hobbit
09-23-2009, 11:10 PM
Over the modest amount of roadtripping I did this summer, my usual
m.o. is to hang in the right lane doing somewhere around the speed
limit, plus or minus a little and that mostly dictated by the
terrain I encounter. We also commonly know that isn't good enough
for a lot of people, who insist on going much faster but at least
on interstates they've got several other lanes to choose from.
Thus, when someone gets up my donkey over there on the right I take
it as personal affront and outright reckless endangerment, which if
I were anointed Pope tomorrow I would decree that all states and
municipalities start treating it as such, a heinous transgression
before the FSM that shall not go legally and morally unpunished.
There is absolutely no reason for it. A> that's an UPPER limit,
not a lower one, and B> PAY ATTENTION and go the heck around
already, or wait at a safe distance until you can, and in general
don't be an asshat about it. Pretty simple, really, and they
probably even tried to teach it in the sad joke we try to pass
off today as driver's ed.
I've developed a number of techniques to try and jettison the
various proctologists and klingons, including but not limited to
a shot or two of the 4-way flashers and a leftward-pointing thumb
[as easily distinguished from a finger] out the window. Most of
them get the idea and go around or back off, and some just don't
get it or are too deeply on the phone to even notice any attempts
at actual communication. When an escalation path is needed,
there's the Yuppie Button which is more likely to wake them up
but also no guarantee of performance.
So I'm heading home from an event in PA last weekend, and just
passing through the Allentown area, and this truck comes up behind
and plants his big chrome schnoz right where I'd rather not have
it. I have zero tolerance for this crap from trucks, who are
supposed to be bloody trained professional drivers and have been
taught about following distance any number of times and ways by
their company safety departments. The first couple of sets of
4-ways and escalatingly energetic leftward gesticulation just isn't
budging this cowboy. I drop my head into the side-mirror several
times during this [which action sometimes subtly cues a driver
behind that I *have* noticed his presence] and think I can see
that the guy is *looking* at me but just not controlling his
vehicle appropriately.
Finally I light the hazards for real, and very very slowly start
shedding a little speed while hanging slightly to the right. Like
I just ran out of gas or something. Not into the breakdown lane,
though, as it's covered with crap. This last-ditch tactic usually
has the expected result after about 5 MPH worth of drop, but not for
this dude. Traffic around us isn't all that heavy -- the left lane
is semi-busy but it isn't being the meatgrinder that I-78 can be at
some times of day and there are plenty of usable gaps that I can see
back behind the trailer. I even pick some of these to ineffectually
wave my thumb again, hoping the guy will actually signal left and
*jump out* already which is all I want him to do.
Down to about 40, and he's still there, at about the same distance
and just slowing with me. I am completely baffled by now, but as
we've just crested a hill and I'm on a convenient downslope, I've
got my feet off both pedals and just getting a nice little bit of
coasting regen. Still acting like the car's simply lost power.
Down to 30, and I start seeing a little activity behind the truck
as right-lane traffic comes up behind it and hasn't planned ahead
well enough and starts jockeying badly for the left lane. Well,
sorry guys, there's a reason for this little clusterF* and we'll
note that the trucker is well under the 45 MPH minimum by now and
hasn't lit *his* hazards. And he's still got some opportunities
to swing out and pass.
Over that 2 or 3 *miles* I took this guy down to about 20 MPH,
right there on I-78, without him buying the clue yet. At that speed
it's possible to flip up my "read up on FOLLOWING DISTANCE" sign
pointed toward the rear without risking the wind busting its backing
coroplast in half, so that's what I did. Stuck it up proud out
the window, lit brightly by the late-day sun, and kept gently
rolling along. And he was plenty close enough to read it.
The truck abruptly dropped back and kept opening the distance;
he must have been down to about 10 MPH by then. A bunch of traffic
must have accordioned into a nasty compression wave behind him.
All that, and he hadn't figured it out until it was spelled out for
him. At that point I re-lit the engine and began a "standard burn"
at about 16 kilowatts and gradually came back up to speed, leaving
my big goofy buddy far behind without even really trying hard.
It had to be one of the weirder truck encounters I've had -- usually
the real assclowns cop an attitude and just try to push *closer*,
which is about when they get event-logged and called in to their
safety-managers and are likely looking for new careers a couple of
days later. At this point I can speak their language, and they all
understand the risks of a 40-ton weapon less than three seconds
behind a fo'wheeler. When I ask them to fix the problem within the
hour and strongly suggest that maybe the guy should just be taking
a cab home from the nearest truck stop, they know I'm serious.
Especially the couple of times I can I open the conversation with
"so, what do you think the stopping distance is on the *triple
trailer* he's pulling??!"
I extracted the relevant piece of my GPS log from this stretch and
processed it down into a clarified screenshot, just to see what it
looked like as mapped data:
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/pa09/slotruk.gif
We're going northeast; the blue section of highway corresponds to
the highlit lines in the breadcrumb-trail detail box, and you can see
the dots getting closer together and then opening up again as our
speed dropped way down and dawn finally broke over Marblehead and
then I took off. The guy never passed me afterward, and a while
later got off at an exit behind me and the sun was behind him most
of the way so I don't even know what trucking company it might have
been from. Red cab, that's all I could see, and couldn't even get
a picture against the light. Well, no matter, I think he got his
unusual but profound lesson for the day.
The rest of the run home was relatively uneventful, other than a quiet
almost-zero-fuel drift through a fairly large Tappan Zee backup and
the usual noise level of the overprivileged, overpowered, and
overweight threats to homeland security going past. The number of
other drivers who clearly want me to drive faster into the back of
mostly-stopped traffic is really astounding these days.
_H*
m.o. is to hang in the right lane doing somewhere around the speed
limit, plus or minus a little and that mostly dictated by the
terrain I encounter. We also commonly know that isn't good enough
for a lot of people, who insist on going much faster but at least
on interstates they've got several other lanes to choose from.
Thus, when someone gets up my donkey over there on the right I take
it as personal affront and outright reckless endangerment, which if
I were anointed Pope tomorrow I would decree that all states and
municipalities start treating it as such, a heinous transgression
before the FSM that shall not go legally and morally unpunished.
There is absolutely no reason for it. A> that's an UPPER limit,
not a lower one, and B> PAY ATTENTION and go the heck around
already, or wait at a safe distance until you can, and in general
don't be an asshat about it. Pretty simple, really, and they
probably even tried to teach it in the sad joke we try to pass
off today as driver's ed.
I've developed a number of techniques to try and jettison the
various proctologists and klingons, including but not limited to
a shot or two of the 4-way flashers and a leftward-pointing thumb
[as easily distinguished from a finger] out the window. Most of
them get the idea and go around or back off, and some just don't
get it or are too deeply on the phone to even notice any attempts
at actual communication. When an escalation path is needed,
there's the Yuppie Button which is more likely to wake them up
but also no guarantee of performance.
So I'm heading home from an event in PA last weekend, and just
passing through the Allentown area, and this truck comes up behind
and plants his big chrome schnoz right where I'd rather not have
it. I have zero tolerance for this crap from trucks, who are
supposed to be bloody trained professional drivers and have been
taught about following distance any number of times and ways by
their company safety departments. The first couple of sets of
4-ways and escalatingly energetic leftward gesticulation just isn't
budging this cowboy. I drop my head into the side-mirror several
times during this [which action sometimes subtly cues a driver
behind that I *have* noticed his presence] and think I can see
that the guy is *looking* at me but just not controlling his
vehicle appropriately.
Finally I light the hazards for real, and very very slowly start
shedding a little speed while hanging slightly to the right. Like
I just ran out of gas or something. Not into the breakdown lane,
though, as it's covered with crap. This last-ditch tactic usually
has the expected result after about 5 MPH worth of drop, but not for
this dude. Traffic around us isn't all that heavy -- the left lane
is semi-busy but it isn't being the meatgrinder that I-78 can be at
some times of day and there are plenty of usable gaps that I can see
back behind the trailer. I even pick some of these to ineffectually
wave my thumb again, hoping the guy will actually signal left and
*jump out* already which is all I want him to do.
Down to about 40, and he's still there, at about the same distance
and just slowing with me. I am completely baffled by now, but as
we've just crested a hill and I'm on a convenient downslope, I've
got my feet off both pedals and just getting a nice little bit of
coasting regen. Still acting like the car's simply lost power.
Down to 30, and I start seeing a little activity behind the truck
as right-lane traffic comes up behind it and hasn't planned ahead
well enough and starts jockeying badly for the left lane. Well,
sorry guys, there's a reason for this little clusterF* and we'll
note that the trucker is well under the 45 MPH minimum by now and
hasn't lit *his* hazards. And he's still got some opportunities
to swing out and pass.
Over that 2 or 3 *miles* I took this guy down to about 20 MPH,
right there on I-78, without him buying the clue yet. At that speed
it's possible to flip up my "read up on FOLLOWING DISTANCE" sign
pointed toward the rear without risking the wind busting its backing
coroplast in half, so that's what I did. Stuck it up proud out
the window, lit brightly by the late-day sun, and kept gently
rolling along. And he was plenty close enough to read it.
The truck abruptly dropped back and kept opening the distance;
he must have been down to about 10 MPH by then. A bunch of traffic
must have accordioned into a nasty compression wave behind him.
All that, and he hadn't figured it out until it was spelled out for
him. At that point I re-lit the engine and began a "standard burn"
at about 16 kilowatts and gradually came back up to speed, leaving
my big goofy buddy far behind without even really trying hard.
It had to be one of the weirder truck encounters I've had -- usually
the real assclowns cop an attitude and just try to push *closer*,
which is about when they get event-logged and called in to their
safety-managers and are likely looking for new careers a couple of
days later. At this point I can speak their language, and they all
understand the risks of a 40-ton weapon less than three seconds
behind a fo'wheeler. When I ask them to fix the problem within the
hour and strongly suggest that maybe the guy should just be taking
a cab home from the nearest truck stop, they know I'm serious.
Especially the couple of times I can I open the conversation with
"so, what do you think the stopping distance is on the *triple
trailer* he's pulling??!"
I extracted the relevant piece of my GPS log from this stretch and
processed it down into a clarified screenshot, just to see what it
looked like as mapped data:
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/pa09/slotruk.gif
We're going northeast; the blue section of highway corresponds to
the highlit lines in the breadcrumb-trail detail box, and you can see
the dots getting closer together and then opening up again as our
speed dropped way down and dawn finally broke over Marblehead and
then I took off. The guy never passed me afterward, and a while
later got off at an exit behind me and the sun was behind him most
of the way so I don't even know what trucking company it might have
been from. Red cab, that's all I could see, and couldn't even get
a picture against the light. Well, no matter, I think he got his
unusual but profound lesson for the day.
The rest of the run home was relatively uneventful, other than a quiet
almost-zero-fuel drift through a fairly large Tappan Zee backup and
the usual noise level of the overprivileged, overpowered, and
overweight threats to homeland security going past. The number of
other drivers who clearly want me to drive faster into the back of
mostly-stopped traffic is really astounding these days.
_H*