I Hope not too many Prius Drivers do this.....

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid @ Aug 23 2006, 09:40 AM) [snapback]308275[/snapback]</div>

Drafting behind another vehicle on the highway/freeway is dangerous and should not be done! When I'm following behind a truck or other large vehicle, I make sure to stay a minimum of 4-5 car lengths behind at 55-65mph. I'm not willing to sacrifice my life for sake of a couple of mpg's by following closer at higher speeds.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ichabod @ Aug 23 2006, 09:19 AM) [snapback]308172[/snapback]</div>

I agree there are other causes too but speed is always the primary cause and usually the one you can fix. If people drove at a safe speed which is often well below the speed limit around here, we would not see increases in accidents because of a little rain or snow. There may be some race car drivers that can go fast safely with their cars in bad conditions but when everyone else just tries to follow they wind up going way faster than their abilities.

Also with everyone just following the car ahead a lot more people will falll asleep causing an accident. Speed is related here too because they have less time to react if they do wake up in time to recover.

The speed limit is what is safe and if there's an accident every week people are speeding in most cases. There are very few accidents due to car failures or unforseeable ice patches in July. You can always find another cause like someone talking on a cell phone, but I'd say someone was driving too fast driving and talking on a cell phone etc.

 

Well I for one drive rather slow, the speed limit. But I do that in the far right lane not the carpool lane, the far left lane, or another lane were I am constantly in the way.

if you drive slow (speed limit = slow) you are in the damn way. I used to own a Mini Cooper S (to many tickets) I would be cursing in the fast lane with no problems @ speeds of 90mph plus and all the sudden some a-hole would get right in front of me doing less than 55mph (thank God for Brimbo brakes) Wth.

I drive the speed limit in my Prius but if traffic is moving significantly faster in all lanes I freakin SPEED UP! Especially in the carpool lane its one thing to be the only car in that lane pulsing and gliding having a great time watching the mfd numbers skyrocket. However, when there is a line of 3 gaggillion pissed of drivers behind you im sorry but in this case majority rules you ARE a freakin absolute moron FREAKIN SPEED THE FREAK UP!

 

Driving over the speed limit is breaking the law. No-one should feel obligated to break the law because of peer pressure or any other reason. If you don't think that the speed limit laws are reasonable, have them changed. Until then you have no right to drive that fast or to expect anyone else to.

I would prefer that more people obeyed the current laws instead.

Disclaimer: I sometimes drive over the speed limit myself.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Aug 23 2006, 10:36 AM) [snapback]308310[/snapback]</div>

45 Tony, eh? That's quite a following distance there...how many miles does that translate to?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid @ Aug 23 2006, 10:33 AM) [snapback]308234[/snapback]</div>

Duh. I don't need lessons in how to suck eggs.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Aug 23 2006, 12:36 PM) [snapback]308310[/snapback]</div>

That is EXACTLY what I was saying. I stay at a safe distance. But I find a bus, landscaper's truck, something moving at 55-65. *I* can't make the guy in front of me speed up. Especially if there are more than one. It's the "slow" lane. But even in the slow lane I won't go slower than 50. If anyone is doing that, I will change lanes, speed up and pass them. Then I'll get in front of them. Because I know *they* aren't going to tailgate me to go faster.

BTW I think the most dangerous driving is those that weave in and out of traffic, usually at very high speeds because even the fast lane isn't fast enough for them.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rancid13 @ Aug 23 2006, 11:50 AM) [snapback]308278[/snapback]</div>

Yes, but you have your husband tied behind the bumper on his leash. That's a whole different kind of drag.

You're right of course. I see knuckleheads everyday trying to sit in the pocket right behind a truck. If you can't see their mirrors, they can't see you.


As for the "in the way" bit Tony spoke of... step on the gas people. I totally see why some people hate the Prius. I get annoyed riding behind them sometimes.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Autosmiler @ Aug 23 2006, 01:49 AM) [snapback]308089[/snapback]</div>

We call that an "end loser" issue.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Soylent @ Aug 23 2006, 10:21 AM) [snapback]308199[/snapback]</div>

GRAMPS................ this is just great.

If you want to drive like a race car driver buy a race car and head to the track. Don't be saying that the person driving the speed limit is the problem. People like yourself (if you drive like you talk) are the problem. Know matter what I drive of my own I'm driving the speed limit. I can tell this really pisses some people off but I don't much care, there the one with the the problem. If I do drive faster than the limit and get behind someone going slower, I don't get all pissed off and give them the bird, I wait till there out of the way and then procide on my way.

Lets all slow are lives down alittle. You really don't save much time driving like a jerk and your blood pressure will be better also.

My two cents...............

 

Almost every accident is caused because something changed. Inattentiveness (yapping on the phone if you can't multitask, putting on mascara in rush-hour traffic (got rear-ended by a gal doing that), etc.) contributes, because the inattentive idiot is unable to respond to the change.

The two-second rule (stay at least two seconds behind the bumper in front of you) was created to give enough buffer to respond to change. With two seconds of separation, under clear, dry road conditions, nearly everyone can respond quickly enough to avoid the unexpected. Using the two-second rule, speed becomes largeley irrelevant - if you're always two seconds back, your separation will increase with speed, maintaining a buffer for response to change.

I've taught twenty-six kids to drive, at the request of their parents. I've also taught emergency driving to cops, firetruck drivers, and ambulance drivers (180-degree turns in two lanes at 35mph, multi-lane swerves at 65, maintaining your lane during panic stops from 85, cool things like that). The first thing I tell anyone I teach is simple - you need to believe that every other vehicle on the road is there for the express purpose of killing you. Someone else is always going to do something stupid, and it's going to kill you. End of discussion, there ain't no more, give up now, thank you very much. This means that you MUST pay attention to every single vehicle within your field of view - if you can see it, it can kill you.

Unfortunately for those of us who hate going with the crowd, this requires engaging sheep mode - go with the flow, if there's a flow to go with. If everyone else is going slower than you, slow down. If everyone else is going faster, speed up. If traffic is sparse enough to permit you to do something radically different, either faster or slower, then knock yourself out and have fun; when you get near anyone else, give yourself and the idiot you're driving near plenty of mental processing time. Speed up, slow down, approach carefully, whatever. The translation of the Latin in my signature is "avoid the hatred of change" - that doesn't work when driving.

Someone else talked about twits going way faster than everyone else, doing the butterfly (flitting from lane to lane (a term from my cop days)) - that's dangerous, but it's usually only one car (or crotch rocket), and they get themselves out of range quickly. Far more dangerous are people who go under the speed limit, or slower than the ambient flow. Everyone on the road has to deal with them. Everyone.

Road rage is spawned far more quickly from being held up than it is from a twit flying past. That's why there are also tickets given out for "obstructing traffic" - they're rare, but the fines are steep. By going more slowly than everyone else, you cause other drivers to have to process the change - they have to maneuver around you, or deal with others who are having to maneuver around you. You're depending on the other drivers to THINK - a really, really stupid thing to depend on. Remember - they're not there to think, they're there to kill you.

The extra fraction of a mile per gallon by holding up traffic, or the few minutes saved by doing the butterfly, or the MPG savings available from the extreme idiocy of drafting, aren't worth it - the people who love you won't care that you got an extra mile per gallon when they bury you because an idiot killed you.

Let's be careful out there.

 

Road rage starts when you piss someone off. The best way to do that is to be an official self appointed traffic speed flow monitor by parking your Prius in the left lane driving 64.5 miles per hour (because you're within your rights to do so) while everyone else is driving 68-75 in that lane.

If you think you are saving lives by doing it, you're wrong. People have been shot and killed for less on California freeways. I've seen news reports where people have been so mad at the self appointed traffic flow monitors that they will cut them off as they go around just to make a point. In the process, bumpers touch and someone gets hurt.

I drive 35,000 miles a year on the 5 and 101 Freeways in L.A., and I can tell you I've witnessed many people including my own dad who think they are doing society a favor by risking their life in the "fast" lane by driving slow. I like the people posting who acknowledge the fact that they drive a little slower and because of that they stay in the right hand lanes with the trucks. I can tell you that on many stretches of the 5 Freeway during peak traffic times, the right lanes seem to move a little faster than the rest because of the trucks. They accelerate slower...and they break slower. People want to get away from them so the leave the right lanes. You rarely see a rear end collision in the right lanes during rush hour compared to the fast lanes where the soccer moms and field sales people are distracted on their cell phones.

The basic speed law for the State of California is to drive no faster than the conditions will allow for safe driving. I translate that into saying to stay out of the left lanes where (legal or not) traffic is flowing 75 miles per hour+ if you don't intend to keep up. You might be within your rights parking there doing the 65 mile per hour limit, but eventiually you and/or a member of your family will be dead right.

I myself don't want to take on the lunatics, nutcases, gang membes, drug addicts or whoever else is in that lane breaking the law. It might be that the speed limit isn't the only law they are willing to break. I'm not saying everyone in that lane meets the criteria I just mentioned, but if there were one or two on the freeway, do you want them on your back bumper?

Can't we all just get along (on the Freeway)!

By the way, I drive the "fast" lane and you just might be in my way!

 

If you apply the two second rule on California Freeways in slower traffic, the two second rule magically becomes "A new car will be in front of you every two seconds."

Real world is brutal.

 

I've driven in Europe a lot where speed limits scarcely exist on some highways. I learned this real fast: unless you are passing a car, you stay in the right lane. Ignore this and, within a minute, a very large Mercedes will appear in your rear-view mirror, nose tucked down under heavy breaking, and headlights flashing furiously.

Over here it seems to be accepted that one can drive in any lane that feels good, no matter what they heard in driver training. I encounter speed-limit Nazis regularly doing 60 in the left lane with the three lanes to the right available. Headlights don't bother them. Try it and they'll slow to 55. They consider themselves some sort of legal enforcers of goodness and purity. It's "their space!' I think I might be forgiven for passing them on the right.

I've heard it explained by a policeman lecturing in traffic school (I was just visiting! ) that a person could receive a ticket for driving a legal speed if he were impeding the "safe flow of traffic." Seems right to me. I've never been pulled over for exceeding the limit if I were moving with the general mass, only when I got creative and left the others behind.

The right lane is for driving. The others are for passing. As they fill up, as they will, the left-most lane is still the passing lane. If you are there and you spy somebody close behind you, move to the right.

If the total freeway is moving 70 mph and somebody decides it's his day to sight-see at 40, that person is a hazard to navigation. This sort of thing is what causes the 30 car pile-ups. (As well as bad weather, which we aren't talking about here.) Speed doesn't kill; the sudden stop does.

Think SAFETY not MY RIGHTS.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Randy G. @ Aug 23 2006, 02:26 PM) [snapback]308399[/snapback]</div>

To an extent... It happens here in the People's Republic of Austin, too (where everyone drives four miles an hour under the speed limit (froth froth froth)). Howsomevery, two seconds at slower speeds is less space than it seems. Try counting it sometime. If it's too much space, close up - can't let the b@stards get your spot!! B)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Weinerneck @ Aug 23 2006, 02:24 PM) [snapback]308342[/snapback]</div>

Actually, if the person is driving the speed limit in the left lane when the flow of traffic is faster, then they are part of the problem. That's what Soylent was referring to. Although the term "gramps" is inflammatory.

A friend of mine got pulled over and warned by a NJ Trooper for just such an infraction.

I definitely agree that we all need to slow ourselves down (and not just on the road). Lord knows I'm much more relaxed since I've slowed down.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(deh2k @ Aug 23 2006, 01:33 PM) [snapback]308307[/snapback]</div>

Ok if you know people are driving faster than the speed limit a lot faster why get in the way. There is an actual stipulation to the speed limit law on highways and freeways and that law in almost all states says go with the flow of traffic. Commonsense tells you that if everyone in the left lanes are going 80mph plus getting in those lanes doing 50mph is retarded and dangerous, same thing applies if the whole freeway is doing 25mph weaving in and out at high rates of speed is even more retarded and dangerous. If you get in the carpool lane and go (exaggeration) 2mph wile everyone else is going 80mph who is the retard?

I know in California people cruise at 80mph plus the only people that I see get pulled over are those going way faster than the flow weaving in and out of traffic or way slower in the fast lane creating a road hazard. (If you think going 30 mph slower than everyone else is not dangerous you my friend are a big lame retard). The posted speed limit is 65 in CA but people in the fast lane sometimes can approach almost 100mph there is no way id get in front of a 7 ton SUV going 50 and expect that driver to stop on a dime and not destroy my little car.

I do not intend to start an argument but damn. I am going to say this and I will follow through with it. Post what ever you like, I am done with this topic it is just pissing me off.

If I have offended anyone sorry.

If I offended anyone who disserved it well there you have you are upset and so am I.

 

The whole idea of going with the flow of traffic when it is speeding is pretty silly. I've had many speeding tickets and not one of them was because I was going faster than the general traffic flow.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Aug 23 2006, 03:16 AM) [snapback]308110[/snapback]</div>

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