From: kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: Passing cars on the right...why?
Reply-To: kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown)
Organization: Minimal.
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 01:38:02 GMT

Unfortunately, the distribution of the original article was USA only.
It might not make it to Germany, where people would be in the know
about the subject (the Autobahn).  I've made the distribution of this
article global for this reason.  For that reason, too, I'm quoting the
entire article so the people in Germany can see it and respond to it
if they're interested.

In article <11819@sail.LABS.TEK.COM> vinay@sail.LABS.TEK.COM (Vinay Sathe) writes:
>
>	An interesting experience from Germany: 
>	
>
>	A couple of years ago I took a ride from 
>	Frankfurt to Munich. On a stretch of the Autobahn, 
>	there were only two cars in sight. One was ours, 
>	driving at about 90mph rapidly approaching the 
>	other car driving in left lane at ~ 50 mph. 
>	The German guy driving our car slowed 
>	down and stayed behind this car for about 2 minutes. 
>	He was trying various tricks (hi- beam etc) to 
>	get the slow car move to right.
>
>	When asked why he didn't pass this vehicle from 
>	the right, he said something to the effect that 
>	it was illegal in Germany... to the extent that 
>	your license could be taken away if caught. 
>
>	German netters might want to comment..
>
>	Vinay Sathe 
>	vinay@sail.labs.tek.com

A setup like the Autobahn in Germany requires consistent discipline among
the drivers there.  You can drive on it at speeds high enough that you
wouldn't have time to react to a changing and unpredictable situation,
but you would (with training) have time to react to a predictable or
unchanging situation.

This is why it is illegal to pass on the right in Germany.  There, the
convention is that you will pass on the left and *only* the left.  It
is also the convention that you will drive as far to the right as possible
(this is oversimplifying things a bit.  You're justified in driving in
a middle or left lane if you are driving much faster than most of the
people in the lane to your right (I suspect there's supposed to be at
least a 40 mph difference for that to be the case), but you must *always*
yield to someone going faster than you by moving over to the right).

The bozo that was acting like a typical American driver by hogging the
left lane violated this convention and endangered *everyone* on the
road in his vicinity by making the driving situation less predictable
and thus harder to respond to.  If someone had approached the situation
at 180 mph, there would be no time to react.  There would be no car in
the right lane but a car in the left, a situation which is *supposed*
to be impossible.  The car in the left would be expected to move to the
right *immediately*, and failing to do that could very well cause an accident
in a 130 mph closure situation.

I hope one of the people in your car got the license plate of the car
and reported the behavior of the driver to the authorities, and got the
license of the driver of the car in the left lane revoked or at the
very least severely reprimanded.  People who don't know what they're
doing have no business driving on a high-speed, highly-disciplined
road like the Autobahn and endangering the lives of everyone around
them.

The reason the accident rate in the U.S. is so high is because *everyone*
(well, you know what I mean :-)  ) who drives a car is a bozo.  Nobody
out there on the road gives a damn about the safety of the people around
them (to the extent that they endanger their *passengers*).  The fact that
they're late to work is of much more importance to them, and of course they
think they have the *right* to do anything that gets them to work on time,
including things like traversing 4 lanes in a matter of a couple of seconds,
cutting others off in order to make the exit they were about to miss because
they were too busy talking on their cellular phone, driving over the GRASS
in order to make their exits, tailgating, refusing to move out of their
lane (if there is a lane to their right) so that someone else may pass,
and a whole host of other driving obscenities.

People wonder why insurance rates are so high.  At least part of it is
the insurance companies, of course.  Insurance these days seems like
a big ripoff, and I think in a lot of cases it is (a perfect *accident*
record doesn't seem to make much of a difference to your premiums if
you are driving a high-performance car.  To the insurance sleazoids,
you're guilty even *after* you're proven innocent).  But much of it is
because people in the U.S. can't drive worth shit, and don't give a
damn about the people around them.  Furthermore, they can't even think.
The things they do are so stupid that it amazes me that they can
figure out how to work the controls of their car.  Or maybe that's part
of the problem: maybe they *can't* figure out how to work the controls.


Whew!  Sorry about the long diatribe, folks, but it pisses me off to
think that people constantly endanger my life because they refuse to
learn anything about how to drive and would rather spend their time
putting on their makeup or talking on the phone than pay attention to
what's going on around them.  It's real tough to keep track of all
of the bozos out there on the road.  Fortunately for me, I've managed
so far...


		Kevin Brown (kevin@taronga.taronga.com)

Newsgroups: rec.autos,rec.autos.tech