Gripe: Change lanes, guy is SPEEDING in rt. hand lane, honks at me! (Alexandria: live in, move)

[CAVA1990]

I find it annoying when I'm driving along in the right lane and some idiot who didn't anticipate getting stuck behind someone turning left pulls out in front of me and I have to slow down. This happens frequently in Old Town.

[dkf747]

I see many mentions of left exits on the Beltway, yet as far as I know, there is only one true left exit on the entire road. The others are more splits than exits. What are people referring to? If there is only one true left exit than that cannot be the excuse for so much left lane blocking, er, I mean driving.

[lasershen111]

Originally Posted by spencgr

So, you barely looked before moving into the right-hand lane? If he's going that fast that he flew through your line of sight in a milli-second, why the heck did you move over? He honked because he probably almost ran into you. While he may have been speeding, you were the one that would have caused the accident. Thankfully there wasn't one.

As a driver, you should be aware of the road conditions, weather, and the speed and driving pattern of the nearest 20 cars to you; whether in front or back (and if the road is not divided, the cars going the opposite way.) You should know that the car three up from you is braking, and possibly start braking even before the car directly in front of you does. You should know the speed of the cars in front and behind you and factor this in when changing lanes. You should be able to see that a car (4 cars behind you) is swerving, and take action to move out of their way. Having this knowledge is easy to achieve, if you are confident and aware behind the wheel. If you are nervous, uncomfortable, or not confident driving, then you won't be focused on all that is going on. If you are unfocused, you shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car.

I agree - I think 99% of all of this stuff comes down to everyone individual responsibility and AWARENESS.

I feel like awareness is a gigantic part of driving... if you are constantly aware (as much as you can be) of what is going on around you... chances are much better if you have to make a split decision - like someone cut you off and you wouldn't be able to stop fast enough to not hit them, if you had been constantly paying attention to the cars around you, you might know that no one was in the lane next to you a second ago when you where checking your mirrors and been able to hop over.
(That scenario has actually happened to me before - and my husband, who was not aware of all around him, could have easily avoided hitting an animal one night but just moving into the right lane, but since he hadn't been monitoring what was around him constantly, was busy talking with his Dad, he didn't have time to look)

[snowdenscold]

Originally Posted by dkf747

I see many mentions of left exits on the Beltway, yet as far as I know, there is only one true left exit on the entire road. The others are more splits than exits. What are people referring to? If there is only one true left exit than that cannot be the excuse for so much left lane blocking, er, I mean driving.

Now that they got rid of the 66-west left exit from the inner loop, the only other ones (for the western half of the beltway) are Dulles Toll Road (both directions), Mixing Bowl (not sure all the options - but at least 2), and the 270 "split" (agreed - not really an exit in the same sense the others are/were).

[jillabean]

Originally Posted by spencgr

So, you barely looked before moving into the right-hand lane? If he's going that fast that he flew through your line of sight in a milli-second, why the heck did you move over? He honked because he probably almost ran into you. While he may have been speeding, you were the one that would have caused the accident. Thankfully there wasn't one.

As a driver, you should be aware of the road conditions, weather, and the speed and driving pattern of the nearest 20 cars to you; whether in front or back (and if the road is not divided, the cars going the opposite way.) You should know that the car three up from you is braking, and possibly start braking even before the car directly in front of you does. You should know the speed of the cars in front and behind you and factor this in when changing lanes. You should be able to see that a car (4 cars behind you) is swerving, and take action to move out of their way. Having this knowledge is easy to achieve, if you are confident and aware behind the wheel. If you are nervous, uncomfortable, or not confident driving, then you won't be focused on all that is going on. If you are unfocused, you shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car.

I think what this person is talking about is when you glance in your mirrors (and you are supposed to glance, not stare into them) and there is nothing there then suddenly someone (who literally wasn't in your mirrors a few seconds ago) is passing you like you are standing still. I really think they are going more than 30 miles over too. I see every now and then (and usually it's one of those superfast motorcycles that do it--but sometimes it's a car too).

I tend to check my rearview (glance at it) every 10 seconds or so--I always monitor what's behind me. And I've seen those people that do that. I can see a regular speeder moving fast and gaining (the ones going maybe 20 mph faster than me) but some of these guys that are going in speeds in excess of 100 mph seem to literally appear out of nowhere. Luckily, I've never cut one of those people off, but I've seen it happen and cringed.

[FCNova]

Originally Posted by dkf747

I see many mentions of left exits on the Beltway, yet as far as I know, there is only one true left exit on the entire road. The others are more splits than exits. What are people referring to? If there is only one true left exit than that cannot be the excuse for so much left lane blocking, er, I mean driving.

Splits can have the same impact. For example, say I'm in MD coming around the beltway outer loop towards the 495/270 spur as I normally do, and 270 is backed up. When that happens the left lane of the beltway is often moving the fastest, with each lane to the right moving slower and slower due to 270 splitting off to the right. So say I'm doing 65 and some guy behind me wants to go 75 and is on my ass, but the lane to the right of me is moving slower and is pretty congested. Do I slow down, and try to squeeze my way into that lane so mr.speeder behind me can continue on his merry way doing 20+ over the speed limit? I can guarantee you unless that lane isn't very busy and I can easily move over without having to slow down much or cut someone off I won't do it. Some people on here are probably reasonable in their expectations of people getting out of their way, but I bet alot are not and are those guys in my example.

[lasershen111]

Originally Posted by jillabean

I think what this person is talking about is when you glance in your mirrors (and you are supposed to glance, not stare into them) and there is nothing there then suddenly someone (who literally wasn't in your mirrors a few seconds ago) is passing you like you are standing still. I really think they are going more than 30 miles over too. I see every now and then (and usually it's one of those superfast motorcycles that do it--but sometimes it's a car too).

I tend to check my rearview (glance at it) every 10 seconds or so--I always monitor what's behind me. And I've seen those people that do that. I can see a regular speeder moving fast and gaining (the ones going maybe 20 mph faster than me) but some of these guys that are going in speeds in excess of 100 mph seem to literally appear out of nowhere. Luckily, I've never cut one of those people off, but I've seen it happen and cringed.

You are absolutely right... it's crazy.
I knew someone who was speeding on a motorcycle (not even on a highway) and ran into the back of someones SUV and passed away. Definitely not a good idea - but we all have seen some crazy drivers, and most of us, while maybe not that crazy, have done some unsafe things while driving in our lifetimes.

I guess it's a matter of growing and learning - and teaching our kids all the rules of the road and to be "aware".

[spencgr]

[quote=jillabean;24955336]I think what this person is talking about is when you glance in your mirrors (and you are supposed to glance, not stare into them) and there is nothing there then suddenly someone (who literally wasn't in your mirrors a few seconds ago) is passing you like you are standing still. I really think they are going more than 30 miles over too. I see every now and then (and usually it's one of those superfast motorcycles that do it--but sometimes it's a car too).

quote]

Absolutely, that is exactly what they were talking about. But why in the world, in this case where you know someone is flying up the road at an exorbitant speed, would you move directly in front of them?

[jillabean]

Originally Posted by spencgr

Absolutely, that is exactly what they were talking about. But why in the world, in this case where you know someone is flying up the road at an exorbitant speed, would you move directly in front of them?

I get what you are saying, but what I mean is you don't know they are flying up beside you because they are moving that fast. When you look to see if someone is there, in your mirror, you don't see them or they look really far away (it's harder to judge speed that farther away someone is)... So you start merging over, but they are moving so fast that after you've started, they are there. Literally you merge and "boom" (figuratively, but sometimes literally) there they are.

Something like that is what happens in this video. The motorcycle is moving so fast that you can't even SEE the semi it's going to rear-end until about 4-5 seconds before impact. And semi's are pretty big. Imagine being in a car and trying to see a bike or a low riding sports car:

Go to about 2:11 in this video:

Motorcycle Accident Lawyer CT - Connecticut : High Speed Motorcycle Crash Fatality - YouTube

This video works great as an example because there is a countdown. If a driver looked up in his mirror and took about 5 seconds to merge over--chances are the bike would have crashed into the merger.

[spencgr]

Originally Posted by jillabean

I get what you are saying, but what I mean is you don't know they are flying up beside you because they are moving that fast. When you look to see if someone is there, in your mirror, you don't see them or they look really far away (it's harder to judge speed that farther away someone is)... So you start merging over, but they are moving so fast that after you've started, they are there. Literally you merge and "boom" (figuratively, but sometimes literally) there they are.

Something like that is what happens in this video. The motorcycle is moving so fast that you can't even SEE the semi it's going to rear-end until about 4-5 seconds before impact. And semi's are pretty big. Imagine being in a car and trying to see a bike or a low riding sports car:

Go to about 2:11 in this video:

Motorcycle Accident Lawyer CT - Connecticut : High Speed Motorcycle Crash Fatality - YouTube

This video works great as an example because there is a countdown. If a driver looked up in his mirror and took about 5 seconds to merge over--chances are the bike would have crashed into the merger.

Yes, there are certainly outlier cases that you cannot predict or prevent, and that may be what happened to the OP. But I am constantly cut off by people clanging lanes, and I may be only going 5 mph more than them.

On another note regarding the video, I can't understand how the lawyers obtained a settlement for the victim, who was a passenger on the motorcycle. Unless she was kidnapped (and constantly screaming "LET ME OFF!! STOP!!""), then, IMO, she was a willing participant in this tragic accident.