Cheese and Rice! No wonder Cali has such strict emission laws.

Funny, yesterday I was just looking at Los Angeles to see how much they had cut down on the smog.

Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences :: Los Angeles air pollution declining, losing its sting

I don't think it's speed limits so much as the whole left hand lane thing. I've driven down to NYC a few times from Ontario, and it's night and day. Up here, they drive in whichever lane they feel like. On my way to NYC - almost 100% of the drivers where in the right lane except to pass. They knew how to use that left lane. Makes the drive so much nicer and faster and safer (reduces stress). Cudos to NY state drivers.

German truck drivers have a solution to that problem. Two of them will pace each other side by side. When they reach the merge point, one lets the other in front. It makes the traffic flow much smoother through those work areas.

I'm just as thrilled about this....
http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...psnylfzlro.jpg

So many of the bicyclists are arrogant road hogs here.

Why are you such a bicycle hater? Go to any 4 way stop intersection and how many cars make a complete, wheel not turning stop? You say none stopped? You're right.

Bicyclists make up a tiny portion of traffic violations yet you focus on them. You are hating the wrong people.

Bike riders can be huge jerks. Dart through parks and over sidewalks, cruise straight through stop signs without even doing the fake stop thing, ride in the road on mountain roads and not give right of way to a car, and so on.

Not a hater, but there's some real sense of entitlement and you need to see me attitude.

^^This right here!
I happen to be an avid bicyclist myself and used to train and race in my 20s. Doesn't stop me from being.... Shall we say, "disenchanted" with the jerk bikers that do everything mentioned above. It puts motorists in jeopardy to have to anticipate and deal with that behavior. It's about time someone cracks down on them.
So I'm not a hater, so stop being such a blind reactionist, SR! ;)

Yeah, the left-lane cruisers make me insane…and I don’t give a rat’s azz if they’re doing the speed limit and feel like, because of that fact, they have no need to get out of the way when someone approaches from behind and wants to pass. It is not their responsibility or duty to enforce the traffic laws---they have no such authority. So get out of the way already. In my book, if you’re in the left lane and not making reasonable progress in passing vehicles in the lane to your right, you need to move over.

To NOT do so creates at least two situations, both of which have the potential to be a big problem. One is that you force people wanting to pass to weave in and out of traffic in ways that makes lots of people uncomfortable, since in doing so one typically (of necessity) minimizes following distances---buffer zones---between cars. Worse, you antagonize people who sometime get so inflamed they end up in near-misses or actual accidents (like the Camaro in the link). Road rage is a truly ugly thing---angry people in turn make the other guy angry and it escalates. Common sense and clear-headed driving go right out the window, often with disastrous results. And if it involves a driver who’s armed, sometimes people even get SHOT in the process. It’s all bad.

That said, I do agree with the sentiment behind the question raised earlier: “Now which is the ‘passing lane’ again?” At some point, in some locations, at some times during the day there becomes a volume of traffic that forces, of necessity, use of the left lane as just another corridor of traffic. Nobody’s pretty much passin’ nobody in those situations---largely vehicles just kind of move as one big mass. But once traffic thins to the point where someone in the left lane can move to the right to allow someone else to pass, they really should do so. Being a dick is just counter-productive. Heck, just mover over long enough to let me pass. THEN you can go back to monopolizing the left lane…til someone else needs to pass you. :D

And there's always that a hole that needs to change lanes in front of you. Just has to be in front of you. Nobody moving. Has to change lanes in front of you, because obviously your lane is really cruising faster.

Then there's the motorcycle that splits those lanes at 65mph+. :eek:

My pet highway peeves too! It's not rocket science to tell if someone is faster than you: they caught up with you! I think it being illegal to pass on the right in the USA is a misconception. I don't think it's illegal to pass on the right anywhere there are 2 or more lanes. My understanding is that it can be illegal to pass on the right on a 2 lane road when you have to go onto the shoulder (unless the car in front is stopped to make a left turn).

The California DMV claims that passing on the right is legal "Upon a highway within a business or residence district with unobstructed pavement of sufficient width for two or more lines of moving vehicles in the direction of travel."

Washington State:
(1) The driver of a vehicle may overtake and pass upon the right of another vehicle only under the following conditions:

(a) When the vehicle overtaken is making or about to make a left turn;

(b) Upon a roadway with unobstructed pavement of sufficient width for two or more lines of vehicles moving lawfully in the direction being traveled by the overtaking vehicle.

(2) The driver of a vehicle may overtake and pass another vehicle upon the right only under conditions permitting such movement in safety. Such movement shall not be made by driving off the roadway.

I agree that bike riders can be road a** holes. It's not a question of the wheels still moving a little, they often don't even slow down at stop signs or stoplights. It makes me nuts when they ride on sidewalks and then expect you to stop for them at a cross"walk" so they can ride their bike across! And no, I'm not a bike-hater; I rode mountain and road bikes for 20 years and raced for 10.

I saw a funny sight on I-15 in southern Utah once. Someone went by me in the left lane at 80 mph (speed limit; I was slower due to hauling my boat) and a cop pulled on and got behind him. The cop tailgated him for a mile or 2, and finally, when the guy wouldn't pull into the right lane, the cop pulled him over. Yay :dance:!!!

P.S. When you California people want to gloat about driving with the top down next January because the rest of us are complaining about the snow and cold, remember those freeway pictures nimblemotorsports posted, not to mention your water situation :rolleyes:! And no, I'm not a California hater. My sister lives there and I visit often. It's an amazing place, it's just that too many people want to live there (40,000,000!).

Feels good to vent :p!

When traffic is bumper to bumper, that car in the left lane leaving 100 yards of space from the car in front of him - he's the idiot that needs to move to the right. A string of cars will move to the left in front of that car causing it to drop back, causing another string of cars to move in front - eventually causing the left lane to appear to move backwards. That situation is one I find stressful.

Not a hater either. Bicycles are supposed to follow the same laws as a motor vehicle including stop signs, traffic lights, signaling a turn, etc. When was te last time you saw a bicyclist signal a turn?

I love it the rare times I have seen cop ticketing one,generally for running a stop sign or light. Bikes not stopping can cause an accident behind the dumb ass.

I can understand a little when they are pumping up a hill with momentum and there is a stop sign in the middle of it and no one around, but geeze, going down a hill or on the flats ???

I lived in the UK for many years and their 3 lane motorway rule is easy: inner lane = slow moving traffic, middle lane = fast moving traffic and outer lane = overtaking only + no trucks allowed.
It works very well, but of course at peak times its everyone for himself......

We have the same law here in GA. It's pretty much useless and unenforceable. If your think a cop is going to pop up out of no where and ticket the dinkus holding up the left lane, good luck.

You are right...it's soooo much easier to sit just beyond a crest or a curve in the road runnin' a radar or laser unit. I repeatedly see people (ofter 2 or 3) try to squeak through a yellow
light---too late---running the red...with a marked patrol car sittin' right there. I've never once seen them stopped. In my book, that's a lot more dangerous than me doing 10-15 over
in the Box---at judiciously chosen times and places.

In Germany the police travel in the fast lane and use this LED arrow type thing to tell the slow pokes to move out of the way.

That being said, way too many drivers travel TOO fast in the left lane around here. If someone makes a blinders switch into the passing lane and the oncoming SUV is doing 80+ mph (in a 55) that SUV is going to lay into the brakes, or weave into the middle lane. I think people forget the difference between a passing lane and a go as fast you want lane. There's no autobahn here and there's a speed limit for a reason -- the cops generally will only spot you 10 mph over it. 20+ mph over the limit and you are well on your way to creating a dangerous condition. Sure some drivers are experienced but my anecdotal experience is that the more experience a driver is in the area of crash avoidance skills, the less likely they are to be driving that fast in the first place. An experienced driver gives himself a buffer in all directions. Speeding in the passing lane means you only have one escape, moving to the right and that's if there's a gap when you need it.

Personally I think the guy doing 30+ mph over the limit in the fast lane is more dangerous than the slow poke creating all the weaving. At least the weaving is happening at expected speeds.

Don't worry about me or my tickets, just stay the hell over to the right if you aren't passing someone. :cheers:

Believe me nobody cares if the speeder gets a ticket. And I agree if you aren't passing a car you shouldn't be in the left lane period. But that doesn't mean speeding in the left lane doesn't create its own dangerous condition. It's best if people learn to stay out of the left lane and to drive responsibly once in it for the safety of everyone. The highway is a giant chain reaction.

Wait... so a kid on his bike has to yield to you even when you have the stop sign? Where does it say that he should walk his bike through the cross walk?
I think generally a cross walk has a stop sign which makes it pretty cut and dry what the expectation of driver is. You have to FULL stop for any cars, bikes, skateboards, runners, wheel chairs, dogs, goats, geese, old lady, troubled teen, and anything in between. Even if any of those are barred from the side walk by local ordinance your stop sign still means you only proceed when the cross walk is 100% clear.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I saw a driver run the stop sign at a crosswalk and only (roll) stop at the edge of the intersection (when most of the car was past the cross walk line) never once actually looking to the their right before making the right turn... while holding a cell phone.

Yeah, I can't argue with this. That escape route, or "buffer," is all-important, as is the exercise of common sense. The faster you drive, the more you have to assume people aren't going to realize how much faster you are going relative to other vehicles in the immediate area, at least for a second or two. And..sometimes..that's all it takes to create a very dangerous situation. And if you're doin' 20 or 30 above the limit and something bad happens, almost invariably you are the one to blame---logically and legally. It's almost an assumption of risk kind of thing.