The Annoyed Man wrote:bronco78 wrote:Kawabuggy wrote:I'll post this because I PRACTICE this often.
When you first noticed the person tail-gating you, did you immediately start looking for a turn off so that you could let him go? If you did not, then you are part of the negative equation. Just think how easy it would have been to simply pull off and let him go tail gate, or rear-end, someone else. If you had a chance to change lanes, or pull off, why didn't you?
This^^^
As well as, just move over a lane.... so what your going the speed limit, good for you,,, the left lane is not your personal travel lane.. it is a lane stated clearly as the passing lane, slower traffic move over. If your moving SLOWER then other traffic, you do not belong in the left lane of a multi lane road system.
Self appointed speed enforcement drivers are a hazard,,, they will never admit it, but they create a hazard where none existed..
Bronco78, my post above assumes that I'm NOT one of those self-appointed traffic flow enforcers. It is my habit to drive typically 5-10 mph faster than the posted limit on freeways. I don't rush up on people and tailgate them, but I do go around them as safety permits; and I do get mildly hot under the collar when two people are going 55 side by side in a 60 zone and there are only two lanes, leaving no passing option. I don't get mad enough to be aggressive with them, but that is a very rude practice, and I agree that the right lane is where slower moving traffic belongs. In fact, I take it a step further and say that even if you're the faster vehicle, once you have cleared slower moving traffic, the responsible thing to do is to move back over into the right hand lane until the next time you need to pass......because you never know when someone is going to come up behind you and now
you are the irritant to some other driver.
My earlier post above speaks
only to the following: someone has rushed up on me and is acting twitchy and aggressive. Often, just as I have started to change lanes to get out of his way, he starts to change lanes to pass me.
NOW we're in a situation where neither driver can tell what the other is going to do; I want to get out of his way, but not if he's going to change lanes at the same time; and he wants to get around me but because of his own aggressive behavior can no longer predict which way I'll jump so he can pass. This is a very common situation, and it has not only happened to me a lot of times, I have observed it happening to other drivers a lot of times. One time, back in L.A., I came up on slower moving traffic in the right lane but could not pull over to pass on the left because a long string of cars in the left lane was zooming by. Another guy was stuck behind me also in the same right lane. When the left lane cleared, I signalled and moved over to pass the bus that was holding us up. Unfortunately for the guy behind me, he had the same idea but apparently didn't think I had the right to do the same, and he reacted as if I had cut him off (I had not, there being several car lengths between us at the time). As we approached the next signal, me still in the left lane, he had already moved back over into the right lane, and pulled up and stopped on my right and threatened me with a large framed semiautomatic pistol, caliber being roughly 155mm.
Furthermore, it has happened to me when I was the faster moving vehicle.
Many times I have begun to overtake a slower moving car in the left lane (because of my habit of driving 5-10 mph over the limit, which I'll explain in a minute), decided before I got to him that I was just going to move over into the right lane and go around him, and just as I started to make my move,
he also starts to move over, wanting to get out of my way.
BOTH of us are trying to be courteous to the other, neither is experiencing road rage, but the risks involved in the situation have just increased by some amount. In this situation, absent any feelings of ill will toward one another, the
safer thing for the driver being overtaken is to agree that it is incumbent upon the driver making the pass to make a safe pass, and to not jimmie it up by making the pass more difficult to execute. Of course, the entire thing could have been avoided if he was in the right lane where he belonged. On the other hand, maybe he himself has just passed a string of slower vehicles in the right lane and has simply forgotten to move over after passing.
I drive a little faster than the flow of traffic on freeways out of habit because, back in the days when my primary transportation was a motorcycle, I had two different California Highway Patrol motorcycle cops who were friends of mine tell me that this is how
they are trained (or were at the time). They both told me the same thing—that on a motorcycle, you are safer if you maintain the initiative by being the one who moves through traffic (NOT "blasting" through traffic) rather than being "done to" by surrendering the initiative to car drivers. In other words, you have more options available to you on a motorcycle when you are moving just a tad faster than the flow of car traffic, and that makes it safer for you the motorcyclist. Since then, it has been my observation that this is largely true in cars too.
I realize that Gigag04 might cite me for speeding by going 65-70 mph in a 60 zone, but that's a risk I'm willing to take (and hope that my CHL will get me a reminder to watch my speed instead of a ticket
'cause he's a nice guy), and I'm not advocating going 90 in a 60 zone. Also, I only practice this habit on open highways. On surface streets, I tend to drive with the flow of traffic.
Anyway, if everyone simply observed some common courtesy on the roads, we wouldn't even be posting our experiences in this thread because there'd be nothing to talk about. And one of the simplest things we can do is to use the left lane as a passing lane, and just not camp out there
unless we are passing other vehicles. But since lots of drivers are either rude or oblivious (in all aspects of their lives, not just on the roads), then the next best thing is to not behave unpredictably when Genghis Kahn is rusing up on your tailgate. If you see them coming from a ways away, and you have the opportunity to do so safely, get over to the right and let them pass. But if they come flogging up on you at Mach Shnell and acting aggressively rude and offended that you're even using their oxygen, then since you don't know which way
they are going to jump, the safest thing you can do is to not do anything, and let
them decide what they're going to do.....and then be prepared to deal with whatever might follow.
