I’ll start. Stopping distance.
My commute is 95 miles one way to work, so I see a lot of the highway, in the rural part of the US. This means traveling at 70+ mph (112km/h) for almost the entirety of the drive. The amount of other drivers on the road who follow behind someone else with less than a car’s length in front of them because they want to go 20+ over the speed limit is ridiculous. The only time you ever follow someone that close is if you have complete and absolute trust in them, and also understand that it may not even be enough.
For a daily drive, you likely need 2-3 car lengths between you at minimum depending on your speed to accurately avoid hitting the brakes. This doesn’t even take into account the lack of understanding of engine braking…
What concepts do you all think of when it comes to driving that you feel are not well understood by the public at large?
If there is traffic because two lanes merge, and you’re passing slower cars to zoom up and merge at the last possible second, you’re the reason there’s traffic. Everybody else has to stop for your inconsiderate ass, and you don’t get anywhere faster.
Match speed and merge without braking. If you have to brake to merge, you are the asshole.
If I’m reading this right, I think you’re wrong.
If the two lanes are merging both lanes should be proceeding without changing lanes right up until the merge, then everyone does the zipper merge, taking turns.
The wrong thing to do: you see the merge up ahead, so move lanes right way. That results in the blocked/ending lane being wide open and the other lane being jam packed as everyone tried to get over before they are supposed to merge. Cars should be spread evenly over the two lanes, right up until zipper time.
If someone merges early and you zoom ahead and pass cars only to then merge, you aren’t doing a zipper merge anymore and have now slowed down the lane of traffic more because now more cars are entering the travel lanes than those cars already in the travel lanes are able to move forward. The zipper merge only really works if everyone does it and does it in the correct order.
You’re right that merging too soon creates traffic if it causes people to brake, but an ideal zipper merge doesn’t require anyone braking to let you in. The “space” in the lane that is ending is the space you should use to zipper. If you zoom to the front of it and stop, you fucked up and now everybody is going to suffer.
If you are going to merge to the right, for instance, you should look right and match speed so nobody has to slow down to let you in. If everyone is already stopped, by all means pull forward and wait your turn. But if the traffic on your right is moving, you should not be going faster than they are.
Likewise if you are in the lane that is continuing, you should drive slow enough that you don’t have to stop, and leave enough space in front of you to let a car in. If you zoom ahead to close the gap and then slam on the brakes, you’re the snowflake in an avalanche of traffic and you’re making it worse.
I think we’re in agreement. If everyone is already stopped, stay in the merging lane until the very end, and hopefully people on your lane stay behind you, and you can reset the zipper.
I think it’s fine to even maintain highway speed, right up until the merge, if lane that is ending is wide open. Gotta go somewhat slow and out wide, though because some dip won’t see you and will pull out suddenly, probably they just finished sending a sweet text and decided to pass.
I hate people who hang out in the passing lane as much as anyone, but for those overtaking at 15 mph over the speed of the rest of traffic, allow me to explain:
The rest of us can move over a lot sooner if everyone is driving predictably at a reasonable speed for current traffic conditions.
The person overtaking at 15 mph faster than the wisdom of the crowd - that person is causing the very delays that are slowing then down.
The rest of must move slower and change lanes slower until the reckless driver is well away from us.
When there’s nobody else on the road, I see no problem with driving as fast as you want. When I’m passing someone else though, I usually only go 5+ what they are, even if I was just going 20+ in the lead up to them. I’ll let off the accelerator and by the time I reach a proper following distance, we’re close to the same speed
I don’t necessarily think people going too fast are the reason for slower traffic, I think it’s other behaviors like lane changing without signaling, following too close and braking, etc., but I’m sure it contributes
Nice. And that’s the fast play. If I see someone approaching at that speed, I can find a gap and get over ASAP, even though I was just passing someone myself.
For the clowns that keep doing 15 mph over at they approach, I hold still until they either find a way around, or have matched speed. Anything else would be reckless on my part.
Yup. There’s a specific few cars I recognize on my commute, one of them is in a blue Chrysler 300 and he drives me nuts. Never signals, drives anywhere between 70 and 90 with no consistency, and follows right behind your bumper. Even if you move over to let him pass, he may just sit there in the left lane for no reason.
Those are the kinds of things that makes the highway dangerous IMO
“Slower traffic keep right.”
I don’t care if you’re going the speed limit or even 20mph over it; if somebody passes you on the right, it’s because you were in the wrong lane.
Speed limits. If it says 50 and I’m going at 50 honking is useless.
Also it is a maximum limit.
Know what other speeds you may drive there? 40, 30, 25, 15, 10, even 5.
Know what speeds you are not allowed to drive there? 51
Here in Italy there’s not a minimum limit but you cannot cause problems to the other drivers by driving too slow.
And while I understand it’s annoying, if someone is going at 48 in front of you, the time you will save by overtaking them isn’t even enough for a whole ad. But if the circumstances don’t allow for a safe overtake and you still risk it, you may lose more than an ad.
I think most people in that scenario are moreso annoyed that they can’t go the full speed than caring about how long it actually takes to go there. People just like driving fast, so arguments like this will never get through to those types of people
I don’t know why they downvoted you; I’m also sure many people (if not all) think like that, but especially the way you worded it, it sounds even more ridiculous to me now:
68 mph: - “What is this idiot doing? This is hella slow, Imma overtake them.”
71 mph: - “I’m fast as fucc boiiii”
I don’t understand your perspective. Please elaborate, what did they do that made them an asshole?
It’s inconsiderate to take up space in a queue by not moving forward. People behind you would stop sooner, and if taking up extra space is exacerbated across more people, people who arrive at the end of the line continuously must stop sooner. Unless people are moving forward, this unnecessarily slows and lengthens the queue.
Granted, for cars, a car space or so between bumpers shouldn’t be that bad. It accounts for the chance an idiot at the back doesn’t brake in time and tries to start car-dominoes. I was taught to match the top of my hood with the bottom of the car’s wheels in front.
Sometimes, by failing to pull up to the stop bar, they don’t trigger the loop detector and the traffic light skips us.
Another reason is that they could be blocking somebody from pulling into a turn bay, completing their turn, and continuing on their way.
That makes sense, I had assumed the car would be 2nd in line or greater, and I suppose I’m also envisioning American roads, which in my area have plentiful space. In cities I can understand your PoV, or in an area where multiple lights chain together. Nonetheless, this is all very unscientific, and I feel the folks arguing aren’t being specific enough. Thanks for your input.
But why do you need to be close? I find I can accelerate more smoothly when traffic is starting if I have a nice bit of room. I can start moving at the same time as the car in front (most of the time). Nobody’s going to get anywhere faster if I were a few feet further ahead when stopped. Only caveat to that is someone trying to squeeze around for a right turn. Then I try to accommodate as much as possible.
