# Maintaining speed on the highway is a lost art
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maintaining-speed-on-the-highway-is-a-lost-art/692090
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [July 1, 2014, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maintaining-speed-on-the-highway-is-a-lost-art/692090 "2014-07-01T14:05:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maintaining-speed-on-the-highway-is-a-lost-art/692090/41 "2014-07-02T23:52:38Z")
> [@Zeldar](#):
>
> Devil Take The Hindmost.
I like mine better.
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#):
>
> I don’t really see the problem.
Well, the thing is, this guy was toolin’ alone a 4-lane road at 75, then comes up on someone in the right lane and slows down to their speed. This is someone who is clearly not thinking about what they are doing and frankly, doesn’t take much pride in the operation of a motor vehicle. No thought, no awareness, just…ugh! This guy rides motorcycles, too, and I’m really surprised he isn’t dead yet, and won’t be surprised when he gets offed.
I could type all day about the proper way to drive, but ain’t gonna waste the bandwidth.
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### Author:  [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maintaining-speed-on-the-highway-is-a-lost-art/692090/42 "2014-07-03T00:06:48Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#):
>
> I like mine better.
>
> Well, the thing is, this guy was toolin’ alone a 4-lane road at 75, then comes up on someone in the right lane and slows down to their speed. This is someone who is clearly not thinking about what they are doing and frankly, doesn’t take much pride in the operation of a motor vehicle. No thought, no awareness, just…ugh! This guy rides motorcycles, too, and I’m really surprised he isn’t dead yet, and won’t be surprised when he gets offed.
>
> I could type all day about the proper way to drive, but ain’t gonna waste the bandwidth.
Ummm… who are you talking about?
Never mind.
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### Author:  [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maintaining-speed-on-the-highway-is-a-lost-art/692090/43 "2014-07-03T00:15:57Z")
> [@jtur88](#):
>
> Turn off your cruise control, learn to control your own speed, pay attention to the prevailing traffic circumstances. Apparently, “maintaining speed on a highway is a lost art” for you, who through your reliance on cruise control, never learned the art in the first place.
>
> I believe the owner’s manual even advised against using the cruise control when driving on undivided highways where traffic may be operating at variable speeds and there is no dedicated safe passing lane. There appears to be a contradiction in the OP – Is it mostly 2-lane, or is there a “right lane” for crusing?
Not sure how this applies to OTHER people who cant maintain their speed.
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### Author:  [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maintaining-speed-on-the-highway-is-a-lost-art/692090/44 "2014-07-03T00:20:29Z")
Around where I live, people tend to drive annoyingly slow, anyway (10-15 MPH under the speed limit on a good day), but it is especially bad on hills.
On one road I used to take to work, the speed limit is 50, but there is a hill that people would just kind of coast up… aaannnnddd then coast down. The speeds would range from 30 at the top of the hill to 65 at the bottom.
It’s not even that steep of a hill. I drive a Honda Fit, and I could easily maintain the speed limit going up that hill.
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### Author:  [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maintaining-speed-on-the-highway-is-a-lost-art/692090/45 "2014-07-03T00:26:52Z")
I thin the folks that fly by me & then creep past the semi are just scared. Add a barrier to the left they are paralyzed … looks like a dangerous tunnel? There are HUGE wheels spinning RIGHT THERE !!!
You can hardly push them through with a brush bumper and they seem unable to slow & pull in behind the truck until they can get up the courage to try passing again. Presto presto, instant clump… again…
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maintaining-speed-on-the-highway-is-a-lost-art/692090/46 "2014-07-03T00:36:22Z")
> [@Wolf333](#):
>
> Around where I live, people tend to drive annoyingly slow, anyway (10-15 MPH under the speed limit on a good day)…
Here, people drive 5 mph under the speed limit. If it’s 70, they drive 65. If it’s 60, they drive 55. If it’s 50, they drive 45.
I live in terror of coming upon a 5 mph zone. :eek:
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maintaining-speed-on-the-highway-is-a-lost-art/692090/47 "2014-07-03T03:25:02Z")
> [@chiroptera](#):
>
> I’ve noticed something of a herd mentality with some drivers - they are not really focused on their own driving so much as feeling unconsciously compelled to act like everyone else around them. This would explain the speed-matching thing, as well as the tendency of traffic to travel in clumps.
If you’re breaking the law in any way (which the majority generally are, by going above the speed limit), not driving in a pack just makes you a good target for a ticket.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maintaining-speed-on-the-highway-is-a-lost-art/692090/48 "2014-07-03T18:26:20Z")
> [@chiroptera](#):
>
> And in the meantime, you have all the middle lanes with people going every which way and speed, which makes it less of a binary decision. When I was younger and drove fast cars, I was pretty much a left lane/pass everyone driver. Now I’m older and usually am driving stodgy work vans so I just do my best to stay out of others’ way in the righter lanes, while trying to maintain a sensible and brisk speed. It can be a juggling act!
Well, the interstate I’m talking about has 2 lanes going either way for something like 150-200 miles, so it definitely is a binary decision.
The really infuriating thing is that I usually want to go the current speed limit (75 mph), and set my cruise control and there’s no good way to do that between the slowpokes and speed demons. Then, if there is an open stretch without much traffic, there’s always some ass doing exactly what the OP mentions, and messing things up.
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