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?
Don’t be polite, be predictable.
For a daily drive, you likely need 2-3 car lengths between you at minimum depending on your speed
It’s not car lengths, it’s seconds. You need roughly 2 seconds between you and the person in front of you. That gives you time to react and emergency brake if needed. At 70mph, 2 seconds is a little over 200 feet, not 3 car lengths. Average reaction time is about .75 seconds; you see something, and you start reacting to that thing–not you finish reacting–in .75 seconds. At 70mph, you will travel 75 feet before you can even realize that you need to get your foot off the gas and hit the brakes.
I mean duh. People use car lengths because it’s easier to visualise than seconds.
ZIPPER! ZIPPER MERGE YOU STUPID FUCKING COCKS!
Drive slower when it’s snowing… Also, put your lights on near dusk. It’s more for other drivers to see you better.
At higher speeds, when you swerve you can’t just swerve back to where you were. You need to get the car stabilized after sudden turns.
Signal BEFORE you switch lanes. Like enough time for other drivers to see it before you make your move. Also, turn off your signal if it doesn’t automatically. I don’t understand how people don’t notice the continuous ticking and flashing light and just keep going as usual.
People don’t realise how little time they save by speeding and weaving in and out of traffic.
Just chill. You can spend 20 minutes relaxed and comfy, or 19 minutes gripping your wheel with white knuckles, screaming at grandmas and jacking off at red lights.
Choose wisely.
Move the fuck to the right. Always drive in the right lane unless overtaking. If overtaking, do it then get the fuck back to the right. It’s not the “slow lane” and “fast lane”, it’s the driving lane and overtaking lane.
Sure just don’t be the guy riding my ass when I AM passing everyone in the right lane but aparently not fast enough for you.
This is generally the situation that prompted my post. When I pass on the left, I will speed up compared to the rest of the traffic flow before moving back to the right, but I still leave plenty of room just in case I need to stop or slow down. People behind me or in front of me don’t usually tend to do that.
I hate seeing a clump of like 3-4 cars in front of me all bunched together hitting their brakes in series because they didn’t leave room between them while the guy in front is already doing 80mph or something.
Taking your foot off the gas and slowing down gradually when you see a red light ahead. People seem to floor it up to the light then stop as quickly as possible.
But think of the 1 extra second they gained so they can sit at the light!
Zipper lanes.
Each person goes one after another in an orderly fashion because it gets people moving faster, but instead you get asshats that either are trying to bully people by not letting them into their lane or trying to sneak in with the person coming into the lane because gee whiz, there’s a small opening!
It makes me so mad to see people not know how a zipper lane works, literally the easiest shit in the world.
