Traffic Merging: The Zipper Method

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: supton
Originally Posted By: DBMaster
Texas drivers are really horrible when it comes to lane discipline. I have driven nowhere else where the left lane is abused as much.


Worse than MA?


No, its about the same. I drive I95 in the northeast (Providence area) several times a year, and left-lane hogs up there are as bad as feral hogs down here (for non-Texans: Texas 130 had a big problem with people hitting feral hogs crossing the road at night when it first opened...).

People down here got used to fairly empty highways, and picking a lane based on how smooth it is, or maybe how far till your next exit used to be a reasonable thing to do. Not anymore, but old habits die hard and a lot of people will camp out in the left lane to avoid having to change lanes frequently. Very, very annoying. Even more annoying is speed-governed big-rigs trying to pass each other with a 1.5 mph speed differential... at 70 and 71.5 mph... on an 85 mph toll road. THAT is pure evil on the part of the truck drivers, and is one of the rare instances where big rig drivers routinely do something as rude as car drivers.



Turtle racing!

 

[01rangerxl]

Originally Posted By: 440Magnum

People down here got used to fairly empty highways, and picking a lane based on how smooth it is, or maybe how far till your next exit used to be a reasonable thing to do. Not anymore, but old habits die hard and a lot of people will camp out in the left lane to avoid having to change lanes frequently. Very, very annoying. Even more annoying is speed-governed big-rigs trying to pass each other with a 1.5 mph speed differential... at 70 and 71.5 mph... on an 85 mph toll road. THAT is pure evil on the part of the truck drivers, and is one of the rare instances where big rig drivers routinely do something as rude as car drivers.



People do that a lot here too. It seems like they are too lazy to make a lane change. Sometimes you see a slow driver make a beeline for the left lane, just to sit there going slow. I think it's a "over hurr I donne have tuh get over fer nobody" thing.

As I mentioned before, plain bad driving, even when there are laws against it, is practically never punished. Easier to bust those "darn speeders" than people who have no business driving a motor vehicle of any kind. It's too easy to get a license, and there aren't really incentives to be a good driver. There are incentives to be a slow driver, but not a good one.