I have this in my area, which was weird coming from actual big cities with way more dense traffic.
It’s like the courtesy from the shared misery of, “We’re all in this shit together” never got a chance. Instead people here seemingly never evolved beyond the “If I tailgate this one car, the 100 in front will disappear” phase.
When you’re overtaking someone going slow, but they speed up next to you, so you’re stuck now and will miss the exit. Just pretend they were probably lonely and just needed someone next to them for a while.
When you’re overtaking someone going slow
Quit speeding. Changing lanes all willy nilly hurts traffic, not helps it. Statistically, you go the fastest when choosing a lane and staying there. The three seconds you save getting to your destination isn’t worth making all the traffic behind you worse. And while you’re at it, leave at least one car length in front of you for every 10mph you’re going. You shouldn’t have to rely on your brakes to slow down on the highway.
There are diminishing returns with increased speed, not going to deny that or any of the safety concerns, however extremely passive drivers and lane warriors are a major nuissance and contribute greatly to traffic. No one knows how to zipper merge properly and worse, they take it as a personal afront that you dared to cut ahead of them in traffic.
It boils down to self centeredness and discourtesy.
If everyone kept right when not passing like we’re supposed to there would be no “changing lanes willy nilly”. If you get passed on the right neither you or someone in front of you is fucking up.
Thanks for mansplaining basic driving concepts.
Don’t act on your assumptions as though they’re reality. You’ll always be wrong and appear insane.
Let you switch lanes?
As they say in Rome, carpe viam. Don’t ask for permission, just start moving your car towards the other fuckers. They’ll move if they prefer not to have scratches on their car.
Oh also you’re gonna wanna drive a shitbox in case they decide to tank those scratches.
The US does not teach you to drive. It is laughable how easy it is to get a license with a fraction of the training of most other western countries.
moved from the US to Europe - US high school takes less effort in total than a driver’s license here
Yea my partner is British, and with her work a number of Brits come through on assignment and need to take the test when they are here. I was young, so it felt so hard, but seeing it through adult eyes, wow. I mean one of them forgot the car was in reverse and almost backed into another car, hit the curb, and still passed.
from my experience driving in and out of chicago i learned quickly that you have to MAKE them let you in. as someone who grew up on a gravel road it was an interesting experience the first couple times lol
Time that edge in so that if there’s a collision, it’s technically them running into you, and you’ve won. Except maybe for the occasional time the other driver wants to hurt you (by going somewhere and fighting outside of the vehicles, random weapons).
I went into a clothing store in the 90s and heard this song playing. I never heard it on the radio before or after that one day (I think it was in a fashion bug?), but it was memorable enough to stick in my head for the rest of that day and I seem to randomly remember it approximately once every decade.
Your post did it this decade.
This is fun!
A lot of interesting takes!
I’ll add another… If this is you, keep right.
You don’t wait people to let you switch lane, you make them let you switch.
As we say from where I am “clignotants, coup de volant” ! (“Turn signal, turn the steering wheel” not sure about the translation :'))
Of course it works better if you drive an old car. :DIf it helps, lane changing is one of the main reasons for congestion so if you’re only making a short trip (e.g. same city) you might as well keep right-ish.
In heavy traffic it’s usually not even much slower, and sometimes even faster, so I often stay in the right two lanes if I’m just going downtown or something. I usually also help with the flow of traffic by letting people in and out for the three or four exits I’m passing, since I try not to tailgate.
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No way they’ll let you turn off in Cleveland either. Be assertive or keep going, buddy.
So you switched to a place where you don’t need to own a car and can simply walk or use public transport anywhere you want?
Oh, can’t afford to move to any of those places!
Phoenix is 90% people who were on their way to LA, and something happened
There’s nothing wrong with packing a bag with 2 pairs of jeans, 4 shirts, and taking the first available flight out of town. (Am so close to trying this, except from my local airport, it will probably go from Nowhere, to Slightly-Bigger-Nowhere)
I like to imagine we’d all be happier and better people if city infrastructure wasn’t designed around trying to get cars from A to B instead of people.
You have a blinker, a gas pedal, a brake pedal, and a rolling 2-ton block of steel and plastic. If you can’t get over, that’s on you.
I get it. I live in Austin, the tailgating Capitol of the world. Turns out, people want you to run into them as much as you want to run into them. That is, not at all. Grow a pair and show those assholes that they need to be leaving more space in front of them, even at slower speeds.
