Give them a mile and they'll take an inch!

That sounds backwards... well, it's road work season, and lately I'm experimenting with backwards thinking (since they're making me drive in the wrong lanes). Let's try moving into the thru-lane immediately, when the other('s) closed up there per the sign, putting my flashing lights on and going 15 under, so everyone can fly by ahead of time, instead of racing me to the finish line. Drum roll, what does everyone do then? Tailgate me for a mile... naturally?!

Same goes for merging traffic. Pushing the envelope there, I slowed to 15 the other day in the right lane with flashers on (in case those catching up were having another crisis), and yet my humbly merging servant slowed to 10, just to pull behind and accelerate around, over the solid white lines (like they could have done straighforwardly in front, where they should have merged 15 seconds prior). We all know they're going attempt passing the truck as soon as possible (except when the trucker says go right ahead, I guess that would involve cooperating on some level, so forget it).

Then it still isn't over. Where no intesections are involved, there's groups of motorists catching up with open lane(s) beside me and nothing ahead, only to slow down together as they attempt to pass by closely (except I'm dropping gears at that point), when they'll turn the brights off and speed back up, as if a truck driving slower should have alarmed them momentarily (especially one going up or down hill). WTF, are these the people who write on the walls of rest stops? Talk about backwards thinking.

These things happen as a rule too, just as they'll take a mile if you give them an inch.

 

My objective take on the situation is that traffic simply doesn't flow, by definition (only a lack of traffic flows), and at all times most everyone is assuming a traffic formation. This is their primary concern, and speed is secondary (they'll do whatever speed necessary to form traffic, so as not flow together, even if that requires falling in line behind me for a mile). They are literally competing to get in back of my truck there, when the other lanes are wide open for five-thousand feet (as if I become the lane ending sign ahead of time).

In general, this phenomenon becomes apparent when you start slowing down, especially in less than moderate traffic, the extent others will go to form it (including trucks). Practically no amount of traffic can negotiate a single obstacle, such as a slower moving vehicle they can see from a mile away. One time I was about to merge in a truck and there was one other car on the road, in the right lane, hovering there (not backing off or moving ahead), so I flipped on the flashers and ended up stopping before merging, ultimately well behind them, because they stayed too close until also stopped in the middle of the freaking interstate, as if their only mission in life is to create traffic (and then move on). Whereas, if you're always trying to be at or above the speed limit, you might assume they were just trying to get somewhere a little faster. No, their goal (whether it's conscious or not) is to form traffic at that speed too. After all, what happens when there's nothing but traffic? It stops. So, if it can't flow in slow motion, there's no chance of it happening faster (this is an illusion, where the absense of it is actually flowing), and it will merely stop faster than it will ever flow, at best.

Maybe it's just me, but I can flow at any speed to give them that mile (not that it changes the circumstances, except that I can stop more readily, and much less often have to), go figure.

Subjectively speaking, maybe that's what they mean by "you can't outrun stupid", even if you give up on it all together... oh well, keep it simple, as they say. And I'd say it must be an inherently stupid act, driving that is (speeding up the process of stupidity, no matter what you do), well I was looking in the mirror.

Otherwise, I'd give them credit for being cautious in this situation, but then they were tailgating, so that's out the window. Given the choice, they'll always drive too closely together, whatever it takes, including slowing down from way in front of me, if there's no traffic for them to catch up to on the horizon (same goes for those on the metric system, either way it just doesn't add up, at least if I can help it).

 

I think they must be high around here at all hours.

 

Well, some are drug tested, so that's only part of the picture. There was another truck driver trying to do an intervention on me last week. Same situation, I'm in the through lane for about a mile with hazards flashing, going 15 under. Nobody's passing, and the right lane is wide open. Until a car followed by said truck approaches slowly, at such a speed that they'd intersect with me precisely where their lane is closed ahead. So I start downshifting gradually until the car passes, but the truck instead hovers beside the rear of my trailer as I slow down more, then signals left, where there's no room to get in behind me. So it's like a mexican standoff, as I drop down to 10 mph (or 50 under) with five truck lengths to the end of the line, before the other truck driver finally decides that my hint trumps theirs, and goes ahead. What a bunch of boobs (or was that the blob)... "speed up so we can tailgate you faster, and/or bunch up in front of you". NO... do these people follow street sweepers around too (what makes a big rig so tempting)? I don't know, it's only speculation on the thoughts of others, so I go by the prevailing traffic patterns (which remain predictable whatever they're thinkin'). If I sped up, would the other truck get in, or have to force the issue as we both accelerated... would other vehicles pull around and do the same if it did get in... usually yeah.

As far as myself or anyone else is concerned, the best I can do is give them room to pass (without allowing my truck to get trapped in an ending lane, to the extent of being forced to merge too closely at higher speed, while looking backwards as they brake just ahead). It's rather absurd too, how much I'm slowing down to accommodate everyone there, but if the majority of those on the road can't manage passing me for a mile with nothing else in the way, when this is all they try to do otherwise, speeding no less than weaving in and out of every lane, I think they have no room to complain. It wouldn't surprise me if they did though. So far so good on that note. I'd rather have to answer for this than only giving them the inch they're expecting, when we all know that goes terribly wrong on a daily basis. It's just a little bit disturbing that they insist on this going wrong in slow motion (for all practical purposes), still it is more questionable than ever to consider going the speed limit around them.



C'est la vie and pardon me, or the rule of keeping a heavy truck spaced apart, where I might as well be towing Pandora's box. Could have been nicer if the conventional wisdom about traffic flowing (or wanting to) were true, yet I'm finding that it couldn't be further from the truth, no matter what you do. All I'm doing is complying with the signs ahead of time, and they put them there for that very reason, along with one saying to expect delays, because they too know that traffic doesn't flow.

 

Ad absurdum. Lately I'm thinking that traffic is a microcosm of the universe in terms of entropy, to explain such coincidences on a physical level, instead of a social one. While imagining my actions in terms of syntropy, which is approaching a state of equilibrium. Well, it's technically over my head, but still... there must be a logical explanation for this nonsense. I mean think about it, of all diversity in culture, moods, predispositions, etc., how is it that just about everyone's individuality or practicality is erased on the road, if not driven by a cosmic force? At any rate, I'd conclude that if anyone is doing anything except trying to avoid everything else, chances are overwhelmingly in favor of them getting in each other's way, or the formation of an accident waiting to happen, whether or not it is their intention (#### happens, by default, oh yeah: peristalsis vs traffic, what's automatically forming there—more than just a thought for sure). In a way it's better that they slow down this process with me, at least the accidents we pass by aren't happening as a result of them matching my speed (as a wild guess, colorful even, like a fractal).

Another example of such a reactive pattern that I've since factored in, to include all lanes being open, is when a police vehicle is on the side of the road issuing a ticket or whatever, usually nobody slows down much, especially in other lanes. However, I couldn't help but notice that when I gradually slowed down in a truck (from a reasonable distance for others to go around), vehicles in the lane next to mine also tended to stay back and react to my speed. I'd rather they didn't to such an extent, because it blocks me from maneuvering around the scene if necessary (given a good opening), so then I tried slowing down about a quarter mile sooner (as in 'we're not there yet'). Guess what, by the time I was passing by the scene, all lanes had slowed down. So it seems I had started a chain reaction which given a little more time would cause all lanes to react in kind. Although I hadn't expected the entire traffic pattern to change based on one truck slowing down in the right lane, I can see how a few vehicles first slowing down in the lane next to mine, then moving left would slow the others down too (maybe not quite that simple, except it is repeatable: facepalm). Usually this would be to do with something else like the police car, or a lane ending... that always ends... around a corner... two miles away... which perhaps I'm heightening our collective consciousness to much sooner, as the entire road doesn't match my speed at all times (except more often than not when there's little traffic and they have nothing better to do than respond to my cosmic aura—perfect, just doing my job).


Rules of the road right there.

 

Nope, not quite that simple. The other night I had the opportunity to repeat such an experiment, with a bit of variation (at full pull). This time I had started slowing to avoid a little cluster of slightly higher speed traffic, which was about to pass by and steer in front of the truck, but instead of doing the usual, it all slowed down to match my speed again, except there was nothing else going on in connection with such a reactive traffic pattern, or was there? Indeed there was (and that cosmic force, it seems, came into play before the situation was obvious), when over the crest of a hill an accident scene appeared. Off in the distance some flashing red and blue lights in the left lane indicated that it was probably blocked. So now I'm thinking what if I really needed room to maneuver a truck, is there any speed that would compel them go around before we got there (besides attempting to speed up, which always works in the worst way)?

Okay (artistic license time), with the flashers on I gradually downshifted to low gear and idled forward. Now there's about half a mile to the scene. Nobody is passing, and the left lane is wide open (to a point). Trucks behind us even started taking an off-ramp, and driving around the right lane to get back on it, before going by the accident (instead of passing on the left). So I had a few vehicles single filed behind my truck going 2mph, and then I noticed an ambulance back there, without emergency lights on, but still... this is peculiar, don't ambulances at least tend to pass slower traffic in the right lane? Well maybe they're assuming the worst: that I can see something they can't. So I move left to show them there's nothing between me and the scene. Nobody passes. Alrighty then (the cosmic force is, like gravity, simply irresistible), so I move right and onto the shoulder to do 0mph, stopped. Reluctantly they pass by, and now I can be sure that it's impossible to avoid this happening without getting off the road entirely.

Excuse me? Nobody had to follow, and I needed to know... Ordinarily I wouldn't stop (or slow so much with vehicles single filed), but there could be similar, to more complicated situations, if this one wasn't enough of a toss up (for all my powers of prediction having backfired to date), especially involving light traffic that would theoretically leave an opening for a stopped truck (within the 5-minute window before triangles are necessary)—not being so "dense" (as it were), in which this could be the safest response to know in advance, as you can't necessarily rely on those directing traffic to understand how a truck has to maneuver (been there, done that), and you may have to be so extremely self-directing, or will end up stopping longer at the scene itself, if not also part of it (fyi). It'll cause a run-on sentence... now, where was I going with this, in summary: whatever tows around slows around? Or reverse that.

These things take time. ​