Time to bring back another message from the old forums. To start off, “Pick a speed and stick with it. I should not be able to pass you five times if I am doing a constant 60 miles per hour.”
The drivers the other day were so bad I could barely catch my breath between yelling at them. 4 stop signs ran, 2 wrong way drivers, and a complete inability to follow speed limits. I’m pretty sure, however, this had something to do with living by an incredibly large Irish area of town coupled with the fact that there were multiple St Patrick’s Day celebrations on Saturday. All day celebrations starting around 6am. For realsies.
"Slower traffic keep right"
Seriously, it’s the law. (In Texas, anyway.) They even print it on signs and plant them along roadways! You’re in my way; move the frick over.
And if I flash my lights at you, it doesn’t mean I’m saying Hi or that I’m trying to pick a fight - it means “wake up and get out of the way, you roadway zombie bastard!” Ok, maybe that’s a little like picking a fight, but it doesn’t mean I want to wait around and debate it with you.
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To the driver of the white Mazda this morning:
Trying to merge into my lane was not a good idea. Especially when I was occupying that particular piece of road. I hope you appreciated the 100+ dB sound of my bike’s exhaust through your open window when I gave it a rev. (Or two. Or three.)
That depends on the state - Wikipedia has a pretty good list. Some people claim that it is a first amendment right, though I think that is corrupting the intentions of it.
Being protected under “Freedom of Speech” is admittedly a stretch, but as long as I’m not intentionally blinding you then coming up behind you and briefly flashing my high beams is a near universal sign for “get the fsck outa my way”. You are obligated to move over for faster traffic overtaking you, even if you’re already doing the speed limit. It is not your responsibility to police how fast I’m going.
My mom would do the exact speed limit in the number one lane and refuse to move over for faster vehicles, saying she was justified because she was already doing the limit. She wouldn’t even relent when I pointed out she was then making the other driver pass on the right, which was also illegal. Her excuse was “well, they’re already breaking the law by speeding so piling on illegal passing is nothing”. I so wanted her to get a ticket for that behavior.
When I became of driving age I hated riding with her. It didn’t help that she became an accident magnet. She was involved in no fewer than three accidents where the other driver ran a red light at an intersection and plowed into her. One time she was sitting at a red light in the right hand lane, when a driver which had been racing another car from back at the previous light thought he could squeeze a pass between my mom’s car and the curb. Not quite. He ended up pushing her car into the lanes which had the green whereupon she was t-boned from the side. That tweaked her back out for a couple of years worth of pain and chiro.
I do not believe that is entirely correct, @dunerat. The last time I went through defensive driving, they stated that it is not illegal in Texas, and actually recommended in certain circumstances.
EDIT- Flashing the lights when passing is recommended in both the Texas Drivers Handbook and the Texas Motorcycle Operator’s Manual on the DPS website.
From the statutes I looked up, you have to apply low beams within 500 feet of an approaching vehicle moving in the opposite direction, and you aren’t supposed to switch to high beams when approaching a vehicle from the rear within 300 feet. So, if you’re right up on the guy, you shouldn’t flash him, but if you’re coming up on him, it is OK outside 300 feet, which is about 3 or 4 seconds at 60+mph.
If you’re talking about trying to warn oncoming traffic about a speed trap, that’s a whole other can of worms, but that wasn’t what we were discussing. That’s where the potential First Amendment issue comes in to play. (I’m not stating an opinion, just addressing your failure to see. And on that note, I’m not trying to engage in bickering with you. Different people have different perspectives and different understandings of things - especially things that lend themselves to multiple interpretations.)
If starting a fire with a potentially highly flammable object you are waving around in a crowd is free speech, then so is flashing your high beams, including when warning of a speed trap. Hell, if you can get around the standing, stopping, parking, laws you should be able to hold a sign up on the side of the road. Best way I see police controlling speed is by them being seen, tickets are a revenue generator, and have to happen sometimes to keep the rest of the herd in line. A hidden cop is unnecessary. If you are on the ball enough to reduce your speed when a cop shows up and not get caught, then I say you aren’t the problem. Get the dude that doesn’t even notice you there.
I could get behind blowing your horn being seen as yelling fire in a movie theater though.
On another note. Why is it in Florida, and Georgia, both states with three lane highways I had a harder time maintaining a nice consistent 75 mph than I ever do in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, etc in two lane traffic?
Left lane was 85, right lane was 60-65, middle lane was 68.5. Speed limit is 70. And without fail every time I’d pass someone in the middle lane either I end up with an SUV crawling up my ass, or I end up stuck in the right lane for years. I had better consistency driving through construction zones in the hills of Kentucky, some of which were single lane.
Also, I understand the reason laws have been passed to make people move over a lane when an emergency vehicle is on the side of the road, I do it for everyone when I can. The law requiring this action seems both dangerous and puts emergency personnel’s lives higher in the scale of importance. Causing a wreck smashing two lanes of traffic into one, and slowing the whole mass to 45, is less damaging than the occasional officer hit by a car? The car that still isn’t going to move over because they aren’t paying any attention to begin with? I’d like to see accident statistics in the states that have done this.
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Coolio, glad we’re on the same page. Without tone & inflection, it is sometimes easy to sound like a prick, so I was trying to avoid coming off that way. 
I know in Indiana it was a response to truckers “Dusting Smokey” on I-70 and finally killing at least one officer, maybe two in one year. Trying to knock a troopers hat off with the wind of your passage is a bit different than passing him at 65 MPH.
A more appropriate response would be to try the person that did it with attempted murder, and or vehicular homicide. Not make up a whole new category of crimes. But, I feel the same way about drunk driving. Try them for the crime they commit, not the condition they were in.
I think you’re closer than you think on that!
From http://gourownway.hubpages.com/hub/History-Of-The-Squad-Car:
Back when officers walked a beat… “One of the initial uses for trucks and large touring cars was to transport special squads of officers to trouble spots, hence the term, “squad cars.””
Like the “Brute Squad”?
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I’m in the middle lane, going 70. I’m passing people in the slow lane, the fast lane is completely clear. Get off of my a$$!
Edit: After several minutes, the moron passed me on the right. The fast lane was empty.
When people tailgate me like that I tend to slow down. It’s not only the defensive driving thing to do, it also annoys the heck out of the other driver - double bonus 
.
I have in the past got down to 20kph in a 100kph zone before the driver got the message and passed me.
This is what I do. Tailgate me and I slow down. Usually not to more than the speed limit.
Also, I have never gotten the point of warning other drivers about police etc. Seriously, the other drivers are not your friends, they are the enemy and should be treated like the dangerous idiots that found their license in a bucket of meth. The best way to weed out people like that is to NOT warn them.
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Isn’t it amazing how many people will stay behind you when they have another lane they could use to pass you? They’ll do that for miles. Then if you happen to change lanes, suddenly they realize they can pass. It’s like they think, “I’m free! There are no obstacles in my way! I can go faster now!”
Try it sometime. Guaranteed that within 10 seconds you of changing lanes, they will have passed you.
I’m personally convinced there is a (large) segment of the population that completely zones out behind the wheel. Drivers like you described, @RRabbit42, that tailgate a succession of one car after another is a great example.
They don’t drive, really, so much as follow the car in front of them.
It’s funny that people worry about robot cars, when often people get to work without really remembering their drive. Same reason and hour after someone pumps their brakes for some trash in the road you’ll still find a back up there.
Oh, man, soooo true… drives me nutz!
And when you pull out to pass them they speed up like crazy. So you have to drop back in behind them.
And eventually catch up with them again…
And pull out to pass…
Only to have them speed up again…
Lather,
Rinse,
Repeat.
Until you get sick of the 'tards and blast past them before they can react.
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