Don't you hate it when you're driving behind a slow driver? Many of us can sympathize with THAT person who is driving slowly in the left lane of a two lane road. Yeah, it's obnoxious when he's driving 5 or 10 miles below the speed limit, but what I find to be even more annoying is when he is driving exactly the speed limit. The reason I find that more annoying is because I know, deep down in my heart, this driver is justifying his actions by saying to himself, "I don't care if they're tailgating me, I'm going the speed limit." It's almost as if he is purposely slapping the drivers behind him in the face. He will not go one mph above and that really peeves me off. Going along with that he will attempt to pass the driver in the right lane who is traveling 54 mph in a 55 mph zone, which is just ridiculous. That process in itself takes more time than most of us might think to worry about, but I was curious to find out exactly how much time it takes so I did some math. We can probably agree that the length of an average car is around 16 ft. 55 mph = 80.67 ft/sec and 54 mph = 79.2 ft/sec. Subtracting 79.2 ft/sec from 80.67 ft/sec we get 1.47 ft/sec. Then, we multiply that by 16 ft and we obtain the result of 23.52 seconds. 23.52 SECONDS! If you trust my math, that means that it takes almost a half a minute to pass the other driver in the right lane. Do you realize how many things some of us could do in 23.52 seconds? I won't provide any examples but if each of us stops and thinks about how long it takes us to perform certain activities we could understand that 23.52 seconds is enough time to perform some significant acts. Going along with this idea, one thing I hate almost as much is the slow driver on the one lane road. In this type of situation there are the slow drivers and there are the slow drivers who tease you. For example, slow drivers just drive slowly, usually 5-10 mph below the speed limit, which is annoying enough. The teasers however, drive slowly around the bends then once you're legally able to pass them in the passing sections of the road they speed up. They don't just speed up to the speed limit; they exceed the limit. You want to pass them but at the same time you have to draw the line with excessive speeding. Once he reaches another no passing zone the teaser drops down to 5-10 mph below the speed limit once again. These types of drivers aren't gonna cause you to pull your hair out, but they do enough damage for someone to remember if it's happened to him.
With that being said I'd like to thank my boss for the idea behind this entry. She brought it up to me last week when we were at work. Thanks Kara.
Until next time,
Zac
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I couldn't agree more.
ReplyDeleteI love the distinction between slow drivers and slow drivers who tease you...very observant. The next time I am in this situation I will remember that I am not alone!
ReplyDeleteIn response to the slow driver on a one lane road, I've actually had an almost fatal experience with a certain stubborn driver on a one lane road. I was on my way to Cedar Point in Ohio, and on the way there, there are many one lane roads in the middle of nowhere that are passing lanes. Yes, it is very tricky to pass someone on a one lane road, especially when you see the grill of an 18-wheeler zooming at what seems to be 90 times the speed limit in a direction coming right at you. Anyways, I'm going to say the speed limit was 55 mph on said road, and the man in front of me was going about that speed. Usually a driver that goes about 10 mph over the speed limit (don't lie, you know you do), I looked in the oncoming lane to see if there was anybody coming, and then proceeded to make the move. Heartrate racing, I sped up to pass the man on my right, and to my surprise he started accelerating to the point where the guy sounded like he was driving a GTO, when really he was driving a Ford Escort (or something like that). At this point I am drag racing this guy down the road, and you would have thought that this guy was racing for either A) one million dollars or B) his life. Noticing a truck coming at me in the lane I was in, I started to panic and immediately slammed on the brakes, swerving back into the spot that I originally started in. I was very frustrated with the man in front of me, because shortly thereafter he actually slowed down so that I could pass him up, which confused me beyond belief.
ReplyDeleteNow I am guessing that this man did not have the intention of murdering me, but I would not have been surprised if he was competitive enough that he would have equipped spikes on the side of his tires to explode mine. I just don't understand the mindset behind these actions sometimes.
Awesome post Zac.