Maintaining a safe following distance is incredibly challenging on busy freeways where hard braking is often 'required'. Most people have likely found themselves in this situation: vehicle changes lanes in front of you; you slow down to maintain a safe following distance, another car sees a gap and changes lanes in front of you. Repeat for your entire commute.
Incredibly frustrating, and I've driven all over North America - there's practically no major city where this doesn't happen. If you're not maintaining a safe following distance on city/residential streets, that's a different matter.
> vehicle changes lanes in front of you;
I will never understand why this is so rage-inducing for people.
Changing lanes is a necessary part of navigating, even during busy traffic. People on an on-ramp will need to get in front of somebody. People needing to move back to the right because their exist is coming up will need to get in front of somebody.
Your lane is not a birth right. Let people merge.
> you slow down to maintain a safe following distance, another car sees a gap and changes lanes in front of you. Repeat for your entire commute.
This happens because literally everyone is tailgating each other so hard that the gap in front of you is the only gap that exists for people to change lanes to either get on or off the highway.
It's frustrating because someone is taking your safety buffer as their opportunity to travel faster. And it results in you having to travel slower and slower to maintain the gap that is constantly consumed, tragedy of the commons style, by opportunists.
Not to mention if that if somebody needs to come over, the proper thing to do is signal first. Then I'm happy to politely ease off a bit and open more space for them to come over safely.
It's the people who aggressively slide right over just a few feet in front of me (cutting off nearly all of my safety buffer) without so much as a signal that really drive me nuts.
It's the people who hit the gas when they see your signal, that really irk me. In Austin I stopped signaling because it was a punished behavior.
My experience driving in MA and NY was similar, but so often it was because a rusted out shitbox was trying to merge in that would slow down traffic significantly, and not only put me at risk of rear ending them, but being rear ended myself.
When flows merge, there's turbulence. There's less turbulence if the flows are more closely matched, including speed.
Unless I'm the last car in a line and there's plenty of open space behind me. Then you should just wait until after I've passed before merging, because otherwise you create a little ripple in the flow. A few ripples and you got a wave, and that's how you get traffic.
So for the love of gods, if you're merging, even if you signal, match speeds for merging. If you're too slow to match speed, then suck it up buttercup, and hang out in the right lane until there's an opening.
It seems like a tragedy, but actually it can be a boon as long as you travel in neither the leftmost nor rightmost lane. The majority of the traffic entering your buffer will be exiting your buffer out the other side as soon as they can, so you can just chug along at a (greatly reduced, but) consistent speed. Meanwhile, the traffic to either side of you is in standstill, paralyzed by your bow wake.
It's wild to me how often the left lane is not the fastest lane.
I've had times where the right lane ends up being the fastest. On I-5 near Woodburn, OR, it's 3 lanes. So many drivers, including truckers, will often stay out of the right lane entirely to avoid being caught up in traffic coming on/off. Meanwhile, the left lane is going 5 mph under the limit because there's a left-lane camper somewhere miles ahead. So I can fly past everybody in the right lane because there's actually barely any traffic coming on/off and everybody is avoiding the right lane for no reason at all.
> On I-5 near Woodburn, OR
The section of I-5 between Portland and Salem is absolutely psychotic, and I have never been able to reason out exactly why. It consistently has a left lane jammed with angry people going at or below the speed limit, a fairly normal center lane filled with cruisers, and a mostly empty right lane with the occasional big rig and regular very-high-speed cars expressing their frustration with the left lane by going 25+ mph over the limit in the right lane.
I know that's what you basically just said. Just venting. The driver behavior in that section of freeway confounds me, and I do not know what the underlying cause is. It is otherwise an unremarkable bit of interstate like any other.
Truckers sometimes have a good reason to do that -- they can't brake or accelerate as quickly as a small vehicle, and thus can end up going very slowly if they stick with the right lane. To a driver going 3 exits down the 205 it's not a big deal, to a truck driver doing the same they may be at the end of a long haul up the I5 and every minute starts to count since it can affect their pay. And if you can avoid hard braking/hard acceleration in the right lane, that can help your fuel costs quite a bit since slowly coasting behind someone doing 5 under in the left lane is more efficient than jerking around in the right lane.
There are plenty of ramps on I5 and 205 that I merge to the left for because I know they will spill into the right and (when it exists) middle lanes. Because of how traffic also reacts to brake lights (some people brake too hard even when they have sufficient distance to let off the gas and coast to a slower speed) it seems like it ends up making my experience through those stretches a bit better.
Ultimately, any individual behaviour is largely irrelevant, it's what the whole mass of cars moving along does that affects things the most. Often you don't want to be the (significantly) odd one out regardless of the situation.
That's not a good reason, those truckers are just assholes. I'd like to see the authorities enforce the law and fine them heavily. Put them out of business.
It's not the fastest often because it's oversubscribed and people do not understand that the car has a 3rd, mostly underuntilized, state of neither pedal depressed (ie "coasting") ... so they create cascading braking pileups ...
> as long as you travel in neither the leftmost nor rightmost lane
What I really hate, however, is that plenty of people will cruise in the center lane but still not leave a decent gap between them and the car in front. They effectively turn a three lane freeway into two one-lane freeways by hobbling the ability of anyone else to switch lanes. The freeway moves way smoother when there is a modest, predictable speed differential between each lane so that people can find their way into the next lane over without having to force the issue.
It brings me peace to see other people thinking this way. You should be an active participant on the highway, making decisions to maximize flow. Leaving space so people can merge, controlling speed to smooth slowdowns, anticipating traffic patterns, etc.
All of the people tailgating are contributing to the congestion.
https://youtu.be/iHzzSao6ypE
The problem isn't merging, it's people that are changing lanes to get ahead.
It's especially not people trying to get off the highway because then they leave and you can catch back up to where you originally were.
It's frustrating when it eats into your safe following distance. The driver merging in ahead of you is being dangerous and not leaving a safe following distance for themselves (or you).
When traffic is heavy, everyone is likely following at [what they perceive to be] a minimum following distance.
It's simply not possible to merge during heavy traffic without eating into someone's safe following distance.
I'll tell you what I specifically and intentionally do when I need to change lanes. I brake slightly, signal, and wait for the person on my right or my left to pull ahead of me, then change lanes immediately _behind_ them. Then sit there for a moment until my following distance evens out a bit.
This ensures that
a) I do not cut anyone off accidentally, and minimize the amount of stress in my immediate part of the universe
b) I will (most likely) have plenty of room behind me after I change lanes, reducing chances of anyone else running up on me
c) If there's noticeable traffic, the time I spend signaling and waiting for the person to move slightly ahead of me gives plenty of warning to the people _behind_ them that I'm about to enter the lane.
Ultimately, yes, of course in principle you're right, when I change lanes, I enter the lane in front of someone.... but I _can_ control whether I enter as far as possible ahead of them.
You shouldn't be braking when changing lanes is what I was taught, you should be matching the speed of the lane you're merging to. There are many drivers who think that braking is always the right solution, when sometimes it's a little more gas.
And in inclement conditions, it can make the difference between losing control of your vehicle or not. When you brake, you decrease your steering ability in most cars. Fine when its calm and sunny in CA, not so much when it's icing over near Ashland OR on the pass.
It's considerate communication. Lurching into the next lane .08 seconds after the blinker first flashes says things like "Your life isn't worth the basic consideration and respect of communicating my intentions" and scales up to "I'll communicate, but you're not worth any sort of common courtesy" - that can be upsetting to people.
It doesn't even have to be real. There's huge room for miscommunication. Unpredictable movements and perceived aggression, or unwillingness to be considerate to other drivers on the road, there's a whole wealth of information being processed, regardless of how little is actually real.
Now add the total lack of accountability for the driver's emotional state (don't you love yelling at other drivers, completely free of judgement?), and you can see how things spiral into road rage so relatively easily, even if everyone involved is normally a pretty chill, rational person.
If you're tailgating or brake-checking, or being inattentive and sloppy, you're basically threatening people's lives with a few tons of high speed metal, even if you don't intend that at all.
Ideally, the rules of the road are meant to reinforce a mutual understanding of the game being played. Behavior occurring when expected, proper signaling, observing limits, and making the effort to communicate where possible is a signal that you and the other driver are both operating by the same set of rules, giving you both confidence that neither of you are going to be a danger.
I've seen little "cute" exceptions where locals develop a subculture of dangerous assumptions and then get aggravated when someone from out of town doesn't immediately get it. There are other areas where aggression and what amounts to flagrant disrespect are the norm, so you've always gotta be adaptive, but ideally you get people conspicuously following the same set of rules as a sort of game theoretic optimal strategy for driving.
If you think highway driving requires hard braking, you're a bad driver.
Yes. If people are constantly moving into your appropriate head way this is doubtless annoying but the correct response is allow yourself to decelerate slowly to re-open that space again, repeat as many times as necessary, even if it means a bunch of agros end up in front of you. Better for them to be in front where you can see them, than behind or to the side, were you can't.
Yah. There's something that feels unjust about it -- the perception that the people cutting are getting something over on you -- that causes us to want to behave badly.
But even if 2 dozen people go around you and creep into that following space, you've been cost like 45 seconds at worst. Better not to play the game.
Also, it really doesn't happen that often. I'm that guy following at 3 or 4 car lengths in rush hour traffic and people aren't constantly funneling in front of me. It's a hypothetical "problem" that is bigger in your head than in reality.
Sometimes I think it's just people's reflexive scarcity mindset that tells them "that spot must not be that desirable or someone would be in it."
Regarding the broader topic of hitting your brakes, I find that I can commute 20 miles in stop and go traffic and only tap my brakes a couple of times. Helps to pace yourself behind the car 3 cars ahead of you instead of the guy right in front of you.
Society would have a lot fewer car accidents if we, collectively, could get over that "Oh no someone dared to get in front of me!" feeling.
We'd also avoid a lot of accidents if we stopped the people that are doing lane changes for position-jockeying and no other purpose.
So it's bad to be mad while driving, but there's a lot of lane changes that deserve the ire. (It's a tiny fraction of drivers that get really bad, but a less tiny fraction of lane changes.)
Being angry at them won't change their behaviour, but will make you more stressed. Remember: driving like that is its own punishment, because they'll be extremely angry and frustrated at everything. Between that and the realisation that driving 2% slower adds about 1 minute more per hour of driving you have to do, I find I can avoid stressing at people lane weaving and have a nicer journey myself.
> Being angry at them won't change their behaviour
Yes, but the comment above was about society collectively making a decision, so that's the context I responded in.
And while it's relaxing to not worry about your own exact speed, I don't see how that lets you avoid stressing about the people that are lane-weaving. They're acting dangerously and I need to be ready to react to them.
They are likely getting more frequent brake pad replacements.
Not a significant cost. But they sure as shit aren't getting what they think they're getting. Meaningfully farther ahead.
I now see it all as a risk assessment rather than as ritualistic combat.
If you added a missile launcher to your vehicle, it could become ritualistic combat again.
Absolutely agree. I take it a step (probably too far) further and think if you’re breaking on the motorway at all, you’re a bad driver. Ok, sometimes you have to, it’s chaotic out there, I get it. If you’re paying attention to actually driving your two ton killing machine you can drive for 200 miles on a motorway and not touch the break once.
I just had to hard brake a few days ago. A driver a couple lanes over on 101 slammed on their breaks, rotated 90 degrees, and came to rest across a couple lanes (one of which was mine). Fortunately, I was alert, driving the speed limit, and in the right-most lane, with nobody following me close. The whole thing happened in less than 5 seconds.
If you do it on the regular, or even occasionally, sure, but emergencies are emergencies.
Or stuck on a highway with bad drivers. My local paper's current "bleeds => leads" story is about a head-on highway crash, between a big pickup truck and a wrong-way driver. Less that 4 hours after being posted, that story has already slipped off the front page.
"local drunk dies by misadventure" is a really, really boring news article.
I'm not sure the article, the article being off the front page now, or driving with bad drivers has anything to do with it.
The article stuff definitely doesn't.
Driving with bad drivers should incentivize you to follow less closely and require less hard braking, not more.
There's a motte where some poor fellow is always maintaining the car-length-for-every-10-mph rule and yet keeps being passed inside that distance by innumerable bad drivers the fellow is surrounded by.
I pity that fellow.
He has an excuse.
He also isn't observably real in any of my 21 years of driving in Buffalo, Boston, and Los Angeles.
I feel harsh for saying this, I am only saying it because A) this subthread is specifically about there isn't an excuse B) this stuff involves our lives. Thus, this is an appropriate venue because the people in the venue know what to expect, and poking at someone's thoughts on it may help them immeasurably.
It doesn't normally require hard braking, but when automated emergency braking decides to slam on the brakes at random for no reason in my own car, everybody behind me will share my resulting insurance rate increase.
It's almost as if the purpose of the system is what it does.
If you think people are going to cut in front of you, provide a safety cushion large enough to account for that. Aggressive drivers almost universally will consume the forward part of the space cushion you leave. At most you will simply need to lift the accelerator to maintain space. The only time someone cutting in front of you should require hard braking is if they also brake hard.
It does require patience to do this, because all aggressive drivers will use the space you provide. But ultimately the travel time difference in flowing traffic is negligible.
I'm not sure it's that negligible. Mythbusters found that weaving in and out of traffic could save between 5 and twenty-five percent. Now A) Mythbusters did an experiment with an N of like 4 or something, along a single commute in the Bay Area, so it's basically anecdote and I'd love a better source if one existed, but it is at the very least proof-by-existence that larger impacts on travel time _can_ happen. And their non-weaving person was, if I recall from the video, not constantly decelerating to keep a buffer.
And from personal experience in some places, keeping such a buffer, in some traffic conditions would just literally be impossible. There are sometimes enough aggressive drivers such that they can just consume it faster than one would be able to create it. It is simply not always the case that you have sole power to create and keep the recommended buffer size (although very often it is and you can).
I keep a decent buffer whenever I am able, but at some point, you have to bow to road conditions.
25% of time saved corresponds to increasing your average speed by 1/(1-0.25)=33%, for example from 45 to 60.
Letting a large fraction of the freeway cut in front of you will turn normal drivers behind you aggressive, or at least aggressive enough to go around you. There's a balance to be struck.
Oh no! Cars will go around you!
Cars making aggressive maneuvers around you is dangerous for you.
If plain old overtaking results in "aggressive maneuvers", you should not be driving a car.
Tailgating is against the law. Tailgating causes hard braking.
I recently pulled my travel trailer from OK to Charleston, SC and back. I never drive over 65 MPH for safety and MPG reasons. I always stay in the right hand, slow lane except if I have to take a left lane exit. Since I was always driving slower then everyone else, not once did I have to hard brake. Tailgating is a choice and a dangerous one.
I was never honked at, even by the crazy semi truck drivers.
Even that can be tricky, with the indecisive behavior people use when merging.
Very true and it's the reason I will always leave several car gaps in front of me in heavy traffic. Just because I have electric brakes on my travel trailer, it doesn't mean I can slow down normally, they just assist. Most people really don't think about that, of course, so they ignore the trailer and just weave in and out.
Speed is a very dangerous thing when pulling any type of trailer and it always amazes me when I see a truck pulling one at break neck speeds and somehow thinking they can maneuver normally when someone causes a situation where they have to make a split second decision.
That one's easy: leave space in front of you for those merging onto the highway.
So much of road etiquette boils down to leaving adequate space so others can maneuver around you. Trying to optimize your travel by destroying any gaps as soon as they appear actually has the opposite effect.
James May calls this "Christian motoring". Golden Rule etc
While leaving space is nice, the person on the highway already typically has right-of-way.
It's really not. I drive at an upper-percentile pace, so I am rarely dawdling along in the right lane.
However, on the rare occasion I've found myself going slowly in the right lane, it's stunning how incompetent most people are at merging. It's like they don't even consider looking for an opening in traffic, matching the freeway speed, etc. They just lumber in front of you at 43mph, and maybe, if you're lucky, look in their mirrors after they've already caused you to slow for them.
>I was never honked at, even by the crazy semi truck drivers.
Because you were towing a camper and "slow and in the right lane" fits people's mental model of how recreational/nonprofessional heavy traffic or otherwise "handicapped" vehicles ought to behave.
When you have problems is when you behave to a standard beneath what other people expect from whatever kind of traffic you are.
In the Atlanta area I've experienced a few times people FLYING up on me in the right hand lane while I'm cruising along at a conservative, gas sipping 55 MPH in my old truck, blaring their horn at me like I'm some kind of maniac.
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
Driving and living in Atlanta after living in Charleston and Raleigh felt like transitioning from a modern cooperative society to an island of cannibals. The amount of aggression needed to change lanes largely regardless of attempts to signal good faith and politeness is baffling. Driving is a fascinating ritual with vastly differing norms across regions. It would be interesting to learn if anthropologists have studied this
> Driving is a fascinating ritual with vastly differing norms across regions. It would be interesting to learn if anthropologists have studied this
And Psychologists!
Reading the comments in this thread is quite amusing.
As a driver in India, i can tell you anything goes as long as you don't get into an accident (which may/may-not kill you) or get caught by the police.
No rules matter and the only goal is to "one-up" everybody else on the road and if they are trying to "one-up" you, then prevent it by any means possible. It is a "game of chicken" in its purest form; game theory in action. Rules are mere suggestions only followed by the meek and the weak.
You have no idea how invigorating it is to drive in India.
I don't mind that sort of traffic, as long as I'm in Somebody Else's Car or an old junker that's already banged up. In these situations, the biggest and ugliest car/truck with the meanest driver always wins.
I did have a weird experience in Miami one time, driving the same truck. This guy behind me in a Charger suddenly shot around me in the side lane right as traffic started moving, and got in front. Traffic was heavy (brutal) and I wasn't lagging behind and wasting time/space, or so I thought, but I guess my standards of proper "closeness" are different than what he expected. It was funny, actually. I guess he was just in a hurry.
Do you have any experience driving in China? How does it compare?
That's easy to deal with: They're behind you. Ignore them.
Setting the side mirrors based on the AAA method works for a lot of reasons, and it helps with this too. So does flipping the center mirror over to the dark side.
Out of sight, out of mind.
They can be elect to stay back there behaving however they want, or they can go around be however they need to be somewhere else.
If you just can't stand it anymore, then just hop off the highway. It can be a good opportunity to stop for some coffee or a soda. Or, you know: Just to get out of the car, stretch out the ol' legs, and taste that acrid city air, think about something or someone in the world that is beautiful for you, and chill down a second.
Or just go up one exit ramp and down the entrance ramp on the other side of the crossroad, if the intersection design allows this move to be made safely and conveniently.
They almost certainly won't follow. They'll instead be disappearing down the highway at warp speed the whole time you're doing this, and you'll probably never across them again in your entire life.
It only costs a few minutes. They may seem interminable, but they're few. The benefit is relief from the mounting agony of dealing with this aggressive driver that might otherwise stick with you the rest of the day and that's good for your brain health.
(And if they do follow after you give them every opportunity to not do that? It's not Hollywood or the national news and this actually doesn't happen much in the real world on an individual level, but: Call the police at 911 or 999 or 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3 or whatever it is, and get some help.)
It's all fun and games until one gets rear-ended by one of these mental patients.
The solution is just to stay out of Atlanta, or drive faster. I'm OK with that.
Not really sure where you were going with all this. Sounds like pretty extreme, weird behavior that you are advocating.
> Sounds like pretty extreme, weird behavior that you are advocating.
Advice for when someone is following closely in anger that summarizes to "try getting off the highway for a minute and if that fails call the cops." is suggesting you perform "extreme, weird behavior"? I don't understand your reaction at all.
The people in question weren't angrily following me. If that were the case, there's no need for any theatrics.
The first weapon to be employed is a Middle Finger. If that proves ineffective, it's followed by a lugnut taken from a coffee can that I keep handy. If and when things get to that level, the person usually wises up quick and finds a new hobby. There are other tools available if the nutcase decides to escalate further.
No, in this case it was just people speeding along at 95 (in a 70) who were terribly offended at my dangerously slow driving, who wished to register their indignation as they flew by, momentarily held back but undeterred as they sped off to their Bright New Tomorrow. Message received, loud and clear.
[dead]
I'm one of the faster drivers and I maintain a safe distance. (I usually have the most distance in rush hour.) It's very easy with adaptive cruise control or the other self-driving technologies that are on the market.
The only people who cut too close to me are driving recklessly.
That being said: If you're in the mode where people are constantly changing lanes in front of you, think a bit about how you're driving: On the freeway you're supposed to stay to the right except to pass, and you're expected to keep up with the flow of traffic. Are you going slow in the left lane? Are you driving too slow? Are you camping in the right lane by a busy interchange?
In my place, there's a significant group of drivers who will ride your tail too close hoping you'll move over so they can get 1 car ahead. And if they see more than 0.9 car length in front of you they will do what they can (weaving other lanes) to try and get into that space, 1 car ahead of you.
As far as I can tell it's pure selfishness and competitiveness. Their desire isn't to cooperate and arrive it's to take from others for their own gain.
Also "Only pass in the left lane" only makes sense when the lanes aren't significantly full. The guy in the left lane wants to do 90mph but the average speed of traffic is <55mph. Should I move over just because I'm doing 55 (despite wanting to do 65) and they want to do 90? They can only do 90 if there's a cascading group of drivers in front of them who defer their own desires to the desire of the most aggressive. Seems obvious to me that moving over to let them pass is not the right move.
> and you're expected to keep up with the flow of traffic.
This is very state dependent, if we are talking about legality.
In WA state, for example, there is no "flow of traffic" law or similar. The limit is the limit, and any excess of the speed limit is illegal regardless of what all other drivers are doing. So even if the right/slow lane is going 100MPH through the 70MPH zone, you are legally expected to still go 70.
Thankfully we do have laws against left lane camping, but I rarely see it enforced.
You’re confused. If you know of ANY US state that has a flow of traffic law that allows cars to exceed the speed limit so long as they are keeping up with other traffic, I’d love to see a link to their traffic codes. Speeding doesn’t suddenly become legal because two or more drivers do it together.
This has nothing to do with the expectation that slower traffic stay in the rightmost lanes, which is what GP is addressing.
> This is very state dependent, if we are talking about legality.
Are you sure? And by that I mean, are you sure there are states that don't work the way WA works?
This is accurate in many ways. I use the auto cruise feature on my car frequently and I notice several things happen unless I set the distance as close as possible (which I don’t like to do. ).
1. In any amount of traffic above “a few cars” people will cut in front of me, sometimes two, negating the safe following distance. Regardless of speed.
2. If I have a safe following distance while waiting for someone to get over. (I e they’re going 60, I want to go 70), if I have my distance set at a safe following distance, people are much more likely to weave / pass on the right. (My theory would be that the distance I’m behind the person in front of them signals that I’m not going to accelerate / pass when the person gets over ).
Disclaimer: I don’t usually have to drive in any significant traffic, and when I do (Philly, New York City), I’m probably less likely to use the automatic features because the appropriate follow distance seems to increase the rage of drivers around me.
I always wonder why so many people observe this when I never have. It makes no sense logically; it's the speed of the car in front of you that determines whether they should switch lanes, not the size of the gap behind it. There is no reason for them to cut in when your lane is no faster. Perhaps you are just the sole person leaving enough room for people to execute needed lane changes.
At any rate, even if people are continuously going around you like water going around a rock in a stream, you only have to drive 2 mph slower than traffic to constantly rebuild your following distance from the infinite stream of cutoffs. But my experience is the majority of following distance is eaten up by people randomly slowing down, not cutting in.
In the auto cruise example, it’s leaving perhaps 2 - 2.5 car distances. In close traffic the average human I would bet is leaving 1 or less then 1.
The issue is not that I can’t rebuild the following distance, the point I’m trying to make is that even if I constantly rebuild the following distance it sets off a cascading effect.
I’m following at set speed, car cuts in front, hits brakes, I now slow down, car behind me slows down, I rebuild following distance and car perhaps 7-8-9 cars behind me repeats because at some point the cascade magnifies to a larger slowdown behind.
Can I mitigate this by manually letting my distance be closer for a time, and slowly easing to larger ? Yes.
But if I allow the car to do it automatically, it will increase the follow distance at a rate that causes a cascade in tight traffic.
Though - I do think with these discussions on HN- it does depend on where you’re driving.
My experiences are centered on East Coast, thinking of route 80, 81, 83, etc. or Philly / New York City.
The driving experience is radically different in California, Florida , or the mid west.
I would say when driving in California people seem to navigate traffic better. (SF, LA) then on drivers on 80/81/83. (Or perhaps it’s due to better designed roads ).
Just drive in the slow lane and you won’t have this problem. The people cutting in front of you rarely want to be in the slow lane.
In Southern California the "fast lane" is the medium speed lane, and the "slow lane" is the actual fast lane. It's where people tend to weave in and out of traffic at 15-25 mph speed differentials.
I do drive in the slow lane frequently - and this still occurs. (My go to is to set my cruise 6-9 mph over the speed limit, if passing to smoothly pass and get back over, and spend as much time as possible in the slow lane. )
However - I will say most of the roads I’m on are 2 lanes of traffic. I will have to experiment and see if this doesn’t occur when there are 3 or 4 lanes.
> I do drive in the slow lane frequently - and this still occurs.
One part of your post was about people passing on the right. People won't do that if you're in the rightmost lane.
The idea of cruising 15km/h over the limit is absolutely crazy to me. That will get you 3 points and a minimum $500 fine here. We have "average speed zones" too!
Where I live travelling at that speed will get you passed by every cop and state trooper driving on the same road. A lot comes down to local norms and enforcement.
In Alabama on the interstates and highways the rule of thumb is: "8 you're great, 9 you're mine."
I don't know you can find that traffic always bunches up. And if one is content to sit in the gaps in between, almost never anybody cuts in. I drove twice 1000 mile trips each way last year and it kind of worked. It's more of a mindset than anything else. Fastlane is not that fast or it would be empty, lol.
The fast lane isn’t always faster is very true! Haha
What I will say is some of this may be the difference between manual driving - and automatic.
If I’m manually driving - where my follow distance fluctuates more due to speed / traffic - almost no one cuts in.
If I am driving where I’m using the vehicle to maintain a perfect set distance, people cut in.
Again, anecdotal
> North America
Having driven all over NA, and Europe, I find it more prevalent in NA. Less distance, more people in large pickups throwing their weight around to make someone move out of the way.
And a design of giant freeway interchanges that require shifting lanes.
E.g. on the 405 in CA. 7 lines going South from the Valley towards Santa Monica.
That's 7 lanes you need to cross if you're in the HOV lane.
> That's 7 lanes you need to cross if you're in the HOV lane.
The 401 is my favourite with eighteen lanes, four for the inner express lanes, and five for the collector lanes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Highway_401#/media/Fil...
I live in a place that has harsh winter conditions with ice, gravel and the occasional loose tire stud flying into people's windshields, warranting frequent expensive replacements.
Somebody on the radio said that "just set the adaptive cruise control to max distance and your windshield will last way longer". It does feel overprotective at times, especially in slow and dense traffic, but I think there's a nice point in general.
Wow, I didn't know that was a thing. Been driving nearly 30 years, and never had a windshield chip.
Grow up in a place where roads have gravel on the shoulders and are made using coarse-chip seal and you’ll get them regularly.
Yeah, I imagine. I'm inner city.
Do you have a wood surface nearby? I would recommend giving it a good knock.
Apparently I just live in a place where it's not a common problem. Also I do tend to leave a big gap behind cars in front.
They salt your roads, or put grit?
They don't do either of those things, and yet somehow I haven't witnessed any cars sliding off the road in winter either.
From everything you've said so far, it sounds like people in your area have a lot of sense.
Also we don't get snow.
facepalm
Another trick that works is just to let the windshield get cracked once. Then it will be immune to further rock strikes. Studies have shown that freshly replaced windshields are 937% more likely to be hit with a rock.
#trustmebro
#science
Does it really matter though? Is the end result just a couple of minutes later in a 30 minute commute? Or does it actually make a large difference in travel time?
> Is the end result just a couple of minutes later in a 30 minute commute?
More like a few seconds.
Every car that merges in front of you only costs you their following distance. If the average following distance is 1 second, then you are simply 1 second slower than you'd have otherwise been. So unless this is happening continuously every 30 seconds on your 30 minute commute, you will lose less than a minute.
The "but if I kept reasonable following distance, people will keep merging in front of me and I'll lose time" excuse is pretty thin given this analysis.
And an insurance claim can easily eat 40 hours of time between the insurance companies, other lawyers, buying a new car, medical appointments and recovery. That's 19,200 minutes you won't get back, or about 52 years of driving 1 minute slower each day.
Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
It doesn’t - but people don’t necessarily make rational choices regarding speed and driving. There’s a tendency to de personalize other drivers.
A slight increase in average speed really only makes a significant difference over long drives. (5 mph increase over a 10 hour drive can cut off 50 minutes).
Otherwise we are talking about small differences in efficiency.
(I would be very open to another opinion here.).
My opinions are formed by nearly ~2 million miles driven at this point, two different driving courses, and the motorcycle safety course.
One thing I truly think that’s overlooked is how reduced road noise in the vehicle cabin can both reduce driver fatigue, but also frustration in traffic.
> A slight increase in average speed really only makes a significant difference over long drives.
Yes! I feel like I can't shout this loud enough. In addition to maintaining a safe driving distance, just leave a little earlier. The stuff I've seen people do in order to save 20 seconds boggles the mind.
Unfortunately, I think commuters fall into a gamification mindset. They're trying to set a new lap record each day, and you can see the results just by driving (or walking) during rush hour...
> (5 mph increase over a 10 hour drive can cut off 50 minutes)
You can't really say that without knowing the starting speed, or alternatively the distance. All you can say is that a 5 mph increase over a 10 hour drive with get you 50 miles farther.
I would argue I can still say it /can/ cut off 50 minutes.
If you do a comparison of a 600 mile trip at 60 vs 55 you’re pretty close.
But yes, to be pedantic and more exact, you are spot on that it will get you 50 miles closer.
But in real world examples,
If you’re traveling 700 miles.
65 vs 70, 70 will reduce your time by 43 minutes.
So in certain scenarios, 5 mph difference must be able to save you 50 minutes ! ;)
(I do understand your point, and you’re correct. I’m just poking fun at it- my point with the mph difference is because 50 miles doesn’t have the same translation for most people at 50 minutes, but is a more accurate data approach. )
> So in certain scenarios, 5 mph difference must be able to save you 50 minutes ! ;)
That is true. If you're going 55 mph for 10 hours, you'll go 550 miles. Increase your speed to 60 mph, and you'll get there at 9 hours 10 minutes.
It used to be more of an issue when I was younger. Now that I'm older and more 'seasoned' (plus reflexes do slow down), I'm far more patient and have no issue maintaining a healthy following distance. I think the statistics reflect this in age vs. accident rate as well.
Unfortunately, sometimes over a 45 minute freeway commute, dropping back repeatedly means arriving 15 minutes or more later. Again, no big deal now, but it was somehow unacceptable when I was younger.
For your commute to take 4/3 the time, you would have to be averaging 3/4 the speed -- going 45 in a 60. That doesn't make sense because even going 55 would mean traffic pulled away from you rather than you having to drop back from it. Going 55/60ths the speed means you arrive in 60/55ths the time, or an extra 4 minutes on a 45 minute commute.
I have been doing the same commute at the same time for the better part of a decade. At this point I can look at my watch and tell if I'm ahead of schedule or behind schedule and infer what the compounding effect will be later in my commute.
I can easily shave 10% off my commute by lane changing to avoid the lanes where turn lane traffic tends to back up into the travel lanes, ramp traffic and "problem people". I test the null hypothesis several times a month by carrying bulky topheavy cargo that precludes a bunch of lane changing without more effort than I want to put in.
I don't think there's much to be gained by simply lane changing to chase fleeting gaps in traffic. The wins and losses will probably mostly cancel out.
Okay I'm thinking of a very Shenzen kind of gizmo for your car that projects a bright red laser "keep out" box on the road in front of your car which is adjusted in size for your current speed.
We have something like that in eu with road markings. Both for clear weather and fog/rain. They mark some of the lines differently, and tell you how many lines you should have between you and the car in front. I think they were first trialed and then printed in several places.
Cool. But I'm thinking this box floats in front of your car on the road in real time. See you're driving and ahead of you on the road is this box. At night it might interfere with your night vision, might have to workshop that a bit.
There's a couple of bits of motorway in England with that, I'm pretty sure the M6 and the M1. There are white chevrons painted on the road and you keep two of them between you and the car in front.
Also "Keep Two Chevrons Apart" is going to be the name of my specialist Citroën breaker's yard.
I think a lot of people would just consider that a challenge.
On the occasion when I am towing our travel trailer, it is really incredible how unsafe that makes other drivers act around me. They will jam themselves in front of me at all costs, with no consideration for physics.
I see this happen to semi trucks on the highway. People interpret big open space as a place to merge. As you say, people have no consideration for why there might be a large space in front of a semi. A 50k lb+ truck hitting the back of a ~4k lb vehicle is not pretty.
See for a truck it could say "DEATH ZONE KEEP CLEAR" which would be accurate. Given that it's projected it could rotate through various languages too.
Can't wait to get blinded by lasers when cars are going over bumps and speed humps.
I know you were probably writing tongue in cheek, but that is one of those "solutions" that doesn't stop bad actors and makes good actors more miserable than usual.
There was a bike light that projects a bike lane onto the road, not sure why they are not more popular.
I admit that I probably don't leave as much space as recommended, but I leave a good amount of space to never need to hard brake, and people don't keep moving in front of me either.
> another car sees a gap and changes lanes in front of you.
it's largely a problem in the left lanes, thats where drivers will bunch up most. the subjective feeling is mostly a reptile brain issue though, the feeling you're getting done over. driving is 90% id, sadly.
False. I've done it many times - when you open up space two cars jump in, but the rest don't and so the space remains. But you notice those two cars and think it means more than it does.
I find it quite easy to hold/manage a tight space that people won't cut into, and don't have to brake hard, because I look ahead.
To be sure, it's more mentally taxing to hold a tight gap, so it's not something you want to do all the time, but it's fine.
> Maintaining a safe following distance is incredibly challenging on busy freeways
I just put adaptive cruise control on max distance and call it a day, gives me 4/5s to react, and also it starts beeping hard if intervention is required.
It has saved my bacon a couple of times.
Maintaining a following distance is going to be one of the things that improves dramatically once self driving cars are widespread. Self-driving cars simply don't care that someone cut them off, they'll just happily open up extra space again and again.
Why does this require "hard" braking? If another car cuts in front of you just decelerate gently. You don't brake and wait until the gap is big enough (also if this is stop-and-go traffic, you should be trying to avoid braking at all)
My original observation wasn't worded as well as it could have been. I meant in situations where hard braking could be required on a moment's notice for no particular reason (e.g. Chicago freeways where everyone is doing 70 mph bumper-to-bumper and decreases to 10 mph all of a sudden).
Indeed, when someone changes lanes in front of me, I gently let off the accelerator, but as someone else noticed, that can enrage drivers behind me (I don't take it personally), and I'm definitely traveling fast enough to remain in the middle lanes.
The most frustrated people are those behind you, and if I was id soon be another person merging in front of you. If people are constantly merging in front of you, either everyone is going too fast or you are going too slow :)