed-freak getting impatient at another driverpassing in the left lane at a slower speed that the speed dufus wants to go i.e. the driver doing 80 and flashing his brights is the dangerous driver, not the person who is in the passing lane at 70 trying to pass the guy in the right lane doing 55. And I concur. However, I see another habit emerging (perhaps it’s just in the area where I live) where people who are not passing anyone and are not anywhere near passing anyone are cruising in the left lane for no apparent reason. This has become a major pet-peeve of mine, but I’m not sure that there is a way to remedy the problem, since, to my knowledge, the “left lane is only for passing” rule is merely a rule of thumb and not an enforce-able law. I’m also a bit perturbed by folks who find it acceptable to drive in the left lane along side another car in the right lane at the same speed! That’s just inconsiderate.
Ok, sorry for the rant. I realize that this isn’t quite the right forum for it.
MikeRochenelle - your point about not punishing everyone for the potential mistakes of a few is well taken, but at the same time, I’d rather not have my child/family member/self “Experience the consequences of [someone else’s] stupidity” if it’s avoidable. Granted, lower speed limits in residential areas aren’t going to eliminate the kind of idiotic “multi-tasking” driving that many think they can pull off these days, but at the very least it might give most drivers a hint that they need to be a bit more alert in that particular area.
Jackmanni re your "favorite recent left-lane hogging" incident:
[ul][li] According to your statement the traffic was sparse.[/li][li] As a safe driver surely you noticed the other car approaching at a speed greater than yours.[/li][li] The right lane was open, albeit rough.[/ul][/li]Shouldn’t a courteous driver switch to the right lane as the faster vehicle approaches and then return to the smoother left-lane after the faster car has passed?
The idea is to drive safely and courteously, not to speculate on who would survive a collision.
Surely the idiot bombing up from behind me was in the right lane to begin with (actually, he wasn’t, probably because of the ruts) and would have had no trouble continuing in that lane. Instead, he had to make a needless issue of his overwhelming need to have the left lane and perform a pointless, rude maneuver that caused him far more risk than me.
Good, courteous drivers who lack road-raging lane territorialism adapt to circumstances (i.e. the damaged stretch of the right lane), and if they feel they absoluely must “educate” other drivers, do so with lights or horn, not foolish semi-suicidal acts.
Jackmannii you say you were in the left lane when a faster vehicke approached. You should have gone to the right lane if that was possible, to allow the faster vehicle to overtake you. The fact that you didn’t makes you responsible for the other driver chosing to overtake you on the right on the poor road surface. Did you not notice the faster car coming (bad observation) or did you notice, but decide you didn’t have to move to the slower lane (bad driving).
Of course if their was a vehicle or other obstruction in the right lane, then you did nothing wrong.
The speeding motorist was an ass for cutting you up on changing back to the fast lane though.
Interesting article. I have long suspected that the clueless people who are going too slow out of fear, or panicking for no reason and slamming on the brakes, or holding up the flow of traffic out of arrogance (I’m right because I’m doing the posted speed limit), are responsible for a lot of accidents. But you rarely hear anyone “officially” take such a position. It seems to be considered more politically correct to always blame the driver who was going faster, no matter what the circumstances of an accident.
I suspect that the real reason speed is given such weight is because it is easily quantifiable, especially with radar. Things like tailgating and refusing to yield are much more judgment calls, and hence more difficult to prosecute. It’s simple to set an arbitrary speed limit, and say a person violated it. It’s much more difficult to define rules for yielding to faster traffic. How long are you allowed to fail to yield? 5 seconds? 10 seconds? 10 minutes? Was it safe to change lanes at that moment? These things are a lot easier to dispute than a radar-gun reading.
An interesting thing in California is that prima facie speed limits are legally supposed to be based on the “prevailing” flow of traffic. In other words, if everyone drives 40 mph on a road, the town cannot arbitrarily set the speed limit at 25, unless they show some other evidence that a hazard exists. They are required to conduct “traffic and engineering surveys” to determine the prevailing speed. The thing is, the prima facie speed limits are already posted on signs when they are conducting the survey. It’s sort of circular reasoning; a town can justify its draconian speed limits by aggressively enforcing them.
Here in California, it’s almost suicide to get on the freeways. I grew up in Ohio and was taught, by the rulebook, that it is illegal to drive in the left lane for sustained distances unless trying to attempt a pass of a slower vehicle. Great for two (on one side) lane highways.
Here in California, many is the case where there are 3,4,5 and even 6 lanes as well as carpool lanes. This adds confusion to who, why, when and how fast each lane is designated and what ettiquette should be followed, as well as adding in the many cultural differences (I’m not a racist).
I was taught, In Ohio mind you, that when you had three lanes, the right most lane was for trucks and slow moving towing vehicles as well as exit and entrance lanes, which work fine at 55MPH but not so great at 65MPH. The middle lane was for main traffic, and the left, you guessed it, passing only.
Now add-in lanes four, five and carpool lanes (close to the median where all the Bridge players like to congregate at SLOOOOOWWWW speed) people get confused. Alot of Asians and Asian-Americans, taught by their parents mind you feel any lane any speed is the rule (not all inclusive mind you.) Mexican and Mexican-Americans or Latinos (whichever they prefer) like to take there time in getting there (general observation, not a hater of any culture or race. )
I think alot of the traffic and speed issues would be moot if people got to the right and passed on the left. Golden traffic rule!
However, courtesy is out the window now that everybody is afraid to look around out here, lest they be shot. So, most just pick a lane, look straight ahead, and do their thing.
I’ve driven on the Autobahn at 120MPH and they follow this rule, so it’s not really a speed problem.
Whatever you feel is fine, just be safe out there!!!
Duckster had an interesting article from another thread. He links to an article that show the safest time to drive in Montana was when they had no speed limit. When they put the speed limit back traffic accidents went up by quite a lot.
The OP says police if present should have booked you for driving obstructively in the fast lane. They probably should have booked the other guy for cutting you off, but the other guy wouldn’t have tried to cut you off if he knew the police were going to act against obstructive drivers.
The OP is saying 'book obstructive drivers, book dangerous drivers, but don’t book fast and safe drivers. You validate this by showing how being an obstructive driver can anger other drivers, and that if the other driver then reacts badly by cutting up the obstructing driver causes even more danger. So you offer a good reason for the OP being correct, yet phrase it as if the OP is wrong.
When I lived in Boston, it was comon to blink your lights and people understood they needed to get over so you could pass. This is also the common practice in Europe, as far as I could tell when I was driving over there a lot. It’s like a polite tap on the shoulder that says “Maybe you didn’t see me coming up on you. Would you move over, please, so I can pass.”
In CA, if you blink your lights at someone they are likely to flip you off, slow down, and purposely block you in by paralleling someone in the right lane. Or they might wave “cheerfully” at you as if to say “You have to adapt to my way of driving, regardless of what the rules are”.
I don’t see how cops can effectively police this problem. To me, it’s reflective of the attitude people have these days that they don’t need to be courteous, and that the world needs to adapt to them.
If there is no traffic, dear Bippy, then there is no question of “obstructing” the other driver. He made an issue (dangerously) out of nothing.
And all of this perpetual griping in general about slow drivers will do nothing about something that should be important to all drivers. Get caught speeding, or get in a crash because of your tailgating, weaving and so on, and your insurance company will not care about those &(# slow drivers who made you mad or forced you to be reckless. They’ll raise your rates. You’ll get points on your license, and maybe a suspension to look forward to, and I doubt the investment in super-duper radar detectors will save you.
The “slow” drivers will escape most of these expensive problems.
Jackmanni, you really don’t understand the you are the guy that the article was talking about do you? Bippy hit the nail on the head when he said:
[Quote] You validate this by showing how being an obstructive driver can anger other drivers
[Quote]
What John Mace says is especially true in Italy. Not moving to the right lane there will get you in serious trouble and result in horns being blown, lights flashed and some unbelievable hand jestures.
You are undoubtedly fully justified in your indignation, kniz (if not overly sharp in terms of understanding the written language).
Happy driving. Wear those citations as badges of honor.
I have no real problem with speeders per se; however since they are inherently more at risk, I feel they should be willing to register themselves as “high speed drivers” and as such pay higher insurance rates.
Same for motorcyclists who won’t wear a helmet. Fine. Just don’t expect me to foot part of your medical bills via higher insurance rates for me when you have intrinsically higher claims.
And, if you don’t register as such a “driver”, and have an accident while speeding, you get jack shit payout from the insurance company.
You want to take higher risks, acknowledge it, and pay for it!
