I see someone passing me. I notice I’m going slower than I thought, so I speed up.
Ah shit, now that guy can’t pass me like this and it’s awkward as fuck. Guess I’ll slow down a little so he can get by me, then pick back up. Wash, rinse, repeat. I’m sorry.
You can have fun with this.
I used to own a Geo Metro. For those who aren’t familiar with cars sold in the US 30+ years ago, the Metro was a tiny little car with a 55 horsepower, 1.0 liter engine.
The most frustrating part about driving the car wasn’t that it was slow, it’s that it was never slow enough. I was always stuck behind someone’s Twin Turbo GT something or other that was going 10 under the limit. And then you’d pass them, and they would drop their cellphone to make sure I knew their car, which cost considerably more than mine did, was faster. It was crazy. It didn’t matter if I was going the speed limit or even if I was going too fast.
The worst part is I started to weaponize it. I’d see some goofball in a big lifted truck down the road from a known speed trap, and I’d pass them… They would immediately jump to the defense of their frangible masculinity, and they would inevitably fly by a speed trap at 70 on a residential street while showing me how cool they were.
My dad drove a 5-Speed Metro that he bought brand new until it couldn’t be rebuilt anymore. I think it had over 300k on the odometer.
That thing was awesome, 50 mpg in the 90’s was insane
My personal favorite is when you pass someone, get a mile or two ahead of them, then they speed up, get in front of me and slow down again. I call it leap frogging.
I call it idiocy.
My favorite is when they drive right next to you on the acceleration lane for hundredths of meters waiting for you to let them merge and once they merge they accelerate right away to go way faster.
I don’t do it on purpose, but sometimes the speed limit changes and I don’t notice until someone passes me and I look at the GPS and see I’m going too slow.
I wait for the passing cars to get ahead of me before speeding up though.
This is what I think usually happens. Allthough it still bothers me.
Sometimes I drive 10 - 15 under the speed limit on purpose to save fuel. Yes it does make a difference. I stay in the right lane unless I’m overtaking a truck or something.
Other people who can straight to the boiler: people who don’t understand priority when driving. The amount of times I have to sit at a stop sign and like wave through a driver on the right who is waiting for me despite the fact that they have the priority is insane. Edit: just to be clear I’m talking about when I and that driver arrive at the same time
That and people who don’t understand how to zipper merge.
I’m talking about when I and that driver arrive at the same time
I recently came to realize that many of my coworkers know that the driver to your right at a stop intersection has the right of way, but they don’t know that’s secondary to the fact that you have the right of way if you arrived at the intersection before they did. The catch is that my coworkers are school bus drivers like me. Like, actual professional drivers don’t know this shit.
That and people who don’t understand how to zipper merge.
There’s an on ramp junction of two merge lanes joining before the actual all highway near me that is perpetually backed up, and the textbook perfect situation for zipper merging.
…I’ve witnessed maybe three occasions ever in which the other drivers actually executed it correctly.
Daily facepalm.
There’s gotta be some way to design merges to encourage zipper merging, but I have no idea what that would be.
We also have a really bad merge up here where a single lane of traffic coming out a fairly sharp turn from a small feeder highway merges into the LEFT lane, resulting in people merging in at like 80km/h when the people already in the lane were trying to do 100+ (and come on, it’s the fast lane, they’re probably closer to 130)
There’s gotta be some way to design merges to encourage zipper merging
You’d need lights … which most people would ignore anyway.
