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?
Signal BEFORE you switch lanes. Like enough time for other drivers to see it before you make your move. Also, turn off your signal if it doesn’t automatically. I don’t understand how people don’t notice the continuous ticking and flashing light and just keep going as usual.
To add on to that, signal BEFORE turning! I see so many drivers signal just when the lights go green and they are about to turn.
The point of signalling is to notify other drivers and pedestrians, not for yourself!
Move the fuck to the right. Always drive in the right lane unless overtaking. If overtaking, do it then get the fuck back to the right. It’s not the “slow lane” and “fast lane”, it’s the driving lane and overtaking lane.
Sure just don’t be the guy riding my ass when I AM passing everyone in the right lane but aparently not fast enough for you.
This is generally the situation that prompted my post. When I pass on the left, I will speed up compared to the rest of the traffic flow before moving back to the right, but I still leave plenty of room just in case I need to stop or slow down. People behind me or in front of me don’t usually tend to do that.
I hate seeing a clump of like 3-4 cars in front of me all bunched together hitting their brakes in series because they didn’t leave room between them while the guy in front is already doing 80mph or something.
The two main ones I think about are zipper merges and space in traffic. The most efficient way to handle a lane merger is to do a perfect zipper merge right at the point of merging. But everyone in the lane that’s ending always tries to merge early, and too many people in the other lane don’t want to let anyone in when they get to the merge point.
As far as space in traffic, traffic jams are actually waves that propagate back though the stream of cars. The only way to end them is to have enough space between vehicles to allow the traffic stream to compress without losing speed. The spaces in traffic also make room for people to change lanes without causing anyone to brake for them. Those braking events are often the triggers for traffic waves.
The zipper merge only works best when there’s traffic. If there’s no hold up in either lane, merging when there’s an opening is best, otherwise you increase the risk of slowdown at the end of the merge.
Also, technically it isn’t faster. It’s just more space efficient. I do think everyone should do it in traffic though as it is a single easy to follow rule.
I think people generally understand stopping distance. They’re deliberately creating an unsafe situation in order to intimate the driver in front of them.
Letting someone in won’t make a difference in the time it takes you to get somewhere.
I drive a pickup w/ trailer all day, people will see me signal and then speed up to not let me in.
Mind you, I work in the “rudest city in Canada”.
As a truck driver, I must say that when someone goes out of their way to prevent me from changing lanes in traffic, I will often make sure to merge in front of them instead of other vehicles.
You may get shot doing that one day. I’ve had dumbass truckers run me off the road like you’re describing because they just merge on top of the occupied lane while we’re going down the fucking highway side by side, and it definitely made me want revenge on them.
If a trucker is merging into your lane like that, they probably have good reason.
Example:
Two lane interstate/highway, approaching an on ramp with vehicles attempting to merge in.
Trucker moves over into your lane to let them in.
And then there’s you, side-by-side with a multi-ton cargo machine because…why?
Lack of situational awareness? Did the off ramp not clue you in to the fact that an on ramp is approaching and that there may be other vehicles looking to merge in and that the trucker may need to move over to let them in?
Maybe you (and probably the 3+ cars ahead of you) thought they could all over take the semi and merging traffic all at once instead of leaving room for the trucker to move over if needed?
TL;DR you’re probably the dumb ass.
Oh you probably mean they merge at the merge point? As they should? Maybe find other reasons to murder people, idk.
For clarification I’m talking low speed congestion here. I don’t run people off the road at speed.
Also I’m glad not to live in the US where merging can be met with murder apparently
…why aren’t you leaving enough room for the truckers to merge if needed?
I always stay back enough to have a full semi between me and the guy in front of me, and then when I do pass, I speed the hell up to get out of the “beside” part of the truck so I’m not sitting next to one. If they happen to move over right as you’re speeding up, well, you may just be really unlucky, because truckers generally don’t move unless they have a reason.
