Observations on Driving Behaviors

iceracer wrote: I think it was BMW that found that accelerating briskly to your cruising speed is better for mpg than slowly accelerating. Less time on the throttle.

tapped into the OBD2 port with my phone.. I get a better avg MPG at least than half throttle than I do letting the engine loose. I must be doing something right, I have my big Rover up to almost 17mpg in daily driving

So many people seem to think the autobahn allows for safe speed because it has so little traffic,wide multiple lanes and German cars designed for speed. The biggest reasons German autobahns have as good or better deaths per 100,000,000 Miles/Km driven as we do with a lot slower speeds is because of strict lane discipline, drivers who pay attention and aren't careless or overly timid. Hell most of the autobahns I travel on are 2 lanes (with as narrow or narrower lanes) more curves and more traffic than here in the US. Their semi trucks are also only allowed to go 100KPH or 62MPH so there is plenty of disparity of speed to deal with.

LANE DISCIPLINE

European drivers have it. It is simply amazing to be on a 4 lane expressway (2 lanes each way). And see nobody in the left lane. The only time a car is in that lane is to pass. Trucks are speed limited so there is a lot of passing opportunities, but traffic flows. Our highways are filled with rolling roadblocks in every lane. That creates dangerous conditions where faster cars check up, make risky passing maneuvers, and forces cars to bunch up in packs that increase the possibility of accidents.

I think it's that American mentality of "I do what I want, and to hell with everyone else." That mentality just doesn't work on the road. I see some of it reflected in the prior posts. It is the law in most situations that slow traffic is not supposed to drive in the left lane. Unfortunately law enforcement would rather ticket driver's who aren't wearing their seat belts. I see no possibility of this problem being corrected. There are simply too many driver's who believe that it is their god given right to drive where ever, when ever and how ever they please.

Unfortunately I believe you are 100% correct. It will never change. Whats worse is that all the talk about self driving cars, adaptive cruise control, lane assist/departure warning and aids not one has mentioned how lane use will be dealt with. Are the automated systems going to stay right unless passing or be just an automated left lane bandit?

wbjones wrote: yeah ... I've experienced that ... what's nearly as irritating is someone that catches up with you (I'm in the rt. lane, they're in the left) and then just sits right off my left rear quarter panel ... and doesn't continue on past ... I'm usually loitering along about 5 - 10 over ... which often means I'm on cruse control in the rt. lane ... now we're coming up on slower traffic ... the shiny happy person in the left lane just sits there .. so I have a choice to make ... turn the cc off, or speed up and pull in front of said shiny happy person ... then pull back to the rt. lane .. then they do the same thing ... tends to piss me off ... (in case you haven't figured that out by this semi rant LOL )

This happens to me ALL THE TIME when I have the DeLorean out on the open highway. A car will pull up into my blind spot on the left so the passenger can gawk/take pictures and just sit there totally oblivious to anything else going on- like the fact I'm rapidly closing on another vehicle in front of me and either have to brake hard or (if I don't happen to be in the right lane) cut around the slower vehicle on the right. Punching it in that thing is usually not too useful since the vehicle shadowing me 8 times out of 10 can easily match my acceleration- and since they're only worrying about their position relative to me, usually do so...

maj75 wrote:

So many people seem to think the autobahn allows for safe speed because it has so little traffic,wide multiple lanes and German cars designed for speed. The biggest reasons German autobahns have as good or better deaths per 100,000,000 Miles/Km driven as we do with a lot slower speeds is because of strict lane discipline, drivers who pay attention and aren't careless or overly timid. Hell most of the autobahns I travel on are 2 lanes (with as narrow or narrower lanes) more curves and more traffic than here in the US. Their semi trucks are also only allowed to go 100KPH or 62MPH so there is plenty of disparity of speed to deal with.

LANE DISCIPLINE European drivers have it. It is simply amazing to be on a 4 lane expressway (2 lanes each way). And see nobody in the left lane. The only time a car is in that lane is to pass. Trucks are speed limited so there is a lot of passing opportunities, but traffic flows. Our highways are filled with rolling roadblocks in every lane. That creates dangerous conditions where faster cars check up, make risky passing maneuvers, and forces cars to bunch up in packs that increase the possibility of accidents.

Very much this. I HATED coming back and driving in the States after my HS time in Germany because nobody here knows how to merge or use the lanes properly. It also helps that, at least when I was living there, it was a SERIOUS expense to get a license- driver's education in Germany was neither cheap nor easy to pass and it was required of citizens to get their licenses. Likely the least-trained drivers on the road were all the American GI's and their spouses- the youngest German driver had likely had far more driving education than 90% of them.