🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 05 Jan 1999 22:57:54 GMT, whorning@pipeline.com (Walt Horning)
wrote:

>Seen the propaganda Maryland put up on one of its electric beltway
>signs? It says "tailgating is deadly".
>
>Well, this is a crock. 

And what follows is a bunch of excuses for why people tailgate, rather than
why "this is a crock."  Excuse me, but whatever happened to responsibility
for one's own actions?


>First, we have a bunch of ninnies in the left lane that won't pass and
>they piss people off, so others tailgate them. Seems the state is to
>blame for not ticketing people for impeding the flow and not staying
>to the right, so the state is to blame for the tailgating.

Left lane bandits are annoying, but no excuse for tailgating.


>Second, we have a bunch of cops trying to ticket people in the left
>lane who are over the limit, and so drivers won't pass for fear of
>getting a ticket. Seems that state speed limit is partially to blame
>for tailgating.

The state is to blame for absurd speed limits.  The tailgater is to blame
for the tailgating.


>Third, the DC area is the second most congested area in the country
>per a recent news report. This compels people to drive in "compressed
>formations". This is the states fault, not drivers, for failure to
>provide uncongested highways.

The state is to blame for the congestion.  The tailgater is to blame for the
tailgating.


>Fourth 95% of commuters are *never* at 1 car length per 10 mph.

And what is a car length?  The length of a Chevette?  Or a stretch limo?
Just count off two seconds.


>It
>seems that if a driver does this, he will appear to be making no
>effort to pass, so others cut in front of him from the right lane. If
>he backs off to 1 car length for 10 mph, yet again, the driver behind
>will just go around and then cut this person off again. So he gets
>frustrated. Multiple this a half a million times and commuters will
>drive "defensively", that is, they tailgate in order to "hold their
>turf".

...and cause somebody to miss an exit because s/he can't get into the
correct lane.  HELLO?  It is NOT an affront to your manhood if somebody
changes lanes in front of you.

If cars changing lanes in front of you causes you "frustration," then get
the hell off the road and find a good shrink.


>Fifth, as for deaths actually caused by tailgating, I have seen very
>few such deaths due to tailgating. Most rush-hour tailgating results
>in fender-benders.

...and whiplash injuries, shiny new cars turned into ugly heaps of junk,
backups due to the so-called accident, and even MORE driver frustration.

OK, then, let's change "tailgating is deadly" to "tailgaters must die."  

Now that we have the heavily traveled Beltway out of the way...how about
explaining tailgating on two lane country roads at limit+10?  Or on less
heavily traveled roads in the RIGHT lane?


 --------------===============<[ Ray Chason ]>===============--------------
         PGP public key at http://www.smart.net/~rchason/pubkey.asc
                            Delenda est Windoze!