Road ragers & inattentive, cell phone abusin', driving slow in the passing lane idiots should be lumped into the same lane. Pass the popcorn!

Flyin' the bird? Too cool! I got one of those too. Oh wait! Now I've got two of them! Neat huh?!!!

 

My way of controlling my own road rage is to remember that each of us, at one time or another, is an idiot behind the wheel. We can all probably recall a time or two when we did something while driving that wasn't to bright and caused someone near us some grief. It might be as simple as changing lanes without signaling our intentions or not killing a turn signal after a "bear right." There are probably a few times we did something stupid but didn't even realize it. So when someone has their stupid moment, I just try to get away from them as fast as I can in case they have a quick relapse. That's where the "S" in Mini Cooper S comes in handy.

 

That a good one

 

Not true. In Oregon anyway. Driving slow in the passing lane is a traffic violation and is posted as such.

The worst offenders of this that I have seen are people from Washington state and truckers.
People from Washington drive in the passing lane and won't move over for nothing.
Or you get people who are passing slower traffic and are going about 1 mph faster than the vehicle(s) they are passing.
Worst yet is the ones who pull into the passing lane cause they see you coming and there is a slower vehicle about a quarter mile ahead and they don't want to get caught behind it.
The I-5 corridor is probably the worst for driving with truckers. Just 2 lanes and the trucks are like convoys. When one decides to pass another half the time they don't look behind. Many times I have come up on a line of trucks doing about 75 and right when I'm about to go by some ******** pulling 3 trailers doing about 45 pulls out in front of me to pass. I think they do it to **** people off.
Talk to a cop about it and they will tell you the I-5 corridor is designated a "truck safety corridor" meaning watch out for the truckers cause they can do what they want. Short of running you down.
I just go by shaking my head.

 

Haha, it may be posted as a violation, but that never stopped anyone in the PDX area with jamming up the fast lane on 26, 217, or 30. But alas, I miss "home". Not as many SUVs as there are in TX, just crappy old school volvos. My road rage was not so bad up there.

 

Ain't that the truth. I visit my son who lives in Portland and it seems like they got it backwards. The fast lane is for slow vehicles and the slow lane is for fast vehicles. Not so bad though when there are several lanes. That's where the mini shines

 

This is true. I think its from "the old days" when lanes were clearly marked as "travel lanes" and "passing lanes".

But, of course, in many states its perfectly legal to pass in any lane if the fast lane is going to slow!

 

Apparently its not mythical here - I was curious and checked the CA DMV site, this is in the driving handbook:

"CHOOSING A LANE

Traffic lanes are often referred to by number. The left or “fast” lane is called the “No. 1 Lane.” The lanes to the right of the No. 1 lane are called the No. 2 lane, then the No. 3 lane. etc.

Example of numbered traffic lanes


Drive in the lane with the smoothest flow of traffic. If you can choose among three lanes, pick the middle lane for the smoothest driving. To drive faster, pass, or turn left, use the left lane. When you choose to drive slowly or enter or turn off the road, use the right lane.

Also see the "Passing Lanes" section -
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/hdbk/pgs22thru25.htm

Slower traffic to the right, passing/faster to the left, is in fact the way it is supposed to be and works best that way speed laws not withstanding

 

I always thought passing on the right was wrong and against the law in some places. I find myself having to pass on the right even doing the speed limit. A lot of the time the right lane is open for miles too and the other lanes will have lines of traffic.

 

Each state has its own laws but over the years, the states have been moving to a more realistic view of traffic.

"It’s legal in Maryland to pass on the left or right on multi-laned highways."

http://www.marylandmva.com/AboutMVA/RULES/default.htm

 

I do not want to cause thread rage, but read my comment carefully. I simply said the speed limit applies to all lanes and slower traffic should keep right.

I was unaware this was not true in California and Oregon. Are there different speed limit signs on the the right and left side of the road? What is the speed limit in the left lane? This must be very confusing.

In Michigan, the expressway limit is 70 for right or left lanes. I guess I learned something new today.

I stand corrected. I am pulling over to let you by.

 

I call the LEFT LANE LEMMINGS. Soon as they turn into the 4 lane (with center left-turn/dead-man zone), they stay in lane #1 because they're going to turn left sometime today. Great post!

 

We're lucky to have our nimble MINIs for maneuvering through the messy daily traffic conditions! It's so odd to generally find the right lane is the fastest and most effective passing lane!

 

Road rage in these parts is shown by not waving back at folks

 

Thats because you all got your headlights on during the day. It blinds everyone so they dont get rage

 

You know what, it's almost like living in England.

 

I guess this wasn't Road Rage, per se, but one year driving Xcountry we stopped at a Best Western in Fargo, ND. All night long some party went on in the ballroom. Got up in the morning, starting packing the car only to find the real license plate stolen ... and this was like the third day of a month long trip.

Front desk called the cops who said to just sit there. They came by an hour later WITH the plates. Some "kids" from Canada liked to come across the border and steal plates at the hotels but one of them made the mistake of going to a local bar and bragging about it. Got the whole group busted. Got the plate back and off we went.

 

Um, no it's not....

 

Isn't their "fast lane" on the right over there?

 

I have had several road rage incedents, partly because of my aggressive driving, partly the shear stupidity of other people, and partly because of my reaction to them. None of them happend in the last 48 hours when I was transporting two cars for a total of 1731.25 miles. But that's because southerners have better things to do than critique somebody.

IE:
Two weeks ago I driving through an intersection I have a green arrow and am turning (in the MCS) and this... kindly lady... in a Jeep drives out in the middle of the intersection, lays on her horn, causing me to slam on the brakes, I end up like two feet away from her front bumper, meanwhile I almost get rear ended by the cars following me, and I just stop and give this lady a blank stare who thinks she has a green light when it's more red than my car. That ticked her off even more. She flipped me off and drove around me, running the red light.

THAT SAME NIGHT I'm coming back from the hanger where I wash my car in the winter, and the guy that's behind me in a ford pickup just starts drifting over in my lane and I toot the horn because he's almost forcing me up over the curb, and he serves back over. At the next light he gives me the "look" as I blankly stare back and this caused him to flip me off.

TWO DAYS LATER I'm coming back from my future girlfriend's house and am waiting at a RR crossing when the train comes to a complete stop. It sits there motionless for like 2 minutes. I'm late for a golf lesson, I back up and turn around and the guy that was behind me flipped me off. I just gave him the raised eyebrow "What's wrong with you?" look.

The benefit of having a bright red MINI Cooper S in an area that has maybe five or six MINIs total, is that you'll get noticed, I mean the way people react I might as well be driving a red Lamborghini. I attribute my lack of accidents in my first year of driving to this. I know "I" won't cause an accident. I always have my head in the game, while others either have their's up their a$$ or on something else.

I drive aggressively, I'll be the first to say this. But when you drive aggressively 99.99% of the time your head is in the task at hand, which is driving. The people who are dangerous are those that are talking on their cell phone, taking their kids to soccer practice, and drinking a latte all at the same time.

I hate stupid people.

Mikey

 

Yes, but their lanes are reversed, silly! It is NOT the same. To find that what was always the merge/slow-poke lane in SoCal is now often the fastest lane is really bizarre!

 

I could go on for HOURS about all of the driving stupidity I see. I have noticed that much, but most certainly not all, of this goes away when there are no nearby cell towers. In the past 24 hours I have had people ignore red lights, stop signs and one jeep pull out from a stop in a turn lane into 50 MPH traffic without so much as signaling. This verified the the MCS brakes work very well in the wet conditions. I also had a city bus merge on top of me. I don't bother to count those pesky tailgaiters any more. I watch a lexsus SUV (the driver happened to be on a cell phone, though not saying there is a relation) pull on to a five lane high way as I was thaveling in the number 2 lane He proceeded to go from the five lane to the one lane in 1/4 of a mile dispte plenty of empty road ahead of him then sit in the one lane for all of a mile passing nobody then gave me 5ft following dist at 70MPH pause for about 10 sec., which made me irate becuase my rearview was basically useless. then made a steadyturn for an off ramp no more than 2 miles where he entered the highway. I have driven across most of the eastern US, and seen plenty of signs stating that the left lane was for passing only and slower traffic should move to the right, I unfortunately only find this to be true when driving at night when the majority traffic is trucks, I have a respect for the work that they do and try to be polite as possible when around the and understand that they have a significantly harder time driving than we do (more weight, huge blind spots). I have found it is just best to expect cars to do the dumbest crazyiest things possible, and make sure that I always have a patch of road to avoid whatever it is that they may do. I also find that I can intuitively tell when some one is going to cut me off or run a red. By the end of the day I was ready to set up a video camera just to laugh at the stupid things people do behind the wheel. Thats just my recent experiance/ opinion. I once heard it best said by an ambulance driver- "There are many people who have a drivers lisence but only a few who know how to drive."

 

Oh yea and that reminded me, I hate it when semis pass each other! It takes like 5 minutes!

Oh and don't even get me started on ricers!

 

It would be REALLY nice if people actually used the rear view mirrors. Too many people don't even bother to switch to the slower lane when they are going 55mph. I've even seen some guy who didn't switch lanes when there was a cop trying to pass him.

 

I have a JB/B MCS and put the bogie stickers on my door as a bit of humor (I am studing aerospace engineering so most of my social group gets the allusion to fighter planes) I can't go out on a fri or sat. night w/out every "ricer" trying reving there engine trying to drag, even had SUVs do this, I'm not stupid I'm not gonna break the law, I've learned to let it go b/c I agree w/ the view of this site racing is for the track, too many out there find the freeway to be there own personal race track.