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Breaking the law for real (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by ickplant to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Unsafe driving is anything that's surprising. Having a car go faster than your to your right is surprising, thus unsafe. The #1 rule in any kind of dangerous activity where a lot of independent actors are involved is to be predictable.

Here's a clear scenario:

Driver A is cruising in the left lane
Driver B comes up behind driver A
Driver A notices B, checks to the right (looks over shoulder), and decides to merge right
Driver B gets impatient and starts to overtake A on the right
Driver A, assuming moving to the right is safe (mirrors look good), moves right and collides with B, who is in their blind spot

It's reasonable to assume someone isn't going to jump into your blind spot on the right. That's less reasonable to your left, so you should be extra careful when merging left.

Merging right should always be safer because you may need to move over if an emergency vehicle approaches from behind.

[–] Maggoty 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

So Driver B made a conscious decision to make an illegal and dangerous pass. That's not Driver A's fault. You guys want to drive like it's NASCAR and blame everyone around you but it's just not true. If you're coming up behind someone you have more situational awareness not less. It's on you to make a safe move, like applying your brakes. That's a safe predictable response to a slower car in front of you. Nobody is forcing you to drive in an unsafe manner.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's... exactly what I'm saying.

My point is it's unsafe to pass on the right. If you can't pass on the left and there's available room to the right, the driver in front should be ticketed, because doing that encourages unsafe passing from those behind them. If the driver behind gets impatient, they should be ticketed for reckless driving by passing on the right.

So don't pass on the right. If there's a driver in front of you that's holding up traffic with room on the right to move over, call traffic enforcement if it's illegal in your area (and if it's not, campaign for it to become illegal).

[–] buzziebee 3 points 8 months ago

Yeah if there's no one in front of you and someone can undertake you, you fucked up. I'm glad to see this thread full of so many sensible takes on how to drive safely and maintain efficient flows of traffic. Normally these threads online get flooded with brain dead takes like "I'm going fast enough, why should I move?".