OK, but hear me out: If you are driving a long haul then even minor speed gains add up over a full day.
It’s fun when you’re the first car behind the truck and the guy behind you is tailgating close enough to see the whites of his eyes like you’re the asshole going slow.
every time i see a gallery of this guy’s comics posted, they start out innocuous like this, then invariably they start becoming blatant far-right propaganda. every single time. the guy’s a chud.
Times this by 5 and you have alot of fwys around here. 6 lanes, 4-5 have semis all going 50-60mph. Then the far left lane has a minivan trying to go 65mph (speed limit is 70) [everyone goes 80 if they can)
Don’t know what you’re talking about
meanwhile in sweden: “sorry folks we have to wait for the express train to pass us”
I LOVE TURNING EVERY SINGLE RAILWAY INTO A HIGH SPEED RAILWAY AND LEAVING LOCAL SERVICES TO ROT, YAAAAAAY
Meanwhile in the US: “sorry the one train scheduled for today was 3 hours late but now we have to wait 45 minutes for the oversized freight train to pass because the rails are privately owned and they get priority. Stop complaining. At least there’s a train for you to take at all.”
Yeah we Europeans love to complain about our trains. I mean, have you heard about Deutsche Bahn xD
But at least we have trains *laughs in non-american
at least we have trains if you live near a sufficiently large city, otherwise enjoy the 4 hour bus ride
Ah yes, the amazing bus service which is different in every region in Sweden right? Which can be suuuuper nice for foreigners like tourists and exchange students too in some places like Linköping where you can only buy a ticket if you have a Swedish bank account and address. Otherwise no bus ride for you!
indeed! also, have fun finding and downloading the right app, then figuring out what fucking ticket you need, and if you get it wrong you have to pay 100 bucks extra :)))))))))))))))))))))))) but it’s NOT a fine it’s an additional charge!!! stop calling it a fine it’s not a fine!!!
Oh and like one route connecting each region to each neighbouring region, because that’s literally illegal by default and they need exceptions to be allowed to run buses over the region borders :))))))) also said route runs 3 times per day
Some politicians have proposed turning the entire country into a single public transport zone and it’s never gonna happen but i’m praying so fucking hard for it to happen anyways
but it’s NOT a fine it’s an additional charge!!! stop calling it a fine it’s not a fine!!!
We’re only allowed to fine you once, so if we don’t call this a fine we so can charge you twice as this one will be an additional charge and the other will be a fine. We call this smart thinking :)
FFS 🤦
is that a “69” on the train?
Sadly, it’s only the horizontally compressed logo for Nederlandse Spoorwegen.
how can you see what’s inside the car?
i don’t, but that on the outside looks like a 69 anyway
That’s how we do it here ;) our train rides are really good
It’s the Dutch trainlines (NS or Nederlandse Spoorwegen) logo!
Happy VIRM noises at 160kph
Or be in Ohio, 3-lane highways where semis just chill in the middle lane with people passing them on both sides.
More common though is the semi in the right lane, getting passed by a semi in the middle lane 1mph faster than them, and someone in the left lane passing them 1mph over.
For our German-challenged friends:
Elephant Racing
colloquialism for one lorry (semi truck) overtaking another.Elephant racing is a colloquial term for a situation where one lorry (semi truck) overtakes another on a multi-lane road (usually a highway) with a small speed difference.
Quantitative Analysis
The overtaking process usually takes several minutes due to the small speed difference. This difference is often due to the legal allowance being the speed limit plus 6 km/h tolerance, but the speed in the overtaking lorry is instead set to 10 km/h above the limit. Even if the faster vehicle ends up closer than the prescribed 50 m following distance for trucks above 50 km/h, overtaking at speeds below 10 km/h isn’t permitted. With a difference of 4 km/h, an elephant race takes at least half a minute if the passing lorry is already very close and returns to its lane immediately after.
Taking into account lane changing as well as the distance before the overtaking process, a typical overtaking manoeuvre will take 3 minutes and extend over 4 kilometers at a speed difference of 2 km/h. Sometimes these attempts fail and are aborted, especially when increased air resistance or gradient changes negate the excess speed.
The time saved is very small, even over a day. For a distance of 500 km at a constant speed of exactly 80 km/h, it takes 6 hours and 15 minutes. If the route is clear throughout and is driven at a constant speed of 82 km/h, it will still take 6 hours and 6 minutes, not even 10 minutes less. These 10 minutes of time savings contrast with the significantly higher time losses for the many affected car drivers on two-lane highways.
Ahhh, I’ve been caught doing this a few times. I would misjudge the speed differential and it would take way too long to pass the other guy. Trucks usually have governors on them and cruise control is set to max… Cars would back up behind me and I would be thinking “come on, man, let off the gas a little and let me by!” I always felt bad about it because I know what a piss off it is being caught behind that bullshit.
I bet you didn’t misjudge. People have a bad habit of speeding up when someone tries to pass them. I’ve been stuck at 60 behind a driver in a 70 zone and as soon as I start passing the asshat speeds up to 75 in the cruising lane.
Even more infuriating was the person I got stuck behind that was cruising in the passing lane going too fast to pass whenever the other lane was clear, but then drastically slowing down whenever they were actually passing someone. So I’d get frustrated whenever they dropped to 65 because they were nervous passing, but I couldn’t get passed them because they’d be back up at 85-90 whenever the other lane was clear
I see this a lot in VA. They are constantly hauling modular houses or heavy equipment over Afton mountain on 64. People try to pass, but get nervous when beside the trucks and slow to a crawl. I don’t get how they feel safer hovering beside it rather than getting past it into the clear.
I was driving back from FL one time going up a 55mph state route (331). Some lady in one of those Lexus 2-seater convertibles was going a whole 56 in the right lane. I get up to her and attempt to pass, and just as I my front bumper gets to her car’s midpoint, she floors it and disappeared into the horizon.
About 20ish minutes later I get on I-10 going East and after a few miles of going 78+ in a 70mph highway I catch up to the same lady in the same Lexus going maybe 68. I, again, attempt to pass her and as soon I get close BAM she floors it and quickly disappears.
No, most of those trucks are going as fast as they can and are on cruise control. The governor on one might let it go a little faster than the other.
I’ve found this behavior to be more or less common in different places. It’s extremely common in Florida, for one. It’s pretty common in some parts of New York too. By contrast, just one state over, I haven’t encountered it in Connecticut at all (though I haven’t driven there as much as I have in Florida or New York, and I’ve mostly used the highways, where slower drivers are explicitly instructed to stay in the right lane. So there could be a sampling bias.)
I never understood it. It’s like the driver thinks that if somebody passes them, it’s a personal insult. It reminds me of those who speed up when they see that somebody might merge in front of them; like they feel possessive of the public road somehow.
If you’re barely able/willing to travel faster than the other truck, why pass in the first place? You’re both traveling nearly the same speed. Just ride behind the other guy. The only time you need to pass is if you want to cruise substantially faster than the person you’re passing.
Because you get paid for the miles you drive every day. If I can drive more miles, I get paid more. Plus, that can be turned into rest time if I get to me destination sooner. That means I got time for doing laundry and taking a shower or even sleeping.
Because you spend the entire time trying to match the small variations in someone else’s speed which is a distraction vs pootling along at your own pace. Also even going just a couple of km/h faster than someone you drop them pretty quick.
They said they misjudged the speed of the other driver.
You have to notice at some point approaching them.
When you’re driving a truck for months on end on cruise control, you have less work to do: look in front and steer. Time can get a bit relative.
6 minutes pass when you feel like it was only 2. Not a cardinal mistake.
Or the other guy decides to speed up.
And especially if you drive a route where you have to wait for hours on customs. The waits get really long so of course 15 minutes feel like 5 sometimes.
He didn’t notice, as he had misjudged the speed difference.
I’m glad to hear it’s generally not intentional. It makes me feel good about letting trucks get back to the right lane instead of passing on the right like a dick head and prolonging the problem.
When I see this happening I try to leave enough space behind so the trucker feels like they can slow down safely, and most of them do.
If they’re not slowing down and you’ve misjudged it, why don’t you slow down and move back to the right lane?
Depends on how far I got before cars showed up.
I don’t mind just nudging my cruise control down a tad when this happens behind a car, but there’s something claustrophobic about driving behind a box truck for a long period of time.
Increase the gap.
“Oh shit, I’m being passed by a truck! Better speed up to match their pace.”
i dunno the second was never a problem for me in gta
i mean. as long as you are passing, and not speeding, it’s not “camping in the passing lane.”
just because a dbag comes up behind you wanting to go 20 over the limit and you are not passing “fast enough” does not mean you are camping either.
Passing at 1mph faster is extremely obnoxious still
Depends on the jurisdiction. In Germany, you must not overtake anyone unless you are “driving with significantly higher speed”.
This is basically unenforced though.
but always still under the limit? interesting! so overtaking a 20 under person is fast time wise but someone going 5 under makes the effective limit lower?
There’s no limit on the German Autobahn!
ㅤ ∧＿∧
( ･∀･)
( つ┳⊃
ε (_)へ⌒ヽﾌ
( ( ･ω･)
◎―◎ ⊃ ⊃*Certain sections of the Autobahn
However, many countries have laws that allow you to exceed the posted speed limit by a certain amount as long as you are overtaking.
You are absolutely wrong in the American state of Georgia and can be ticketed for it.
Same in Colorado, if people want to pass you’ve gotta move over even if you’re doing 20 over the limit
Fuck, Georgia is a terrible state to get ticketed in. In other states, if the cops don’t show up to court, they throw the case out. But in Georgia, if the cop doesn’t show up, the court case is rescheduled.
Source: receiving two speeding tickets in Georgia while living out of state (two separate occasions. One at night when there was no one else on the road to gauge my speed by, and the second in a speed trap just moments after I recounted the first story to the passengers in the car. Fuck driving in Georgia.)
I do it every day and I couldn’t agree with you more.
Do it on a 125 motorbike just fast enough to overtake but not enough power to do so if there’s a slight hill or head wind. Then the blinker comes on.
At least in Brazil, the speed limit is different for cars/motorbikes and for trucks/buses, often it’s a 3:2 ratio.
For example, a highway with a maximum speed of 130 km/h (very rare, max speed is often 120km/h) would have a maximum speed of 85 km/h for trucks and buses. This is often informed by the same vertical sign, e.g.:
“Veículos leves
120
Veículos pesados
80”(translation: "lightweight vehicles: 120km/h / heavy vehicles: 80km/h)
If a truck is traveling at 100km/h in a highway whose speed limit (for cars and motorbikes) is 120km/h, the truck is committing a traffic violation.
Unfortunately, this happens a lot, with trucks often tail-following (is this the correct English terminology? I don’t remember) and threatening to run over a smaller vehicle which is trying to follow the laws and is traveling within the speed limits. People think “speed limit” means “required speed”.
To answer the question you posed in your comment, the common term in English for a car following extremely close to another car is usually “tailgating”. This refers to the “tail gate” that is on a the beds of flat bed trucks. So if you are following very close, you are nearly touching the tailgate.
It makes sense from one perspective (larger vehicle more mass more momentum) but considering that the impact of a 30kph collision is not negligible, and moreover that it will indisputably cause traffic to bunch up, is it helping or hindering safety?
Well, we do have countless accidents involving trucks on a daily basis, and those accidents often do cause the traffic to bunch up. One of the highways I’m somewhat used to drive through, “Rodovia Fernão Dias” (MG-460), is very famous for accidents in this regard. The accidents frequently involve retreaded tires (“pneu remolde”) popping off the truck’s wheels, and the truck is often traveling way beyond 80km/h (if they were traveling below 80km/h, maybe the truck would be slightly more controllable when such a thing happened I guess)…
In practice, the speed limit does nothing (except in cases they’re caught by a speed camera, but people deliberately de-accelerate when getting close to a speed camera before speeding up again). If people were to respect the speed limits all the times, especially the truckers, maybe, just maybe, accidents would be less frequent. The ones hindering safety are often the truckers, however, I don’t really blame them; the transportation companies they’re working to often push surreal demands unto them (e.g. “you must take this cargo from Santos to Belo Horizonte in 12 hours”, a 670km trip that’d take a car 10h non-stop, depending on the conditions of Rodoanel and Fernão Dias); they often use stimulant drugs (“rebite”) to keep awake during insane days-long trips, and sometimes you can spot a truck zig-zagging and veering off to the roadside because the trucker fell asleep.
This is my new pet peave, I hope this becomes illegal one day. It backs traffic up like crazy.
It is in Germany. Here overtaking may not take longer than 45s, so a truck can’t do it unless the other one is driving 10 km/h below the speed limit.
If they get caught they are 1/8 of their way to a suspended license (requiring a 6 month wait and a psychological review and the normal exam to reacquire) .In a lot of countries it is illegal.
France:
- vehicles above 3.5 tons longer than 7m: 50 metres distance minimum outside towns if cruising at the same speed (Code de la route R412-12 II)
- it’s illegal to attempt overtaking if it would impede the flow of traffic and the relative speeds do not allow for overtaking within a sufficiently short time (Code de la route R414-4 II)
- a lot of busy roads have a sign forbidding overtaking for heavy vehicles, sometimes with specific times listed.
None of it is enforced so you should always expect to be cut off.
Also of note: whenever there are random checks of trucks by police they find around 50% in violation of important regulations like rest times and the administrative situation of a work vehicle. They willfully avoid checking too much because it would mean the means of transport for 85% of freight suddenly becomes way more expensive.
