Legally, yes, it’s even in the info they give at the DMV and I’ve even seen some people pull to the side (if for no other reason to copy those in front of them) but I know if we left an opening in the center in standstill traffic, some asshole would zoom down it almost immediately. And then probably several more, because again, they just copy each other.
Zahille7@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve had people follow me through traffic on the highway, doing what I do, and when they inevitably ride so close they can count the hairs on my head, I slow down to like 35; and they. Never. Get. The fucking. Hint.
I was driving in on an interstate one time, no other cars were around us, I was in the left lane going almost 80 and the person behind me was right up on my ass. So I go to the right lane and slow down to let them pass, and this motherfucker keeps right up on my ass, so I literally slow down to like 20, and they slow right on down with me for about 10 seconds until they finally realize what the fuck is going on.
People here in the US are all fucking goldfish I swear to God.
andrewta@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I can make it a good solid guess as to what happened there. They probably had adaptive cruise control running. For those who don’t know adaptive cruise control is it’s a sensor that will adjust your speed to perfectly match the speed of the person in front of you. If you are using cruise control. The problem is by default adaptive cruise control is set to the shortest distance possible. So it , from the person who is in front , from their perspective it looks like you are riding their ass. It should never be set to the shortest distance possible it should be set so you have about a three second following distance. Most people never adjust this because they’re stupid.
Now, why did they follow you when you change lanes? I’m going to call them a lemming. Well, the other person moved over so I’ll move over too. So as you slow down the adaptive cruise control makes them keep slowing down. And they’re not paying attention until like you said you get down about 30 miles an hour. Then they realize what’s going on.
Here’s the fun part when they pull out to go around you. If they speed up normally their engine doesn’t get gunned really hard. But if they just pull out, the adaptive cruise control kicks in and realize oh there’s nobody in front of me and I’m supposed to be going 80 mph. And the car will absolutely freaking gun it. It’ll go into overdrive. And if you aren’t prepared for that it’s quite the jolt.
And yeah they are basically goldfish and lemmings out there.
Zahille7@lemmy.world 4 days ago
The particular case in my story didn’t have a super recent car that could have adaptive cruise control (also, ime ACC is never set at the closest but default, but either the second or farthest setting), so they were definitely just driving terribly.