LOL. I'm not sure if you're trolling, rude or just don't pay attention to the cars around you when you're driving, but I'll guess it's a combination of all 3.
>If you don't follow traffic flow, people will cut off in front of you, tailgate, zigzag, and do other dangerous lane changes/maneuvers much more frequently.
From my 45 years of observing people's driving and driving myself for about 30 years, I find that most people generally obey the speed limit or don't go much faster. Probably about 90% of people in general. At rush hour, it drops to about 50%. Some of the other 50% certainly do do all those fucked up, rude and dangerous things you mention, but it doesn't mean that the 50% of people obeying the speed limit are at fault. It's the impatient speeders who are at fault.
It's sometimes a bit of a Darwin award scenario. I live on Vancouver Island, and there is only a single highway over the mountains to Victoria. During commute times, about 50% of people speed significantly, and they do some of the dangerous and rude shit you mention. A few times a year one of them drives too fast for the conditions and ends up killing themselves, which then shuts down the entire north-south highway (the only fucking route) for 4 hours. The government is currently spending a shit ton of money to put barriers in the centre of the highway to try and prevent the excessively speeding idiots from killing themselves so often.
So no, I don't have much patience for the rude people who tailgate me, go 50km/h over the limit even in rain, and then get themselves killed and hold up the entire island for 4 hours because of their stupidity and lack of knowledge of basic physics.
(And I'm not calling out everyone who speeds, I do it myself sometimes, it's only the ones who go way over the limit with no consideration for weather conditions or safety, and the rude idiots who are in too much of a hurry to extend basic courtesy to other road users).
> I find that most people generally obey the speed limit or don't go much faster.
Regional culture definitely plays into this. I grew up in the midwest and almost everybody speeds. Now I live in Seattle and I'm the fast guy in the left lane going 5 MPH over the speed limit.
You are ranting about reckless speeding, which I agree 100% with you that it's a stupid thing to do. But the comment you replied to was talking about following traffic flow, which is about minimizing speed differentials between vehicles so as to minimize triggering fits of impatience in drivers around you.
[1] It's not my problem if others get irate because I'm at the speed limit.
[2] It's not dangerous to be at the speed limit, it's dangerous to be over it. And you're not likely to hit someone going at the speed limit if you're dangerously speeding, you're likely to hit the median or an oncoming car, and more likely to get killed doing so (much greater speed differential than between the speeder and the person going at the speed limit).
[3] There is only a differential if you are passing, and that is easily managed by waiting for a sufficient gap in traffic.
It's not like in kindergarten where kids point at each other yelling it was the other who started it. If someone does something dangerous around me, it absolutely concerns my family's safety, regardless of what triggered the dangerous situation. Thinking two steps ahead to prevent these situations from occurring in the first place is at the core of defensive driving philosophy and it's why it's often recommended that one pick going with traffic flow instead of going at the posted speed limit if forced to choose given traffic conditions.
I agree that in many roads, going above the posted limit is a very accurate measure of recklessness, but that isn't the case everywhere and it isn't at all uncommon that the flow of traffic is 10 or even 20 km/h over the posted speed limit on many freeways or countryside roads.
I disagree that going at the posted speed limit when someone behind me is going faster is dangerous, or that the person going at the speed limit is at fault. If anyone in this scenario is creating danger it is the person speeding. Generally it is not "everyone" who is speeding, only a percentage. If everyone is going over the limit and it creates a dangerous situation if someone drives at the limit, then there is some serious problem with that road and it needs fixed urgently (either by increasing the limit, or by enforcing the existing limit). It's unhelpful and silly to suggest that people must break the law to be safe, and it completely defeats the point of speed limits and the rule of law, not to mention common sense.
Defensive driving means looking ahead and predicting when someone is going to do something stupid, not braking hard if someone is behind you, being very careful when changing lanes, driving in a parking lot, etc. It definitely doesn't mean driving above the speed limit to keep people behind you happy.
> It's unhelpful and silly to suggest that people must break the law to be safe, and it completely defeats the point of speed limits and the rule of law
The law doesn't necessarily codify what's safe. You could go at 40km/h on a highway and be technically entirely within the law, but that's certainly not a safe thing to do. Similarly, you could go at exactly the posted speed limit on a snowstorm when everyone is driving slower and you would be entirely within the law, but you're probably going to get yourself killed.
Maybe if I always drive in the rightmost lane, being pedantic about posted limits is probably safe for a variety of reasons, but if I'm on the left lane of a 100km/h 3-lane highway, I wouldn't exactly feel comfortable going at 100 if everyone else is going at 125 (including cops).
LOL. I'm not sure if you're trolling, rude or just don't pay attention to the cars around you when you're driving, but I'll guess it's a combination of all 3.
>If you don't follow traffic flow, people will cut off in front of you, tailgate, zigzag, and do other dangerous lane changes/maneuvers much more frequently.
From my 45 years of observing people's driving and driving myself for about 30 years, I find that most people generally obey the speed limit or don't go much faster. Probably about 90% of people in general. At rush hour, it drops to about 50%. Some of the other 50% certainly do do all those fucked up, rude and dangerous things you mention, but it doesn't mean that the 50% of people obeying the speed limit are at fault. It's the impatient speeders who are at fault.
It's sometimes a bit of a Darwin award scenario. I live on Vancouver Island, and there is only a single highway over the mountains to Victoria. During commute times, about 50% of people speed significantly, and they do some of the dangerous and rude shit you mention. A few times a year one of them drives too fast for the conditions and ends up killing themselves, which then shuts down the entire north-south highway (the only fucking route) for 4 hours. The government is currently spending a shit ton of money to put barriers in the centre of the highway to try and prevent the excessively speeding idiots from killing themselves so often.
So no, I don't have much patience for the rude people who tailgate me, go 50km/h over the limit even in rain, and then get themselves killed and hold up the entire island for 4 hours because of their stupidity and lack of knowledge of basic physics.
(And I'm not calling out everyone who speeds, I do it myself sometimes, it's only the ones who go way over the limit with no consideration for weather conditions or safety, and the rude idiots who are in too much of a hurry to extend basic courtesy to other road users).