Small case of road rage.

I agree with Cobrakid for the most part and with NuShrike.
Where I dffer with Cobra is I'd rather see licenses for mountain roads. The highway is a dull way to travel. I'd rather have a smart road and let the system do the driving. If I want fun, I want it on the curves!

And NuShrike, yes, US has zilch training for drivers. Like I think the football coach can drive or cares about teaching driving. Everyone here thinks driving is a right...it isn't..

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vprius\";p=\"87050)</div>

Here I am speeding along, more than 10% in excess of the posted speed limit following someone else, if not an entire line of traffic in the left lane, other lanes full as well, and someone comes up on me and flashes their headlights.

This drives me nuts too, and is invariably met with the passive aggressive side of my nature.

Not only will I not yield into the traffic in the middle lane, I will click the decelerate on the cruise control a click or two, to drop my speed by one or two MPH for each time I get the flashing lights.

I've even gotten this more than once while using a left lane that is "exit only" that I'll be taking. That will be 3 or 4 clicks down on the decelerator button.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid\";p=\"87075)</div>

Admittedly, I cannot possibly know much about you since I only know you from your posts here. I was just going on three things: you're 21, you're male, and you said you're an "aggressive driver." Lots of nice guys in their 20s drive with their balls (as insurance companies well know).

By the way, based on my own observations from my vantage point in the number 3 lane, the number one cause of brake lights on the freeways is not slow mergers, but tailgating speeders. They race up to within 20 feet of the slower traffic and slam on the brakes (lane 1, lane 2, lane 3 -- doesn't matter). It's as if they cannot see more that 30 feet in front of their noses. If you're looking well ahead and if traffic flow is 55+ mph, you should almost never have to use your brakes (or "B") on the freeway.

As for California law, you seem to be forgetting the "basic speed law": don't drive faster than is safe. Driving 80 mph in a 65 mph zone is not safe; driving 65 mph in driving rain or fog is not safe; etc.

 

i'm sure all speeders know the basic speed laws.

tailgaters are a problem during stop and go traffic and when there are a lot of cars around. all the traffic paces themselves on that one car.

AnOldHouse: please don't decelerate. You are simply causing the flow of traffic behind you to slow down and use their brakes. you're potentially causing a traffic jam somewhere along the line because you are mad at the person behind you who can't drive.

i think we all have good opinions here. I feel in low traffic situations, people should stay to the right. i practice this all day long. if the right hand lanes are clear, i'm there. If i need to pass people, i head left. when clear i go back right.

Danp: you should take a cruise down 101, or 87, or 85. Any highway that passes through San Jose. mergers are the problem. Well.. not mergers, people cruising in the right hand lane along with bad mergers.

popsrcr: .. it's all about the curves i want my own road for this. no one else allowed.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid\";p=\"87171)</div>

I'm talking about when I'm the last in a line rolling along in the left lane (I usually am because I tend to drive fast) and someone comes speeding up behind me and expects me to move out of their way simply for their comvenience, yet there's a line of traffic in front of me that even if I yield, they are going to encounter.

So, my passive aggressive behavior does not affect overall traffic since the flasher is the only one behind me, but sends a subtle message that I'm not going to yield to an idiot who can't conform to exisitng traffic.

I watch these clowns dart in and out of traffic only to gain a few car lengths after several miles. Yielding to these jerks only rewards their bad habit.

I tend to conform with however fast the lane is going (within reason, of course) and never "blink" the headlights expecting to clear a lane exclusively for my own purposes, and I think it's extremely rude to do so. Unless it's an ambulance or something. I would only blink lights if say someone were in the fast lane and doing under the speed limit.

 

>>So, my passive aggressive behavior does not affect overall traffic since the flasher is the only one behind me, but sends a subtle message that I'm not going to yield to an idiot who can't conform to exisitng traffic. <<

Your behavior may not affect traffic flow, but it is pointless and does nothing but anger. I can certainly agree with what you're feeling, but not with what you're doing. It improves no ones life and only serves to anger.

 

Here's one of my pet peeves: a car in the left turn lane, the light turns green and the car has to wait for traffic - the car NEVER moves and sits at or behind the pedestrian crossing until the light goes red again and only that car gets to turn left, no one else. @#%&*#@!!!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!

 

Yikes! Sounds like there's a lot of road rage right here!

Driving doesn't consist of hard-and-fast rules, but I'm a low-key driver, and try to do several things on the interstate:

• Drive defensively -- i.e., look out for potential problems before they occur
• Drive at a constant speed when possible and safe -- makes it easier for others to calculate where I'll be
• If I'm in the way of someone faster, more to the right (unless I am in the right hand lane
  • 
    
    Interesting that it's difficult to write down "rules of the road" -- I can always think of exceptions when it isn't the smart thing to do. (Sort of like philosophy and religion. )

 

Going from driving an F350 Dually Crew cab full time to having the Prius has been an experience on the road.

People respect the size of the truck, and do not run up behind it closely or attempt to cut it off.

Not so in the Prius, what is really amazing is that people pass me in residential areas or run to within inches of the rear bumper in residential areas. The speed limit is a mere 25 MPH but people are driving 50 in it.

They pass me on the left just as I am about to turn into my own driveway, so I am having to turn signal these speeders.

 

Oh yeah... anyone on a cell phone and "driving".

Why does it seem that once someone gets behind the wheel of a car they want to do everything but drive!

They want to eat, talk, read, day dream, watch the other traffic signals, fiddle with the radio... etc.

:cussing: :cussing: :cussing:

 

To V8CobraKid (and all like him) a posted speed limit (in every State) is by law the MAXIMUM speed you are supposed to drive, unless you have a TRUE emergency. What is so hard to understand about that? If a vehicle is doing the MAXIMUM speed limit in ANY lane, you are the one in the WRONG when you think they should get out of your way. Slow down and do the MAXIMUM speed limit. Tell you agressive friends the same, please.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(majordude\";p=\"87202)</div>

I have twice seen people reading while driving. Both times it was in city traffic: a woman with a paperback book propped up on the steering wheel reading while the car was moving. She would look up every ten or twenty seconds to see if she was coming to a stoplight. What really amazes me is that I've seen TWO people doing it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid\";p=\"87075)</div>

Perhaps you should read some of your old posts.

Topspeed

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid\";p=\"43716)</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid\";p=\"43736)</div>

:roll:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid\";p=\"87046)</div>

There's already signs that say slower traffic merge right. Reading isn't a big deal here in the usa.

People are usually quite sensible and polite when it's just two lanes of road like out in the desert. But as soon as there's a 3rd lane.. it breaks out into chaos.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid\";p=\"87046)</div>

I say GT3-4 license tests at the DMV for highway driving, or defensive driving school right off the bat. None of this 3-point turn, turn left/turn right, parallel park tests. That doesn't cut it for commuting.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid\";p=\"87046)</div>

I've taken to counting the seconds the car in front "ocillates" in braking so I can come up with an average time when that person will accelerate and then brake/stop so I only follow half the time and cruise the 2nd half expecting the regular brake; helping with MPG.

This of course opens up a little space in front of me waiting for somebody to cut in, but hopefully not. This of course is prime drafting opportunity because them huge SUVS are basically wasting their gas and giving you money (in MPG savings) in return.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AnOldHouse\";p=\"87161)</div>

I totally agree! If one is below the speed limit one should yield, but if one is already at the speed limit, why yield at all?!!

It isn't safe to have to pass into a lane filled with more (probably congested too) traffic. Although there's that one nasty area of the 5N in SoCal near the 710 where traffic flow reverses and the slow lanes are on the left for a good few miles from the 605 to the 710.

What I don't agree is that your deliberate attempt to incite road rage in the other party with your passive aggressive behavior.

Is this the golden rule of do unto others what you want them to do unto you? No wonder there's people so willing to cut people off to "give a message" these days.

I usually try to get out of their way once I get an open right lane since it everybody is out of everybody's hair that much sooner. Even better if a CHP is hidden right there farther ahead.

I actually lately try to find a car (and hence a more congested lane) to draft behind these days 2-3 car lengths back for a measured, leisurely, high MPG drive, yet people seem to find that annoying for some reason. :/

Personally, I totally ridicule those speeders that pull up to 10 feet behind a car and then brake. Either they're on cruise control, or they have absolutely no accelerator modulation skills which we CVT/HSD drivers quickly develop, nor path plotting skills of 100 feet ahead and beyond.

Maybe we just need some sort of automated highway autocruise like in Minority Report so people can concentrate on their reading, makeup, phone calls, radio tweaking, rubbernecking, day dreaming, etc etc that is so in demand today.

 

I think it's funny that the left 2 lanes will be nearly bumper-to-bumper and no one in the right lane. Well, not until I get there. Those drivers in the left lanes aren't about to move over (they'd have to admit that someone else can drive faster than they). Left-lane driving seems to be an ego thing.

My rule of thumb is: if others can and are able to pass you on the right, you are in the wrong lane.

 

My biggest complaints are about people shooting gaps too small to be shot (almost smaller than 1 car length between me and the person in the next lane), and deciding 20 feet from an offramp that they need to cross three lanes of traffic to exit. After passing me.

And the center lane(s) is/are normally for TRAVEL, which means if I'm doing 65MPH in a 60MPH zone and am being passed on the right, they are morons who just need to be watched since they'll probably never learn...

 

This generally happens to me as I'm coasting towards a red light. Why folks are in a race to stop at a light is beyond me! I've never flipped anyone off while in my Prius, but in these instances I sure would love to!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(popsrcr\";p=\"87185)</div>

However, it does make good sense to increase one's following distance between you and the car ahead of you if you are being tailgated. This allows you to slow down more gradually, giving the fool behind you more time before he plows into you.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius\";p=\"87237)</div>

I vote guilty.