I encountered a tailgater...

Here in Okie land, the left lane is for passing only, if not passing all traffic stays in the right lane.

 

Speed by itself does not cause most accidents, loss of control causes accidents. The more lane changes happen on the highway, the more chances for loss of control or missing something in a blindspot. If people are not clogging the passing lane things flow easier with fewer people feeling the need to treat it like a slalom. Fewer lane changes=fewer opportunities for things to go wrong.

If I fly by you at 90 and disappear on the horizon it will not cause an accident. I have to lose control or someone in front if me has to lose control maneuvering in traffic or cut me off to cause the accident.

 

I had a ass wipe tailgate me coming home from work one day last week. I had slow traffic in front of me, in the left lane, on that road the lanes split and I need the left lane to exit onto another highway to get home. Its about a mile and half stretch of highway that you need to merge into the lane then exit left.

He was riding my ass from the last stop light out of town, at one point having had enough yes I locked the brake up, mr ass wipe was forced to do the same. I know not the best choice but honestly I have had it with inconsiderate drivers.

He backed off, then tried to change lanes and almost cut off another driver who promptly let him know about it as well.

I exited, tailgater went straight.

Folks are nuts these days.

 

Speed is a factor, not a cause, and I never claimed it was. The greater the speed the greater the chance of accident, damage, injury, and death. Been through many a safety meeting/presentation/training setup with EMT and LEO involvement and plenty of stats. Speed is a huge factor, and that is why they pursue speeders and why they sit in visible places. It shows the presence and usually gets people to slow down, which has a statistically huge impact on decreasing all of the things previously mentioned. Instead of judging LEOs as lazy and ineffective, maybe engage them and ask why things are done. Or, you know, keep assuming you know everything.

 

We can argue all day about the history of speed limits, feds forcing 55 mph limits on states completely unrelated to safety and which 99.9% of people ignore in exchange for releasing highway funds. We could talk about How a trooper sitting there with a radar gun is more likely to catch the dope driving sanely doing 76 in a 65 not watching the median than the jerk acting like he’s running a slalom all day who slows down for 5 seconds when he sees a radar gun. I could tell you for instance what traffic enforcement got like when I was in Az 12 or so years ago when the state looked on the verge of bankruptcy.

We will not change eachothers’ minds. I think speed enforcement is primarily about revenue. Some cops are on board with it. For others probably not too much their favorite part of the job. Speeders buy schoolbooks and supplement state and local budgets. It is a rule the government enforces hoping there will always be people breaking it. Things like speed enforcement feed money into budgets with fewer or smaller tax hikes.

If 100% of the public started driving 55 at all times tomorrow politicians in a number of states and cities would be ripping their hair out over the budget shortfall they’d have to make up by doing something politically unpopular that could lose them elections, raising taxes.

 

I absolutely agree that speed enforcement is influenced by revenue needs, but where I disagreed was the unappreciative and disdainful tone directed at the LEOs. They can only enforce the laws that are there, and just because somebody is changing lanes doesn't mean they are dangerous or breaking the laws. People who want to speed want everyone to stay to the right so they can do what they want without having to actually pay attention and drive defensively. It's selfish and not legally required everywhere. Not speeding IS legally required everywhere. My point is that you should go engage the LEOs about why things are done a certain way instead of just assuming you have the answers.

Also, if people quit speeding there would be less passing. If I'm doing 75 and the guy a half mile behind me is doing 75 along with the people ahead and behind, there is no need for lane changing. Traffic all moves at a steady pace. The minor variances in gauges would be the primary reason for catching up to people and if there aren't people blatantly speeding then there'll be plenty of room for them to move over and pass. Now, do I think it'll ever happen that we don't have idiots in a rush, who plan poorly and expect the world to accommodate them? No. Not until we are all required to ride in automated transportation by law, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

 

95 cuts through our area and we are near a large city, speed enforcement is largely but not completely a drug and gun interdiction tool in our immediate region. You can be doing 15 or 20 over and get ignored but if your car looks a certain way you may be pulled over for 10 over.

I engage plenty.

 

@TheBrit Waiting for an edit that clarifies where you quoted me.

 

The multi lane highway was invented so people would have different lanes to travel at different speeds or to pass vs cruising or merging. If you are driving the same speed as the vehicle to your right in clear traffic for a long time you’re doing it wrong. Vehicles staying next to eachother or in eachothers’ blindspots for extended time frames is as much of a problem as reckless levels of speed and any driving school or manual will tell you to try to avoid it if you can.

Whether the person behind you wants to go 56 in a 55, 58 in a 55, 65 in a 55, or 75 in a 55 is a separate issue and should not impact you at all or very little if you’re in the correct lane.

It’s like when my son sees other kids he’s friends with doing the wrong thing and wants to act like their parent and make them stop or tell on them. I tell him his job is to make sure he does the right thing, not to control the whole world.

 

So you just gave a counter to your own previous argument. They aren't policing speeding, which your previous posts seem to indicate is a good thing, and are instead using that law to help in the discovery of violations for more serious laws. With your previous posts appearing to be anti speed enforcement I would think that you'd be happy to see them not hassling people for speeding unless something bigger were suspected. I'm getting mixed signals here.

Not once did I say you should be in the left lane if the vehicle to your right is doing the same speed. I was just pointing out that speed enforcement can also be argued as a way of clearing traffic. You keep saying "the correct lane" but as I stated previously, not all states have the same laws regarding this practice. There is no universally "correct" lane. The trouble is that people don't pay attention and work together to let traffic flow. If I am in the left lane running the speed limit and passing a vehicle that is going below the speed limit then the guy that blasted up on me doing 15 over might have to pay attention and slow down. Heaven forbid. I'm not impeding traffic; he is speeding. There is a difference.

 

...or steel ball bearings...

 

No mixed signals, still consistent. When they decide who to stop the highest number on the radar gun isn’t the prime consideration. Very consistent with my belief that speed enforcement isn’t really driven by the idea that higher numbers on the radar gun is inherently unsafe.

 

I'm glad I just got a blackvue 2channel dashcam...hadn't even thought of situations like this. I got the LTE module so it can also be used as a hotspot by other people in the truck.

 

Sorry, newbie user error, still getting used to a new phone after 5G made my old, perfectly serviceable phone redundant. With regards to the edited post I was just going to say do you really think it won’t be too long before fully autonomous vehicles with integrated nav systems are going to be able to exceed speed limits or that users will want to? Everything is web connected, how long before law enforcement just cut out speed traps and we get a texted speeding fine directly as a result of our vehicle’s on board digital log?

 

Trouble with this tactic is that you are seeing their aggressive driving, and raising them road rage. Two different things under the law (at least in my state) and you'll be in more trouble than they are from a legal perspective.

 

The instigators are always innocent, and just happen to have cameras all over their truck to document others reaction, to absolutely nothing they did wrong.

 

No worries. Takes time to figure out new tech, and the forum operations as well. As for that, I don't think we are on the verge. What I was meaning was that speeding will happen until people aren't allowed to have control. Think cars like in the iRobot movie minus the option for the driver to take control. Log into the system, schedule a ride and the destination, vehicle arrives and delivers you without you being involved type of scenario. That is what I am saying is a long long way off.

 

And this is not to say I don’t think speed limits should exist. Rather they should be in the 70-75 mph range where some states set them. That’s the average most drivers like to be at. Stats have shown it doesn’t bring increased accidents or fatalities. But states and cities that maintain limits below where most people like to be on an open stretch of highway do so for the option of more revenue when needed or stronger interdiction. Not because they believe 55 is safer than 65 or 75.

 

I see idiots in cars everyday, everywhere.....

 

For open interstates, I agree. I've talked with our HPs in Wyoming and they said they see less speeding in the areas that the limit is up to 80 MPH because most people don't want to drive much faster than that. They were really happy about that because it let them focus on more egregious offenses.

However, the original interstates were too straight and caused accidents because any super straight road lulls drivers and they had issues. The interstates were then designed with more twists and turns to keep drivers engaged on long drives, and with this comes some areas where higher speeds are actually nor possible. The whole push for 55 MPH speed limits decades ago was to save gas, and it does, but the world moves to fast for that to be the highest speed limit in the land. Speed still plays a factor in accidents, though. A minor error by a driver at 55 might make them need a change of shorts, but the same error at 75-80 MPH might be catastrophic.

It's a numbers game on where the happy/safe medium is. Combine that with corruption, ulterior motives, power mongering, and general bureaucracy and it's all a mess. The best thing any of us can do is pay attention, do our best not to impede traffic, and be patient with one another. That will have a bigger impact than any law or it's enforcement.

 

Without meaning to go way off topic, is it really that far off? I think it was Arizona that recently announced digital driving licences. Our dependence upon digital services and sheep like pursuit of greater technological access is going to make it really easy for the authorities to hook our speeding to our licences.
I can look at my phone right now and tell you how many of my extended family members are on the road and whether they happen to be going a trifle too fast for the road they happen to be on. If I can do it from 600 miles away you can be fairly certain that I’m not the only one keeping track…

 

You have your truck all wired up with cameras, do you have an incentive to go around driving like an innocent instigator so you can document and post others reaction online? if you don’t know why the car behind you is pissed, and you post a video on a forum for an explanation, then you sure as heck don’t belong on the road either

 

What I was talking about has nothing to do with them issuing tickets. I am talking about purely automated transportation in which there is no option to speed, not that we can be monitored and ticketed. That is what I am saying is way off. That is all I am saying is way off.

 

This echoes something my driving instructor told me when I was learning.
Treat every other driver out there as an idiot out to get you, so always be on the lookout.

Far too many people, open the door, crank the music up, fiddle with their phones and hurtle along under some misconstrued idea that their steel cage is impervious to everything around them, so they don’t need to pay attention.

 

Do you seriously see anything in those 2 videos that look like instigation? He made legal and safe merges, maintained speed as traffic allowed, and the guy behind him surged up after he was already well into the lane. OP did nothing wrong.

 

@eharri3 I think we actually see more eye to eye than I originally thought, and I may have misinterpreted some of what you said. I apologize for being shitty and I appreciate you sticking around to discuss. Rough morning, and that's no excuse, so I do apologize for being a jerk.

 

No worries. Unlike the outside world we in here are mostly grownups. We exchanged ideas without tearing eachothers’ heads off and came to a better understanding of eachother. That’s what free speech and open forums are for.

 

We shall have to agree to disagree, I think that our societal pursuit of evermore technological advances is going to lead us straight down that road quicker than either of us can imagine, regardless of how much resistance any individual puts up.

 

Nope. Nuh uh. I don't want to adult!

I have a tendency to get overly animated/passionate, and when I recognize that it wasn't deserved I try to correct myself.


As for the OPs situation, it's a great example of why having cameras is a good idea. What if this guy had gotten really aggressive and hit him and tried to claim he was the victim? I'm a major supporter of getting your vehicles rigged up with cameras, but I also had one car that was the victim of 5 or 6 different hit and runs over a 12 year span. Never had anyone fess up, never had anyone but myself pay to get any of it fixed. People suck.

 

Oh, we are on that road, but I think things like Telsa's autopilot feature and the like will have to get more reliable before anything like what I'm talking about is mandated. I agree that our dependence on the latest greatest tech isn't a good thing, but lemmings will be lemmings.