I’m going to describe a certain driving situation and how a particular type of driver handles it. Perhaps you will recognize yourself in this description. If so, I hope you can help me understand something that seems hard for me to understand.
Here’s the situation. You’re driving along on a clear, one lane highway. The speed limit is, let’s say, 55 mph. You’re driving about 50-55, because you’re a safe and careful driver. In your rear view mirror, you can see a few cars right behind you. Perhaps they want to go faster than you, but there’s no opportunity for them to pass, and you continue to drive at the speed you’re comfortable with.
Now you see that a passing lane is coming up. As you reach the beginning of the passing lane, a thought goes through your mind. Here’s the part that’s missing from my story. I don’t know what that thought is, although I would very much like to know. It must be a thought that has never occurred to me, because of what happens next. So I’ll leave this lacuna in my story and proceed.
A thought goes through your mind, and as you reach the beginning of the passing lane, you speed up. You are now driving at about 70 mph. You remain in the left lane, presumably reasoning that you are no longer slower than the other cars around you. Perhaps a few cars manage to pass you on the right, perhaps not. Soon you reach the end of the passing lane. It now seems reasonable to you (I’m forced to believe) to slow back down to 50-55 mph, and proceed as before.
If this seems like the kind of thing that you might do, can you explain to me the thought process that makes you think this is reasonable driving behavior? Hopefully the thought is not “Mwa ha ha! I have the power to make all these people behind me late!” So what is it?
Good luck trying to get them to explain it. I have been the “slow car” in this situation before* and when I get to a passing section I usually slow down a few mph so others can pass me more easily.
I don’t like having people piled up on my tail anymore than they like being back there.
*Usually when I am in unfamiliar territory and all the locals want to go 10+ mph over limit.
I don’t know why you’d speed up in that case; seems to me the right thing to do would be to get over if you were the slow one, and you had a chance to do so that wouldn’t absolutely screw yourself. Barring that, keep your speed constant and let the others pass you in the passing lane.
Speeding up seems like it would just prevent people from passing you, which strikes me as just being a dick.
[Devil’s Advocate]
People should NOT be driving faster than I. so I must keep them behind me!
[/DA]
or what friedo said.
The ones that amaze me are the people driving 70 mph on a four lane highway. They meet up with a truck going 65 in the right lane and then they pass on the left at 65.5 mph.
It takes them a minute to get past the truck.
If that truck has to avoid an obstacle or has a problem the passing car is spending way too much time in the danger zone of that truck. They would spend much less time there if they continued past at 70mph.
I’ve noticed something similar when people are driving beside concrete medians.
Near my home these is a 3 km section of highway where the concrete is a good 50 cm higher than the standard.
On this strip people invariably drive 20-30 km/h slower than they would otherwise
I don’t like it either, but I keep my cruise control on the same setting rather than slow down. Too often when I do slow down, someone passes me and then slows down to my current speed (which is presumably slower than the car wanted to go in the first place) rather than faster than the speed I was going.
If I’m in that situation (going 55 or less on a 55 mph two-lane road and a passing lane opens up) I’d habitually slide over to the right to let faster traffic pass, though in my situation I’d more likely be doing 60-62 in a 55 mph zone and still slide over to the right.
It’s entirely possible that a (relatively) slow driver who speeds up in such a situation to make passing him/her more difficult is a) purely being a shithead, or b) a driver who’s pissed at the people who’ve been closely tailgating him/her for the last 10 miles and decided to make their lives miserable too, in which case they’re arguably all shitheads.
Hall Monitors and self appointed traffic regulators.
What I do is move into the right hand lane while keeping up with this person who is in the left lane. Monitor their turn signals. And with a twitch of my right foot I am past them and long ahead before they even know I am accelerating. Passing on the right on a multi-lane road is not illegal as some people think.
Of course, you need a great deal of power available on command, I got that.
I think I’m going to have to dash your hopes. I once read about a study that showed that many drivers at a stoplight will be slower to proceed when the light changes if they know there are others drivers behind them. It’s not hard to believe that this behavior is related assholism. Speeding up when someone is trying to pass you, either in a special passing zone or in the opposing traffic lane, around here would fall under the racing and stunt driving laws that result in vehicle impoundment and license suspension on the spot.
What drives me crazy with those temporary passing lanes are the folks who act like they’re going to pass, and then don’t. They speed up just enough to bring their front tires even with my rear tires, and then, they stay there. And I’m certainly not speeding up, just maintaining the same speed I was doing before climbing the hill. Hell, on some of the shorter passing lanes, I’ll slow down just to make it easier for the folks to pass me, and they still do this! WTF people?! Shit or get off the pot! The lanes merge back to one at the top of the hill, and most anyone who has been driving longer than three months should realize that this is the general pattern in this situation!
I gotta ask, is the road type posited in the OP that common? That is, a one lane highway featuring short two lane stretches? Because I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced that.
My hypothesis for that scenario is that the person would drive that way regardless of whether anyone is behind him or not. He drives slower in one lane and faster when there is two. I don’t think the fact that anyone is behind him has much bearing on the behavior for speeding up in the passing zone. I am likely to believe that the driver is not thinking at all about the people around him and is just driving along in his own bubble.
They tend to be found on two-lane rural highways especially where there are long stretches of curves or hills where cars could otherwise get stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle for a long time. I don’t know how common they are but I’ve definitely seen them. IIRC there are signs directing slow-moving traffic to keep right.
I was confused by this, too. I’m far more used to one-lane (each way) highways having passing zones and no-passing zones, and I was picturing the hypothetical driver coming to a passing zone (still just one lane).
I trust you explicitly move into the slow lane here.
Where I live it is both illegal and considered rude to move into the slow lane to pass in the situation described. The slow driver is supposed to pull over, but almost never does so. For best safety I do not pass when the road is 3 or 4 lanes, but wait until it is a 2-lane highway(*) again.
(* - By “2-lane highway” I mean what OP calls a “one lane highway”, e.g. 1 northbound lane and 1 southbound lane.)
Since we’re already in the Pit, buy me a drink and I’ll tell you about a slow driver who sped up almost 20 years ago; a story that still gives me the heebie jeebies.
