Good luck getting birdshot through 50s steel and I probably would have shot back.
Seriously though – back in the carefree days of my youth, most of us out and about on the Back Mountain Highway or most anywhere in the counties were armed. But for some reason the thought of actually shooting at or even threatening someone with a gun never really entered our minds. It was only the “assholes from Philly and NY” who did stuff like that.
I know I’m late to the party here, but how many lanes on this road? If you’re next to the trucks, I’ll assume you’re not in the right lane, and then ought to be going 60-65.
Still not ok to tailgate you, but if you’re going 50-55, not in the right lane, and not driving a truck, maybe you are the problem?
I have a theory on those absentminded ones. I think they need to be wearing glasses. I really think the non-aggressive tailgaters who do seem passive and are just driving too close without being jerky about it (as much as being too close can be non-jerky), are in need of eye correction. The older I get, the more I notice people squinting to see across the room, and the bolder I am about asking them about how well they can see. Has prompted two co-workers into getting their eyes checked and now wearing glasses.
I went out for a drive today, and discovered I tend mostly to go 60 to 65. So, I was off a bit when I said 50 and 55.
This is still slow – slower than the 70 to 75 that I see most. But, again, I hang in the right two lanes.
The freeways around here that I take most often are four and five lanes.
Also, it’s not a wise idea to drive in the slow lane, because it’s also the merging lane, and that’s not the best place to be if you’re driving for long distances. You have to do a lot of work to help oncoming traffic merge.
(Also, the right-hand-most lane often goes away around here. There are lots of places where the right lane peels off to form the on-ramp to another freeway. The second-from-right lane is more dependably a “through” lane.)
(As opposed to the assholes who won’t let oncoming traffic in! A whole new brand of evil stinkwads!)
One strategy I use a lot is to find someone else, often a truck, that’s going the speed I want, and just stay behind them. (At a respectful distance!) That way, no one coming up behind me can legitimately blame me for going too slow.
(I also follow at a distance so that someone behind can leapfrog us one at a time. I don’t double up so that the guy behind must pass both at once, or neither.)
TL/DR: Seriously, I’m not the bad guy here. It’s the jerk who creeps up to within three car lengths.
No, your sins are minor and you can see them, which is more than most.
I tend to drive too conservatively and (altho it seems opposite) too fast.
Same to you, pals. I drive the speed that I drive, deal with it. I am not going to waste my time moving over for you, that is as much an imposition on me as my slowness is on you. And if you are so close that I cannot even see your headlights, I will slow down, because that means I need extra room to stop so that you are not plowing into me. So get around me if you can, if not, try budgeting your time better next time.
And, you know, lay off the meth.
This has been bothering me for a while lately, as I drive extensively for my work.
What I’m seeing in this thread is a lot of suppositions. I drive not to make friends, enemies, students of my philosophies of life. I don’t want to get even with you or teach you anything.I want my encounter with you to be so brief that I can keep you off my Christmas card list.
The idea is so simple. forget about laws. (in America) keep right except to pass. The left lane is to pass. If you’re travelling at a leisurely 70mph in the passing lane do the best you can to let someone else who’s travelling even faster to get by you. It’s that simple. Stop trying to teach lessons to people out on the road (hitting the brakes to scare people behind you and such).
I drive fast. YOU are not the official pace car for me. Get out of the way. Let faster traffic move faster and go about your own life at your own speed.
This has been bothering me for a while lately, as I drive extensively for my work.
What I’m seeing in this thread is a lot of suppositions. I drive not to make friends, enemies, students of my philosophies of life. I don’t want to get even with you or teach you anything.I want my encounter with you to be so brief that I can keep you off my Christmas card list.
The idea is so simple. forget about laws. (in America) keep right except to pass. The left lane is to pass. If you’re travelling at a leisurely 70mph in the passing lane do the best you can to let someone else who’s travelling even faster to get by you. It’s that simple. Stop trying to teach lessons to people out on the road (hitting the brakes to scare people behind you and such).
I drive fast. YOU are not the official pace car for me. Get out of the way. Let faster traffic move faster and go about your own life at your own speed.
I just usually slow down and let them pass.
Then I follow them home and beat the shit out of them in front of their family.
Keep right except to pass. I know it’s a little different in heavy traffic with 3-5 lanes, but not much. Just keep to the right. Yeah, yeah, merging traffic is harder to deal with, so take the middle lane and move to the right when there is no traffic merging. Yes this means you need to keep your eyes open for merging traffic.
I drive a two lane mountain highway every day. It can be (and often is) snow packed and icy 6 months out of the year. I drive the speed limit, the fastest on this particular highway is 50mph. It’s a reasonable speed (it sounds slow, but it really is a good speed. Lots of wildlife, curvy and hilly).
I’ve been driving this particular road for 22 years. In a 10 mile stretch, there are only two good places to pull off in the winter. I’ll use them and have no problem with that. There is no passing on this road and it is signed and striped as such (not that you can see the stripping in winter)
With that said I do run into the occasional inexperienced tourist that is going 30mph because the road is snow packed. I understand. They don’t know the road, don’t know how to drive in snow and may well be in a rental car with ‘all season’ :rolleyes: ) tires. I might pass them even in a no passing zone if it’s safe to do so, but I’ll usually just relax and hang back understanding that for a 10 mile stretch, it’s not going to add significant time to my commute.
<side note>This particular road also has a number of switch backs. It goes over the continental divide. I know drivers are trying to be nice, but please, please don’t stop to let others by in the switch back, even if it’s wide. With the snow piled up blocking visibility, and slick roads, this puts everyone in a bad position.</sn>
You know, I get tailgated in the far right lane as often as anywhere else. I think it’s assholes not paying attention as much as anything. You don’t have to be a person who goes 65 in the far left lane to have this experience.l
I also get tailgated when I am trying to pass. This drives me crazy. For example, I-35 from Dallas to Austin is a very fast, very busy, very-under construction interstate. The right hand lane is usually going 70-75, and their are long stretches with concrete barriers where you’d like to see shoulders. I’ll be passing a string of cars. I’m going 85, and some asshole slides in right behind me, to where I can’t see his headlights. 85 with no shoulders is a perfectly reasonable speed. At that rate, I’ll be past the string of cars and be able to get over in like 90 seconds.
I can understand being pissed at me if I were pacing the cars in the slow lane. I can understand being pissed at me if I had opportunities to get over and didn’t take them. But this isn’t either of those cases.
Sounds to me that you are doing it right. We have a VERY different type of commute.
My Wife and I drove to Lake Tahoe (CA) from Colorado last September. I was surprised and happy to see 80mph limit on some very long straight stretches in Utah. For long drives that extra 10mph or so does make a difference. Open road, little traffic, I would push 85 and rarely get passed.
How many of us remember the 55mph limit that Carter imposed? At the time I was young, and would make trips from Colorado to Illinois to see my dad. That was brutal (yep, still the same grain silo we saw 5 minutes ago)
I let a tailgater pass me and he got right up the arse of the car in front of me. My passenger commented that maybe the dude couldn’t see very well and was just keeping close to the vehicle in front. FFS! :smack:
I slow down to a point that is still in the legal speed range. I’d rather have an accident at 45 mph than 65 mph.
If I’m on a four lane road it is not your job to dictate to me how to drive. The left lane is for passing and the right is for cruising. Do NOT hang out in the left lane impeding my progress. Seriously, it doesn’t hurt you to move over and let me thru. Move over temporarily, I swear I won’t bother you again or flip you off or anything to make you feel bad. Just move over, K.
I don’t enjoy tailgating and I honestly don’t think I do it often but I would do it even less if the other drivers would just use the left lane for the purpose it was legally designed to have.
I call them assglommers, because they seem to be magnetically attracted to your rear bumper. I swear that half the time they literally come out of nowhere-I check the mirrors-hey, next guy back is 300 yards behind-easy peasy. I look ahead to make the pass, merge left, check mirrors again-and they have somehow magically and surgically attached themselves right onto my behind in the space of 5 seconds.
[Yes, all humor aside, I know that approach speeds can be faster than estimated. But, still…]
It’s those situations that make me nervous-and not just because the bozo on my butt is mere angstroms from my bumper, but that I am tempted to speed up myself to complete the pass to get out of his fucking way, which means if there is a cop up ahead, he’ll nail me and not him.
I know I’m supposed to be enraged here but, frankly, tailgaters just don’t really bother me.
Unless I can see their eyes cast down and face lit up by their phone.
I had this happen on a long two-lane road. I had a long cushion on the truck in front. The guy passed me, got up on the truck and was stuck there for fifty miles or more.
Another time, I was going the speed limit in a small town, as I got to the edge of town, the guy behind me pulled out to pass at the same time as I was speeding up, then eventually dropped back in behind me. Forty miles later, I noticed him in my mirror turning off somewhere.
I should clarify what I said earlier about dealing with tailgaters by slowly slowing down, fucking 'em around etc. First of all if I’m in the fast (passing) lane, I’m already speeding, guaranteed, but if somebody comes roaring up behind me, I’ll get the hell out of the way because I want them in front of me tripping the radar. I’m the slower traffic, I’ll move right.
But if it’s 2 AM, I’m in the right lane of two, and there’s nothing on the road for 3 miles in every direction - except the idiot “assglommer” (!) who suddenly appears behind me, close enough to hold a cigarette paper up between us, and keeps it up - then it’s time to institute certain countermeasures. Case by case.
Where I usually see tailgaters is when they’re trying to find a safe place to pass on a two lane road. I consider that pretty acceptable, and will usually try to find a safe place to pull over and let them past. In some places, it is the law that you do so. It really pisses me off when I’m behind someone on a two lane road, they’re maybe going a little slower because of the turns and because they’re unfamiliar with it or whatever, which is fine, but as soon as we get to a straight section where it’s safe to pass they speed up again.