Nooblet alert!

You know, when a newbie actually announces themselves, and starts off by praising the car/subject of the discussion board, it sure goes a long ways towards making people feel warm and fuzzy towards them.

JP, the first rule of this board is YOU MUST POST PHOTOS!
We love to see Prii. Really.

Welcome to PC!

 

I read your link. Very interesting ideas. They wouldn't work here in SoCal bumper-to-bumper highway traffic. If you leave 1.5 car lengths in front of your car, 2 cars will try to fill it.

 

Sweet! You've got a little pinstripe thing going on too... I like that, except for the hard angle at the back end... I like the fairly soft lines of the Prius, and that sorta competes... but hey, it's your car, not mine!

Now the next thing you'll need is a custom avatar

 

I get that counterargument of "...but someone will fill the gap
and cut you off!" all the time. The answer is to make the gap
*bigger*. In most cases, the car that passes you and then jumps
in is going faster already so it doesn't affect you. For the
ones who try to get into too small a gap and then slow down in
front of you, if you give them *more* room to play in then they
don't affect you either. You help overall traffic flow at little
or no expense in travel time to yourself, you make the situation at
on-ramps much easier for everyone, and arrive much more relaxed
as a general rule.
.
I do this all the time in the somewhat legendary Boston traffic,
so I can tell you firsthand that large following distance is a
good thing. Far too many people have lost sight of the benefits.
.
_H*

 

I just want to say welcome to our newbees and to judas_prius I want to say I love your user name. Why oh why couldn't I have a clever user name?

Good luck with the paint repair.
---------------------------------

Should I Have Used Caps On The Start Of Every Word?

And should I have written the post in bold font?

 

And even if other drivers squeezing in DID affect your drive time, how much would it hurt? If you let 50 drivers ahead of you (let's say each one takes up about 30 ft on the road, given the length of their car and the close following distance they use) in a half-hour commute at avg 30mph (44 ft/sec), then you're looking at 35 seconds added to your drive. Let's be REALLY conservative and estimate 1 minute.

That's one extra minute you get to spend relaxing, enjoying your ride, and practicing your pusle/glide technique.

I do this around Boston too. I can tell you, more often than not, the people who race past me see me again and again. It happens on the freeway, but even more on local roads w/ lights. I always get a kick out of cruising past people repeatedly because they're waiting at lights and I've timed it just right so I don't have to stop.

 

I can certainly attest to that, having lived in both LA and Boston. The only difference between LA traffic and Boston traffic is about 65mph. Same number of cars, same distance between them, the cars in LA are lucky to be going 10mph, the ones in Boston will be doing 75mph. Anyone whose driven rt 3 in rush hour knows what I mean.

Rob