I’ll start. Stopping distance.
My commute is 95 miles one way to work, so I see a lot of the highway, in the rural part of the US. This means traveling at 70+ mph (112km/h) for almost the entirety of the drive. The amount of other drivers on the road who follow behind someone else with less than a car’s length in front of them because they want to go 20+ over the speed limit is ridiculous. The only time you ever follow someone that close is if you have complete and absolute trust in them, and also understand that it may not even be enough.
For a daily drive, you likely need 2-3 car lengths between you at minimum depending on your speed to accurately avoid hitting the brakes. This doesn’t even take into account the lack of understanding of engine braking…
What concepts do you all think of when it comes to driving that you feel are not well understood by the public at large?
Letting someone in won’t make a difference in the time it takes you to get somewhere.
I drive a pickup w/ trailer all day, people will see me signal and then speed up to not let me in.
Mind you, I work in the “rudest city in Canada”.
As a truck driver, I must say that when someone goes out of their way to prevent me from changing lanes in traffic, I will often make sure to merge in front of them instead of other vehicles.
You may get shot doing that one day. I’ve had dumbass truckers run me off the road like you’re describing because they just merge on top of the occupied lane while we’re going down the fucking highway side by side, and it definitely made me want revenge on them.
…why aren’t you leaving enough room for the truckers to merge if needed?
I always stay back enough to have a full semi between me and the guy in front of me, and then when I do pass, I speed the hell up to get out of the “beside” part of the truck so I’m not sitting next to one. If they happen to move over right as you’re speeding up, well, you may just be really unlucky, because truckers generally don’t move unless they have a reason.
When I’m already in the lane, and the trucker just comes over on top of me forcing me to have to emergency brake and run off the road onto the dirt is what I’m talking about. It has happened 3 times at least, due to negligent truck drivers trying to murder me.
When I am already occupying the lane, they have no legal right to simply force me out of the way by signaling a turn and coming over into the space that my car already occupies.
Oh absolutely, and that’s happened to me before as well. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but that’s why I generally stay back, accelerate fast, and skip the whole issue most of the time
If a trucker is merging into your lane like that, they probably have good reason.
Example:
Two lane interstate/highway, approaching an on ramp with vehicles attempting to merge in.
Trucker moves over into your lane to let them in.
And then there’s you, side-by-side with a multi-ton cargo machine because…why?
Lack of situational awareness? Did the off ramp not clue you in to the fact that an on ramp is approaching and that there may be other vehicles looking to merge in and that the trucker may need to move over to let them in?
Maybe you (and probably the 3+ cars ahead of you) thought they could all over take the semi and merging traffic all at once instead of leaving room for the trucker to move over if needed?
TL;DR you’re probably the dumb ass.
I’m talking about when I’m ALREADY OCCUPYING the lane, and the trucker comes over into my lane, literally forcing me off of the road via emergency braking and swerving. Like I’ve had to dodge the trucks trying to kill me at highway speed several times.
These motherfuckers are out there on shit-tons of meth driving 48+ hours and have lost their minds, in some cases. If you haven’t encountered them you’re lucky. They will try to kill you with negligence.
Your literacy skills are on show here.
Probably best to leave the Glock at home, friend.
I don’t give a fuck what you think, and nobody else does either. For the record though, I have probably read quite a lot more books than you have (or most people on Lemmy and Reddit and Twitter and Mastodon have even) in my decades on planet earth. I was reading adult fiction novels while I was still in elementary school in the 80s, for fun because we didn’t have Playstations and Youtube to hypnotize the brains of children back then. I’ve probably read in the ballpark of a thousand novels total but I haven’t been keeping an exact count.
I have even worked as a professional writer (journalist) but the simple reality is that literary excellence is not something you can really judge based on shitposting comments on a pseudo-anonymous website. This is all shit that we’re flinging against a public wall here.
Oh you probably mean they merge at the merge point? As they should? Maybe find other reasons to murder people, idk.
For clarification I’m talking low speed congestion here. I don’t run people off the road at speed.
Also I’m glad not to live in the US where merging can be met with murder apparently
No I’m talking about dumbass truckers literally running me off the road at highway speed, 70+ mph. By simply coming over into the lane where my car is already occupying the space.
Right that’s dumb for sure
America moment
Do they tell an apology as they drive past?