Long trip: driving has changed

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May 7, 2020
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Ames, IA
I spent a couple of days doing some multi state driving. It’s been a while, and it was nice to roll a bit.

Getting bored with the radio and podcasts, I decided to watch the post lockdown driving styles people have.

Left lane hogs seem to have different types:

1. The zoomer, who is going much faster than anyone else. These people I can tolerate.

2. The drifter: they move over for those who want to pass, stay in the right lane, but then stay in the left when the end up there later.

3. The holder: they do the speed limit, or less, and just don’t care who is behind them. I noticed 18 wheelers starting to become this person. Even when the right lane is completely empty

4. The polite holder: moves over, but shoots right back into the left lane after being passed.

I must say that 3/4 ton trucks must drive really solidly with fully loaded trailers, as they use the left lane at rapid speeds almost exclusively. I never took a trailer over 70, as it just wasn’t stable enough.

Turn signals and cruise control are not used much anymore it seems.

There is NO police presence.

The rental Corolla I had was a decent car with lots of bells and whistles. Lane holding is cool, but a constant fight, as the car and I disagree on proper lane placement ( it hugs the right side of the lane, whereas I center the car) You can keep adaptive cruise control, as I found it to be very frustrating and over sensitive.

Driving is much more of an adventure now than before. Can’t say it was as enjoyable as pre-pandemic. I get to do it again next week.
 
I’m with you on everything you said. People in cars trucks and Rigs are driving much faster these days and seem to have no patience at all. Should be Right lane driving unless you’re passing. I’m Europe trucks are required to drive in the right lane only if it’s a 4 lane highway. If it’s 6 lanes (3 each side) then they can pass in the middle. Without having to dodge and wait for 5-10 min for one truck to pass another truck would make driving safer and quicker for everyone. Left lane campers seem to those from the Midwest and Texas.
 
I'm getting to the point I hate driving on the freeway. One, it's getting too crowded. All those cars so close to each other. All piloted by different people with different abilities and temperaments. All going 60 - 80 mph, some even faster like it's some kind of game. Two, what happened to the CHP? I guess they turned it all over to anarchy. :/
 
A lot of left lane driving out here is because the right lane is so rough and torn up. I did 2 big road trips this summer, Az to Baltimore then 2 months later Baltimore to Az, both wth rental box vans pulling a car. You see some crazy and stupid stuff and all you can do is be aware and get away from the craziness. Worst for us numerous times was trying to leave a safety gap in traffic and having someone jump in the hole and put the brakes on.
 
All of the safety systems are dumbing down drivers. They have come to rely on them to the point where they have simply forgotten their basic driving skills. Everyone now brakes later because of automatic emergency braking, doesn't look over their shoulder because of blind spot monitoring, doesn't worry about driving straight because of lane departure systems, and doesn't pay attention to traffic in front of them on the highway due to dynamic cruise control. Add it all up and it just makes driving a miserable endeavor these days.
 
All of the safety systems are dumbing down drivers. They have come to rely on them to the point where they have simply forgotten their basic driving skills. Everyone now brakes later because of automatic emergency braking, doesn't look over their shoulder because of blind spot monitoring, doesn't worry about driving straight because of lane departure systems, and doesn't pay attention to traffic in front of them on the highway due to dynamic cruise control. Add it all up and it just makes driving a miserable endeavor these days.
Can you link to a study that enforces anything you've just said?
 
5. The road leech: sticks in your blind spot, tracking as you speed up or slow down

Oh hell-yeah. Drives me nuts.

Once when I could not shake a road leech, with no one behind me, I hit my brakes hard thinking leechie boy would simply zoom right past me. I was so naive. He mimicked me perfectly. I had to admire his reaction time. Amazing.
 
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Driving in Germany the other month was a huge eye opener for me when I came home. Germans have MUCH better lane discipline on highways than Americans do. For good reason though, driving on the autobahn is stressful. All trucks are limited to 90km/h (about 56mph) and are almost always forbidden (thank god) from the left lane. Driving on the autobahn is like this. I have cruise set at 130-140km/h. Have to get over to pass a truck. Quickly have to get back out of the left lane to let the Mercedes flying down the road at 200km/h+ pass. Then immediately get back into the left lane to pass the next truck going 90km/h, repeat. Nobody hogged the left lane and nobody stayed there any longer than necessary. Driving in cities there was also much less stressful because of generally slower speeds, roundabouts making things much easier and smoother than stop signs/stop lights. But highways, yeah there's no comparison between German drivers and American drivers when it comes to lane discipline at the bare minimum.

Coming home made me realize how terrible and generally impolite and impatient American drivers are. Driving fast doesn't mean impatient, you can drive fast while still being courteous to other drivers, letting them into your lane when needed etc. Each region I find has distinct driving styles.

Northeast: People generally drive fast, and in the cases of places like NJ, and Massachussetts, fairly aggressively. But they aren't what I'd call "bad" drivers. Driving and surviving in say, Northern NJ requires some level of driving skill. So despite the expectation, these are the states with some of the lowest fatality rate per vehicle mile travelled in the country.

Midwest drivers tend to drive too slow, often under the speed limit on flat, straight open highways. Sometimes in the left lane, sometimes not. But midwestern drivers in general compared to Northeastern drivers are safe, but agonizingly slow.

Western drivers in places like Nevada, California, Utah are actually just insane.

Southern drivers, NC, SC, GA, in general are comparatively bad drivers that don't know how to drive. Driving in the south is actually scary sometimes because you have no idea what people are going to do. In NJ its easy to predict what someone is going to do, just expect their going to squeeze their way into that gap. In the south its a total free for all. Also turn signals are non-existent there. I once sat at a stoplight in NC and watched the number of cars that used their turn signals. Out of 30 cars that turned left at the intersection I was watching, 7 of them used turn signals. Its really bad.

I generally prefer to do my long distance driving at night, far less traffic to deal with then.
 
Some of the odd leech driving may be due to the Almost autonomous driver aids. My honda will center in the lane, accelerate then brake based on what is happening 40ft in front or many times what is in the next lane. It is aggravating and i turn it off unless the road is not crowded. There should be almost no need to ever hit the brakes on a highway that isn't clogged.
 
Can you link to a study that enforces anything you've just said?
As a driver who drives for work just about every day, if I had a dollar for every moron playing on their cellphone in the high speed lane of I-75, I would be a dang MILLIONAIRE! US drivers have never been great, but now, for most, it seems to be all about ME! In Europe, flash-to-pass is usually OK, here the jerkwads would just start brake checking you.
 
As a driver who drives for work just about every day, if I had a dollar for every moron playing on their cellphone in the high speed lane of I-75, I would be a dang MILLIONAIRE! US drivers have never been great, but now, for most, it seems to be all about ME! In Europe, flash-to-pass is usually OK, here the jerkwads would just start brake checking you.


They used to teach driver courtesy. That was long ago though.
 
I generally prefer to do my long distance driving at night, far less traffic to deal with then.
+1
In October we did a 4400 km round trip. We left our home city (Vancouver BC) in the wee hours of 4am.
Getting out into the valley was a breeze. Not a single traffic light or traffic hang-up....we made our best time, ever!
 
Driving in Germany the other month was a huge eye opener for me when I came home. Germans have MUCH better lane discipline on highways than Americans do. For good reason though, driving on the autobahn is stressful. All trucks are limited to 90km/h (about 56mph) and are almost always forbidden (thank god) from the left lane. Driving on the autobahn is like this. I have cruise set at 130-140km/h. Have to get over to pass a truck. Quickly have to get back out of the left lane to let the Mercedes flying down the road at 200km/h+ pass. Then immediately get back into the left lane to pass the next truck going 90km/h, repeat. Nobody hogged the left lane and nobody stayed there any longer than necessary. Driving in cities there was also much less stressful because of generally slower speeds, roundabouts making things much easier and smoother than stop signs/stop lights. But highways, yeah there's no comparison between German drivers and American drivers when it comes to lane discipline at the bare minimum.

Coming home made me realize how terrible and generally impolite and impatient American drivers are. Driving fast doesn't mean impatient, you can drive fast while still being courteous to other drivers, letting them into your lane when needed etc. Each region I find has distinct driving styles.

Northeast: People generally drive fast, and in the cases of places like NJ, and Massachussetts, fairly aggressively. But they aren't what I'd call "bad" drivers. Driving and surviving in say, Northern NJ requires some level of driving skill. So despite the expectation, these are the states with some of the lowest fatality rate per vehicle mile travelled in the country.

Midwest drivers tend to drive too slow, often under the speed limit on flat, straight open highways. Sometimes in the left lane, sometimes not. But midwestern drivers in general compared to Northeastern drivers are safe, but agonizingly slow.

Western drivers in places like Nevada, California, Utah are actually just insane.

Southern drivers, NC, SC, GA, in general are comparatively bad drivers that don't know how to drive. Driving in the south is actually scary sometimes because you have no idea what people are going to do. In NJ its easy to predict what someone is going to do, just expect their going to squeeze their way into that gap. In the south its a total free for all. Also turn signals are non-existent there. I once sat at a stoplight in NC and watched the number of cars that used their turn signals. Out of 30 cars that turned left at the intersection I was watching, 7 of them used turn signals. Its really bad.

I generally prefer to do my long distance driving at night, far less traffic to deal with then.
Same in France. Driving is a serious business. There's no time to dawdle or look around.

The left lane is for passing. It seems that passing a vehicle on the right is forbidden and everyone tries to let faster traffic by on their left. You can see drivers passing a slower vehicle on a 4 lane highway but having no real acceleration themself and apologizing (by showing their right turn signal - as if to say, "I'm trying, I'm trying") for getting in a faster car's way. And that faster traffic comes up really fast.

I had the impression that you could get in trouble for blocking traffic.
 
Same in France. Driving is a serious business. There's no time to dawdle or look around.

The left lane is for passing. It seems that passing a vehicle on the right is forbidden and everyone tries to let faster traffic by on their left. You can see drivers passing a slower vehicle on a 4 lane highway but having no real acceleration themself and apologizing (by showing their right turn signal - as if to say, "I'm trying, I'm trying") for getting in a faster car's way. And that faster traffic comes up really fast.

I had the impression that you could get in trouble for blocking traffic.
I believe in most European countries passing on the right is actually just illegal, and yeah drivers were much more courteous with the "turning on turn signal early so you know they are trying to get out of the way" thing. That doesn't really work here, they'll still ride your ass and weave if they don't think you're trying to get out of the way fast enough.
 
I was on I-81 in Virginia this past weekend for Thanksgiving. People drove like they were headed to the electric chair tomorrow. Tailgaiting, weaving in and out, cutting off 18 wheelers in traffic and causing near collisions. There were accidents everywhere. Total mess. No doubt in my mind that aggressive driving has gotten more prevalent since the pandemic.
 
I spent a couple of days doing some multi state driving. It’s been a while, and it was nice to roll a bit.


Left lane hogs seem to have different types:


Driving is much more of an adventure now than before. Can’t say it was as enjoyable as pre-pandemic. I get to do it again next week.
The trip that I do, (FL to PA/CT) is one I've done since 1983. (for aircraft maintenance)

It's changed a lot over the years, but one thing is clear, there are many more trucks. And they gladly cut ya off now, and sit side by side at 35mph on 70mph hills. I find it mildly problematic, but it's not my place to "correct" them. I generally just pass them in the breakdown lane or grass.... Just kidding...
 
The trip that I do, (FL to PA/CT) is one I've done since 1983. (for aircraft maintenance)

It's changed a lot over the years, but one thing is clear, there are many more trucks. And they gladly cut ya off now, and sit side by side at 35mph on 70mph hills. I find it mildly problematic, but it's not my place to "correct" them. I generally just pass them in the breakdown lane or grass.... Just kidding...
Sometimes in those situations I wonder if they're so bored that they block traffic for fun
 
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