Drafting

Without traffic congestion, it could be 4 seconds. With traffic congestion with traffic lights and stop signs and people making left turns on a one lane road, it could be many minutes. This is of course mathematically speaking, each person's experience would be different and each day would be a different situation.

Just to give you an idea how one person could mess up the entire traffic pattern. I was in a traffic jam for about 1/2 hour one time, I thought there was an accident up ahead. To make a long story short, the traffic back up was caused by a news van sitting on the side of the road reporting news. After I passed the news van, the traffic went back to normal. MIT has done a study on traffic patterns, if one driver did something stupid like slowing down to watch a news van, he/she could cause traffic back up. Dan is right, it is better to have people behind you than in front of you.

 

G4,

That's all fine and dandy in a fake world. The one thing that will add the greatest number of minutes to your commute is not the few cars you let in front of you. It will be the unanticipated accidents along the way. Even it the accident happens on a different road, there is a good chance that all the other people diverting to alternate routes will add lots of extra time to your commute. Heck, the accident was probably caused by someone rear ending someone while trying to not let someone in front of them! Jk! You can always change lanes unless everyone else drive like both of you. In that case, people who don't let people in are the problem and the reason why national commutes are getting longer.

Around here, all it takes is the lights from the state patrol on the side of the highway at rush hour and BAM! Instant delay!

You and Dan can try to justify not letting people in front of you all day. But your logic completely fails common sense. In fact, if the guy in front of you is like me and sees you close the gap to not let someone in front of your, he could purposefully invite them (and a few more) in front of them.

 

Best single reason to avoid this is they immediately create a safety hazard by halving (or worse) the stopping distance to their vehicle. So you either must drop back to recreate the distance or protect the gap.

 

Two different situations:

1) Car in the other lane signals to change lanes and waits. Do you quickly close the gap or let them in?
2) Car in the other lane signals and starts to change lanes. Do you quickly close the gap or let them in?

This is a case where two wrongs don't make a right. The trouble here is that by accelerating to close to gap you made it less safe than if you just let the other car in. Lets say that the car in front has to quickly stop while you are defending your spot, you are now risking rear ending him/her.

Do we really want to get our nice Prii involved in a collison to prove a point? Is it worth the increase insurance premiums, loss of resale value, risk of injury?

 

The case I object to is (signal or not) barging into what is a safe minimum gap, thereby rendering the barger unsafe as well as cars fore and aft unsafe.

If the guy signals, he knows he can wait, if he doesn't signal, he's an argy-bargy moron who deserves to have his paint polished.

 

Everybody just relax,, gaadaamitt.

Find a nice competitive activity OFF the road.

Co-ed Soft Ball anyone?

This could make you a better, less competitive commuter.

 

Well. That totally makes sense. You take your beautiful 2012 Metallic Grey Prius v and teach them a lesson. You must have more money than I do.

The scary part is we got a glimpse inside mind of some of the people (time bombs ) we all share the road with.

I'm done.

Carry on.

 

Sure will.

You were careful to excise the point of the matter: the case I object to is (signal or not) barging into what is a safe minimum gap, thereby rendering the barger unsafe as well as cars fore and aft unsafe.

Y'all be careful out there.