Please wear your seatbelts and slow down....

[Chiffed]

9. Always assume the other driver is "impaired" or an idot driver. Around here, this is very often the case. I drive for a living and expecting anything has saved me more than a few times. I must always be ready to run off the road to avoid these types.

Vigilance just shy of paranoia. I like it.

Somebody needs to do a study of why some drivers' brains become detatched in the presence of fire-trucks. Sirens? Big red truck that could squash you like a bug? Time to drive badly!

[SteveShaw]

I'm all for not being in a hurry, but speed limits are often too low for modern cars which have much better handling, stability and braking than of old. So stay in the inside lane if you wish to dawdle, along with all the lorries, tractors, caravans (which should be banned) and horse-boxes. If you are in the middle lane and won't pull over because you're feeling holier-than-thou about the fact that you're doing exactly the speed limit, look in your mirror just for once. That would make a change, wouldn't it! That's me tailgating you. You're being dangerous because you're in the wrong lane and you're frustrating motorists like me who have a flexible attitude to speed limits. Move over!

[chas]

Lastly, there are drivers who do not have the skill or confidence to pass on a two-lane highway. It is obvious that they wish to drive faster than I am going, but they tail-gait my car for mile after mile, when clearly there have been many opportunities to pass. My conclusion is that they don't know how or are not confident to pass in such situations. I am never quite sure how to remedy this situation. Should I slow down and force them to pass me, or would it be better to pull off the road and let them around? I don't want to let them tail-gate me for mile after mile.

My solution, if it's not presenting a hazard to others to do so, is to slow down. The tailgater usually takes the initiative, then.

Nevertheless, some tailgaters are just plain ornery and have chosen YOU. One time I was driving over the speed limit, which was posted at 55mph, in the rightmost of two lanes of a divided four-lane highway and with no one else on the road. It was, as the trucker's parlance has it, the land o' beauty. A driver caught up with me from the distance and rather than pass me, for the passing was easy as you could ask, opted to tailgate me. Soon fed up, I slowed down. No change. I slowed a bit more. Still being tailgated. I eventually slowed down to 25mph - I kid you not - and the driver finally passed me and gave me the finger.

On a two-lane I'll maintain speed then when the dashed lines come up will slow down and move as far right as the shoulder will allow. Once several years ago in heavy (50 mph) traffic a guy in a delivery van was I swear 3 feet behind me or less. I tapped the breaks to show him I didn't like that and he went absolutely nonlinear. I switched lanes as soon as possible, as there was a light in half a mile. He got stuck with cars between me and him but saw still hurling obscenities at me when the light turned. It just wasn't worth it to me; the guy could have had a gun as happens all too often around here.

A year or two ago I was driving late at night (rare for me) on the Washington Beltway, which is about four lanes in each direction there. The traffic was moderate -- flowing at about 70, neither difficult nor easy to change lanes. It struck me that at any given time, probably about 10-20% of the cars had their brake lights on. Ever since I've watched people -- a lot of cars will accelerate till they are within 10 feet of the car in front of them, brake hard, accelerate, brake hard, and so on. At highway speeds, this is just so dumb on so many different levels. It's dangerous. It impedes smooth traffic flow. It wastes gas (it's like stop-and-go traffic). It wears out tires and brakes. It causes wear and tear on your engine and suspension, possibly even your transmission. And it's obnoxious.

Most important: remember that driving is a collective effort.

[Dale]

I've been researching psychological factors in motor vehicle accidents for several years. There's a bunch of them, needless to say. But, the granddaddy of them all--and I apologize in advance for the cliche--is denial.

I think the truth is that none of us would ever drive a car if we really allowed ourselves to completely confront the kind of damage we could do to other people if we made a mistake. While we are at it, we have to do some avoidance of thinking about how, as you go about your driving day, you will have very close encounters with all kinds of interesting people driving other cars that can end your life by simply moving their hand slightly to the left. So, in order to be able to drive, we don't allow ourselves to think about that much.

But then we take this denial, some of which is necessary if one is going to drive, and we take it to all kinds of weird extremes of psychological blindness. We do all kinds of things that our best judgment tells us we KNOW to be reckless. We change the CD and we eat our lunches and drive with our knees and otherwise screw around and put ourselves and countless others at risk. Nobody can really bear to imagine what our life would be like if we did some dumbass reckless thing and took the life of a six-year-old on a bicycle. So, off we drive, eating, putting on makeup, picking our noses, chatting it up on the cell, and picking out tunes on the MP3 player. It's a kind of mass nuttiness.

In my professional opinion.

[Dale]

I'm all for not being in a hurry, but speed limits are often too low for modern cars which have much better handling, stability and braking than of old.

Respectfully, this is false.

Particularly in rural areas the major factors involved in fatal crashes are:

1. Driving under the influence of alcohol.
2. Driving at higher than the speed limit.
3. Driving without a seat belt, particularly, but not exclusively, when this leads to being ejected from the vehicle during a crash.

Now, that said, it may turn out to be true that raising the speed limit doesn't always increase accidents. But, it's likely that the reason is that changing speed limits doesn't always have that much effect on how fast people drive. But, when people drive faster, they are more prone to accidents.

[peeplj]

Excellent post--just one minor point, brought to mind by my drive back home today:

"Slow down" isn't always good driving advice, particularly on highways. Driving too slow and impeding traffic makes you more likely to have a wreck in the first place.

Move with the flow of traffic, and always let faster traffic move past you unimpeded.

If you are unable to safely drive at highway speeds, please plan another route that doesn't involve driving on the highway.

Safer driving to us all,

--James

Let me rephrase: Don't drive like you're in a gawdawful hurry. Or, Drive like you've got something extremely valuable and delicate in the car (that would be you).

I'm glad we're all in the spirit of Motherly Driving Tips.

Slow driving is a real problem around here. The highways curve and have sharp rises and descents; if traffic moves at 75 and there's somebody just around the corner going 30 MPH under the speed limit, they are not only gonig to kill themselves, they just might take several families with them.

Again I restate: slower is NOT safer in highway driving. If you are not keeping up with the flow of traffic, then you are a danger to yourself and to every other motorist around you.

If you can't accept this, then please help save lives by staying off the highways.

--James

[cowtime]

If your tires are over six or seven years old,

The only tires I've ever seen that old were flat on long dead clunkers.

I can't even imagine it. In the mountains we are lucky to get a couple of years out of a good set. On my route vehicle if I get a year I'm happy.

[djm]

I'm with peeplj. Traffic should flow like water. If you make an obstacle of yourself, water will find a way to flow around you, or prefarbly, through you. Go with the flow or pull off the road until traffic thins out (usually after midnight).

I don't know what brought it on, but I was sitting at a red light one night, waiting to make a left turn. When the light changed, I had an advanced green so made my turn. As I straightened out from the turn, the road was full off life-sized cut-outs of people; like the kind you'd see on a target practise range. I had already gone through several of these before I realized what it was I was seeing and what was going on. I knew the cut-outs weren't really there, but I saw myself drive through quite a few more before my sight cleared and there were no more of them. I didn't feel happy or sad at having hit these, but was more curious about what would bring this on. Weird, eh?

djm

[Cynth]

I'm all for not being in a hurry, but speed limits are often too low for modern cars which have much better handling, stability and braking than of old. So stay in the inside lane if you wish to dawdle, along with all the lorries, tractors, caravans (which should be banned) and horse-boxes. If you are in the middle lane and won't pull over because you're feeling holier-than-thou about the fact that you're doing exactly the speed limit, look in your mirror just for once. That would make a change, wouldn't it! That's me tailgating you. You're being dangerous because you're in the wrong lane and you're frustrating motorists like me who have a flexible attitude to speed limits. Move over!

Aren't you afraid the slow guy will stop suddenly? I shouldn't think showing the dude you're frustrated by following too closely would be worth the risk of getting killed in a wreck. I'm more scared when I'm in the car that's tailgating than when I'm in the car in front. At least I know the tailgater is there and I can plan to swerve off the road if I have to. If you're the tailgater it seems like you could be caught by surprise and end up pretty darn dead, not to mention the others you might well take with you.

[Chiffed]

I'm all for not being in a hurry, but speed limits are often too low for modern cars which have much better handling, stability and braking than of old.

Respectfully, this is false.

Particularly in rural areas the major factors involved in fatal crashes are:

1. Driving under the influence of alcohol.
2. Driving at higher than the speed limit.
3. Driving without a seat belt, particularly, but not exclusively, when this leads to being ejected from the vehicle during a crash.

Now, that said, it may turn out to be true that raising the speed limit doesn't always increase accidents. But, it's likely that the reason is that changing speed limits doesn't always have that much effect on how fast people drive. But, when people drive faster, they are more prone to accidents.

100kph in a 50kph zone, car leaves road, ends up pinned under broken utility pole. 1 partial ejection, 2 'walking wounded', 1 pinned so badly it took 2 hours to cut him out. Four helicopter evacuations. 2 dead in hospital. It was a war zone.

I don't advocate dawdling, but stupid speed is deadly. Unless you're a qualified rally racer, you may not know where 10/10ths is, or how close you come to exceeding it in 'normal' driving. As long as we put some thought into what is 'safe enough', without denial or paranoia, we'll be fine.

Oh, and Steve: for tailgaters, I've been known to pull over and phone the plates in to the cops.

[SteveShaw]

I'm all for not being in a hurry, but speed limits are often too low for modern cars which have much better handling, stability and braking than of old.

Respectfully, this is false.

Particularly in rural areas the major factors involved in fatal crashes are:

1. Driving under the influence of alcohol.
2. Driving at higher than the speed limit.
3. Driving without a seat belt, particularly, but not exclusively, when this leads to being ejected from the vehicle during a crash.

Now, that said, it may turn out to be true that raising the speed limit doesn't always increase accidents. But, it's likely that the reason is that changing speed limits doesn't always have that much effect on how fast people drive. But, when people drive faster, they are more prone to accidents.

You say it's false but then you address a different issue. Are you saying that modern cars do not have better handling, stability and braking? I do agree with your other factors though. But I think that it's driving at inappropriate speed for the road and conditions rather than exceeding an arbitrary speed limit. We need the latter because we can't trust people not to do the former.

[Crysania]

I'm all for not being in a hurry, but speed limits are often too low for modern cars which have much better handling, stability and braking than of old. So stay in the inside lane if you wish to dawdle, along with all the lorries, tractors, caravans (which should be banned) and horse-boxes. If you are in the middle lane and won't pull over because you're feeling holier-than-thou about the fact that you're doing exactly the speed limit, look in your mirror just for once. That would make a change, wouldn't it! That's me tailgating you. You're being dangerous because you're in the wrong lane and you're frustrating motorists like me who have a flexible attitude to speed limits. Move over!

So see the person in front of you, slowing down to drive the speed limit? That's me -- because you're tailgaiting me and I want you to back the hell away before I drive any faster. I do not put up with tailgaiters. You're dangerous. If I had to break suddenly because of an accident up ahead, or a deer or other animal running out in front of me, guess who's going to cause a major accident? Yep. You. So back off and maybe that person in front of you might pull over or speed up.

Also note that if you have a large vehicle like a pickup truck or SUV and you're right on some small cars butt, it can be hard for that driver to see into the next lane. You're blocking part of the view and getting over is not that easy. Back off to allow them to do what they need to do.

I really detest tailgaiters.

As for peeplj's comments about driving 30 when traffic is going 75, etc. I think there's a difference between driving slowly and driving like you're not in a huge hurry. Speed limit is 65 -- driving 70 to me is normal. Driving 80 is driving like you're in a hurry and making you unsafe. Driving 40 is driving slowly and makes you unsafe as well. I try to take a moderate approach to speed limits -- generally 5 over, and usually no more than 10 over, if the roads are clear and the weather good. Obviously this changes if the weather is bad (everyone around here sometimes gets forced into driving 15-20mph because of the weather at some points).

~Crysania

[Wanderer]

So see the person in front of you, slowing down to drive the speed limit? That's me -- because you're tailgaiting me and I want you to back the hell away before I drive any faster.

I do the same thing. The closer some tailgater drives up my butt, the further away I pull from the car in front of me. It's just good sense, as it gives both me and the tailgater time to safely stop in the event that the person in front of me performs an emergency braking maneuver.

The three times I've been in accidents since getting my driver's license have been rear-end collisions during rush-hour traffic when traffic suddenly stopped and the stupid tailgater couldn't brake in time.

[SteveShaw]

Obviously I can't defend tailgating as the right thing to do. But if you're dawdling along and leading a convoy you are a danger to all the other road users who are only imperfect humans after all and you are inviting them to make some very poor decisions. You are not going to change that by pontificating about how dangerous tailgating is. Never mind knowing that you can swerve off if needs be. It needs be now, so have a bit of consideration and get out of everyone's way. I don't defend driving at speeds inappropriate for the road conditions either and I don't condone driving by people who simply should not be behind a wheel. Too drunk or drugged, too tired, smoking a cigarette, a loose dog in the car (I think dogs should be banned from cars), a parent on their own with small children in the back, too old, too fat.

[SteveShaw]

I hardly ever get tailgated. If you find it happens to you regularly you should ask yourself why!