Whatever happened to highway etiquette and the beloved passing lane? As a driver that uses our nation’s highways regularly, I have often noticed that drivers today have no sense of road etiquette. I remember when I was a kid; going on road trips with my parents was always a great experience. Speed limits were a reasonable 70 to 75 mph on most highways and interstates and driver seemed to have real empathy for the urgency of others. For instance, on any two lane highway the left most lane was reserved specifically for the faster moving traffic during a passing maneuver. If a highway patrolman caught a driver spending too much time in the left lane and was not attempting to pass anyone, they were ticketed. If a driver flashed their headlights behind a slower moving vehicle, the slower traffic would politely move over and let the faster driver through. This made for ease of traffic and fewer incidents due to things like road rage from drivers that only want to get someplace faster than the rest of us or had an emergency.
Today it is common place for drivers to drive for miles and miles door to door with the driver next to then with nothing ahead of either one of them and no way around. This activity should be as illegal as driving without a license. One of the major culprits today is truck drivers and specifically 18 wheelers. These self appointed ‘highways gods’ seem to have taken it upon themselves to regulate the flow of traffic and deliver us all from the highway dangers that they create. Second to them are the ‘Sunday drivers’ that seem to feel that if they are not in any hurry then why anyone else should feel any sense of urgency escapes them. Aside from truckers, this group represents the largest group of door to door highway blockers.
If this is truly a society based on resolving issues rather than protecting those who create issues then it would logically follow that we should actively seek those that block our nation’s highways and cause problems rather than the tax paying drivers that need to get to their destination in a reasonable timeframe without hindrance. There are thousands of miles of Autobahn quality highways in the
Let’s Discuss It
|
  |
