Imagine if you will, you are driving along on the freeway, enjoying the open road, cruise control on at lets say the Speed Limit of the motorway you are on.
Now imagine another driver comes along from behind, going just a little faster than you but otherwise just cruising along just like yourself.
Then imagine reality hits and like so many times before, said driver that came past going a little faster, decides to merge into your own lane and instead of maintaining the speed they were going when they came past you, they then proceed to slow down, and not just to the same speed you are going, but to some random speed number that seems to endlessly change every few seconds.
Sometimes they speed up and seem to slowly pull away, then for no reason whatsoever, they slow down and you have to adjust your cruise control to compensate.
Then when the speed they are going starts to annoy you because you have to constantly adjust your speed to maintain a comfortable distance from them, you decide it’s time to pass them, only to have them speed back up like they don’t want you to get past them.
Do you feel that? That Frustration that you get being in such a situation as the driver just cruising along with cruise control? Or Worse, do you identify more as the drivers that doesn’t use Cruise Control, and therefor is guilty of not maintaining speed when they are on open stretches of road without realizing how it affects the driving experience of others around you?
Maintaining speed seems like such a simple concept, but very few drivers seem to be able to grasp the concept and it shows all over the motorways. It is much less apparent on stretches of streets and avenues that travel at around 55MPH or lower, but once you are out on the Freeway, and the distances you cover over time extend from just a few thousand feet between stops, to endless stretches of road, then the speed changes really start to become apparent as the one variable that interrupts your travels.
While you may think that the actual speed is the problem in this case, it is actually the constantly variable speed that is the problem. Even if you are on a single lane highway and going at 5MPH below the speed limit, as long as you are holding your speed constant it is much less irritating to anyone traveling behind you, than say someone that is going 10MPH over the speed limit, but varies their speed every few seconds up or down 3-5MPH.
Not only is this annoying for anyone trying to just maintain a proper distance from the car in front of them, it creates a sort of ripple effect that happens as the drivers behind adjust their speed to maintain spacing. Unless everyone has adaptive cruise control, the adapter is the driver themselves and each one may adjust their spacing with speed changes different from each other which can vary from subtle to almost extreme, which could cause a dangerous scenario if someone isn’t paying attention as well as they should be.
Another issue is that the constant variance in speed means that the car is bleeding energy when slowing down, and expending more energy speeding back up, than it would if it was just able to hold a constant speed the whole time. Being a poor speed holder is the opposite of Driving Green, and will hit you in the wallet a little more than a good energy management driver.
Some of the best practices I can advise for most drivers, is to always attempt to maintain a good speed when on long stretches of motorway. Be it at the speed limit, above, below, just maintain a constant speed to keep things simple and predictable for those around you.
When passing someone that is going slower than you, if your speed is only 1-5mph faster as you slowly creep up to them, speed up a little more to make the passing more purposeful and at the same time, safer as others may be traveling faster than you coming up on the left lane, and have to slow down as you slowboat it around the slower traffic on the right. Also, when you have finished passing and you wish to merge back into the right lane, maintain whatever speed you were going before so you don’t end up like the driver in the start of this post.
Consistency is key, while everyone should be maintaining focus on the driving at hand, the freeway is often times the one place that everyone who is going in the same direction, should be going at the same speed in one lane, and while the next lane can be going a different speed, all the cars in that lane should be going the same speed as well.
It’s the drivers going different speeds, changing lanes, swerving in and out of traffic, that grab our attention, but also can catch us off guard as their actions don’t conform to the consistency around us, and depending on how drastic their motions are, can cause an unsafe environment for them and in turn, others. We will cover lane changes, merging and many other topics in later post discussing the right ways, and wrong ways and why.
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