Keep right except to pass. I'll keep doing this while hoping everyone else does. I love not "braking" the law.
|
|
|
Drivers who hog middle lane are the real problem
- Thread starter I82l8
- Start date
Keep right except to pass. I'll keep doing this while hoping everyone else does. I love not "braking" the law.
There's no one problem on the roads nowadays.
There are too many big-rigs. Ever since industry went to just-in-time inventory systems, we consumers demanded overnight shipping on stuff and rail was all but abandoned the highways have been jam packed with bazillions of semis. They're slow to accelerate, slow to brake and take up a lot of space. With perhaps 75 feet of contiguous length each they take up the same lane space as five average cars nose-to-tail. Not a problem on the open road, this sort of length can really muck up cars and trucks trying to merge and exit during rush-hour.
People are selfish. Merging areas are always bottlenecks because no one wants to let a car merge in front of them. Everybody snuggles up to the car in front which leads to rear-end collisions, concertina-braking, and clogs on merging lanes. On the flip-side, those that do leave enough room in front of them end up having selfish louts jumping into that space in their efforts to pick through traffic to get ahead.
People are incompetent. People are distracted. People are in a rush. People don't give a **** about those around them. People are scared to go 1kph over the limit, others couldn't care less about limits. Some people just don't play well with others. People are easily-angered. People are indifferent.
There's a million reasons why traffic is as bad as it is these days. It's not just those that occupy a given lane when they shouldn't.
There are too many big-rigs. Ever since industry went to just-in-time inventory systems, we consumers demanded overnight shipping on stuff and rail was all but abandoned the highways have been jam packed with bazillions of semis. They're slow to accelerate, slow to brake and take up a lot of space. With perhaps 75 feet of contiguous length each they take up the same lane space as five average cars nose-to-tail. Not a problem on the open road, this sort of length can really muck up cars and trucks trying to merge and exit during rush-hour.
People are selfish. Merging areas are always bottlenecks because no one wants to let a car merge in front of them. Everybody snuggles up to the car in front which leads to rear-end collisions, concertina-braking, and clogs on merging lanes. On the flip-side, those that do leave enough room in front of them end up having selfish louts jumping into that space in their efforts to pick through traffic to get ahead.
People are incompetent. People are distracted. People are in a rush. People don't give a **** about those around them. People are scared to go 1kph over the limit, others couldn't care less about limits. Some people just don't play well with others. People are easily-angered. People are indifferent.
There's a million reasons why traffic is as bad as it is these days. It's not just those that occupy a given lane when they shouldn't.
ftfy.
Did I mention that people are also short-tempered and often act as self-appointed enforcers of what's "right" and "wrong"?
(And BTW, I totally get that. The worst are in-town situations where a left lane becomes a left-turn lane and the right lane goes through the intersection. If traffic is backed up in the right lane you get ******-bags that rush down the left (-turn) lane and, at the last second, put on the right turn signal expecting someone at the front of the queue to let them in. I too close the gap on ****** nozzles like this...)
I am a car and bike guy through and through, an old-school gear head. I like to drive my own car, row my own gears etc. But I will welcome the day when highway commuting is done via autonomous systems. People just can't be trusted to get it right.
Did I mention that people are also short-tempered and often act as self-appointed enforcers of what's "right" and "wrong"?
I am a car and bike guy through and through, an old-school gear head. I like to drive my own car, row my own gears etc. But I will welcome the day when highway commuting is done via autonomous systems. People just can't be trusted to get it right.
Couldn't agree more.
o.k. let's go back through your statements again, because you're obviously not getting my point at all. At this juncture from what you've said, I have to assume that you're a novice driver who lives way, way, north of the city, up the 11, because you've made it evident that you've never been on the 400 series of roads.
You drive 110 in the middle lane which is exactly what the original poster was complaining about, but you don't like it when people drive 100 in the right had lane.
As for 140 in the right lane, I've seen people pass on the shoulder at over 160, so there should be no surprise that you can at times do 140 in the right lane. You've fallen into the "everybody that goes slower than me are stupid, and those who go faster are maniacs" syndrome.
It's much easier to judge how to pass the guy going a constant 100 in the right lane, than it is the guy who speeds up as you approach, and then slows back down as you speed off in the distance, or the guy who enters the highway and immediately crosses 5 lanes to the far left, while barely touching the accelerator.
If on the other hand you're setting your cruise control, or driving a constant speed without pulling to the right, in any the the passing lanes, then yes, you are part of the problem.
An easy fix to this would be to put a barrier between the lanes until the point where you're supposed to merge. That way people would be forced to drive down the merge lane getting up or down to traffic speed before making their lane change, the way that you're supposed to. Rather than cutting in as soon as the dotted lines start, or even before, and forcing those in the merged lane to brake.
The idea is supposed to work like a zipper. Cars alternate at the end of the merge lane. One from each lane. Not four cars merging in separate places at the same time.
^ Problem with that is it can take a while to "sync" your speed with a gap in the adjacent lane, especially for something big and/or slow. If the through lanes are free flowing, I try to get up to speed as soon as possible and get the merge done - that way, if someone in the adjacent through lane is a jerk and doesn't want to let me do it, I have time and space to react.
US interstates are filled with short merge lanes. Worst incident I saw involved a pickup truck towing a large house trailer. When they came down the ramp they ended up side by side with a tractor-trailer. The tractor-trailer couldn't move left because of a car in the left lane. (The driver of that car would have had no idea what was coming given that it was on the other side of the tractor-trailer.) The truck towing the trailer had nowhere to go and sideswiped the tractor-trailer. Fortunately we only saw this in our mirrors and weren't involved in the mess.
Long merge lanes are a good thing to have. That people don't always make use of them isn't the fault of the roadway designers.
US interstates are filled with short merge lanes. Worst incident I saw involved a pickup truck towing a large house trailer. When they came down the ramp they ended up side by side with a tractor-trailer. The tractor-trailer couldn't move left because of a car in the left lane. (The driver of that car would have had no idea what was coming given that it was on the other side of the tractor-trailer.) The truck towing the trailer had nowhere to go and sideswiped the tractor-trailer. Fortunately we only saw this in our mirrors and weren't involved in the mess.
Long merge lanes are a good thing to have. That people don't always make use of them isn't the fault of the roadway designers.
Sure, I remember what the DVP was like. A short onramp running right into the offramp in some situations. Of course with free flowing traffic, I don't always use the full onramp either, but I'm going the speed limit when I put on my signal to pull out, unless there's someone pacing me to my left. In the case of the trailer towing pickup, he needed to look for a slot in the traffic to pull into. People forget that the traffic already on the highway has the right-of-way.
Holy thread resurrection Batman!
Motorway driving explained by the proper professional | Dash Cam Diary | Dash Cam Diary · Original audio
The European way to do it.
Motorway driving explained by the proper professional | Dash Cam Diary | Dash Cam Diary · Original audio
The European way to do it.
My inlaws took I-75 to florida. They complained about all the trucks and were especially upset that they were being passed on both sides. I explained that they were screwing up if they were being passed on both sides (especially by trucks). They didn't want to hear it. They wanted to drive at the speed limit, not in the right lane and not near trucks. Ugh. Old people. They're lovely but they probably annoyed more than a few truckers on that trip.
EDIT:
Just watched the link. There's no requirement to indicate when moving to the left as that's the default position? That seems unwise. I know they get grumpy about undertaking there but still I can't imagine they are all paying enough attention to be able to safely deal with vehicles drifting into slower lanes.
Last edited:
It all looks good until you hit heavy traffic. Sooner or later the passing lanes get plugged by volume and there isn't room for lane changing. Speed differentials make changing lanes difficult as well.
At some point all the lanes are needed. If all lanes are crawling along at 15 Kph does it make sense to move over for the MB flashing his headlights behind you?
There should be a special prize for the twits that slowly drive to the end of the acceleration lane, blast across the road to park at the limit on cruise in the left lane.
|
|
|
|
|