Ptero's Rant
I drove across Canada and around the perimiter of the US at 50 mph in 1973. Some ahole in Texas tried to run me off the road but when I then tried to PIT him the coward ran away. People won't mess with you if they think you're crazy, and hypermilers are already halfway there. Some of us, anyway. Besides, everybody in Texas thinks everybody else has a gun. And they're usually right.
Not sure I could PIT anyone with my Smart but I'm looking for a horn that sounds like Dirty Harry getting his day made. That should make them haul ass out of my space. Luv that .44 long.
If I'm in thick traffic, I'll always get behind a truck. No one will ever tailgate you if you're behind a truck. It's great. There is even a new phenomonen I call the Smart Superdraft that Wayne can add to his list. This is when a couple Detroit dreadnaughts come up beside you while you're close drafting and roll down their windows and start taking pictures. It makes this really great pocket of sucking air that just pulls you along. There's nothing like it.
The legal max speed (55) for a truck isn't enforced anymore, but lots of corporate haulers run satellite tattletails that get them in trouble if they exceed 55. Some will run 52. That's a great drafting speed for mileage.
I won't back up traffic. It's either speed up or onto the shoulder with the turn signal. On two lanes I'll speed up if some yahoo is overtaking me fast, then back down to 55. If he rides my bumper, it's 45. He's breaking the law by tailgating. I'll wait until some cop pulls him over. Even the DMV tells you to slow down if some idiot gets on your bumper. Tap your brakes to show them your lights and speed up at the same time. They hit their brakes and your 50 feet ahead of them. God they hate that.
On windy roads, if a yahoo comes up fast, I put the turn signal on for a couple flashes to make him think I just pulled onto the road. I'll speed up to 55 until I'm sure he's seen me, back off to 50 where he can pass, then down to 45 or so if I feel like it.
To me, it's not that you're going too slow. It's that they're forcing you to go too fast, waste fuel, send your kids to Iraq to die for oil, using too much gas and driving the price up. I mean, why do I have to politely speed up? Why don't they politely slow down? The country is in an oil crisis. But there they are, waving their hands and cursing, blinking their lights and honking when I'm going the legal speed limit and trying to be responsible, safe and patriotic and they're going 90 mph in their giant battlecruisers thinking they own the highway and everyone else is in the way.
Why are they so right and I'm wrong? They're the ones breaking the law. I think they're pigs. They want the left lane, fine. They want to ride my bumper and endanger my life - well that can work two ways.
I'll tell you about my biker friends back in the '70s. In their twisted way, they had a pretty rightous view of justice. Anyone stupid enough to tailgate a pack could get their windshields broken with ball bearings. But the worst thing, short of getting stomped, was my good buddy Jerry who drilled and tapped a hole in the toe of his steel toe boot and carried a little nail that screwed into it. If some yahoo passed him and nearly clipped his handlebar, he'd get really pissed. He'd follow that yahoo to a gas station or diner, then give him a piece of his mind while he kicked the guy's tires a few times.
Anyway, you get the picture. Sometimes tailgaters choose the wrong people to terrorize- which is what they're doing when they tailgate, just like old Jerry. Except Jerry wasn't a coward. He'd killed scores of people as a mortorman for Uncle Sam. These clowns who climb your bumper with their big SUVs are always cowards.
They're stupid, too. They don't know how to pass. To pass efficiently and spend the shortest amount of time in the oncoming lane, you hang back until you see your opportunity headed toward you from a mile up the road, then you gradually build speed, easy on the throttle, closing on the car your overtaking just as the oncoming traffic clears, then you pull gracefully into the oncoming lane at your chosen speed, giving plenty of room between you and the guy you're overtaking, and move swiftly by like KY.
But these morons in the battle barges invariably gun it, mashing the accelerator to the floor, pulling out clumsily, missing your bumper by inches, belching over-rich fumes all over you as they roar by in utter confidence that any oncoming traffic will politely dive onto the shoulder to avoid their ineptitude.
But where were we? Minimum speed limits? Would you get pulled over? Doubtful. Unless you were making an obvious ass of yourself. I don't worry about that. I worry about getting pulled over for terrorizing trucks in my Smart. They don't seem to want anything to do with me. Even the slow ones speed up when I establish a good draft.
I figure if I gotta pay this much for insurance, I might as well have some fun.
Linear Mode
