Lesley Carhart Aug 21, 2024

I need a sanity check from the fediverse. After all, I'm a mere Illinois driver. I was just informed my dad and his friends have this deep pet peeve while driving that I have absolutely never been aware of or concerned by on safe roads in America.

Imagine you are driving on a multi-lane highway. Yes, I get the "right lane is the slow lane, left lane is the passing lane" thing. But imagine it's like pretty empty road, out in the country, and you're driving the speed you want to go in the right or middle lane.

Another car is along side you in the left lane. There's nobody behind them who wants to go faster. They just hang out at the same-ish speed as you. So you have a car kind of driving next to you.

This makes my dad deeply uncomfortable and he finds it incredibly rude. Fediverse, if the driver is doing nothing else objectionable, is it him, or me?

Show threadJerry 🦙💝🦙Aug 21, 2024

@hacks4pancakes I’ve done an incredible amount of driving in my time, with a lot on somewhat sparsely traveled roads. I’ve noticed that cars tend to form clumps, where there are no cars ahead or behind for miles, but a group of cars just sort of hang out. It’s not exactly what you are talking about, but in my simple mind, it seems like the same thing. I can come up with many theories on why this might be, from our deep down lizard brains want to be in proximity to other people (even if we don’t want to believe it), to a believe that you’re less likely to get pulled over by police if you’re part of a car clump than off by yourself, and I’ve imagined many more theories, but I really have no idea.

Back to your question - if someone is doing the speed limit in the fast lane, even if the other lanes were empty and someone comes along and flanks in a travel or slow lane at the same speed, it’s the car in the fast lane that needs to take action. Is it a jerk move? Maybe, but I argue they should not be traveling in the fast lane.

Maybe I’m old school.

Show threadbjb  Aug 21, 2024
@jerry @hacks4pancakes
Some people who cannot regulate their speed, and know it, drive too fast until they catch up to a person who is going a speed they can tolerate, and just follow that person as a way to prevent themselves from speeding (at least part of the time).
Show threadJerry 🦙💝🦙
@bjb @hacks4pancakes yep. This is exactly what I do. Otherwise I will be pushing warp speed
Aug 21, 2024 at 3:40amWeb