...however much he may deserve it.
The recent cross-country drive was my first real long-distance opportunity to enjoy the use of cruise control. I already knew it wasn’t helpful on congested highways, which means just about any paved surface within 200 miles of here, but on the relatively uncongested rural interstates of the western U.S. I rather quickly developed one simple technique that enabled me to avoid most possible negative interactions with other drivers:
I settled on keeping the cruise set to one or two MPH above the posted limit. Generally speaking, unless there’s a crackdown ordered from on-high most troopers won’t bother someone who’s within a few ticks of what the signs say, as long as they’re driving safely otherwise. Since my top priority was to minimize maneuvers, I needed a setting that would enable me to pass the excruciatingly law-abiding, who tend to bunch up in packs—while also allowing the more daring to glide smoothly on by whenever they overtook me. The 67- or 72-mph bracket is very little occupied and was almost perfect for me. It left only three categories of drivers for me to be concerned about:
- The occasional driver just like me who had sought and found the same in-between “sweet spot,“ and who thus threatened to bunch up with me if I didn’t manage to shake him loose and put more distance between us.
- The seemingly increasingly rare long-haul driver who either doesn’t have, or prefers not to use, cruise control—and who is too inattentive to maintain consistent, predictable driving behavior. These tended to exhibit wide variations of speed, requiring me first to pass them, then to let them pass, and quite often to find some way to shake them loose and get away from them. On more than one occasion I had to do this repeatedly to the same driver, using different tactics until one finally worked. In Kentucky I even had to exit the highway and take a lunch break to get rid of one especially egregious idiot.
- Slightly-faster, cruise-using drivers who hadn’t learned good passing etiquette. The number of offenses in this category could merit a post of its own, but the worst is committed by those who crawl past the vehicle on their right, especially when several other cars are lined out behind them, also wanting to pass. Next worst is, after crawling past the slower vehicle, FAILING TO GET BACK OVER TO THE RIGHT. I avoided cruising in the left lane. When passing another vehicle that was moving at a speed too close to my cruise setting, I used my gas pedal to speed up at least a little even when there was no one else on the road. I always made sure I left plenty of space between me and the other vehicle before I moved back over, and I gently eased up afterward to let the cruise re-engage. And then I kept an eye on the vehicle I’d just passed to make sure the space between us was getting wider rather than narrower.
In Kentucky (what is it about Kentucky?) I watched a guy (not the one mentioned above) in a pickup actually run another car off the road after he discovered that tailgating me wasn’t going to make me go any faster than the cars ahead of me were going. The car he tangled with was able to avoid leaving the paved shoulder and recovered almost immediately—but I was sure the guy in the pickup was going to end up killing somebody eventually.
If he did, I wasn’t around for it. He somehow managed to get through the congestion and disappear into the distance. At the freeway accident scene we passed in Nashville I looked for his truck but didn’t see it.
Since moving here and dealing with Atlanta-area freeways I’ve watched my opinion of big-rig drivers go from generally positive to generally negative, but the overwhelming majority of those encountered on this trip were no trouble at all. We did see a trucker defy the requirement to exit the highway for a brake inspection on I-24 before descending the steep grade at Monteagle, Tennessee, but that was the worst of it. I think if the freeways around here are just too congested for my nerves, they’re probably affecting the pros too.
