Arif Khokar
You missed the point. Intuition, experience, deduction.... All of these help you out in *many* circumstances such as the ones you and I both described, but not in the universe of situations. Like some momentarily bizarre maneuver out of nowhere by the guy next to you who gave no previous indication of anything to you.
I would rephrase your original statement to say "Experience drivers are *very often more capable than inexperienced drivers* to tell *oftentimes* when someone is going to do something." You just can't cover the universe.
You'd better hope it's a cow! Because if a duck walks out onto the road from the right shoulder, and you're in the left lane blowing by a guy in the right at 30+ faster, and the guy just sees the duck at the last moment because traffic in front of him blocked his view, and he just instinctively makes a sudden swerve into you to avoid the duck... your goose is cooked!
And until that day, we still need to react and behave for the conditions that *are,* not for those we wish to be.
Why not? Seems to me he's proceeding pretty safely depending on what else may be going on. He's certainly not *unsafe* in the limited circumstances you cite. He's just in your way.
A clump of vehicles proceeding side by side at relatively the same speed is dangerous? Hmmm. I ain't buying it.
Nonsense. There's nothing about his going faster that produces any more space in lanes next to him.
False. The space available next to a car isn't a function of its speed at a given moment, but the ever-changing circumstances of traffic in adjacent lanes.
This is not a conclusion that follows from your givens. The speeder could just as easily end up causing the crash as much as anyone else. It doesn't at all follow logically from their slower speed that they have fewer movement options.
Again, that doesn't follow. They can certainly see just as far and because they're going more slowly, simple laws of motion give them marginally more time to react. Seems to me they're safer. If a deer ran out on a highway, I think I'd rather be in a flow going 60 than one going 80. Presumably, the deer would have an opinion as well, but he would want it to be around 10 mph
But that's just my two-buck opinion! ;-0
Deer aren't required to obtain licenses premised on the notion that they will obey the applicable laws; drivers are.
OK, you got me. What is MSM? Mega-Sado-Masochism? (Describes this thread!)
Oh yeah. I live in CO. But that's a rare circumstance.
We'll have to disagree on this then. I think it's arrogant to suggest that people who respect the common agreements as to what traffic flow will be are stupid for not speeding and for respecting other driver's space. The system relies on that.
There is nothing about buttuming everyone is going 55, or 60, or 65 or 75 that dictates they must be in a clump. In fact, I would suggest that those itching to go faster are the ones causing the clump to form in the first place. If you would keep your distance and pace with everybody... voila! No clump.
Depends on volume.
No. Speeders trying to weave in and out at 25+ or 30+ are doing that.
Simple; there's no contradiction here. I agreed with Larry's buttessment that the NJ officers were wrong to have done this; that says nothing about whether LEO's running under lights and siren present less of a hazard to other traffic than a speeder going 30+ faster than others, with which I also agreed.
ISTM the NJ officers had no right to be running under the emergency provision of VA law.
