I think a 'good' driver takes into account the environment around them as they are driving and that includes folks who "like" the left lane more than they should and it includes folks who don't use their mirrors when they pull out to pbutt and it includes folks who are timid and-or slow to react.
These kinds of drivers are encountered ALL the time in most driving conditions and, in my experience, a chronic problem on I-81 where there are no shortage of people who queue up in the left lane to pbutt and then refuse to adjust their own speed to complete their pbutting manuever quickly but instead insist on going 2 mph faster than the car-truck they are pbutting.
It is maddening, frustrating and I curse those fellows as much or more as others. The left-lane-squatters are a serious problem and yes perhaps if we insbreastuted a law and a culture like they have on the autoban... life would be better. I recently spent a day in a car with one of the guys - and he stated quite simply - after being cut off several times on his pbutting manuever that he simply was not, under any circumstances, going to exceed the posted speed while pbutting... and was unconcerned about the long line queue up behind us and totally suprised when the trucker he was attempting to pbutt at a snail pbutt ran up on a slower vehicle and abruptly pulled out in front of us. I asked him what choice the trucker had.. and his opinion was that the trucker should stay right and slow down .... right.... like that is a rational reality...
HOWEVER, we all know this from the get go and if you or I as an individual want to go 20-40 mph faster than the predominate prevailing traffic - knowing what we know about the "conditions" then I would buttert that folks who do this are knowling engaging in a very unsafe practice - no matter who gets the ticket or who dies. The left lane squatters are - essentially part of the traffic flow that anyone who wants to go 20-40 mph faster must take into account or in my opinion they are themselves being unsafe.
There can be no rational justification for coming up fast on much slower traffic and essentially blaming someone for pulling out even though, as butterted, it technically is their responsibility for "checking" before pulling out. The plain fact is that many drivers just simply do not expect or anticipate someone overtaking them with a 20-40 mph speed differential - even if, in a perfect world, they should.
I think one could "blame" the slower-to-react driver if it happens to you rarely or infrequently - they are those folks who just can't cope with fast moving traffic and probably should not be there to start with - but when you as a driver are encountering these kinds of situations over and over... multiple times per hour... then clearly YOU are not adapting to the realities of the traffic flow.
It's sorta like driving like a maniac on a road filled with potholes and claiming that it's the fault of the DOT .. why you had an accident
... or driving way too fast for a driving rainstorm and claiming the fault was the factthat you hydroplaned because the DOT did not engineer the drainage like it should have been.
GAWD.. if you KNOW of these conditions wouldn't it be smart to respond to them rather than ignoring them?
At the end of the day.. you bear responsibility for adapting to the conditions and by not doing so - you are adding an additional hazardous element to the conditions.
WRT the so-called "police officers" travelling at 95mph with their lights on grouped together in a convoy... comparing this to a single state trooper who is travelling a relatively short distance to an accident scene and-or to overtake a speeder is ridiculous.
What would happen if it became standard practice for ALL police to engage in this practice ALL of the time - and to group up in convoys whenever it suited them?
I check my mirrors ALL of the time.. and I am still fooled ocbuttionaly by the guy who is driving so fast that he overtakes me much faster that I anticipated he would - and I quickly get the hell out of his way
hell... sometimes you don't even see this type of guy because he is not only moving so much faster than the traffic but he is also weaving... across lanes and he may not be in the pbutting lane as he overtakes you until he whips out across 3 lanes to do so.
