During commute hours, the middle lane is now the fast lane. If you’re a semi going 55 MPH and there’s no one in front of you for a quarter of a mile, move over into the slow lane so you don’t slow traffic down for miles behind you.
Argh, in Indiana the semis have a different speed limit than the rest of traffic. 65, compared to 70 mph. Not a big deal except on arteries out of town, like the one I use every day, where you’ll find the occasional truck, or car with a trailer, or car like object spewing smoke, or whatever, in the right lane going 55 or 60, so Mr. Semi needs to pass, going 64 MPH so as to not get a ticket. Passing someone sometimes going 63 MPH, backing up the highway for miles. This stretch of highway often has people in the left lane hitting 90, only to cause the mother of all traffic jams when everyone has to slow down to 65. If they could go 70, at least I wouldn’t have to slow down to less than the speed limit while watching the highway equivalent of racing snails.
Totally hear you on this one. I was so glad when Texas realized that it was a safety hazard and stopped posting separate truck speed limits. Some still go slower than the posted limit, but it isn’t always the driver’s choice - some trucking companies lock down the speed limiter on their tractors (looking at you Schneider and J.B.Hunt).
If you’ve ever listened in to CB traffic, the owners aren’t the only ones who don’t trust those drivers.
Most of I-5 between LA and Sacramento is only two lanes per side, unless you’re going through a city (Fresno, Stockton, etc). This leads to semi trucks passing each other because some are going slower which makes the entire drive slower than it has to be. It blows when you have the cruise set at 80 and then have to slow down to 65 because of this shenanigans.
Oh yeah, when I was an outside service tech, I used to run a CB in the car all the time, even around town.
When I made the trip to Seattle, I forgot to dig out my old set. I didn’t have an antenna setup for the current car anyway, so for the solo run back, I bought a new radio and magnet mount antenna at a truck stop. The antenna isn’t anything to write home about, but the radio is a lot nicer than my old one. There wasn’t a lot of chatter through Montana and Wyoming. Once I got back, I took it out and it’s been in the garage since. I need to figure out a way to have it easily mountable and accessible, but a solution hasn’t occurred to me so far. Modern cars just aren’t setup for hanging things off the bottom of the dash.
This. I used to roll with my CB all the time. It looked like a cell phone antenna to most people. Truckers are better than a radar detector and the conversations are something else. It helped that they thought I was funny once they found out I was in a roller skate. Then the times I was traveling with women in the car some of the conversations there are still memorable. CB flirting for the win.
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The UK works in a similar fashion. Various classes of vehicles have different speed limits on certain classes of roads.
For example, on a dual carriageway (divided highway), cars and lighter motor homes can do 70 MPH, other vehicles can do 60 MPH, except HGVs which are limited to 50 MPH (or 60 MPH, depending on where you are…).
Newfoundland is going to be passing a new traffic ordinance this summer where cars will start driving in the left lane instead of the right lane. If everything seems to be going well after 2 months, trucks and busses will do the same.
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Er, am I reading that wrong or is that really stoopid?
psst - Rizak’s joking 
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Using my fantastically expensive despite embarrassingly simple HGV course as reference, most of the limits are based on your weight.
Cars, vans, motorbikes et al can do 70 on motorways and dual carriageways, 60 on NSL roads, and 30 in urban areas.
For large vans and vehicles over 3.5tonnes, this becomes 60 and 30.
For vehicles over 7.5tonnes, this becomes 60, 50 and 30.
Then it gets weird and vehicle width starts becoming an issue.
There are three uncategorised but still legally binding speed limits in the UK: one is Crawling Slow, which is 40mph everywhere except urban roads where it’s 20, which is for vehicles wider than 4.5 metres (standard lane width is between 2.5 and 3.5 metres); next is Overweight Slow which is 22mph (also the limit below which you must constantly display a yellow flashing light), and finally we have Dead Slow which was the speed limit temporarily enforced on all motor vehicles in the very early 1900s for a while, a whole whopping 4mph. This is still a legal limit today usually enforced on waterways and within roadworks.
If you didn’t already own the radio, I’d suggest a walkie-talkie style (do they still make them?).
I had one… have one?.. and while I had to plug inexternal antenna, mike, and power, it was easy to move from car to car.
Ahh, k, thanks. I wasn’t seeing the drive-into-oncoming-traffic joke, just stuck in how much it would fsck up the left lane for passing paradigm.
I had to google the difference between a motorway and a dual carriageway (limited access & divided road)… And NSL, which makes no sense - “Oh, it’s the national speed limit, but it changes depending on the type and location of the road.” WTF?
I’ve had a couple handheld style radios over the years, too, but it seems harder to find ones that have full power outputs. I bought one just outside Seattle, but I couldn’t get a way to adapt to external antenna, so the range was crap from inside the car. I stopped an hour or tow down the road, at the next truck stop in the same chain, and exchanged it for the beefier setup.
Yeah, the National Speed limit is one of those things that technically means a lot of things in context, but generally just refers to two- or four-lane roads when you’re talking to people. Blame there not being an actual name for roads that are neither streets, nor dual carriageways, nor motorways 
Yep, I have no idea what’s out on the market now. Mine was a Radio Shack, and I bought it in the 80s.
Magnetic mount antenna, external mic… I mounted a mic clip on the side of the radio, and wired up some 5-pin DIN extension cords for it… I could strap it into the passenger seat, plug in the cigarette light plug, the antenna, the mic, and I was set.
Sounds like a good setup - high WAF
You know, an oversized muscle shirt/“wife beater” shirt plus “ape hanger” motorcycle handlebars is not a good idea, unless that idea is to make sure everyone can see your armpits.
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Dear $idioteken
Stop sniffing my ass. Seriously. I know you want to pass, but I cannot make way for me due to the long truck next to my car.
Kindly look up from your phone and realize you are heading straight toward me in MY lane. Preferably before you hit me head-on, seeing as the only area I would have to swerve into is a river. A deep one. And also, my whole family is in my car, and I’d kinda like to keep us all alive if I could please.
This situation happened twice within two hours on the same stretch of road. Two lanes, all curves, with major river on one side. Not the best area to text and drive in…