drivers kill 40.000 Americans every year and put 2,500,000 in the hospital
snowflake don’t ever come to nj and try to drive. no wimps allowed.
“I see plenty of public service announcements about impaired driving, texting and distracted driving.”
Driving while stupid is a much worse problem.
Here in England, I really do think that driving standards have gotten a lot worse in the last 3-5 years. And that it is not me simply getting older. There are many reasons, including greater numbers of ‘undocumented’ drivers, but the biggest is the leftist-intolerant-ready-for-aggression-mindset as soon as they have the power-of-being-in-the-driving-seat that FReepers will instantly recognise.
Drivers entering on the ramp must maintain speed and merge into traffic. If the car behind this driver is tailgating then the car on the ramp must try to get ahead of the lead car, or else there will be a line of cars on the ramp unable to move because the lead car went to the end and stopped.
This driver either needs to gun the gas to get ahead of the car on the ramp, or to slow down (not “jam on the breaks) to let the car on the ramp go ahead.
This problem is not caused by the car(s) on the ramp, IMHO, it’s caused by the cars in the right line not leaving proper following distances, which makes it very difficult for cars entering the highway to merge, as they ought to be able to easily do. However, the lead car - the author in this case - can easily rectify that problem by slowing down. The tailgaters might get pissed off, but too bad for them, and that would be the right thing to do in that situation.
” I’m driving parallel to them at 55 mph with a line of traffic behind me.”
1. If you are driving 55 and you have a line of traffic stuck behind you, you are going too slow for the highway, no matter what the posted speed is. The speed differential between you and the rest of the traffic on the freeway makes accidents *more* likely and *more* dangerous/lethal, per physics. Solution: speed up. Alternately turn your flashers on as you are a slow moving road obstruction and should designate yourself accordingly.
2. This woman needs to go read the 85th Percentile Rule for road speeds.
Also, if you are driving like this woman is, even if you are obeying the speed limit, you can still be pulled over and correctly ticketed for obstructing traffic in many states.
One case in point: http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/ars/28/00704.htm&Title=28&DocType=ARS
I knew after the first sentence that the author was a woman.
One problem I have seen many times is that, as soon as the first sign appears announcing a exit (around here its typically 2 miles ahead), drivers merge into the right lane and slow down to well below the prevailing speed and often well below the speed limit. This is dangerous and unnecessary and it causes a traffic jam in the right lane that can lead to the problem you describe. In most cases, exit ramps are designed to give drivers plenty of room to safely decelerate, without causing problems to the main flow of traffic.
My pet peeve is, what is an entrance ramp to a highway for? TO COME UP TO THE SPEED OF TRAFFIC AND MOVE IN”!!!
Time and time again I see people crawl to the end of the ramp stop and open thier window and wait for an opportunity at a full stop to enter the highway of cars going 65 plus.
How many times have you been behind a car doing 35 on a ramp to a highway and you wait for them to make a decision whether they are going in or not. People driving today, many shouldnt be
The practice seems far less prevalent now, but in Maryland, many drivers would stop at the yield sign when they should have been accelerating to freeway speeds. Meanwhile, having learned to drive in CA, I was taught that you NEVER stop when entering or on the freeway. This practice of Maryland drivers caused me many gut-wrenching moments. Like the time I was accelerating to get on the freeway, looking for a gap between two cars to insert myself into, and I looked back ahead just in time to see the idiot van driver ahead of me had stopped.
Yield signs should not be on a freeway entrance ramp. Cars should be merging, not yielding.
A prevalent practice in Maryland freeway construction is to place the on ramp just before the off ramp, so that entering and exiting cars have to cross each other. It is not much of a problem when I am slowing to leave the freeway and the entering cars accelerate; I just let them pass and merge behind them. But there are entering drivers who, instead of accelerating to get on the freeway, they slow down to let me pass. This puts me in the situation of having to accelerate to get in front of them, then merging into the exit/enter lane and braking to slow down on the exit ramp.
They probably need the stop signal on that ramp to create gaps in the traffic.
Try driving in Rome, Italy. You’ll appreciate American roads/divers real quick.
The author has no business being on the road.
The worst drivers are the ones doing exactly the limit, with their hands planted firmly at 10 and 2.
The combined exit ramp and merge is the most diabolical invention of man ever.
I grew up near Detroit where we actually learn how to DRIVE.
Turn signals are a sign of weakness
It’s only tailgating if your bumpers are touching
Speed limits are only a strongly worded suggestion.
I now live in Maryland where while most residents are horrible drivers, at least they drive fast.
Whatever snowflake wrote this article needs to take some assertiveness training.
Remember this snowflake, every other driver is an idiot and is out to hit you. Drive that way and you’ll be fine.
I was at the exit from a service station behind another car this morning. We both wanted to turn right onto the 35 mph four lane road. She sat there and waited for a car several hundred yards to our left. I gave her a pass and waited because the next car was also several hundred yards back and knew she would go after the first one passed. She didn’t. I went around her.
I suspect she is the woman who wrote this article.
If it were possible, I’d like to see two levels of drivers license - one for all roads except limited access roads (e.g. freeways, tollways, etc.) and one for all roads. People with the attitude of this author could get the former.
No matter how good a driver YOU are, always remember there are a lot of Heathers out there, sharing the road with you. Be afraid, be very afraid...
At least you've identified the problem driver. Since your slow, 55 mile an hour driving had, in your own admission backed up a line of traffic behind you, the courteous thing to do would have been to let the driver in in front of you instead of 'gunning your engine' to deliberately cut them off.
And, if you are only going to drive 55, stay off the expressways. Jimmy Carter isn't president any more.