- Foot off the gas. You will slow down.
- Don’t lose your nerve
- They’re gonna pass and then maybe find speed traps for you
Source: garden state parkway and i287.
I used to have pretty bad road rage. Eventually decided I didn’t want to be like that, and started driving the posted limit. Instant relief from stress and I enjoy driving now.
When driving is an activity to make up for constantly being late, you end up like the crazy tailgater. When you abide by limits, you end up like the person in front.
I’m convinced regular driving is not good for our brains. I am lucky to live without a car and I am a really relaxed person but it takes about a day driving again before I start getting angry at other drivers again.
If that ain’t the truth! I miss having a half decent public transit option.
Probably irritated that they’re in the middle lane instead of keeping right expect to pass. (or left except to pass in countries that drive on the left).
If I merged onto the highway on the left, I have to eventually get right. I’ll move to the middle lane when it’s safe, but then 1-2 miles before my exit, I’ll move to that the right lane (for right exits). But it’s unreasonable to expect drivers to crowd the far right lane all the time, making merging/exiting the highway more congested and dangerous just because I only drive 0-9 mph over the speed limit at the speed of traffic flow…
It is the job of the person merging onto the freeway to find a safe place to merge. The person on the freeway is also able to move out of the right lane if they so desire, but they aren’t required to from what I understand.
All of that said, I see people being center lane campers all the time whether it be in the middle of a city, where it’s arguably fine, to rural but populated areas where it causes traffic, to the middle of nowhere, where it isn’t inconveniencing me, but is just weird.
As long as you’re not impeding the flow of traffic that’s fine. Some people stay left or center and impede traffic because they want to make everyone go slower. My brother is one of those people.
I tell him he’s not the police and is actually being more dangerous than just getting the fuck out of the way.
Just like someone wants to go slower. Let others live and they can live or die with the consequences. Don’t inject yourself into a dangerous situation to prove a point.
People often forget, this is only on highways/motorways. On surface streets (recognizable by their lack of entry/exit ramps/infrastructure and same level intersections) left lanes are for those expecting to turn left next, right lanes are for those expecting to turn right next, and middle lanes are for those who will be going straight past the next intersection, with some variance expected on occasion.
Surface streets
3 lanes
You don’t need to tell me where you live.
People often forget, this is only on highways/motorways. On surface streets (recognizable by their lack of entry/exit ramps/infrastructure and same level intersections) left lanes are for those expecting to turn left next, right lanes are for those expecting to turn right next, and middle lanes are for those who will be going straight past the next intersection, with some variance expected on occasion.
That’s a lot of lane.
It’s an indicator that the center lane driver is not paying attention. I want to be far away from drivers that are not paying attention.
It could be, but I just think they think it’s OK to chill in the center lane. Everyone else is doing it, after all, never mind that everyone else is also causing traffic to be worse.
Another class of driver I want to be far away from
Absolutely
People often forget, this is only on highways/motorways. On surface streets (recognizable by their lack of entry/exit ramps/infrastructure and same level intersections) left lanes are for those expecting to turn left next, right lanes are for those expecting to turn right next, and middle lanes are for those who will be going straight past the next intersection, with some variance expected on occasion.
Yeah, if I come up on someone in the middle lane when there’s clearly space in the right lane, I get pissed. I don’t even drive fast, so if I catch up to you, you really have no business being anywhere but the right lane.
I had a dude once tailgate me and honk at me for going 25 in a 35. I had just pulled out of a parking lot and was getting my bearings. It was a two-lane road. I was in the right lane. He finally went around me, and I gave him a dorky wave.
30 seconds later, he was in front of me at the next red light, so to be a dick, I honked at him.
Dude spent the next 10 minutes in front of me going like 10 miles per hour. I wasn’t in a hurry, so I thought I’d just let that play out. Later, when I switched lanes to avoid a turn-only, he switched immediately after. I realized that he intended to stay in front of me driving slowly presumably until I got home.
So I eventually faked him out and lost him.
Dude wasted 10 minutes of his life proving some kind of insane point. He had a young daughter in the back seat. I feel bad for her.
When I see or meet anyone on the road that does anything stupid … I avoid them like the plague.
I’m not sticking around to see if the other guy/gal is going to lose it and do something stupid that will either cause a minor accident … or kill someone.
This is the smart move. Don’t antagonize them, no matter how much they deserve it. It’s not worth the risk.
Want to go so fast they’ll go slow for it.
That’s they get for driving on his road!
Might not believe me but there’s a subset of drivers that actually enjoy the ride being dangerous and thrilling 🤷♀️
It’s reckless and incredibly immature, most probably won’t admit it or even understand they do it on purpose. They just enjoy the adrenaline and going fast and being an animal about it
‘People who shouldn’t have a driving license’ is the term, I believe.
I absolutely believe it. I live off a major street. This street passes through a residential area. It has many cross streets every few seconds.
The speed limit through the residential area drops to 25.
People drive through at 80mph. Not exaggerating. I avoid the main road, especially at night when the roads are clear. Never know when nothing will be happening, totally quiet, and then ZOOOOOOOOM a car from 2 miles away nearly runs you over before you see it.
We need self driving cars to get these crazies away from steering wheels.
We need to make trains better and far more numerous to make driving the lesser alternative.
Don’t disagree, but you won’t get rid of cars entirely and they’ll still be a major part of transportation. I’m just saying they should at least be safer.
Too impractical in most places in America sadly. I’m just hoping this high speed rail in Cali gets finished. I commute from Sacramento to Los Angeles once a month for stupid meetings and it sucks my choices are drive 7 hours or fly or take a 15 hour train ride one way for a higher price than the other options.
I work at an major airport. We have human sized roombas that just drive around scrubbing the floors.
There is no rhyme or reason to where they go. They coild be going in a straight line, and then no reason cut in front of you. Or spin 360 a few times just spinning in circles.
Or just abuptly stop, and then start zigzagging.
Point is, I do not want these robo cleaners to be car sized, car weight, car fast, and also, hackable.
We need to not have cars at all since that solves all the problems at once
I mean this isn’t realistic at all.
It could totally be done if people could get their heads out of their asses and cooperate. So yeah unrealistic… But I’ll still assert it as the ideal we should all aspire to. I can’t believe anyone can go down a street and see all the space being used just to house vehicles. This system we have constructed is utterly ridiculous
I was stuck behind someone going 40 in a 55, finally have a good cleaning to pass them - then as I’m in the middle of that they decide to match me. Okay…weird, but they’re going fast now and on coming traffic is approaching now, so I hit my break to slip back behind them. They hit their break too. I’m guessing they saw the traffic too and they hit their break to let me ahead??
I had to pull into the wrong shoulder to avoid collision. There was still about 5-10 seconds before the on coming car actually passed me, so its not like it was a “near miss”, but still too close.
Was I in the wrong here? I felt like an idiot after that, but also being stuck behind someone going 15 under is miserable.
This sounds like you encountered an actual road troll, but it could’ve been one of those things akin to 2 people trying to speak at the same time, where it takes 2+ attempts before they figure out who’ll talk and who’ll listen.
The matching of your speed during your pass attempt seems like the primary offense.
The only justification I can concoct is if your passing attempt made the driver realize they were going slow enough to make people wanna pass, and they chose a stupid and inconsiderate time to accelerate. But that possibility is undermined by their subsequent braking. Maybe the braking could’ve been reflexive as they watched you and oncoming traffic approach bumpers, but that’s a second unlikely thing that’d have to be true to shed a troll label.
I knew a guy who was that kind of troll. Riding in the car with him, he’d mutter “don’t pass me” and would go faster purely to avoid being passed. So I know those trolls exist.
You say it was 5-10 seconds before oncoming traffic would arrive. That feels close to me. 5 seconds is too close to be passing in my opinion. 10 seconds sounds safe.
Having not been there myself, I’m can’t feel certain either way. But kudos to you for considering that you might be wrong. Just that fact portrays you as attempting to do right, and lends credibility to the trolliness of the other driver.
When I said 5-10 seconds, I meant there was 5-10 seconds after I pulled over before the on coming car passed me.
In that entire interaction, I had time to speed up, they had time to speed up, I speed up some more, they speed up more. Then I presume we both saw the on coming car, realized we were getting nowhere and did the same action hoping for opposite results. They gave up to let me ahead, and I gave up to get back behind them.
Then I really gave up and pulled to the shoulder, than it was another little bit for the oncoming car to pass. And of course, the memory of timing could be completely off, but I was fully stopped when the car passed me and my pants stayed clean.
They probably weren’t paying attention to their speed at all, and didn’t even accelerate on purpose. People often go faster when something starts passing them.
My guess is they doesn’t realize what they did, and thought you had lost your mind. I mean, imagine how that looked to them if they doesn’t realize they sped up on you.
On the other hand, I’ve had other drivers do things like that on purpose to screw with me before too, and while I could go into detail, it suffices to say the times I am thinking of were pretty clear cut. I haven’t found that behavior to be particularly common though.
My favorite experience with this was driving on a two-lane highway with a good bit of traffic in both lanes, going maybe 5 under the speed limit (and driving right behind another car in front, so it’s not like we could have gone faster). Car comes up behind, weaving from lane to lane slowly advancing, and ends up behind us. Rides our ass for a good 45-60 seconds, doing that thing where they start to move into the other lane, realizes (when they have a better view) that that lane isn’t going any faster and there isn’t an opening to pass, then pulls back in behind us, and repeats that for a while.
Finally they saw an opening and pull into the other lane, zips past us, and pulls in in front of the car in front of us. Blue lights come on instantly. We had apparently been driving behind an unmarked police car and didn’t know it. We got to look real smug when we passed the asshole driver after they pulled over.
Oh people hate me because I go the posted speed limit or slightly below, cause you know that’s the legal limit there. But no, that’s not good enough they gotta go like 10-20 over. Especially in a school zone, people love to speed there which is wild to me.
That’s great and everything.
This comic is about people hogging the middle lane
I’m normally not a big fan of applying police to every little issue, but public road safety is pretty clearly a good use of police. One ‘public safety officer’ (not even a full cop, just someone who can hand out tickets) sitting next to each school with a speed detector could really help remind people driving is a privilege, not a right, and can absolutely be taken away if you are going to endanger children for the sake of your own impatience and over-inflated entitlement.
Other good things they could be doing are enforcing no parking zones and noise limits on cars. Don’t know how many times I’ve heard cars that are way too loud because they either took their muffler off, it got rotted through, or are playing music so god damn loud. Ticketing people for parking in no park zones would also make streets safer.
Had a weird one happened to me yesterday. Three lane Highway and I’m in the middle Lane. Going 70 mph in a 70 mph Zone cruise control on listening to a podcast just chilling. Weird lady just right on my bumper the whole way. Passing Lane wide open. She keeps trying to pass me on the right but I’m going faster than them so she keeps getting stuck and then ending up behind me again never once trying to pass on the wide open left passing line. This went on for 15 miles until finally she got off. Still don’t understand why.
There’s a chance her vision is better at discerning shapes and colors on the right but not on the left. I remember my mother telling me that she couldn’t drive in the right lane because she couldn’t make out the road markings. And yes, she did always have a huge line of cars behind her.
You have a way more generous Spirit than I do. Of course I could see her face the rear View mirror and from what I can tell she was pissed off and not a pleasant person.
That, unfortunately, also described her. Complete impatience and a complex about control. I almost want to ask whether this woman drove a red sedan, but the chances are so infinitesimal that it’s not even worth considering whether they are one and the same.
Why did you capitolize “Spirit”? Are you saying they have a more generous fledgling budget airline than you do?
Seriously, how is Spirit still around? They’re like the radioactive cockroach of the aviation industry.
Spirit is the only honest airline. Yes, it’s cheap (in the bad sense off the word), but it’s also the cheapest (in the money sense). You know exactly what you’re paying for. I never feel taken advantage of with them. I feel my spine, my butt, my elbows, my neighbor’s elbows…
Because the speech to text function capitalizes weird words and I’m too lazy to fix it.
My favourite … which is actually very common … is some nutjob speeding up behind me, tailgating to try to pass in the most improbable places, solid lanes, etc but doing so without success. Watching them in the mirror close enough for me see how frustrated they are and waving their hands.
After several minutes or even half an hour of following you … they finally pass.
Then immediately turn off in front of you because they reached their turn off / parking lot / restaurant / gas station / place of work.
Years ago, I’d try to avoid people like this by slowing down or even dipping at low speed onto the shoulder to let them pass … but it seldom works because they are just driving down the highway / freeway / roadway for a short distance to take their turn off.
So now, I really don’t care, I keep my speed, don’t let them affect my driving and keep a close eye on them … and sure enough, they disappear because they took their turn off.
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I dunno but they’re all over Austin. I go out of my way to slow down when they do this, and inevitably they stay behind me instead of moving over. When they finally do move over, I speed up to whatever I was going before while keeping a safe distance between me and the car in front of me. Without fail they get slowed down by traffic in the lane they just moved into.
