Posted on 08/23/2010 8:31:53 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
Suit yourself. I take a little leeway about the speed limit, as does everyone I’ve ever shared the road with, except maybe the most anal of legalists. My hearts in London - Everett isn’t arguing, nor am I, for unfailing literal observance of the exact letter of the law at all times. But there IS a speed limit, and it does have some relevance whatever lane someone happens to be in.
Most annoying driver crashes into you
a) Does not speak English
b) has no driver’s license
c) has no vehicle registration
d) has no insurance
e) walks away for the scene
Or those who don’t know how to merge onto an Interstate or Expressway. They put the “ass” in “assimilate”.
I’ve seen pedestrians walking down the street doing that too, without anything in the other hand and clearly not having just opened a door, etc.
“
10 most annoying motorists
“
I do get annoyed by the “10 most annoying motorists”.
But I have a theory about their prevelance here in Mid-Missouri.
The cops simply don’t hand out enough tickets, thus the bad behaviour goes
on all the time.
Heck, the town I’m in is sometimes a more challenging drive than
when I spent a decade in Los Angeles.
“
10 most annoying motorists
“
I do get annoyed by the “10 most annoying motorists”.
But I have a theory about their prevelance here in Mid-Missouri.
The cops simply don’t hand out enough tickets, thus the bad behaviour goes
on all the time.
Heck, the town I’m in is sometimes a more challenging drive than
when I spent a decade in Los Angeles.
Thing [pulling onto the sholder to let someone pass] of the past.
Not in rural Texas. I do it if I see a number of drivers flying up behind me and I am at or just above the posted speed limit.
Actually, I wanted to comment on this thread yesterday. The one thing that really ticks me off is drivers behind me during hours of darkness that have NO CLUE what that blue idiot light on their dash represents, especially with the HID headlamps.
Well, speeding is a civil, not criminal, penalty in most cases, and the punishment is a fine, like paying for the privilege. So that could be a distinction.
But if you really want to find the people who feel breaking the law is OK if they don’t agree with it, post a message saying people who don’t pay their state’s “Use Tax” on internet purchases are tax cheats.
For the record, I actually do pay my state’s “Use Tax” (equivalent of sales tax) on internet purchases that I can keep track of. But I am in an extremely small minority, as virtually everybody else thinks it is OK not to pay your taxes if the state can’t catch you.
Highway speed limit laws are the worst kind of laws around. They are appeals to a common denominator that doesn’t exist, and punish behavior that, by itself, harms absolutely nobody and has no rational basis for being controlled.
I only hurt someone by “speeding” if in addition to speeding I also do something else, like weave in front of them, cut them off, or fail to stop in time and crash. All those things could be severely punished if the person who does them is also known to be speeding; but speeding itself doesn’t harm people.
Of course, drunk driving itself doesn’t harm people either, and I don’t argue that drunk driving is OK. But I would note that we DO allow “drunk” drivers to drive, if you use the term “drunk” to mean “any impairment whatsoever caused by alcohol”.
Instead, we have picked an arbitrary number that can’t be known by the perpetrators, and said “above that number is illegal, below is legal”, when in fact some people with high BA levels drive much better than other people with low levels.
I support Drunk Driving laws because the percentage of drunks who harm others is sufficiently high to justify curtailing the rights of other people who could drive after drinking without causing any harm.
But the average speeder isn’t causing a significant additional danger. In fact, many states are raising their speed limits; Virginia just raised some limits to 70 mph.
I’d love to see limits set based on time of day or traffic levels, but that’s just too complicated.
Instead, police use judgement to determine whether a particular speed is really a danger or not, and pull people over accordingly.
Which would put you in the same range I’m driving. Which has you passing a lot of people but still getting passed frequently.
but to be a stickler on that point, you are one of us (people who choose which laws they will obey), as you have admitted that you drive in the left lane because there are too many cars in the right lane. The law says that the left lane should only be used for passing, and then you should move back to the right.
The law is stupid sometimes, that’s why we flout it.
I doubt I’ve ever scared anybody too much. First, I drive a Prius, which is an inherently unscary car. Second, I always signal before I move, and make sure that the car I am moving in front of was far enough behind me to SEE my signal (this means that I will pass a car sometimes, and then slow down to merge so they see me dropping back toward the space in front of them — rather than cutting in front of someone who never had a chance to see my signals).
If I think a space is really small, but I just have to get over, I will inch over carefully, and once my right wheels are in the lane, I will hesitate to see how the person I’m moving in front of is reacting. Usually they will be slowing down a bit; if they look like they are wanting to speed up instead, I’ll give up and move one car forward and try again.
I wouldn’t say I’m a ‘better’ driver than anybody. But I am a good driver who has a lot of tricks I use to make sure that other drivers know exactly what I’m doing, and are not surprised by it, as well as to make sure I always have bail-out chances, and to maximize my options.
As a result, I’ve been in accidents, but all were stopped accidents (where I was stopped and somebody hit me). My only moving accident was when I was 17, and I pulled out of a parallel parking space and clipped the back bumper of a speeding car that was coming by and apparently tried to get past me before I pulled out.
One of the reasons I’m driving slower these days is that I’ve noticed my reaction time is a bit slower, so I can’t follow so close or drive quite so fast.
Although I did manage to do some stretches at 90 mph on our trip to Orlando, when some particularly fast cars came by to follow. I didn’t enjoy it like I used to.
I basically agree with all your points except this one. I disagree because you cannot conceive of and take sufficient immediate action for every unexpected occurrence that comes up while you are driving; i.e. sudden downpours, objects in the road, unexpected movement by other drivers, black ice, etc.
Instead of flouting it, why not find enough like-minded people to change it if is considered “stupid” by enough drivers?
Not every "unexpected occurence". But certain.y every one you listed. It is rare that a sudden downpour happens without there being some sign of rain, dark clouds, etc. And usually you can see rain up ahead in the road, if you are looking for it. I do, and point it out to my children so they understand how to read the road. I then slow down, get space in front of me, and if it looks like we are going to go slower than 40 mph, I put on my flashers. I also watch behind me to see if people aren't paying attention, ready to speed up if they aren't while also flashing my brake lights. I've saved myself from rear-end collisions several times by paying attention to what is behind me.
Objects in the road? Unless they just fell off the car in front of me, you watch ahead. People will be weaving around them, or if no cars are ahead, you see them. You move early, slow down if necessary. I don't follow closely behind vans, trucks, or large cars that I can't see through and around, so I'm not surprised (only exception is sometimes I'll follow a truck more closely, because they can't stop as quickly and will tend to clear out things in front of us). If a pickup truck pulls in front of me, I'll look to see if I can let a couple of small cars in front to give me a better view, or I'll try to pass the pickup to get behind a smaller car. This is simple survival skill, and good driving.
You can't always see unexpected movement by other drivers, but you can keep a watch on other drivers. I also tend to change my speed so there are no cars right next to me, I pass quickly when I have to, and work hard to maintain clearance on all 4 sides whenever possible, and certainly when moving at or above speed. I also pay attention to all the cars, so I notice cars that are behaving poorly. I often can tell ahead of time that a car is going to drift off the road -- you can see signs that a driver might be falling asleep.
So, recently I'm in the left lane, and I notice on the far right there is a car that clearly has a driver not paying attention, maybe falling asleep. I'm about 40 yards behind, and even though I'm 3 lanes over, I speed up to clear the car. As I pass where the car is, it drifts off the road, almost hits the guardrail. I presume the rumble strips get his attention, because he whips his wheel back onto the road, and fortunately, the car behind him hadn't tried to pass thinking he was pulling over. The car in the next lane though swerved left, but by this time I'm already 4 car lengths AHEAD of the mess, so if there is an accident it isn't taking ME out.
In another recent case, it's pouring, I'm in the left lane, and suddenly come up on stopped traffic (turns out someone just drove off the road, and several people swerve and some stop to help and it just makes a mess). I brake in time, but notice the car behind me is coming up fast. So, being in the left lane, I simply drive off the road onto the shoulder, and then move forward a bit. The car behind me turns out has to also swerve over to the shoulder to avoid hitting the car that was in front of me, but nobody hits anybody. It's not hard, just means you have to pay attention to all the cars around you.
black ice? That happens when it's cold. Fortunately, my car tells me when it's 37 degrees or less outside, and I change my driving habits. Last winter, it was clear there was frozen rain around, I was on a country road, and I pulled over 4 times to let more local drivers pass me, since I felt uncomfortable with the chance of hitting a wet spot that was actually frozen. They were able to get quickly on their way, they weren't tailgating me, and I was able to watch them to see if they slid at all, warning me about ice conditions.
Driving is all about paying attention, knowing what could get you in trouble, understanding how to stay out of trouble. In many cases, speeding is a way to keep out of trouble, it gets me away from congested, slower-moving cars often driven by less-confident drivers. It allows me to easily understand my surrounding traffic because it is in FRONT of me and then I come INTO it, easier than trying to see what is sneaking up on me from behind all the time.
You also have to understand the car you are driving, and that means having done things with it to see it's limits. I've slid out, fishtailed, went off on icy patches, all in safe places where I could feel the response.
So yes, I COULD be surprised. An animal could run out. I'm attracted oddly to potholes. A tire could blow, something can fall of a car in front of me (I do pay attention around pickup trucks to see if they are carrying things that might come loose and cause trouble).
But I don't feel the extra speed puts me at risk, relative to the gains. And if I am wrong, laws should punish me for that extra risk I took, but only if it actually causes harm to others. I have a right to endanger myself.
The fight against low speed limits is a very hard one, although we win occasionally (like recent changes in Virginia raising limits to 70).
The problem is multi-faceted. First, it is likely that raising the speed limit COULD lead to more crashes. Now, lowering the limit would reduce crashes, so we’ve already established that there is a risk/reward curve being used. But any politician voting for a speed increase risks a major crash attributed to the change that his opponent can use in the next election. Few politicians are voted out for NOT raising limits. So it’s a tough sell.
Second, while many drivers speed, most aren’t willing to spend money and effort to lobby to get limits increased. I’m convinced that if speed limits were put on the ballot, we’d get much higher limits — but to lobby politicians and push for legal changes takes time and money, and most speeders do so because they want to save time, not waste it trying to get the limits changed.
Third, there are people who aren’t good enough drivers to go faster. In a perfect world, we’d have speed by lanes, and qualify people to drive in different lanes so the worse drivers had to go slower and stay on the right, while competent drivers could go faster on the left. But that will obviously never happen. Speed limits should also be set based on current conditions, and traffic levels. One size definitely does NOT fit all. So while I’d argue that almost any highway can be safe for me to drive 80 mph, there are times when there is too much traffic for that to be safe, and conditions (rainy, windy, snowing) where that might not be true either. You put a sign up that says “80”, people will want to do that even in a blinding rainstorm.
Better, in this particular case (and I hate saying this) to just let people use some level of common sense about how fast to drive, and have police trained to take all this into account when giving out tickets. And I’ve blown by enough speed traps at higher-than-limit to know that police by and large ARE taking this into acount, in a way that a one-law-fits-all approach can’t handle. On a clear day, with mid-amounts of traffic all moving 75 on a 60-mph highway, the police are still out with radar, pulling over the guy doing 80mph in the right lane while weaving, but leaving us 75-mph alone. If the traffic was bad, and we were all doing 60mph, and some idiot is weaving in and out and doing bursts of 75-mph, they are going to get a ticket.
But in any case, surely you are not arguing that most drivers don’t think the speed limits are stupid? Because, absent limiting amounts of traffic, I can’t think of the last time on a highway where I drove the actual speed limit and passed anybody.
In other words, virtually NOBODY is obeying highway speed limits when I’m out on the highway, except when there is so much traffic that we are all going slow. I get passed when I’m driving 80. I get passed more driving 75. If I want to drive 70 in a 65 zone, I have to drive in the right lane, and even then trucks and cars are pulling over and passing me. Occasionally I’ll pass a car going under 65, but it’s not a common thing.
The only time people go the speed limit is when they come up on a state trooper. And even then if the trooper turns off the lights and drives 75, most cars will follow him along.
You see, you sound like a thinking driver, whereas there are too many drivers out there who are not and are over-confident in their driving skills. This is where speeding drivers are a danger to others. I do many of the same defensive driving habits you do while driving even when observing the limit.
I hate roundabouts. And my home town is in love with them. I think they were the big thing at all the city planner conferences last year.
We fought a hard WAR to not do things like the British...
When I was a kid, I read several books about speeding teenage drivers. One was called “To Trenton in 30 minutes”, but I don’t know if this is the one that had the “advice” the kid had of always using speed to get out of trouble.
In any case, that became my driving style, and as often as not I’d accelerate to get out of the way of something, rather than slam on the brakes. As I got older, I learned the limits of that style, but it still is helpful sometimes.
Speed gives you maneuverability that you lose if you are slamming the brakes (well, in modern cars you can steer pretty well while slamming the brakes).
On the other hand, for all of my thinking as a driver, I’ll never live down the time I took my brand-new Prius and slammed it into a light pole in a parking lot at over 20 mph, totalling the car.
It was a “sun-related” incident.
That driver you’re passing that’s going under 65 is probably me! lol I can’t afford a ticket, number one. Two, my car gets better gas mileage when set on cruise at 60. Three, I’m never in so much of a hurry that I need to speed. And, yes, I pass cops. If they’re not doing the speed limit, I am not intimidated as other drivers seem to be that I see all the time who follow behind behind a cop doing 45 in a 50, or 25 in a 30. :~)
My car definitely gets better gas mileage going slower, or when my wife is driving. It also gets better mileage if I tuck in behind a fast-moving truck.
In fact, with the need for high air conditioning on our trip to Orlando, along with my aggresive driving trying to make the journey quickly enough to spend a good amount of time at a theme park on Saturday, I barely hit 40 mpg.
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