An idea for the next 'fast and furious'

General Discussion
1

Mr Ray Magliozzi responded in his column to Virginia who wrote, ‘Those
multilane highways were the scariest. Are there any guidelines out
there for how to drive safely on these monsters?’ that, in the
future, ‘you’ll be able to get on the highway, set the car on “drive
me,” and watch “The Fast and the Furious 8” on the screen that drops
down from your visor.’

Which inspired me with an idea for “The Fast and the Furious 9”: self-driving cars.

(I would have told her not to drive on multilane highways and sent her
a copy of ‘Blue Highways’.)

1 Like
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Just what the heck is “multi-lane highway” supposed to mean . . . ?!

In my neck of the woods, 4-5 lanes plus “carpool lane” in EACH direction is the norm

People seem to manage just fine

Don’t see too many scared drivers

Perhaps this “Virginia” was not a very confident driver, or lived in some area where the average speed on the highway was 90+ . . . ?

3

Yep the more lanes the better. If I remember Blue Highways, the guy was driving all the back roads in his truck and freezing to death at night.

4

VA has multi-lane highways all over the place. Maybe the person meant in Northern Virginia, aka the DC metro area. The infamous beltway has 4 lanes of traffic and sometimes more in each direction. It’s often 4 lanes of parking, but sometimes traffic moves fast. When traffic allows, people go over 80 MPH on this 55 MPH highway. The same goes for I-95 north and south of DC. Especially the parking lot stuff. I commute early so that I can have sparse traffic early. And people whizz by me like I’m standing still. I’m typically going 70 to 75 when they blow by. I agree that the frightened driver should just stay home, or stay in the right-most two lanes. Even then they will be in the way. If I wave as I pass, I promise to keep all 5 fingers erect, as hard as that might be. You know what I hate more than commuting in DC traffic? Nothing.

1 Like
5

When I moved to Southern California in January 1974 they had already caved to the federal environmental (Gas saving) 55mph speed limit. Traffic was still moving bumper to bumper at 70 to 80mph then parking for 5 to 10 minutes. I soon discovered it was a bit quicker and much safer to use the boulevards verses the interstates.

6

I discovered that too. When I went to LA way too much, I never got on the freeway at rush hour unless it meant going through South Central LA. I remember meeting a friend in Marina del Rey. I too surface streets past the west end of LAX and beat my friend by a half hour. My friend took the 405 and was stuck in traffic. We left at the same time.