Re: On Topic? Cars, anyway: 55 MPH speed limit...

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:34:54 +0100, "Mortimer" <me@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>
>Interesting how different countries have different rules about this. In
the 
>UK, the "keep left" and "no undertaking" rules on motorways are drummed
into 
>every new driver and the police will stop people (if they have nothing
more 
>urgent to attend to) to enforce this.
>
Pretty much the same here on keeping to the right.  If your speed is
excessive you may get pinched for passing on the right, but I do it
often at the speed limit or a little above to pass a slowpoke driving
left of me on a 2-lane.
Keeping right becomes more of an issue on a 3-lane with cars entering
and exiting the right lane.  In some urban areas exits/entrances are
an 1/8 of a mile apart and in constant speed flux. 
As you may have seen in this thread, there are many "cowboys" here.
For instance those that insist that you move right from the middle
lane into a gap in the entry/exit lane where traffic might be
averaging 50, perhaps downhill,  between a heavily loaded semi-truck
slowing for exit while a lightly loaded one is barreling down the
entrance ramp behind him, while you are doing 65 and the limit is 55.
Why do they insist you enter this dangerous vise?  Because they want
to do 70 in your lane, and you are in the way.
The driving situation doesn't matter to them.  You should move right
between the trucks because their little pea-brain says so. 
These are often the same sort of people who tail-gate and engage in
other unsafe activities.  But they fancy themselves race car drivers.
  
>You still get people crawling along at 50-60 in the Lane 2 on a deserted 
>motorway late at night: it's very annoying to be driving quite correctly
in 
>Lane 1 and have to move over two lanes to pass the slow vehicle and then 
>move back two lanes to where you were.
>
I sometimes do that only because of my own safety, as you are more
likely to be seen overtaking from the driver's side mirror.

>Mind you in the UK, it's fairly rare for Lane 1 to be for the exclusive
use 
>of traffic leaving the motorway at a junction - this is only done at a 
>minority of very busy junctions and is very well signposted in advance so

>people going straight on can move over into Lane 2 and don't get shunted
off 
>at the junction.
>
Same here. 

>I'm not sure what other countries' laws are about undertaking (ie
overtaking 
>on the opposite side to the driver's side).
>
Not quite sure it's enforced here - never seen it happen - but it is
at least a general rule.

>As a matter of interest, in the USA are large articulated trucks (heavy 
>goods vehicles - HGVs - in UK parlance) legally restricted to a lower
limit 
>than other vehicles? In the UK they are mechanically restricted to 56 mph

>(ie 80 km/hr) which can lead to the dreaded "lorry leapfrog" as truck 1 
>doing 56 comes up behind truck 2 doing 55 (due to tolerances in the
settings 
>of the speed limiters) and decides to overtake it at a differential speed
of 
>1 mph. Consequently all the traffic behind it in Lane 2 is suddenly
reduced 
>to 56 for the several miles that it takes for truck 1 to complete its 
>manoevre. Lo and behold, a few miles further on they'll come to a hill
and 
>truck 2 (which happens to have a more powerful engine and therefore isn't

>slowed as much by the gradient) will overtake truck 1, taking forever and
a 
>day - and so it goes on. In a car, you might tem****arily exceed the speed

>limit to make sure you got past quickly, but HGVs don't have that option.
>
Some states have lower limits for trucks, but they are generally
ignored by the truckers.  Some areas have an extra lane on an upgrade
for trucks to pull into.  There are some special lanes and run-offs
for trucks on steep downgrades, in case of failing brakes.
But one truck slowly overtaking a second on a 2-lane and backing up
traffic is fairly common.

--Vic