Wow. What a liberal. That NYT is clearly unreliable as a source of good information, or even wisdom. I'm cancelling my subscription today, taking a hammer to the button set to NPR on my radio (in my 911) and voting Republican so my state will have more revenue to buy Keep Right Except to Pass signs. I love every Pelican.

I have to agree with the fine wisdom here about the herd mentality. If someone in the left lane is going to slowly, we all have a natural instinct to move to the right into slower traffic where danger lurks. Of course, we are (most of us) also blessed with the ability to think rationally and this makes us responsible as individuals for our actions on the highway. While I curse the slower traffic in the left lane as much as the rest of you, this does not absolve me from responsibility when I pass on the right (illegal in many states as well, certainly in enlightened Europe where it is a serious crime) and t-bone someone. Although, if slower drivers in the left lanes directly increase the risk of fatal traffic accidents, I guess we could just shoot them...

I think there is an instrument that creates a great deal of these problems; cruise control. It has single handedly become more responsible for the passing of a single vehicle to now become a feat that requires over 5 miles of road to accomplish at times. I personally don't care to ride beside a vehicle that has 4 inches of lane on either side of it for any more time than necessary.

I also recognize that passing on the right hand lane is illegal in most states still but I would consider it at times to be a necessary evil. Lest we not forget that the law breaking began with someone not heeding the "Passing Lane Only" designation that the left lane carries with it. The enforcement of this law would alleviate a great deal of law breaking right lane passes. "Enlightened" Europe also is much more responsible with respect to left hand cruising and enforcement of that law.

I have been driving through a speed trap every morning now for about a week and a half. In a residential area, a CHP officer has been standing near the bottom of a fairly steep hill, somewhat hidden around a bend, with a hand held radar. He clocks every car and waves over the speeders - another CHP officer is there to write the ticket. Each time I have gone by they have had at least one or two cars pulled over.

Fortunately, my daily driver is a 31 year old Chevy Pickup and I am generally not speeding. Today, at a little under 20 mph down the hill :-), I must have had at least four cars behind me - I think each one of them was probably cussing me out for going so slow - then, I bet each one of them was thanking me for saving them some cash!!

Even the officer with the radar looked a little annoyed with me as I went by.

Rich,

I DO like the suggestion of shooting the idiot drivers! Of course, I will have to up my portable ammo supply and start carrying the .45 instead of the....

I always look for an excuse to bash "enlightened" Europe, or as Mr. Rumsfeld calls them, "Old Europe." But I do have to concede that they have driving down a lot better than we do. Getting a license in Germany costs well over $1000 and you've got a few years of drinking experience under your belt before you get there. On top of that, driving school is mandatory and they really do teach you how to drive. And if that fails, they have reasonable speed limits, excellent lane discipline and they enforce both religiously.

Our silly speed limits are optional and get enforced only when someone needs money or political points. Our multi-lane highways get clogged by everyone being forced to go as slow as the idiot going 55 in the left lane.

and that's a bad thing?

wait...who said that?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I'm wiping the coffee off of my monitor.

Paul

Hey gotta have some way to cull the herd -

Doh!

Culling the herd - that's what my missed shift did last month. I'm stuck way over in the right lane in my Volvo wagon now. Maybe I should recuse myself from this discussion.:D

There is a small town North of Eugene, Oregon named Coburg. A notorious speed trap. They were issuing citations on I-5, sending the freeway speeders to their own municipal court. I-5 is out of the Coburg city limits. This angered the State legislature, which recently passed a bill saying a municipality can't collect fines for tickets written by one of their cops outside the town's border. The Coburg city council is trying to annex a portion of I-5 to be inside it's city limits. Coburg is the site of an "all european" car show held each year...This year, I'm not going. :mad:

Sort of like baiting a trap with Cheese. Here all you European Cars - come here boy!

It was kind of like that...only I didn't hear of any show participants getting tagged. But I did see a few Rice cars getting tagged on the street leading to the show, and it didn't look to me that they were doing anything unsafe... The European cars were the cheese, the Rice guys the mice in this case. I decided to quit being cheese.

Speed traps? Laser Guns? Radar? You guys have it easy over in the States. Here in the Banana Republic of Australia we have fixed speed cameras and in the state of Victoria they are set to ping cars that are a mere 3Kmh over the speed limit. This is like, cough, and you're speeding. There has been a real backlash against the Govt over these devices. When aked about the meagre error allowed in the velociy of a vehicle the Govt rep responded "we dont expect you to drive AT the speed limit, we expect you to drive UNDER the speed limit". So we have to drive at let's say 50 KMh rather than 60Kmh to make our own error margin, what a joke. Meanwhile of course, the Govt is making out like a bandit with the irrefutible speed camera pictures "proving" the offence. Even without any hard data or statistcs to back up "speed kills" governments in the US, Britan, and eveywhere else they have a cowed, law abiding populace are reaping significant revenue from this tactical emphasis on speed. Aggressive, lazy, sloppy and just plain incompetent driving is not targetted when this is plainly the culprit in the majority of accidents. Where I live, in New South Wales we have all of the speed detection tacics known to man but here's an example I saw today. Open freeway, Two lanes in both directions, big grassed median strip. A speed camera is set up on the left hand side of the road on a left hand curve. This makes the vehicle the camera is mounted in as concealed as possible. The road has a speed limit of 110Kmhbut would easily be safe at 140 to 150. Easy meat. Now the street that leads to my house, uphill, lined with residential property. Near where my street turns off the road is split level and divided. Each direction is narrow and has parked cars. Lots of people walk here, kids ride bikes etc. The limit here is sensibly 50Kmh. I regularly see people attacking thi section of road like a racetrack and doing 80Kmh or more. But guess what! I have NEVER seen a radar trap on this road or a patrol car or any sniff of speed enforcement. Funny that.......................not revenue collection honest......speed kills y'know.................bastards.

Why don't you just smash all the fixed speed cameras? I thought you Aussies were as ungovernable as us 'Muricans? Only in New Zealand, Canada or England would the populace tolerate all those things.

BTW, the things you describe in the last few sentences are std. "traffic calming" elements used in urban areas. They do not work on raods with lots of college and high school students -- I live near a street called Patterson (I call it Splatterson) that is exactly like that, and the kids make it pretty dangerous.

Richard's right in that it costs a great deal of money to get
a driving license in France or Germany, and that the end result
is somewhat better driving. The driving test is very difficult. Any minor mistake when you take the test after 25 hours of training, and you are
invited to come back and try again after another 10 hours.
Something that's been killing me since I moved here is how most
people just don't use their turning signal. Better yet, decide to turn
it on as their are turning, when you already stuck behind.

Note that death rates in France are actually huge, particularly amongst young
drivers. I am not sure exactly why, but my guess is a combination of
alcool and speed at night on "smaller roads". Perhaps overconfidence from
having gone through many hours of training and taken a somewhat
difficult test.

Driving in the south of France or Italy sure is an experience.
Not safe per say, but good...

Randy, I have seen and heard of the ungovernable "tampering" with the fixed cameras. One near me had a tree branch draped over the lens, ( wonder how that happened ?)and others have been damaged. The best one was a dude in a UAV (urban assault vehicle/SUV) actually hitching a steel rope around one and pulling it over. This may be myth but I like to believe it :-) Fact is, the morals preached to us about speed have been swallowed by most and people are just forking over the money and feeling guilty.

Once more..........bastards.

Benny

Lots of words... I really don't think Europe has significantly better (or worse) drivers than the US. It seems to me that Americans have a tendency to overinflate their perception of things foreign...

Right now, in France the police are acting quite tough against speeders (and in fact, the Porsche name has been mentioned in some spectacular accidents, unfortunately including one where some idiot in a turbo raced into a bus booth killing those inside, I think he got ...4 years...increasing the outrage). The generalisations are the same as everywhere: la vitesse tue! (speed kills). The problems are the same, too. And the criticisms... I got busted on a autoroute near Reims, doing 171 (106 mph). Cost me a hundred bucks. Leaves me room to chuckle, and since I don't have a French license, they can't deduct any "points", either. Too bad for them. I do not dispute that the law is the law, same as stupid is stupid. Even my wife does not believe I was doing 171 (I thought abt 160), and there were 2 cars (including one diesel) following me for the last 30 miles or so (my Porsche must have saved THEM a ticket!).

One French specialty is to keep your passing blinker on all the time, whilst remaining constantly in the passing lane. Logical, I guess.

In Belgium, they are speaking of acting tough against speeders. We're used to that Belgian speaking, but it's coming: "superfines" for "speed devils". We tend to turn our blinkers on just before or just...after... having taken a turn, a matter of "appearing" legal (which of course it isn't, but no one bothers to read the judicial reports of the courts). And, of course, slowpokes in the left lane (for 2-lane highways) or, better!, in the middle-lane (for the very common 3-lane highways which 3-lane highways are, I feel, the most dangerous ones of all).

In England, mmm... over 80 mph seems to be a consensus speeding offence on the freeways..

Holland: slowpokes, generally lousy drivers who seem to take pleasure at sticking right behind a truck in the right lane and then jumping into the left lane just as you arrive.

Germany: wait a minute, there! When the speed limit says "50" kph, don't try to go faster! In fact, in Germany the drivers (and in general, everybody) are so conditioned by the law that absolutely everybody sticks to the limits! Which is a damn good thing, too. Yet it is (still) possible to drive superfast on some autobahns... Germany is one place I like to drive, it provides clearcut options and there is little misunderstanding.
The "left lane slowpoke" problem does NOT exist in Germany. Many German autobahns have only 2 lanes, making it clear: fast on the left, slow on the right! Simple and adequate! In Germany, when in the city some dud wants to turn left in front of a "no left turn allowed" sign, there will be a general concert of 50 cars hooting. That is social control, no cops needed. The same situation in Belgium will create general chaos, guaranteed. Everybody just tends to do as they like...


In general, we still drive a lot faster in Europe than in the US. Police repression in the USA is HORRIFFIC (BTW, how does that score on the scales of the much touted "Freedom" motto???)
But the signs are on the wall: holier-than-thouism, (literal) middle-of-the-road social/political blandness, combined with recuperation of such "popular" themes by political castes are, aided by technology, increasingly leading to control. It will not much longer be possible to drive faster than the law permits, even on any empty and deserted roads that may be left...

Nice to hear somebody, somewhere, in the US is enforcing the left lane rule. I just got back from Maine, and aside from 295/495, I don't think there's a four-lane road in the whole state. Haven't seen anyone popped for left lane hogging on 295, but I can't say I'm on it THAT much...

SmileWavy

I'd like to point something out here. Government is not "them." Paul, and others of your ilk, to the degree that goverment is "them" instead of "us," it is "our" fault instead of "theirs." Of course, if your goal is to preserve the right to complain as a victim, then you'll continue to stay uninvolved, uninformed. But if the people were to take hold of public policy making, then we'd have a democracy and that could lead to, who knows...maybe government by the people, for the people. Another untested social concept.

Of course, I do my share of complaining (like on Page 1 of this thread, for example), but I also am involved. I just feel so alone......

BTW, you'd be surprised to find out what a human process occurs during your state legislative sessions. How many have attended a legislative hearing? They don't know what you don't tell them. The lobbyists are there always. It's the voice of the people that is so often absent from the testimony list. If you're not there, then it's government of the people, by the corporations, for the corporations. Make sense? Not to me.

I've always thought it would be great if we 'self-patrolled' the roads. Here's my theory:

We figure out a way to tag or mark a driver (or car) that does something stupid. Each driver is allowed to tag a certain # of drivers either via a monthly allowance or based on number of hours on the road. If you reach a certain # of tags on your car/license, you're automatically assessed fines and penalities.

So the person creating a logjam in the left lane would likely get tagged by a few drivers. Someone talking on a cell phone and not paying attention could get tagged....etc. This could cut back on road rage too.

If only there was a simple, cost effective, and discrete way to tag people...

A California Highway Patrol officer who was teaching my defensive driving class back in the '80s suggested paintball guns.