I’m done replying after this post but still welcome input: but just to point out that you haven’t even addressed the issue in any of your recent posts. If I’m so wrong, then tell me why, don’t wait for me to make a mistake in my delivery of my opinion so that you can knock my opinion down based on that, friggin’ address the issue for crying out loud. It seems like you are here in this thread because you were so overjoyed that someone was challenging a traditional law, and wanted to make me look stupid for trying to do so. It’s a fun time to be on the other side of this argument isn’t it? Because it’s so easy to knock what I say down because of tradition. But, when you think about the logical origin of this law, it is flawed based on:
Ambiguous distance past overtaken car required in order to merge (Who can measure 6 car lengths by looking in their rear-view mirror? And what are the odds that my measurement is going to be the same as the 95mph guy behind me?)
If you are the 85 mph guy who just passed, you know that people that are going that fast (90+) are already impatient, so if you hesitate at all to get over, you risk merging into them as they pass while only waiting 3 car lengths.
Please tell me why these statements are wrong or whether you agree that the law is flawed.
Listen, I don’t mind if you disagree with me on this point of flaw because it’s an obvious judgement call. My solution however is another story. I didn’t intend on trying to come up with a perfect answer to this problem. I only wanted to talk about the shortcomings of the law in place right now and got lured into coming up with a solution. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to do that. I just knew what worked for me. But this law is bogus and downright squirrely at times, that’s all I know. And I don;t want to be a part of a law that fosters accidents. Absence of action on the part of the passive (left lane road hog) party is good when coupled with action on the part of the aggressive party. This is sound logic in any event, from driving to social confrontations. Action is where it bleongs, in the hands of the aggressor.
For instance, when I am on my sport bike going way too fast, I am praying and hoping that every car just stays put where they are until I pass them. I am doing a favor to these people by being a relatively non-moving obstacle, IMHO.
I think I have spoken my side enough, too much actually. So before you reply, please read my posts first.
I was once behind a car making a passing on the right maneuver in moderately heavy traffic on a 6 lane freeway. He moved from the left lane all the way to the right, then all the way to the left again, sideswiped a car with a poor pregnant woman, then went all the way to the right shoulder. Amazingly, no one was hurt. The shmuck had the nerve to say the woman hit him! I had the great pleasure of telling the highway patrol (and later his insurance company) what really happened.
If you’re going much faster than the flow of traffic, you’re dangerous, and it doesn’t matter if someone else is even worse. What’s the average speed of the cars on the right when you’re going 85? 60? 65?
Oh well, I’m about as far away from you as I can get, so your fellow Floridians can worry about you.
I’m glad someone X-linked to this thread from another one. I’ve got a perfect example of how what you’re doing can cause an accident.
Yes, what you’re doing, not even what you are making others do, which I agree with the general sentiment here is bad enough.
It’s nice that you have the luxury of squatting in the left lane in your lovely flat state of Florida where the only people approaching you are your fellow speeders.
I, too, have lived pretty much in flatlands. I grew up in Door County, Wisconsin, which probably averages about 100 ft above Lake level (I think Lake Michigan is 300 ft above sea level, but I don’t recall). I currently live in the Chicago area, and have lived here since college. I believe Illinois has as its highest point something like 900 ft. above sea level.
But I have driven in the Appalachians once on a road trip to my alma mater’s football game against Penn State. There were five of us in my Honda Civic and two of us switched off driving on the 12-hour trip (the other three didn’t know how to operate a mnaual transmission) straight through.
Your “I squat in the left lane because I drive faster than most” is very dangerous in such situations. First of all, you won’t be doing 85 much. The roads are too hilly and curvy, not to mention that the speed limits are considerably lower than 70. But let’s say you still are going faster than most traffic. That’s all good until you start going downhill with curves. See, there are these things called “tractor-trailers” or “semi-trailers” or “big-ass trucks.” They have a lot of weight and a pneumatic breaking system, that although I’ve heard is superior to the hydraulic system in your car, still has its limits. If a semi has to ride it’s brakes going down a hill, a lot of heat is produced and the brakes will glaze over (and actually dump trucks, garbage trucks, and other similar trucks have the same problems). Besides smelling bad (hence, the term “smoking the brakes”), the glaze will temporarily reduce braking effectiveness, making the situation even more dangerous. Even though trucks prefer to downshift to use the braking power of the engine, and occasionally activate the system that routes the exhaust back into the engine as well (if equipped), it won’t necessarily make them go slower than the car ahead of them that may or may not be speeding. In this case, they step on the brake pedal, and run the risk of smoking their brakes (and they do it so they won’t smash into you).
I ran into such a situation on this trip. I was passing on the left when I encountered a squatter in the left lane (who was going ever so barely faster than the traffic to the right of me). Being that this road had enough terrain changes so as to prevent view of the horizon, I was unaware that this guy was here as well as unaware of the big hill that was waiting for us. At this moment, I had recently passed a truck. The truck had to pull behind me (since I and the guy ahead of me were going faster than the right lane), but at the same time the squatter would not speed up and get out of the lane, thereby allowing me to get out of the truck’s way, since I had traffic to the right of me. But I suppose it’s my job and the trucks job to wait until we can clear the traffic to our right to that we can pass him on the right. Yeah, that’s just what we need, semi trailers weaving in and out of traffic because some idiot thinks that he owns the lane he’s in. All this guy would have needed to do is pull to the right, and then I could have sped passed him (my civic can clearly outrace a semi) and pulled over, thereby giving the semi plenty of breathing room.
So yes, squatters do cause accidents directly. The trucker and I were fortunate that nothing happened.
Unless, of course, the driver behind is in another lane, and you have to enter his lane in order to make your maneuver. Then, your signal tells the driver to speed up and box you out, even though your entering his lane really would have had no effect on how fast he would get to his destination, particularly since you were going faster than him to begin with.
At least, that’s how it seems to work around here sometimes. Of course, this is the same area where my wife got her driver’s license by driving around the block. All she had to do was drive maybe 5 miles at most and not break any laws. In Wisconsin I had to do everything from hill parking, to Y-turns, to parallel parking. No wonder why Chicago area drivers suck.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by SolGrundy *
**There is a way to set a standard, and they mention this when you take your driving test. It’s recommended six car lengths. It’s not a dumb law, it’s how things work.
In driver’s ed, they taught us it is safe to change back when you can see both headlights of the car you passed in your interior rear-view mirror. This removes the part where one tries to guess what “six-car” lengths is. Granted, in practice, you might not always have the luxury of waiting until the headlights show, but generally this is a good rule of thumb.
**
Actually, my driver’s ed class (I took it in 1991-1992 school year) recommended that the middle lane is where you generally drive when there are three lanes on your side. The left lane is the passing lane, the right lane is the entrance/exit lane, and the center is the cruising lane. Granted, if there is room and there is currently no one entering/exiting the highway, it’s courtesy for someone in the cruising lane to pull to the right for someone else in the cruising lane to pass, but the center lane is not generally for passing (at least not when it comes to cars). Most three lane highways (as you mentioned) do require trucks to stay in the right two lanes, in this case, you should pull over for a truck if you can manage, but you are under no obligation if your yielding to the truck requires you to get in the way of traffic entering the highway. The truck just has to live with it.
In highways with four or more lanes each way, the same basic rules apply. The right lane is for exits and entrances, the left lane is for the fastest traffic, and the other lanes are for cruising with the general idea that slower traffic move right.
**
Yep. The “slow traffic stays right” thing does not apply to non-divided highways. If you can cross over a double yellow line into oncoming traffic, the law doesn’t dictate where traffic should be. However, even in these cases, generally slower traffic stays in the right lane, particularly since that lanes tends to get blocked by traffic making right turns, whereas most left turners get their own lane so that they pull out of traffic.
Of course, Chicago has the Kennedy expressway (I-90/I-94), where there are exit and entrance ramps in both the right and left lanes. I wonder who the geniuses were that came up with that one.
One thing I’ve never figured out though, is in certain places (mainly construction zones, but occasionally standard expressways) you find that trucks are required to be in the left lanes. Do the rules of who drives where suddenly reverse themselves (i.e. the right lane becomes the fast lane), or do you still have the left lane as the fast lane and everyone dodges around the trucks? That was one thing I was never taught.
Amen, brother! I lived in Europe for seven years. Driving as far right as possible was the law and was enforced. Drivers would take down your license number and report you for roosting in the passing lanes. The great part of this scheme is that you could actually change lanes from left to right without looking, because nobody would dream of passing you on the right! I damn near got killed when I returned to the US, because I wasn’t expecting anyone to be on my right.
I’m not getting into the argument above… merely posting my opinions. I use the middle lane to cruise, and if I’m the pace-setter, I don’t have a problem moving to the fast lane to pass someone in the middle lane. What I HATE is people sitting in the fast lane (especially here in Orlando) on a mobile phone, blissfully unaware that a dozen faster drivers are waiting to see if they’ll move over. In the case of drivers who won’t, I am more than happy to pass in the middle lane and give them “the glare” on my way through (because how else will they learn- thank you Ellen DeGeneres).
Here’s a confession from a middle-lane cruiser. I sit in the middle lane of a three-lane-each-way expressway at 70-72 mph (in a 65 zone) for four reasons:
People merging frequently ignore the “yield” sign and pull in front of you doing 45-50 if you are in the right lane.
Hey pal, there’s a fast lane to my left. Go wild. I’ve had my share of speeding tickets; feel free to go get some of your own. In my experience (including 40,000-45,000 accident-free miles a year for three years through the DC Beltway), many of the worst speeders won’t go in the left lane for fear of a ticket, but get pissed at me because they can’t do 90 in the middle lane.
Don’t have to take off the cruise control for HOURS.
If you do pull over to the right lane, many, many drivers will flank you so you can’t pull back into the middle lane, so when 1) happens, it’s dangerous.
Btw, for those of you who haven’t experienced the Beltway, it’s where I learned it was actually safer to tailgate somebody than follow at a safe distance in the fast lane, because if you left more than 1 1/2 car lengths, some moron would fill it at 70 mph-plus, without signalling … and on one memorable occasion, while applying mascara.
What, or you’ll ban me from the message boards? :smack:
Anyway, Why?
Perhaps I should elaborate. IMHO, someone like fuel, if he maintains his self-described driving habits and “I own the road, laws be damned” attitude, is bound to crash sooner or later. Sooner and by himself would be better, no? I.e. before he has a chance to kill some innocent people and before his abominable driving habits have a chance to influence any possible offspring. All IMHO. Sure, his first post didn’t seem that unreasonable, but as the thread progressed–WOW. The guy has driving issues, we’ll say.
Better yet, and my personal preference if I could have any influence on the outcome, would be for fuel to see the error of his ways and change his driving habits and attitude. That seems unlikely, given his responses in this thread. Again, IMHO.
People who drive the way fuel descibes are a menace to society and cause thousands of driving deaths every year. Our highways are killing fields, and people should take safety much more seriously and tolerate reckless and excessively fast driving far less than they do. People seem to have this weird attitude that horrible highway deaths happen to other people, not to them, so for now they can–no, not just “can” but “are entitled to”–drive however they want. They use “I haven’t killed anyone yet” as justification for their lawlessness. It’s a frightening thing when you look at how many people die on the freeways, and how often.
All IHMO. However, highway safety statistics back me up
Here’s a link to a incident that could be a direct result of the the kind of driving fuel describes, with or without the possible influence of alcohol:
So, ban me if you like, but IMHO outrage is a more than reasonable response to someone whose arrogant driving IMHO greatly increases the chances of people dying on the freeway.
I think Fuel is this person. He thinks he OWNS the lane he is in. That by driving in it, it has become HIS and only HIS, and anyone not doing exactly as HE wishes (even though he is breaking the law) have to move to another lane.
Uh… Fuel… NO. You are breaking the law. No one has to cater themselves to what YOU want. They have to follow the law. You don’t follow the law, because you have some bizarre “plan” that you think everyone should follow. You think a driver should pass you on the right (illegal in most places), because you won’t move your ass over to the right lane. Sorry buddy, it doesn’t work that way.
If you want everyone to follow your “plan” which will supposedly prevent accidents all over the world, then by all means draft some legislation and get the law passed. Until you do, DON’T BREAK THE FRIGGIN’ LAW, and sure as hell don’t expect other drivers to break it either, just to make you happy.
By the way, if they are following the law, and you are not, then YOU are responsible if an accident occurs.
~Eris~
