Am Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:10:37 +0200 schrieb scott:

> Thing is, you can get that question wrong and never drive on a motorway,
> let alone have these things explained to you, then you get your full
> driving license.  It's no wonder so many people get it wrong.

Ehh... don't you have to drive on the motorway in the driving exam at 
least once? In germany you have to do that, although some people only do 
it in the exam and don't drive on the motorway after that.

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Florian Pesth wrote:

> Ehh... don't you have to drive on the motorway in the driving exam at 
> least once?

No. In fact, in the UK you are *prohibited* from driving on a motorway 
until after you pass your test. Which sort-of makes logical sense, 
only... not really...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Florian Pesth wrote:
> Ehh... don't you have to drive on the motorway in the driving exam at 
> least once? 

Some areas in the USA have their own little testing area. A selection of 
roads and parking lots and such whose only purpose is to test new drivers.

You're supposed to use your "learner's permit" time to learn to drive on the 
real roads with actual drivers sitting beside you.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
    that the code does what you think it does, even if
    it doesn't do what you wanted.

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On 06/08/10 11:49, Jim Charter wrote:
> the police to catch them.  Some would have it that the law prohibits
> them passing to the right and so justifies their aggressive behavior
> toward anyone doing the limit in the passing lane.  But the law does not
> prohibit it, nor does it secure the lane as a passing or high speed lane.

	In Illinois, on the interstate with two lanes in each direction, you're
not allowed to drive on the left lane if there is a car behind you. It
doesn't say anything about passing on the right, although it says that a
"legitimate" use of being on the left lane is when passing a car.

-- 
Outside a Muffler Shop:
"No appointment necessary. We hear you coming."

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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 06/08/10 11:49, Jim Charter wrote:
>> the police to catch them.  Some would have it that the law prohibits
>> them passing to the right and so justifies their aggressive behavior
>> toward anyone doing the limit in the passing lane.  But the law does not
>> prohibit it, nor does it secure the lane as a passing or high speed lane.
> 
> 	In Illinois, on the interstate with two lanes in each direction, you're
> not allowed to drive on the left lane if there is a car behind you. It
> doesn't say anything about passing on the right, although it says that a
> "legitimate" use of being on the left lane is when passing a car.
> 
Yes historically different things have been tried and particular roads 
have been/are posted to reserve the left lane as a high speed lane or 
passing lane.  On steep grades the left lane is often reserved for 
faster traffic and so on.  In NYC of course the left lanes are often 
reserved as HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes for certain times of day 
and so on.  And I think all these bits and half-remembered, 
half-understood pieces are what contribute in the minds of some to this 
idea that in the general case they have some basic human right to drive 
over the speed limit in the left lane and someone driving the limit in 
the left lane is breaking the law.

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>> Even at 150 km/h, four seconds is still a distance of 167 m - more than 
>> twice the distance at which you can be fined in Germany.
>
> So going substantially faster than any road in the USA allows, you think 
> you can stop your car in 4 seconds?

It's not the time, it's the distance.  As clipka said, leaving a 4 second 
gap when driving 150 km/hr is 167 metres.  Even if the car ahead instantly 
stops dead with no warning you have 167 metres to do something.  Given that 
a modern car can stop from 150 km/hr within 150 metres (and from 100 km/hr 
in 50 metres), allowing for reaction times at worst you're going to bump in 
to them at a low speed.

Of course in reality cars don't just instantly stop for no reason, and this 
is why the UK and German governments only suggest you leave a minimum of 
around half that gap.

> Here's the problem with that: The guy in 5 in front of you needs five 
> seconds to stop and only has four. Now the guy 4 in front of you has only 
> three seconds to stop. And the guy three in front of you has only 2 
> seconds to stop. Etc.

I don't follow your logic here, if you're leaving a 4 second gap to the car 
immediately ahead, you still have a 4 second gap no matter what the people 
are doing ahead of you.

> This is how you get 300 car pile-ups.

You get 300 car pile-ups because people drive closer (in distance) to the 
car ahead than they need to stop *and* don't pay attention to anything ahead 
of the car immediately in front.  If they fixed either of those two issues 
there wouldn't be any pile up.

> But yeah, if you're going that fast, it's a lot of distance. Just don't 
> get distracted for a second.

The key point is to be aware what is happening far enough ahead of you 
relative to your speed.  Doing 200 km/hr can be safe if you check far enough 
ahead of you that it is clear (not just the one car ahead of you).  If you 
can't for whatever reason then you need to slow down until you can see far 
enough for your speed.

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> It's definitely creepy, and you do *not* want to accidentally get on the 
> expressway, unless you like driving 150 miles out of your way.

Are there any exits for gas stations?  If not you want to be making sure you 
have enough fuel too!

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>> This one here is near where I live, and is fairly typical:
>>
>> http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=48.138643,11.397221&spn=0.00552,0.01074&t=k&z=17
> German engineering...of brakes.  Our brakes aren't good enough to have 
> that here.

I think the brakes are probably pretty much the same on all cars everywhere. 
What you need is better tyres :-)

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>> Thing is, you can get that question wrong and never drive on a motorway,
>> let alone have these things explained to you, then you get your full
>> driving license.  It's no wonder so many people get it wrong.
>
> Ehh... don't you have to drive on the motorway in the driving exam at
> least once?

No.  Before you have actually passed your test you are not allowed to drive 
on motorways, this includes during the actual practical exam.

It's not quite as bad as it sounds though, because in the UK we have a lot 
of roads that are very similar to motorways (same speed limit, dual 
carriageways, multiple lanes in each direction) but are just not classed as 
such.  You can drive on these as a learner driver.  Also IIRC in the test 
you have to drive on a road like this for a bit too.

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> idea that in the general case they have some basic human right to drive 
> over the speed limit in the left lane and someone driving the limit in the 
> left lane is breaking the law.

How do you know you are going the speed limit?  Speedometers in cars usually 
underread significantly at high speed.

Besides, it's not your job to enforce other drivers to keep to the speed 
limit, and you certainly shouldn't do anything illegal or dangerous.  In the 
UK there is a famous video from an unmarked police car that is catching up 
with another car doing ~100 mph on a 70 limit motorway.  A member of the 
public obviously has got annoyed by these fast drivers so pulls out right in 
front of the unmarked police car and forces it to go at what he thinks is 
the speed limit.  Both drivers were stopped and prosecuted.

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