I guess, starting a car up in the morning is “harmful” to it. Sitting in the seat is harmfull too. In that respect, it’s hard to argue with your wife when she says a “passing gear is harmful”. Bottom line, using the features a car gives you often causes wear. But, that’s what these gears are designed to do and that was their intent; to aid in accelerating to necessary speeds required to pass safety. Is if harm doing it…sure. Just like it could be harmful for OP to be right in the eyes of his wife during an argument.
A definite loose/loose. Just tell her she is “right…” But it’s a necessary evil.
I remember the passing gear in the 1952 Dodge my parents owned. The Dodge was equipped with the GyroMatic “lift and clunk” automatic transmission. The passing gear was only god to about 45 mph and then you had to release the accelerator for the car to shift back into high. I think that passing gear actually made the car slow down. Depressing the accelerator to go into passing gear made the flat head 6 cylinder engine really roar.
Perhaps the o.p. should just print out these comments and allow her to read at her own pace then patiently wait and see if she changes anything.
He said his piece…let her read ours…then …that’s it.
One other comment he could make to her is not about HER driving but about other’s driving.
Such as, when they are on a road and someone enters the traffic flow too slowly as to be a safety hazard, comment on them and how they could have done it better.
maybe…
she can apply what danger she could face as the other driver because of them ( stopping/slowing in the driving lane too quickly and possibly causing a rear-ender or chain…zipping to the adjacent lane without sufficient time to clear your space …or even rear-ending that car – yes the fault CAN lie with the car in front )
@B.L.E. on a 200 mile trip about 13 minute, closer to a half hour if the speed differential is 10 MPH.
I have never on any 200 mile trip ever been in a situation where if I didn’t pass a slower driver, I would have been stuck behind him for the entire 200 miles. Usually, the slower cars are local traffic and exit or take a different fork in the road after less than ten miles or so. Also, most two lane roads have “climbing lanes” where you can pass them safely usually less than five miles away.
I still say it’s silly to do a high risk pass to get around someone who is only going 5 mph slower than you when your exit is only a couple of miles down the road. The time you save is only seconds, literally.
Oh, I agree that a lot of passing isn’t essential, but there are plenty of secondary roads that are not equipped with passing lanes. That’s only a common amenity on the more heavily travelled highways. If you’re on a county road you are going no faster than the car/truck/tractor ahead of you and if people don’t pass pretty soon the traffic gets very backed up. I see a lot of that in the western US where local traffic can be making a hundred-mile shopping trip. And then there are motor homes with drivers who don’t want to have to keep pulling off to let cars by every few minutes, even if they’ve got quite a following. That’s a common problem on CA Hwy 1, which has infrequent passing lanes in some busy stretches and a lot of RV traffic.
I find that what really puts a big hit on my trip computer’s running estimated time of arrival are the pit stops, filling gas and emptying bladders and stopping to eat. Even if I run into the convenience store with an un-occupied bathroom and only pee and then run right back to the car without buying something, it seems to advance my ETA by at least 5 minutes by the time I’m back on the road at cruising speed. With my wife along and the dogs that need to take a short walk during the pit stop, it’s more like 15 to 20 minutes time lost.
You have to be behind a really slow driver for a really long distance to do that much damage to your ETA and you have to drive 80 mph for a really long distance to turn the ETA back even only a couple of minutes.
So you pass on the double yellow and accelerate up to 80
Was that four seconds really worth crossing the double yellow and risking a reckless driving charge for?
There is no excuse NONE for passing in a double yellow line (no passing zone).
Reckless driving charge?? What about killing innocent people in the oncoming lane? Sorry, I can’t abide by this even as an example to illustrate your point. Why even use it? Your point remains valid even if it’s a pass performed in a legal zone…
There is no excuse NONE for passing in a double yellow line (no passing zone).
Reckless driving charge?? What about killing innocent people in the oncoming lane? Sorry, I can’t abide by this even as an example to illustrate your point. Why even use it? Your point remains valid even if it’s a pass performed in a legal zone…
I agree, there is no justification for passing in a no passing zone, so why even use it as an example? Because I have seen this exact scenario played out on the roads I drive on so often.
One incident in particular, I was in a line of cars stuck behind a RV going about 5 under the limit. In my rear view mirror, I see some leadfoot coming really fast, going at least 10 over the speed limit, maybe more and passing every car behind me, double yellow or not. He passed me and the van I was behind in one high speed pass crossing the double yellow to do so.
A few miles down the road, the van in front of me turns on his flashers and slows down to a stop in order to allow a sheriff’s car to make a U-turn and then resumes normal speed. A few miles later, that ordinary looking van pulls up behind the stopped car surrounded by a couple of marked cars and turns on his hidden blue and red strobe lights.
I drove by and gave the thumbs up as I went by. I think everybody else did too.
Sometimes there is justice.
I’ve seen this passing-on-the-double-yellow-line too. Anyone who’s been driving for at least a decade has seen it. And it just might be one of the most dangerous and dumbest moves anyone can make. Personally, I thought it was a good example well used.
Because I have seen this exact scenario played out on the roads I drive on so often
My point is that it was superfluous to your point of speeding not providing significant time savings. It served no purpose in that argument and the somewhat cavalier way you addressed it in your original post only made it more offending.
I have been lucky enough to witness nearly instant karma a couple of times…