I hate people who do this, nd it is probably why my wife has such a reaction, it is more about me pestering her too much than her actually wanting to ride in the fast lane. Backseat driving is a bad habit of mine.
But one thing I have learned by driving 50k miles these past few years is that you never actually get there meaningfully faster. So really, everyone is better off if they just slow down and hit that cruise control.
> But one thing I have learned by driving 50k miles these past few years is that you never actually get there meaningfully faster. So really, everyone is better off if they just slow down and hit that cruise control.
Depends what you're driving on. If it's a freeway where you're going to hit stretches of traffic anyway or roads where there's stop signs and lights, sure. When I'm on the 5 going from SF to SD, though, yeah, the clown who's doing 60 in the left lane for miles while holding me up is very much increasing the amount of time I have to spend on the road.
I don't know, as a non-American, Tomah Wisconsin sound exactly like the kind of place you could get a nice grilled cheese or a decent hamburger at a diner unchanged since the 1950s, with a bottomless cup of coffee and a nice slice of apple pie from a friendly middle aged waitress called Flo or similar who would no doubt call you hon. I'd look forward to stopping there.
If it is like most of small town america, they replaced the diner with a soulless strip mall back in the 90s. You can stop at the Burgerking or Dollar General now.
What's the deal with a truck going 54 in the right lane being overtaken by another truck going 55 in the left lane? Does he not see him? Slow down, let him in, and the rest of us can get on with our day.
I agree with being measured and predictable; I take advanced driving and safety class every couple of years as a refresher and safety is a massive priority for me. And I'm a big fan of cruise control. But going fast in the fast lane IS measured and predictable :-)
As well, 20%, or say a difference between going 10km over vs 10km under on a 5hr trip, is an hour and that's not nothing :-/
Be glad you don't live in Texas, where using your turn signal is tantamount to issuing a challenge, and is seen as aggressive behavior: "Oh, you want that right lane? No, it's MINE!"
Or worse, people don't see turn signals enough to know what they mean, and just adds to the confusion.
Measured and predictable: definitely. Having different speeds in different lanes also helps traffic flow better.
Also, people seem to really bunch up in some regions. Having a gap that is several car lengths in front of you actually helps traffic flow smoother (and thus faster.) I feel like aggressive/impatient drivers who cut people off create this culture where I live and then ultimately end up slowing everyone (including themselves) down.
People here are commenting how it's wrong for long drives, so I'll chip in with how it's wrong for a short drive too.
South bay to Sacramento in a Chevy bolt. I can drive 55mph and do the round trip on one full battery charge. Or I can drive 75mph and save so much time that it more than makes up for the necessary mid trip charge up in Davis on the return.
I wish everyone would sit the fuck down, and do the math on driving faster. 10 mph, even 20mph hour more isn't going to get you where you're going much faster. Maybe you get there 5 min sooner. Was that worth being a complete dick and a danger to everyone else? Fuck off.
10-20mph won’t make much of a difference for a commute, but when you’re driving on roads with loads of RVs, it means that you’re probably doing bigger distances, and with those, 10-20 mph will absolutely make a difference.
For example, when you’re driving more than 6 hours in a day, which is not uncommon for Americans, especially ones living west of Mississippi, extra 10 mph of average speed means you’re getting to your destination 1+ hour faster, which most definitely is a significant difference.
Averaging 10-20mph faster is very difficult on anything but the least congested roads. We often set the cruise control to 75-80mph but find that the average for a journey is closer to 58-60mph (not including stops).
It's a heck of a lot easier to make up half an hour by making quicker stops than it is to make it up on the road IMHO.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Most major roads west of the Mississippi and outside of Southern California are not congested at all. They only get congested around major cities, but a 6-hour trip means you have to be away from a major city for the majority of the trip.
Parent Poster: "For example, when you’re driving more than 6 hours in a day, which is not uncommon for Americans, especially ones living west of Mississippi, extra 10 mph of average speed means you’re getting to your destination 1+ hour faster, which most definitely is a significant difference."
You: "Averaging 10-20mph faster is very difficult on anything but the least congested roads."
Either you're blatantly ignoring what the parent said ("west of the Mississippi"), which does not exactly amount to polite discourse, or you're commenting authoritatively on a set of roads which you clearly know nothing about.
I didn't say anything about those roads. The parent poster gave that as an example. They didn't place a magic hex upon the thread preventing anyone who hasn't specifically driven on those roads from commenting.
I'd be surprised though if those roads didn't have roadworks, slower vehicles overtaking one another, accidents, bends, reduced speed sections etc. Certainly the roads I've driven in 10 or so other countries had these things in common.
Do you mean it's not uncommon for Americans to drive all day to go camping on memorial day weekend or something, or do you mean we're driving 3 hour each way commutes? Because very very few Americans have that kind of commute: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
> Do you mean it's not uncommon for Americans to drive all day to go camping on memorial day weekend or something
This, for sure.
Those of us who live in the midwest are often hours of boring highway driving aware from anything, so a long weekend trip does require getting where we're going as quickly as reasonably possible.
Being stuck behind some nitwit who insists on pacing the semi truck next to them at 60 MPH rather than doing the 80+ everyone else on the highway wants to go is incredibly annoying.
80+ sounds too high. 80 is good. Stopping distance is not linear with speed, damage in a crash is not linear with speed (hello deer), gas usage is not linear with speed. No one who drives over 80 has grounds to complain about gas price, especially in large suvs or pickups.
Absolutely not. The legal limit should mean it is objectively unsafe to go faster in clear conditions no matter what you're driving. It is not supposed to be the speed you expect most traffic to go. If the average speed of traffic on a road is 85 MPH and people aren't constantly screwing that up, the limit (if there is one at all) should be meaningfully higher than that.
And of course if people are regularly screwing up at whatever the natural speed of the road may be, the correct answer is ALWAYS to change the road and reduce the speed people feel comfortable driving at. Lowering the limit below the natural speed doesn't actually reduce the speed of traffic unless there's active enforcement forcing people to comply. Redesigning the road makes people actually want to go the desired speed. A fast road is a fast road, no matter what number someone puts on a sign next to it.
> Stopping distance is not linear with speed, damage in a crash is not linear with speed (hello deer), gas usage is not linear with speed.
That's why I'm talking specifically about long, flat, straight stretches of road with effectively infinite visibility during the daytime. These are common in the American midwest, there are plenty of stretches where you can literally see the road disappear off over the horizon in a perfectly straight line. The same sorts of situations where the Germans go to unlimited, and it works just fine for them.
> No one who drives over 80 has grounds to complain about gas price, especially in large suvs or pickups.
No argument here. My car gets better MPG at 100 MPH than a lot of SUVs get at 65 MPH so I could not possibly care less, but you also won't ever hear me whining about gas prices.
Posting like this will get you banned on HN, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
Posting like this will get you banned on HN, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
Being able to pass allows me to create separation from other vehicles which means I can establish a good following distance. When selfish assholes block the passing lane, it creates a big moving traffic blockage that will turn into a multiple car pile up if anything goes wrong. The ideal highway traffic density is less dense, not more dense.
Safest speed is maintaining the same speed as the traffic around you.
Deliberately driving at a faster or slower speed than traffic for no good reason is the definition of unsafe driving. Please surrender your driver's license before you kill someone with that attitude.
But one thing I have learned by driving 50k miles these past few years is that you never actually get there meaningfully faster. So really, everyone is better off if they just slow down and hit that cruise control.