Regional Boards > International Highways
Question about passing on the right on the Autobahn
agentsteel53:
--- Quote from: J N Winkler on February 17, 2010, 07:41:47 AM ---Both the 80 MPH and 100 MPH cars would be using the left-hand lane to pass a 64 MPH car in the right-hand lane. So the question becomes: who gets to pass the 64 MPH car first?
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and is there a circumstance in which the situation is made more effectively passable when the 64mph car is in the left lane, instead of the right? I believe not, so I defer the questions on the passing of the 64mph car to a secondary role compared to the teaching of all 64mph cars to keep to the right.
--- Quote ---Coping with that sort of discourteous behavior is a big part of defensive driving.
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I note your point, but I still see a problem, in the abstract and philosophical sense. "Dealing with assholes is the primary way to stay alive." Well, yes (and believe me I've seen assholes of so many stripes in my drive through Chicago today) - but eliminating that sort of discourteous behavior should be a motivation of driving courses. Look, just ... don't honk at me because I am not from around here and therefore did not anticipate the green light by three seconds, and therefore did not floor it through the intersection in a time frame appropriate to your sensibilities.
People that need to be at their destination 2.6 seconds ahead of the average driver - that is the problem. Seriously. I once "raced" someone - they were passing people left and right, flooring it whenever they saw fit, from Salt Lake City to Reno - and I was maintaining a decent pattern of courteous behavior. I did 100 out in the sticks, but when I came to towns, I slowed to below the posted limit; never once forced a curve beyond its point of danger and zero vision just to pass someone - when it was double-yellow time I kept in my own lane, and this person ignored the legalities and passed anyway.
Well, guess how much faster they were than me, over about 400 miles: 41 seconds. That's it. 41 seconds to do 400 miles. That's all you get for risking life and limb and sanity and decency, and passing people over narrow two-lane roads and blazing through towns at 80mph when the speed limit dropped to 30 - well, congratulations, you got to Point B 41 seconds before I did. Good job.
--- Quote ---(The full legend in German: "Nur für Kraftfahrzeuge – Rechts fahren – Links überholen – Nicht auf der Fahrbahn wenden – Fahrkurse nicht gestattet.")
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no matter how delicately translated, such a thing would not fly in contemporary America ... but it certainly should. Unless you want to pass, stay the Hell out of the left lane.
--- Quote ---authority seems to be on weak moral ground.
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hmm, I maintain that there is a distinct difference, in manner and not just degree, between "authority" and "decent behavior". I always advocate driving fast, because driving fast is the most harmless of traditionally "reckless" behaviors. I'd rather have everybody doing 95 down the freeway and maintaining lane discipline, than people doing 45 or 65 or 85 and not having any idea which lane they should be in.
--- Quote ---I think this is unlikely to happen, or at any rate to happen on a sufficiently large scale that it would socialize drivers to pay less attention to their speed and more attention to not causing unreasonable inconvenience to other road users.
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yep, welcome to America, where we destroy people for speeding ... but if you want to be a jackass doing four over when ten under would be patently unsafe, why don't you just go ahead and do that? And if you want to pass on the right, blow through red lights, treat four-way stop signs as some kind of display of modern art, cut in front of me with inches to spare, use your turn signals so sparingly that the outside observer would assume they are made of iridium, and of course honk at me because I did not meet your standards of acceleration... so go ahead, be a jackass, just don't speed after the 25th of the month, otherwise all antisocial behaviors are condoned; congratulations, welcome to planet asshole.
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