Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

gunderwood wrote:

WRW wrote:Road hogs driving the posted speed may increase traffic congestion, but it is a stretch to say that they are the cause of crashes. Nobody is "forced" to pass on the right or tailgate or any of a number of other unsafe activities.

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VA increased the speed limit on several interstates because of research like that. Speed differentials are a problem, much more than absolute speeds. This has also been demonstrated to be true on very high speed highways like the German Autobahn. The speed differential problem is greatly increased (and thus the probability of an accident) when traffic doesn't obey predictable rules (such as slower traffic keep left or using the left lane for passing only). This is why the Germans are extremely strict on using the left lane for passing only...nothing like getting a Porsche deep in the brakes and flashing their lights to avoid ending up in your backseat at >>100MPH.

When we operate automobiles, we all have to make assumptions about how the other person will behave. We're only able to operate because of these assumptions. For example, we assume people will drive in their lane rather than "on the stripes." Or that they won't slam on their brakes for no reason. Or won't drive in reverse on the highway, regardless of direction of travel. This is also why we codify the rules; it creates what is suppose to be a common set of assumptions/rules. When people break these rules (left lane camping, passing on the right, etc.) it increases the risk to everyone because actions become less predicable.

Arguably, the faster drivers passing on the right are doing so as a response to another driver already breaking the rules (left lane camping). That doesn't make it right, but I'm just pointing out that they are not the instigators. They could be the instigator, or at least one of them, if they are passing on the right because they are trying to drive much faster than the flow of traffic (i.e. no left lane camper).

It's interesting, but the speed limit is an example of where the law and drivers assumptions do not match. For example, driving at the flow rate of traffic (either 20 below or above, doesn't matter) is much safer than traveling at an arbitrary number. The grossly oversimplified reason for this is that the average speed of traffic is what every other driver assumes as the expected behavior will be. This is what allows us to drive below the speed limit as well when weather or traffic or other hazards require it.

Despite a primary factor for American highway accidents being speed differentials, the German's are able to have highways twice as safe as ours with extreme speed differentials and much greater absolute speeds. It's not because they are genetically better drivers than us (although their driver education is much better), but rather because they teach and enforce predicable driving behaviors. We have the same laws, but don't enforce them and allow a$$hats to drive unpredictably and in a way that requires evasive action to be taken by everyone else. Thus, they can permit extreme speed differentials because the drivers are able to assume correctly about how the other automobiles will behave.

There is a lot of data and studies out there, but generally inattention is #1 (typically a factor of getting bored and thus trying to multi-task while driving...you don't get board at >>100MPH), unpredictable behavior by drivers feeling entitled or ignorant of the results of their actions is typically #2, while speed differentials is typically #3 (greater speed differentials reduce reaction times and increase the number of changes every driver must track).

So, yes they do cause accidents. They are the root cause of a lot of other drivers unpredictable actions, actions which would not have to be undertaken if they would first get out of the left hand lane unless passing and second simple drive at the flow rate of traffic regardless of what that is. They don't drive this way because it is demonstrably better, but rather because of a$$hattery and self-righteousness.

dorminWS wrote:(1) If you are in the left lane and exceeding the posted limit while overtaking a vehicle in the right lane and some dipsh!t runs up on your bumpoer and starts gesticulating and blowing his horn, are you violating the law if you don't slow down, change lanes, and let him go by?

First, in most countries flashing of the lights (horns if the lights aren't getting your attention) is a means of communication, not anger. How else am I to communicate to you that I want to pass you rather than merely follow you while we both pass the other car? It's the only mechanism we have. However, it would be stupid to tailgate because that puts us both at higher risk. I do think many slower drivers assume that the faster driver is tailgating merely because they got close to their bumper. Just watching, that's sometimes the case, but not usually. Typically, it's because the slower driver is in the left lane and the faster driver had to jump on the brakes because this slower car broke their assumption (which are feeding an internal, unconscious, predictive model and is required because the conscious mind isn't fast enough). Perhaps that isn't the case in less populated areas.

As for your question, just because you are passing doesn't magically make you in the right. The same rules apply. If there is another more left lane, they can use that. If there isn't you should speed up and complete your more quickly so as to stop impeding the flow. Additionally, I would suggest that your pass was ill conceived and executed if someone has the opportunity to do that to you. I.e. you're basically speeding and lane camping. As part of your passing plan, you should have already considered the relative speeds of the vehicles behind you before executing the pass. If you can not complete the pass in time, you either need a new plan or need to wait. Just because the space beside you is empty, doesn't mean it is a good or valid idea to start a pass.

I would highly advise against braking though as that simply creates more unpredictable behavior and requires everyone behind to take evasive action. Besides, let's assume you're really on top of your game and noticed this right away...that Porsche just might be braking REALLY hard, why make them brake harder? You might find out that even high-end sports cars, with world class brakes have limits.

Jbecker wrote:

MNMGoneShooting wrote:Ya'll can kiss my white trashy ash. I ain't moving. I paid my taxes. That piece of concrete is mine, no matter if you want to break the speeding laws or not.

People like you are the reason we have horrible traffic and accidents in the DC metro area. By being an ass and hogging the left lane you hold up the flow of traffic and also force people to pass on the right which is dangerous.

Do you have an "I drive 55" sticker on your Prius?

Prius; worse! KIA. Chill out, JBecker - I was just bustin your guys' chops. I usually drive nice and cool in the right lane. Cracks me up how everyone is in a major rush (I used to be, but at 40+ years old, I started just slowing down and enjoying the drive).

However, I do hold grudges against the ones that are being excessive and "flashing their lights." (unless it's blue) That in itself is dangerous and prompts the road rage.

MNMGoneShooting wrote:

Jbecker wrote:

MNMGoneShooting wrote:Ya'll can kiss my white trashy ash. I ain't moving. I paid my taxes. That piece of concrete is mine, no matter if you want to break the speeding laws or not.

People like you are the reason we have horrible traffic and accidents in the DC metro area. By being an ass and hogging the left lane you hold up the flow of traffic and also force people to pass on the right which is dangerous.

Do you have an "I drive 55" sticker on your Prius?

Prius; worse! KIA. Chill out, JBecker - I was just bustin your guys' chops. I usually drive nice and cool in the right lane. Cracks me up how everyone is in a major rush (I used to be, but at 40+ years old, I started just slowing down and enjoying the drive).

However, I do hold grudges against the ones that are being excessive and "flashing their lights." (unless it's blue) That in itself is dangerous and prompts the road rage.

Ha! Knew it.

Why get mad at someone who flashes their lights at you to move over? That is the universal, in any country, signal to move out of the way. Some American drivers take offense to it, and then proceed to brake check, or pace the guy in the right lane for the next 10 miles.

Flashing your lights isn't something to get pissed at. In fact many vehicles have a "pass" button or switch built in. Ever notice how your high beams stay constant on when you push the lever forward, and have momentary on when you pull it back? (most vehicles) If you read your owners manual, it is often referred to as the "passing" light. Many European and some Japanese motorcycles have the "pass" switch on the handlebars, and some European and Japanese model cars have the switch on the steering wheel. (lots of endurance race cars do as well)

American drivers.... Awful.

Jbecker wrote: Why get mad at someone who flashes their lights at you to move over? That is the universal, in any country, signal to move out of the way. Some American drivers take offense to it, and then proceed to brake check, or pace the guy in the right lane for the next 10 miles.

There was a "AND" with that condition - driving excessive AND flashing the lights.

Some guy did that to me on 295 the other day. I was going ~80 and he came out of NOWHERE - jumping from one of the right lanes (doing switcheroos through the lanes) flashing his lights at all the cars.

When he came up behind me, it totally distracted me to what was in front of me because of the surprise. That is no better than looking down trying to find your cell.

Need more of it here. We also need to ticket drivers in the right lane at cloverleafs that aren't exiting or entering the highway, just like they do in Europe.

A little background information might help...


For this discussion, when I'm talking about assumptions and models (etc.) of other drivers, realize that we all do this. It's required to function at the levels we do, although some people are obviously better at it than others. Consider the following.

When you learned to drive (or do most things) you had to consciously think about it. Because of that, your reactions and actions were very slow and in general you could not do the activity well. However, with practice you shift the process from your conscious mind to the unconscious (arguably there is also muscle memory, but that's another story). In doing so your actions and reactions became much faster because they were essentially preprogramed. You fed the inputs in and got a response, no conscious thinking required. The conscious thinking gets shifted (or should) to other more important tasks such as monitoring and predicting other drivers behaviors. In this way, you are actually a safer driver. Over time you learn how to predict them fairly well, so even that gets shifted to the unconscious mind as well. However, there are still a lot of unpredictable things occurring while driving. Some of those are bad drivers, some are environmental, some are navigation/detours, etc.

This is basically what practice and training are all about. Training the mind and body to perform a task well by bounding the problem is must solve. Otherwise you get overloaded with the number of tasks and decisions you must make; the brain simply can't keep up. In order to do this, we all create internal models of how the world usually works and those models are built around assumptions/rules. A silly example would be that you don't expect any of the other cars to leave the highway and start flying like an airplane. Although technically possible, that's simply not how cars function in our experience. We model it like a rule, but it's really an assumption. Another less silly example would be adjusting to how different cars drive given a particular input or how they "feel." When changing you must update your model a bit or at least switch over to a different one. If you can't tell the difference between two sedans or similar automobiles, it's because your internal model is very loose and not well refined. Basically, your car control is severely lacking or non-existant. In other words, you can't drive.

When everyone drives predictably this works just fine. Extreme examples are how race car drivers are able to drive at very high rates of speed around technically challenging tracks, yet while only feet or inches apart. However, when someone drives unpredictably the internal models don't work and this kicks the process up to the conscious mind...which is much slower. Furthermore, by doing so the attention is now on that car rather than on the things that should require attention. Essentially, we all focus on the idiots driving and begin to ignore everyone and everything else as we attempt to predict what the idiot is going to do next. Remember that inattention is the #1 cause of accidents, but it's inattention with the thing you hit. You might have been paying a lot of attention, but to the wrong thing...such as the radio, your phone conversation, or the idiot driver.

This also has extraordinary implications for self-preservation. We build these internal models for everything we do but aren't actively thinking about. This includes our surroundings. Many people actually freeze when faced with something that doesn't fit their internal model. For example, you're sitting in a class and someone walks in with an AK-47. You'd be surprised how many people just sit there because they can't process what is happening. Perhaps it's part of the class? Perhaps it's a lost gun owner? Etc. The old fight or flight response is incomplete, more accurately it's fight, flight or freeze. If your internal models don't include situational awareness and the fact that someone might attack you, freezing is very likely.

@ gunderwood, I'm right there with you on most points. The faster driver having to jam on the brakes and approaching the slower car...no. If the possibility of approaching a slower car is not in your repertoire, you are screwing up. If approaching a slower vehicle at such a pace as to necessitate a rapid lane change, you are not paying enough attention. (Use of "you" is general and plural)

An example that somewhat exemplifies american driving skills would be the 100+ car pile-ups for a fog or smoke covering the highway. The fog, or smoke are not to blame, it is more at the lack of attention as well as unrealistic expectations of the operators. We all know what we are dealing with as far as American drivers and American rules of the road. We may push the limits of those deficiencies at our own risk.

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So does anyone have strong feelings on this subject one way or another?

@ Perdune, Yeah...Out of every 100 drivers, me and 79 others are better than average.

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That "passing switch"... I always thought that it was there to warn oncoming traffic of that speed trap behind you, remind the guy in the oncoming lane to kill those blinding brights, and let the trucker who just passed you know that he's clear to slide in front of you.

Typically, when I see a faster moving vehicle pop that signal light on for a lane change, I take that to mean that he is fixxin to pass me. No flashing of head lights required for that one.

Matter of fact, I damn near ran my trailer across the hood of an SUV the other day. I was signaling to change lanes, and this guy in the other lane flashed his lights. I took that to mean that I was clear to move over (because that's what that has meant to me my whole life), and what the guy meant was "stay in your lane; I am coming through". I have never known light flashing to mean that, ever.

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WRW wrote:@ gunderwood, I'm right there with you on most points. The faster driver having to jam on the brakes and approaching the slower car...no. If the possibility of approaching a slower car is not in your repertoire, you are screwing up. If approaching a slower vehicle at such a pace as to necessitate a rapid lane change, you are not paying enough attention. (Use of "you" is general and plural)

Agreed. That's what I said in less populated areas you should be able to manage that without very heavy braking. At least until we are talking Autobahn speeds. However, with the more dense traffic around NOVA, I've seen it a lot when drivers moving at the flow of traffic come up on a slower car in the wrong lane unexpectedly. Typically it's not the first several cars, but rather one in the chain. This is because the first several are able to plan accordingly (typically pass on the right is what happens), but the driver several cars back often can't see that happen or there isn't room to move over. It's particularly bad with smaller cars following large SUVs and vans as they greatly limit visibility. We learn to offset this by staggering vehicles in the lanes (also how we mitigate the fact that it's practically impossible to follow the textbook following distances around here). You are correct in general though. Every driver should be driving tens of seconds ahead of their travel, not one car in front of them. It's just that I've seen where due to road and traffic conditions, visibility in a smaller car can quickly disappear...then someone does something unexpectedly. We could mostly mitigate the problem by all driving SUVs or small cars, but a better solution is to not create the unpredictable hazard in the first place.

WRW wrote:An example that somewhat exemplifies american driving skills would be the 100+ car pile-ups for a fog or smoke covering the highway. The fog, or smoke are not to blame, it is more at the lack of attention as well as unrealistic expectations of the operators. We all know what we are dealing with as far as American drivers and American rules of the road. We may push the limits of those deficiencies at our own risk.

IMHO, speed limits are at fault here. We teach and create the illusion that traveling the speed limit is for safety, rather than saving gas (the real reason). Thus, I see many, many drivers who have poor car control skills, but will drive 55MPH (or whatever) regardless of the conditions. e.g. the road is covered with spotty black ice, but the speed limit says... They never learn how to properly evaluate the road via the automobiles feedback or visibility conditions and then drive at an appropriate speed, instead they rely on the speed limit to tell them the "safe" speed. This is in stark contrast to what happens on the German Autobahn, where even without speed limits on sections of it, drivers know when to slow down because of conditions. Also, there are speed limits on certain sections, but unlike our highways they change them regularly, based on road construction, between 90KPH and 130KPH before hitting unlimited.

Purdune wrote:So does anyone have strong feelings on this subject one way or another?

Feelings have no purpose in the discussion. Feelings are why people ban firearms, rationale is why they have them. The same is true here.

WRW wrote:@ Perdune, Yeah...Out of every 100 drivers, me and 79 others are better than average.

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Impossible.

Yes, everyone thinks their driving is better than others. Prove it.

I know I'm not the best driver, but I'm constantly learning. Besides the mandatory training to get a license, I've been through 3 professional/high performance driving classes on my own dime, 1 HPD on the governments for dangerous countries, a handful of track days (including an Ariel Atom 3 at VIR), and motorcycle training. I've driven on the Autobahn at <100MPH for extended periods of time and have driven as fast as ~150MPH on public roads with other cars doing similar speeds. Even then I make mistakes, get distracted, etc. Even the worlds best drivers can and do get into accidents of their own making. Simply believing your a good driver rather than training to be a good driver are two different things. It's like how most people are crack shots, but in reality go to the range 4 times a year and shoot two boxes of ammo. People who really train know better.

SHMIV wrote:That "passing switch"... I always thought that it was there to warn oncoming traffic of that speed trap behind you, remind the guy in the oncoming lane to kill those blinding brights, and let the trucker who just passed you know that he's clear to slide in front of you.

Typically, when I see a faster moving vehicle pop that signal light on for a lane change, I take that to mean that he is fixxin to pass me. No flashing of head lights required for that one.

Matter of fact, I damn near ran my trailer across the hood of an SUV the other day. I was signaling to change lanes, and this guy in the other lane flashed his lights. I took that to mean that I was clear to move over (because that's what that has meant to me my whole life), and what the guy meant was "stay in your lane; I am coming through". I have never known light flashing to mean that, ever.

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The flashing of lights should only be used for passing when your already in the left most lane. There is no need too if you can put a blinker on and move over.

There it is, gunderwood! I call it the "bumper car mentality" (relying on road signs and car safety features) and it seems to be pervasive in other areas of life as well.

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SHMIV wrote:That "passing switch"... I always thought that it was there to warn oncoming traffic of that speed trap behind you, remind the guy in the oncoming lane to kill those blinding brights, and let the trucker who just passed you know that he's clear to slide in front of you.

Typically, when I see a faster moving vehicle pop that signal light on for a lane change, I take that to mean that he is fixxin to pass me. No flashing of head lights required for that one.

Matter of fact, I damn near ran my trailer across the hood of an SUV the other day. I was signaling to change lanes, and this guy in the other lane flashed his lights. I took that to mean that I was clear to move over (because that's what that has meant to me my whole life), and what the guy meant was "stay in your lane; I am coming through". I have never known light flashing to mean that, ever.

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The passing switch should only be used when you are directly behind a slower moving vehicle. You are signaling the other driver to take action. In this case, the car driver was using the signal incorrect. I too drive a truck for a living and know that flashing your high beams at a truck with their turn signal on is the universal signal to come on over, I'm making room for you.

All of these problems stem from a complete lack of proper driver training in this country. We basically give anyone who can turn the key a license without properly instructing them on the rules of the road, or how to actually operate a vehicle.

gunderwood wrote: As for your question, just because you are passing doesn't magically make you in the right. The same rules apply. If there is another more left lane, they can use that. If there isn't you should speed up and complete your more quickly so as to stop impeding the flow. Additionally, I would suggest that your pass was ill conceived and executed if someone has the opportunity to do that to you. I.e. you're basically speeding and lane camping. As part of your passing plan, you should have already considered the relative speeds of the vehicles behind you before executing the pass. If you can not complete the pass in time, you either need a new plan or need to wait. Just because the space beside you is empty, doesn't mean it is a good or valid idea to start a pass.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You mean that if I'm already going all the law allows plus all they'll let me by with, I should speed up and invite a ticket just because somebody else doesn't know he's increased his chances of getting a ticket by at least an order of magnitude by going faster than 74? Seems to me that if I'm travelling as fast as possible and at the ragged edge of prudence and am overtaking in the left lane, I have no obligation to speed up. That said, I do always accomodate a faster vehicle by changing to the right lane if I can do so without speeding up or slowing down. Basically, I set my cruise and try to leave it set.

It's interesting to me that of all the gun politics going on, we have a big discussion going on about driving in the left hand lane. I love it and very much like that this group doesn't devolve into the normal troll crude that goes on.

Now back on track. As said before the left hand lane is not a travel lane. It is not a fast lane. It is the passing lane. To boot it's a matter of politeness. If you are in the left lane and not passing someone then you are being rude to stay there when someone comes up behind you. Are you legal? It's possible depending on state law. Your not legal here in VA. Just because you are following the law however doesn't mean you are being polite. So be a hall monitor and keep me from speeding. You want to be rude that's your thing. I'll what till there is an opening and drop my 300 hp car into 4th or 3rd and pass you when I've got the chance.

@ dorminWS, Yep. Had that happen to me on the GW Parkway back in 1970. Passing and saw lights coming behind me so I sped up...next glance in the mirror showed red lights. He did accept my explanation, but I still did not enjoy the experience.

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