@bing tips above are better, but I have one. Traffic patterns are different in different areas, but in New England, we have one that is particularly unsafe. Picture a road with two lanes on each side at an intersection. In New England, the left lane will back up while cars wait to turn left, though they are looking at a green light. The right lane will continue to flow. I learned the hard way to be super cautious in that right lane when going through the intersection. I was doing so once and a car turned out of line and hit me head on. Not the first car in line facing me, but the second. It turned out of traffic, crossed the yellow lines and I hit that car doing about 30 without being able to slow. The other driver told me she had assumed that the car ahead of her had trouble since it wasnāt moving. Iāve always been careful in that situation since.
A two-lane road has a total of two lanes.
Iām sure you know exactly what you mean, but I could make little sense out of your description of your incident.
Thanks @insightful I made an edit to the post that I hope makes it better.
Well, you didnāt change your description of the incident, soā¦no better.
This says you were in the right lane next to the (left) lane of stopped cars going your direction. So how did anyone hit you head-on?
Use cruise control on highways if safe.
I have seen improvements of around 20 %.
Add at least 20% extra time to get places so you are not rushed.
20% improvement of what ?
I do this all the time (use as a merge lane) since there is a busy road at the exit of my neighborhood. I turn left into the center lane on a gap to the left and wait with my right turn signal on to merge. I look for cars entering the lane to turn right in front of me so I donāt block or hit them. If not for this technique, I could never leave turning left. I would forever be condemned to right turns. I am not sure if its legal or not but Iāve seen cops do it, too.
Why do you think this is a problem?
Whatāspecificallyāare you quantifying with that reference?
Mile per Gallon
In my case using Cruze control increased highway mpg from 21 -> 28 m.p.g.
Nonsense and it is cruise control.
I have ridden with people that could benefit that much from cruise control. They generally pump the accelerator pedal like they are trying to pump gas from the tank. On-off-On-off-brake-On-off-brake rather than driving as if there was an egg under the gas pedal. A good driver can routinely beat the cruise control. Been there, done that, takes smoothness and, anticipation and concentration.
Donāt be a āleft lane vigilanteāā¦one of those āfineā folks who think that they should cut off fast moving cars then sit in the left lane at or under the speed limit for a period of time just to slow down people speeding. This is stupid, this is dangerous, and frankly you create far more problems than you solve (I say to the idiot on 222 today who decided to cut off a Mustang GT going 90 and sit in the left lane going 55 in a 65 for nearly a mileā¦heās lucky he didnāt cause a massive pile up)
In the future, any messages from you that is uncalled for will be ignored.
I am referring to Volvo person.
I have to politely disagree with you.
I do not think a human can make fine adjustments to the speed like a computer can.
Yup!
Somebody who experiences an mpg increase from 21->28 under the same driving conditions was not driving in an economical manner in the first place.
Some of the veterans of this board will probably recall me talking about my nutty ex-boss who had the habit of turning to look at his passengers when he spoke to themā¦which wasā¦often. As a result, everyone hated riding with him because of the constant whiplash effect. (Jerry hits the brake and everyoneās head lurches forward. Then, he hits the gas again, and everyoneās head lurches backward.)
Anyway, Jerry complained about the awful gas mileage that he got with his big Buick, soāfor two reasonsāI suggested that he start using his cruise control. I made the suggestion because it should have improved his gas mileage to some extent, and because I thought that it might possibly stop him from doing the gas/brake two-step constantly.
Nope!
He complained that he hated cruise control because he had to keep re-activating it. Of course he did, simply because he couldnāt break himself of the habit of constantly hitting the brake, and then compensating by hitting the gas pedal.
Note: This was the same guy who always bought a specific dollar amount of gasāusually $5āinstead of filling his tank, āso that they canāt cheat meā.
Yes, he had to go to the gas station every day into order to get his usual $5 worth of gas.
Yes, he was a very strange manā¦
I am also confused.
I see this constantly and need to do it occasionally. It is not addressed in the Oregon Driver Manual. I have driven in most states and seen this āoffenseā committed in nearly all of them.
Hereās a safety tip that no one in my state seems to understand. Driving on snow and ice? Trying to avoid hitting the stopped car in front of you? You get one choice: Either brake, or turn. Not both.
Iāve seen I donāt know how many wrecks where someoneās slammed on the brakes, the wheels are locked, and theyāre desperately cranking the wheel over but the car keeps going straight because the wheels arenāt turning and they have no traction. These wrecks are easily avoidable if you stop braking - the car will turn and youāll avoid rear-ending the other car.
Traction is a net-sum game. You start with a given amount of traction to play with. Braking subtracts from that. If braking reduces you to zero traction, then you have no traction available to turn.
Oh, and @VOLVO_V70 is right - unless you drive like Mario Andretti, youāre not gonna save any 7mpg just by turning cruise control on.
I agree with you.
As a South Texan, we rarely have snow and ice.
I once had to drive in Dallas when there was ice on the road.
The lack of control scare the c*$# out of me.
I decided that I would stay in place rather than drive on ice.
In my area we get a lot of street flooding.
We get the occasional moron who speeds thru water that is over the curb which sends waves to the other side of the street onto folks who are going slow.
Friendswood, Texas passed a law prohibiting that kind of driving.
On that, never drive through water thatās covering the street. I used to work in television, and part of my job was chasing severe weather, and Iāve seen many times where the water will wash out the road, but you canāt see the washout because the water obscures it.
So even if you think you know how deep the water is based on your knowledge of that particular stretch of road, you might be very wrong and find your car in a 4 foot deep sinkhole that just appeared 10 minutes ago.