Maybe they’re taking it upon themselves to cleverly enforce speed limits. They probably think that the lives they’re saving are more important than self-centered jerks getting nowhere 3 minutes faster.
Lemme guess…you are one of the self-appointed speed limit enforcers. Hmmmm…self-centered jerks…that cuts BOTH ways. And by the way, the speed limit IS 60 on the highways and freeways here, road and weather conditions permitting. So, if the conditions are good and the road is good, then get the FUCK out of the left lane if you are not going to do the speed limit! BTW, this DOES NOT mean you ride next to the guy in right lane so nobody can go around you.
its true, the more your speed differs from that of other traffic the less time you have to react when somebody changes lane or stuff like that. arguably going slower is more dangerous because that sets you up for being hit in the back where you have blind spots etc.
Nonsense to you, Taters! Why every doggone morning I have to dodge around them WA plate cars, self righteously hugging the left lane like they bought it personal-like with the taxes they don’t pay us! Portland is okay to make a living in, I guess, okay to give us the horrible traffic during the day, then they all troop back over the I-5 bridge at night to blow their tax money on the much better Washington roads that they STILL can’t get all the way up to the speed limit on! Dammit, when I hit the 5 northboung and it says 70 limit I wanna get my jets on, not have to play bumper cars with those twits doing sixty… Come on, brain tumor, is all I have to say… 
I figure any Oregonian doing the hokey pokey on a Washington road is just trying to even up the score…
Its simple. If someone wants to do 80, and you are going slower, just GET OUT OF THEIR WAY.
Give me a good reason why you shouldn’t.
My good reason for wanting to do 80 instead of the speed limit when I drive down to school is 30 minutes extra in my day.
Those 3.6 minutes in your 16 mile commute to work, times 2 commutes per day, times say 240 days of work a year, times 45 years of work = 54 DAYS. Multiply those 54 days by the hundreds of people you are probably slowing down (assuming rush hour-like traffic)… you can figure out the rest.
There is no doubt that people going slower than the flow of traffic that sit in the left lane create heavier traffic. So you could A) move into the right lane and nobody loses anything, or B) Waste thousands of other peoples days over your lifetime of asininity (yes that is a word) and make their commutes more dangerous.
Theres a difference between “laid-back” and “apathetic”.
There’s one road in particular here in Indianapolis … Allisonville Road. Two lanes (one in each direction). Speed limit 45mph.
DAMMIT!!!
Ok, to continue…
Fairly straight, with some hills. Not big ones, but some hills.
NO ONE EVER DRIVES THE FREAKING SPEED LIMIT. NOT ANY ONE. EVER!!!
Ok, that’s not exactly true, but it sure as hell feels like it!!! One morning (6:45 on a SATURDAY), I was behind this guy who WOULD NOT go faster than 35. BUT - he wouldn’t actually stop all the way at a red light, and would continue to creep through the intersection until the light turned green (he’d get about halfway across), and then STOMP ON THE GAS up to 35 mph!!!
And as many times as I have been dying to pass someone on this road, I’ve never done it. I almost got hit head-on by somebody who did, though (once again at 6:45 on a Saturday). Scary shit, I tell ya’.
Oh - and as much as school zones suck, the speed limit REALLY IS 25mph. BUT NOT AT 5:30 WHEN I’M TRYING TO GET HOME!!! (School zones are 25 mph 7:00 - 4:30 around here.)
The OP did not say, gee, why can’t I go 95 in a school zone at 9 a.m. The OP expressed frustration about people who, although demonstrable willing to go the speed limit, did not. As Mothchunks and blowchunks and others explained, it is not legal to prevent the flow of traffic.
According to my DOT friend, there are two reasons for this. The first is that promoting traffic flow promotes safety. The second is that you have no idea who is behind you - could be a man whose child suddenly started having a violent asthma attack. Courtesy mean assuming, until you know otherwise, that other people have good reasons for what they do.
(FYI - it’s a common phenom for people to go more slowly on one-lane or curving roads when they merely perceive them to be more dangerous. It’s often the case the where a highway has been widened and comes close to private property, the lane width and available shoulder space is less than on a seemingly narrow road. Nonetheless, when the highway people put up their sneak cameras, people speed up when they feel they are one “wide open road.”)
are on a “wide open road.”)
Sorry. Can’t edit.
These people are probably guilty of what they call “low-aim steering”. Rather than sighting down the road ahead of them, they are focusing their attention on objects that are very close in front of them or directly to the side, which gives them a false sense of danger. If you stare at the road right in front of your car, you will be unable to properly center your car in the lane, and will perceive objects to your right to be much closer than they actually are. A very dangerous way to drive.
WOOT!
washington drives are fucking imbicels when it comes to hogging the passing lane.
I used to comute about 30miles each way from renton to tacoma, my house was right off the freeway and work was also right off the freeway with 60 mph on the freeway both directions, so you would think my comute time would be 45min or so factoring in side streets and parking and all that…never ever under an hour during daylight hours. and I had to pass at least 3 cars on the right each trip that were doing nothing but holding up traffic in the PASSING LANE when there was almost always open lanes near them (note I5 is 4-5 lanes wide from seattle to tacoma)
I love traveling out of state in my car, its so refreshing to find people who CHANGE LANES when you come up fast behind them.
of course it could just be somthing in the air that does it to almost everyone who comes here.
Just today we had about an inch of heavy wet snow at my office. Get onto the road, the person in front of me is doing 20mph on a 2 lane road with a 55mph limit. Blinkers going, hitting the brakes for no reason, the works, this person is obviously terrified of driving on a bit of snow. I don’t have a problem with that, except he WOULDN’T PULL OVER! He had at least 3 good spots to pull over and wouldn’t, even though there was a string of a dozen cars behind him, and NOTHING in front of him. I wound up passing him, (as did a few other people) which was more dangerous than him pulling over and letting us by.
A few more points I’d like to address one by one:
Though I have been the guy telling eveyone to slow down in this post, I absolutely loathe people who drive below the speed limit in the fast lane. I only use the fast lane to pass. I stay to the right at all other times.
People should be required to take interstate safety courses before they can get their license. Plus, a person should be required to take one every 3-4 years after he gets his license.
No one around here knows how to merge properly. It is illegal to slow down on an on-ramp’s acceleration lane. I saw a cop rear end another vehicle once because the other vehicle came to a complete stop to wait for a car to pass. I was behind the cop…and believe me, there would have been room for all three of us to merge.
The cop must have turned his head for a split second to make sure the lane was clear when the guy slammed on his breaks. I almost rear ended the cop, but had the wherabouts to find an escape route on the right hand side of the accident. I probably missed by 2-3 feet…and came to a stop.
No one was hurt, though the cop was a bit shaken. When the second officer arrived, the offending vehicle was issued a ticket for impeding traffic. I can’t think of any other reason to issue a ticket to someone for getting rear ended. Perhaps the fact that I was a witness had something to do with it.
Point 2: If I’m going within the legal rhealms of the speed limit, there is no way in hell I’m going to pull over and let someone pass. As I stated earlier, I usually drive at or a couple mph above the limit, but my legal right tells me that if I’m the first one in line, I am the dictator of the flow of traffic. As long as I’m going within the 10 mph leeway the law gives me, I am not, by definition, impeding the flow of traffic. I am in a hurry too…just because I feel the need to abide by the law even in my hurry doesn’t mean that you have the right to make me more late (is there a such thing as “more late”?). (of course, this only applies to 2-lane roads). If it is an emergency, honk and flash your lights. I’ll pull over (though I’ll probably be cursing and calling the offender a madman while I do it).
Aleq and Critical 1:
Nope, nope, nope, you got it AAAAALLLLLL wrong! Critical 1, you must have gotten either behind a)an Oregonian who was lost, b)a Canadian that can’t convert kilometers to MPHs or c)a retiree with no place to go and all day to get there! (Why the HELL do they have to get on the road during rush hour anyway?)
Aleq: Up until Mega Millions I thought the only reason those border folk headed down to Portland was to buy Powerball tickets and for some tax free shopping. By the way, I gots relatives down there in Oregon and spent a lot of time going back and forth to Beaverton. Your 405 absolutely sucks!
I am almost always in the “hammer lane” (hubby is a professional driver too) and frankly am pretty much flying, weather and road conditions permitting. I WILL pull over to the right if someone is flying up on my backside, those folks are usually doing 90 or better.
So, I think we three will all have to “agree to disagree” here.
Try to pay attention - we are talking about 35 in a 40.
Also 70 is a nice limit - I doubt many would complain about that - unless one is doing 70.000 MPH and maintaining a rolling road block.
My basic point (although not directly stated) is that there is a reason for speed limits. For instance…there is a road north of here that has a seemingly absurdly low limit. It is a two lane divided highway that is about thee miles long with one sharp curve. The speed limit is 35 on the road. I could drive comfortably on the road at 50. That is, until I discovered the reason for the low speed. There are two spots on the road that frequently have trucks entering…and those two spots happen to be on opposite ends of the curve. Each intersection is not visible from the opposite direction. After seeing a couple of semis appear out of nowhere on this road, I adhere to the speed limit.
There is a very straight stretch of road nearby about 2.5 miles long with only two intersections where the speed limit is 25 mile per hour. That happens to be a very long and boring road and it also happens to be on my way home from work. The road also happens to have numerous pedestrians and goes by the high school about a half mile down from where I turn off. Being as how pedestrians are not always predictable, I keep to 25 mph on the road. I get passed often on this road even at the speed limit.
A final point. I drive under the speed limit in school zones no matter what time it is. Kids are on those roads more often than just 8 am and 4 pm. The last thing I ever want to do is to run over somebody’s child.
Yes, there are roads out there where the speed limit is too low. However, there are also roads where the posted speed limit is too high. The roads with a too high limit seem to far outweigh the roads where the limit is too low.
In Colorado, there are signs on the mountain roads telling slower traffic to use pullouts. Do the pullouts get used? Hah! Let me give you a clue; I don’t care what speed you are going, if you are leading a 20 car parade up the Poudre Canyon you are slower traffic.
If I’m in poke-along mode, gawking at the scenery and all that, it is way more peaceful and enjoyable for me to use the pullout and not have a trail of angry, impatient, unhappy drivers behind me. I’m poking along anyway - it’s not important if I lose 30 seconds. Conversely, if I’m rushing through, isn’t it more peaceful for the other driver not to have me stuck on his tail, not have me trying to be close enough to pass in the rare and short passing areas? I’ve actually used the pullouts when I’ve been speeding because someone came up behind going faster than me.
And when you ARE in the mood for going fast, and no tourists pop up in the way, let me tell you, there is nothing like the roads in the Colorado rockies. Wheeee! I sure miss them.
I have never traveled in the mountains…probably the only thing my driving experience is missing. I have driven over severe elevation changes, but never over an extended period.
However, believe me when I say that before I ever undertake such a task (I am planning a trip to the West Coast in about two years), I will learn how to drive over those steep grades before I make the trip. At least I’ll get some advice and do a bit of practicing on what few areas of steep grades I can find here in the plains.
I have learned something here, though (and something I always knew). If I find more than a few cars behind me on a mountain pass, I will pull over. Mostly because I am aware on the wear and tear such drives can do on one’s transmission and brakes.
However, around here, I tend to get a long line of cars behind me even if I do five mph above the speed limit. That is ridiculous. I’m not going to risk getting a ticket just so those people can go faster…and I’m not going to pull over just so they can break the law.
In my book, it’s the same as putting an empty gun to one’s head and pulling the trigger. At least one can be sure the gun is empty.
A final note…I drive under the speed limit in construction zones as well. I know, they suck. However, I have worked in construction zones before. A vehicle passing at 40 mph can be very unnerving.
Well then not only are you an asshole, but you are most likely breaking the law. I don’t think you said where you live, but in my state you are required to pull over if 5 or more cars are following you. Do you have a cite for this “10 mph leeway” thing? I suppose that might be in the vehicle code where you live, but it sounds more like you pulled it out of your ass. It’s not your job to enforce the speed limit; leave that to the police.