Why catch up before passing?

I do, but don't have a high enough speed limit to want to overtake someone pushing the envelope in their governed truck. Besides if I speed up that much then everyone in a car tries to race me from every lane and see who's first to cut me off (or someone traveling slower will swing over, seems their goal is to be in a collision with a speeding truck).

 

Right, but you don't have to be behind me at that point, it's like everyone's hoping I'll change my mind and start speeding all of a sudden, but do you speed up to a fallen tree in the road, only to swerve (or slow down) at the last second, or do you respond to that from a distance? Duh.

I don't know, I can say duh all I want and everyone still drives as close as possible, even when it slows them down. I compared driving through an area with the right lane closed in little traffic, and seeing it on the way back in lots of traffic. What's the difference? People are spaced apart enough in light traffic to keep moving at the speed limit with one lane closed (or actually they're all speeding closely together, but there's extra space between them). Otherwise they come to a stop from miles back, and then follow each other at 5mph. They'd rather stay close together at a crawl than spaced apart at the speed limit (or slightly below it). None of their antics have anything to do with keeping a steady rate of speed (all it typically accomplishes is a collision or a series of near collisions with stopped traffic).

I'd call it the hand caught in the cookie jar effect, the way groups of vehicles traveling side by side catch up while those behind me have to swerve or slow down at the last second, because they won't let go of the accelerator any sooner, even though they know they're going to get stuck. Same goes for lanes ending, and it happens every time, just add traffic. Probably happens the same way for a fallen tree in the road, can't even say duh for that on anyone else's behalf (then again, the lane ending with a flashing sign miles away or a slower moving truck off in the distance invlove much dumber reactions en-masse to form traffic jams, they know it's coming for minutes and can't respond to it any sooner than the last second, let's double down on the duh factor there). "Greed on wheels" would be another way of putting it, and I think it's enough of an industry that these results are predictable, so that laws will not be put in place to prevent it (more likely ones that capitalize on it).

For that matter there are several areas I aviod commuting through, because they allow trees to grow at a steep angle over the road, which will fall across all lanes in a split second from embankments known for mud slides. They'll sooner deforest a hill top than remove hazardous trees from the roadside. Go figure (someone's dad was killed by one recently). They also plant big wide bushes on busy street corners to obscure the view of those turning right...

The worst (or most obviously planned) nonsense I've seen are double left turn lanes, which most of the time will only allow traffic to move in one direction, but randomly turn green in both directions, so that the two vehicles in the outside lanes will be running head on into each other, even if they're both compact cars. I guess the so-called civil engineers are just hoping that people expect them to be predictable enough to fall for the trap, and the timing will be such that one of the vehicles is approaching the intersection from a distance while the other driver thinks they will surely stop... It's either that or people are randomly running red turn signals as a group (not sure which is worse).

 

I don't really see why anyone wants to be that close to another vehicle, even if they only care about themselves. I'd agree that they are single minded, speed wise (which seems most common, sense wise), but not that they care about themselves. I know, that phrase is synonymous with carrying out an agenda (just saying, it isn't really true, well you could eliminate all motor vehicles and say everyone cared more for it, so here I go again). More horrible than a hair band (wait they were out on the road too... oh yeah more horrible because I can't even live up to a hair band song and go it alone, well it works out half the time).