Guest Post by Eric Peters
Driving – like walking – is an inherently individualistic activity. We each have our own pace, destination and timeframe. Some of us are faster walkers than others. Some prefer to take their time. The same applies to driving – or should.
But doesn’t.
Because government controls driving – and imposes an inherently artificial and one-size-fits-all regime on everyone – punishing any deviation from its rules, not because someone was harmed but only because someone deviated from the rules.
And the worst part is that many people think this is ok. Get mad when someone questions it. Cheer when someone is punished for not toeing the line. Some make it their business to impose the code on others, by refusing to yield as a notorious for-instance. Or speeding up (temporarily) to thwart a pass. Then resuming their slow-motion pace.
It’s as silly as as insisting that everyone walk in lockstep and at the same pace – or face punishment.
But it’s accepted when it comes to driving because of conditioning. Much in the same way that people are conditioned to accept the idea that when government takes your money and calls it “taxes” it’s not theft. Or that you have given your “consent” to an action of the government’s you weren’t even consulted about – but which nonetheless imposes an obligation on you to obey.
Let’s uncondition ourselves.
Is it a moral failing to drive faster- or slower – than others? Of course not. You may be punished for the statutory offense of “speeding” if you drive faster than whatever the arbitrary number on the sign happens to be, but you haven’t committed a moral affront because you haven’t harmed anyone.
Same goes for driving well below the speed limit, if you’re not comfortable driving any faster. We each have our own pace that is comfortable for us.
The moral failing is refusing to accommodate others who prefer to drive faster or slower than our pace.
To avoid this requires paying attention – and taking appropriate action.
It requires, most of all, consideration for others.
If, for example, you notice that another car is coming up behind you, about to overtake you, the appropriate thing to do is yield by moving over to the right (or even briefly off onto the shoulder, if necessary) to enable the overtaking car to continue on its way. Ideally, without its driver having to brake/slow to get around you.
Similarly, if you are the faster driver, don’t tailgate or crowd the slower-moving car up ahead. If he is paying attention and isn’t conditioned (“I’m doing the speed limit!”) he will yield and both of you will continue on your respective ways at your respective paces – each of you happy and not causing hassle (or harm) to the other.
Because one size does not fit all.
Government presumes the opposite. Which is why (among other things) legal passing zones are becoming very few and far between – and the few that remain effectively useless, because it is technically illegal to “speed” even when attempting to pass. Which of course makes passing legally very dangerous. If the car ahead is running 39 and the speed limit is 45 and you are not allowed to exceed 45 to pass the car doing 39, it will take a long time to pass. So long that passing is almost impossible, unless the passing zone is a half a mile long and there is no traffic coming in the other lane.
This puts the driver who wishes to pass in the position of having to risk a ticket for “speeding” to perform a safe pass – or not risk a ticket and attempt an unsafe pass or accept having to creep along at the slowpoke pace of the car ahead.
And they wonder why there is rage on the roads.
The situation is analogous to being required by law to walk no faster than the old man shuffling down the sidewalk in front of you – the old man having been conditioned not only to be willfully indifferent to others around him but encouraged to physically block other pedestrians with his body and get angry with people trying to get around him or walk faster than he is walking.
The arbitrary, one-size-fits all doctrines of government are responsible for this. It has created a nation of Clovers behind the wheel (and otherwise).
Libertarians have a different idea that takes account of individuals – and of individual differences. And the idea that flows from it of live – and let live.
It entails much more than yielding to faster-moving traffic (and not bullying slower-moving traffic). It entails consideration and anticipation.
For instance:
You are driving on a road with two travel lanes. There are other drivers waiting to merge from side streets. You can see them up ahead. If you do see them, try to help them by moving over to the left lane (if you can) so that the right/merge lane is free.
You are waiting at a red light, with a left turn lane adjacent. Pull your car forward to close the gap between you and the car ahead, so that cars behind you can pull into the turn lane.
Don’t back into a parking spot if you can’t do it quickly and your back and forthing is making other people wait on you.
Use your turn signals well ahead of when you intend to make your turn.
Et cetera.
It’s not necessarily “the law” (and often, it is against the law) but it is the right thing to do.
Nascar racers are driving roughly the same pace and crash all the time. What would our roads look like at rush hour with a fifty mile per hour speed disparity between drivers? Another author/whiner who doesnt understand traffic/traffic paterns. The closer everyone drives to the same speed the smoother traffic runs. Not that I automatically agree with police and stupid ticketing, but I do understand reality.
It’s the speed disparity that OPENS up traffic making it safer. Sheesh, where did you learn to drive?
Minnesota is filled with bad highway designs and idiot drivers. It has gotten worse over the years.
#1. The slow incompetents want to drive in the middle or left lane. That way they don’t have to deal with merging traffic. They drive 5 – 10 mph less than the speed limit. We wanted signs posted “Slow Traffic Keep Right”, it’s a state law. The state patrol said it would just make people angry. No signs.
#2. The zombies: Drive in all three lanes at the same speed – usually 5 mph under the speed limit. Can’t pass at all.
#3. Those who enter the freeway, have a new lane, but must change in to the next lane immediately. For what reason I don’t know.
#4. Lastly, and this is the worst: Two freeways merge – you have 1 mile to merge – the idiots actually STOP IN THE FREEWAY LANE and wait till someone let’s them in – so they can merge immediately. If you just stay in the lane and drive there are plenty of opportunities to merge – without stopping.
“What would our roads look like at rush hour with a fifty mile per hour speed disparity between drivers?”
If you want to know what this looks like go drive the freeways in Germany. I had a rental car with a 3-cylinder engine that would barely go 100 km/h. I stayed all the way to the right. The dudes in the bimmers, Mercedes and Porsches were travelling in the left lane at probably 200 km/h or more. It was no problem at all.
While I was deployed in Germany, our unit lost two guys in a week to fatal Audubon crashes. Fifty mph speed difference got each of them. One creamed from behind, the other ran into the back of a truck when it pulled out to pass and he couldn’t slow down in time. Two lane roads with massive speed differences kill people.
Audobon crashes? They shouldn’t have been bird watching while driving!
Fucking tablet spell check and corrects me to distraction. Autobahn. Fuck.
We knew it was autocorrect and not you, still a fun one.
Wait a minute. A two lane road is NOT the Autobahn. The Autobahn is a freeway; you know, multiple lanes in each direction, a median/divider, shoulders, etc.
The Germans have made it work pretty well. Is it foolproof? No, of course not. You want no possibility for casualties? Stay home. I’d rather take my chances with the Germans than here on U.S. highways any day, where I routinely see dumbfucks texting, eating, putting on make-up and talking on the phone. I have even seen guys reading the newspaper. The Germans take driving much more seriously.
A few years ago when I had to renew my driver’s license, I paid careful attention to the “booklet” they hand out as a guide to taking the test – nowhere in there, and nowhere in the test, did they even mention the common courtesy of slower traffic keeping right. That one simple habit would make such a huge difference for everyone involved.
“If, for example, you notice that another car is coming up behind you, about to overtake you, the appropriate thing to do is yield by moving over to the right (or even briefly off onto the shoulder, if necessary) to enable the overtaking car to continue on its way. Ideally, without its driver having to brake/slow to get around you.”
I am a Clover and I drive the speed limit so as to not pay tickets. You want me to endanger myself and everyone on the highway by pulling off onto the shoulder of the road to let some other faster Clover pass me? Try it on an empty stretch of road and let me know how that works for you.
Oh really, I’ll bet you’ve had your left turn signal on since 1987.
“You want me to endanger myself and everyone on the highway by pulling off onto the shoulder of the road to let some other faster”
You fool – he’s talking about people driving the faster lanes – not the rightmost lane.
If driving the speed limit, or max 5mph over, is being a clover …. then I am a clover. It’s a much more relaxing way to drive … and that’s coming from someone who probably has accumulated more speeding tickets over the years than 95% of the folks here.
That’s why I am a NICE clover. I NEVER EVER impede anyone from passing, just as I never ever hang out in the passing lanes, except to pass.
Impressive, eh? Not in NJ. Being a clover in NJ is harmful to your health. I still get the middle fingers and mouthed FUCK YOU!!! … just not as often. I used to give such folks a Double Fuckyou back. Not anymore. You know what REALLY pisses most people off? Of course you do. Smile and wave!! Holy shit, me not returning tit for tat actually unhinges a large segment of the population. Fuck ’em.
Stuck,
You’re not a clover. There’s no such thing as a NICE clover. You just drive slowly. Dat’s cool. Just because somebody drives fast doesn’t mean he can’t be an asshole.
You stay to the right, you’re righteous haha.
@Oh really?:
You have never pulled over to let traffic by? Hmm, maybe it comes from having lived in the country and dealt regularly with tractors, machinery on trailers being towed at a slower pace, etc. etc., but it’s actually really common in places. When you are traveling slower than a certain speed and have other drivers around, it’s a nice gesture that is performed–pulling off onto the shoulder and letting the traffic pass. It’s not like it costs you more than a couple of seconds of your time and it doesn’t endanger you in any way, whereas someone constantly tailgating you could lead to problems.
I didn’t take that paragraph to mean that one should pull over and stop any old time someone on the road wants to go faster, just for courtesy when there is a greater discrepancy in speeds. If you are traveling 55 in a 55 zone, you should be fine. Although it’s also a small courtesy to say, pull to the right in your lane at passing zones while still driving along so that the person behind you can see more easily to pass.
The one thing you notice driving in Europe compared to driving in the US is the different attitude of drivers on the highways.
In Europe they drive the way this article describes, slower traffic in the right lane and the left lane is for passing. If you’re in the right lane and come up behind a slower car you check the left lane to see if you can move into that lane without hindering any other cars progress. If a faster car is coming up rapidly in the left lane you wait until that car passes and the lane is clear then you pull into the left land and speed up and pass the slow car and then return to the right lane, You never just cruse along in the left lane unless there is no one coming up behind you. If you’re in the left lane and someone is coming up behind you moving faster, you move to the right lane and let them pass.
In the US the attitude is different. There could be three cars side by side on a three lane highway and the road could be totally clear in front of them and cars piled up behind and as long as they’re going the speed limit they’ll just continue on in that configuration forever. The attitude is that you have no business going any faster than the speed limit and they’re going to make sure you don’t get the chance to do so.
Driving in Europe is far more enjoyable then driving in the US for that very reason because what happens is that everyone is driving at the speed their comfortable with. The person that likes to drive at 80 kph is able to drive at 80. The person that is comfortable driving at 95 kph can drive at 95. The person that wants to drive at 110 kph can drive at 110. That’s 50,60 and 70 mph.
In “flyover country,” it tends to be more that way (as you described in Europe) in the states, too, on multi-lane roads from my experience.
In the U.S., it is illegal to pass on the right in many places. As I understand it, on the Autobahn, it is illegal “to be passed on the right”. The difference is that it’s up to the slow poke to get out of the way of the faster driver behind them, or get ticketed if you force the faster driver to go around you on your right side.
Oh, here’s one way I’ve found to get most others on the road to be generally milder-mannered and courteous: Drive a older, classic car! Seriously, it works.
Oh my, the difference it makes in those around me when I drive my early 60’s car to my late 90’s one! Besides the smiles, waves, thumbs ups, and some conversations with windows rolled down at traffic lights, I find everyone tends to give me more space naturally. They don’t want to be the one to ruin the classic car!
Has anyone even once seen a courteous trucker wait until the faster traffic goes by before pulling out to make a ten minute pass because he is going one quarter of a mile an hour faster than the next truck? Two lane roads are just loaded with people like that. Watch a video about self driving cars and smoothness of traffic flow when everyone goes the same speed. If everyone drove the same speed, it could be a hundred mph. Otherwise it’s navigating a rolling traffic jam. Drive the 90, or the 476. 60 or 85. Tight packed. On edge dangerous way to drive. Stupid. If you are driving a long distance speed doesn’t make the same time as simply not stopping.