National Speed Limit

[olddog]

Ok I do not agree with tcrist staying in the left lane, but I have to point out that some of you blaming him for all the problems is equally wrong. There will always be times when the left and right lane gets jammed up. Like every time an 18 wheeler is going around a slower truck or when a cop is driving down the highway (I'll come back to this in a moment). The bottom line is that you are in control of the distance between you and the car in front of you. If you are in a line of cars tail gating a slower driver, it is time to allow even more distance between you and the rest of the idiots, because when something goes wrong, you will have even less warning, when the car in front of you hits a stopped car before he can hit his brakes.

Equally I could argue that the guy whos tire blew out may have been much worse if he had not been slowed down by the left lane hog.

I can also tell you that I have driven in Gernany many times. Most of the highways, I was on, were at least 3 lanes wide. The small trucks used in Europe stay in the right lane and only run about 55 mph. The normal traffic flow is 80 mph, with the guys running 120+ mph sprinkled in. This is fine when there are 3 lanes, but when there are only two it just does not work. The speed difference from 80 to 55 is trecherous. To get out of the fast line and move into the slow truck lane, requires burining your brakes up, when traffic is heavy (most of the time). It is best to pick a lane and drive with the flow, and if you cannot run with the big dogs stay the hell out of the left lane, as changing lanes with a 40 mph speed difference is crazzy.

Regardless what people tell you about no speed limit in Germany, the law is that if you are going faster than 130 kph any accident is automatically your fault, but it doesn't matter to you, as your dead. It does matter to your family, as they have to pay all the bills for your stupid mistake.

Back to a cop driving down a 4 lane highway. Everyone sees him and everyone in every lane is suddenly driving the same speed as him, usually the speed limit plus a few. Now as all the people who are cussing tcrist run into this log jam, they start tailgating and changing lanes, not knowing a cop is ahead, and there is no getting through. Within a few minutes someone nearly hits another car changing lanes, and a car goes spinning off into the median. I've seen it a hundred times. There are more wrecks caused by a cop driving down a 4 lane than any other cause, but who's fault is it really? The cop or all the agressive speeders, who will not slow down no matter what. Tcrist is no worse than a cop, but for the life of me I do not understand why he wants to be like one.

However my point to all this blabbering is that although tcrist is wrong, the agressive speeder, tailgators, and rapid lane changers have no leg to stand on either. If they wreck because he is driving the speed limit, it was their choices that put them in harms way. Just because someone pisses you off, you do not have a free pass to do stupid things out of anger. If you are prone to this, you should sell your Cobra, while you are still alive. Well that likely pissed everyone off, but the truth sometimes hurts. I hope this might save someones life, but I doubt it will change anyones mind.