FLOG

A note on passing decorum:

As a mouth-breather who owns a vehicle with a top speed of 85 MPH, I can't stand speed demons. If I'm going 75 in the left lane of I-5, there's no reason I should have swing into the slow lane to wait for some punk in a Hyundai, hep'ed up on goofballs no doubt, to blaze past. I inevitably get wedged between two slow moving semis and it takes me 10 minutes to get going again.

The only proper solution to the nation's interstate woes: two lanes for slow moving dicknuts, a middle lane for those of us that want to go far enough over the speed limit w/o getting caught and a left lane for maniacs. I think this would make everyone happy.

Your 'there's no reason' attitude is part of the problem, son. Why should you refuse to yield the fast lane and hold up people in bigger hurries (question mark)

Sure, three lanes sounds ideal, but it sure as hell doesn't work right now in the 40 miles between Portland and Salem.

Aye, but they're the one(s) with a problem, not me. Under your guidelines, if I was standing in line in a supermarket with a full cart, I would have to yield to every customer that arrived after me with a smaller basket. I'd never get anywhere.

There is a law against passing on the right. Nevertheless, I refuse to budge, especially if I'm already going 10 MPH over the limit. Having to move and then fight my way back over is a huge inconvenience. Hrumph!

This is why God needs to invent flying cars.

As a reluctant stiff neck I have to say that my main reason for being a bit slow to get out of the fast lane is that I can move, but that isn't going to make the fucker who I've been driving behind for ages move. The problem is that I-5 between P and E has a ricockulous number of idiots all of whom believe they should go first. Americans don't yield to fire trucks, do you really think they are going to yield to an idiot 18 year old in a $40k car. NO!!! NO!!! NO!!!

I choose to say, instead, yes, you can drive a foot from my bumper, realize, though, asswipe that I am dangerously close to the person in front of me too, and that person is also too close to the next person . . . and so on ad naseum. If the asswipe hits me I will sue him until he bleeds.

I'm sick of the me-person. This is the person in the grocery store who glares at you when they find you with 30 items in the grocery store 10 item check-out, only this ass wasn't there to witness the clerk asking you to come to that lane because there were so many folks in the other lane. I tend to glare back and go slow.

That wasn't Flog that was Ashley.

This is FLOG.

Blog, your thinking is uptight. I said you were PART of the problem, but you're not the whole problem. Were we to adopt the German system, this "limit" you speak of would be all but nonexistent: never observed nor enforced. Without a speed limit, you would have no more right to clog up the fast lane at 75 than does the asshole who does it at 65 (the one you get stuck behind and curse at).

I suspect the reason you hate to yield the fast lane is very much the reason hit upon by Ashley. We've all found ourselves in that situation: Some fucknuts comes roaring up to tailgate us; we dutifully get out of the way, and they fail to pass or even overtake us, instead hovering behind us at the same speed. Well, think about why this might be: perhaps they take from our yield that we have spotted a cop and are slowing down, so they are afraid to pass us. This would not be a problem if there was no speed limit.

Or perhaps you hate to yield because as soon as you do, an endless procession of SUV's creeps by you about 3 mph faster than you were going, trapping you forever in the slow lane. Again, if these drivers did not live in mortal fear of going more than 15 miles over the speed limit, they would get the hell out of your way a whole lot faster. Our present traffic control system enforces a sort of high-speed gridlock, where everybody's going kind of fast but with no etiquette or clue as to what lane they should be in. We roll along in frustrated herds, frightened of the shepherd in the black and white. This is punctuated every few minutes by a jackass in a Camaro who weaves lanes like a goddamned Navajo artisan. It's not a safe setup.

So it's an all-or-nothing proposition. It would not work simply to require drivers to yield the fast lane, not tailgate, and not pass on the right, without abolishing the speed limit as well, for the reasons you both cite. All I'm saying is, having seen both, the German approach seemed a much safer, and more realistic, approach to the inevitability of speeding.

Also, things like the endless line of cars, each riding the next one's ass, I didn't see once on the Autobahn. This just might be what happens when tailgating and refusing to yield are more egregious than speeding. And, Blog, these aren't *my* guidelines, they're the Fatherland's.

As for grocery express lanes, I didn't actually see any over there. Weird. What else is weird: they don't give you grocery bags. You gotta bring your own, hippie-style.

Well, you've both done a fine job of sizing up the situation. The present system doesn't work but it's not about to change anytime soon. Until it does, which it won't, my ass is going to remain in the fast lane. The opportunity to spite those moppets in fancy cars is too much fun.

Another reason why the German system couldn't work over here: American cars. What's the top speed of an SUV? 110? Plus, those suckers roll over in a light breeze and no one knows how to drive them. Germans have the finest vehicles in the world at their disposal. US road rage + dangerous American automobiles + permission to go nuts on the country's highways = really, really bad idea. Americans aren't mature enough to use an Autobahn.

It's worth considering that road rage might be substantially lessened by a system that reduces congestion.

Nevertheless, I'm afraid you're right about our poor automobiles and our immaturity.

Another thing I might mention is that the semi trucks were generally smaller and went faster over there. This might have something to do with Germany also having a better railroad network for moving freight.

Let's just face up to it: Nazi supermen are our superiors.

If you build it, they will come. Put up the damn freeway with no speedlimits, I think people will adjust. Parts of Texas are like that, with a strange web of unspoken rules regarding which lane one should be in. Move left if somebody is getting o the freeway, otherwise stay right except to pass or if the moon is in Taurus. Quite confusing, but it seems to work okay.

Also, Texas didn't used to have an open container law, but that changed a couple of years ago. Sort of sad really.

Who knew Texas and Germany had so much in common?