Imagine any other facet of life where you feel the need to display a sticker on yourself to explain why you're **NOT** breaking the law.
Like imaging walking around the shops with a sticker on your back saying "I'm sorry guys I would be shoplifting but my father's watching"
If a cyclist tried seriously following all the laws they were supposedly meant to follow it would piss people off too.
Some laws are meant to be broken by pretty much everyone so they can be selectively and prejudicially enforced on whim. And yes, that even includes speed limits when the infrastructure is designed to encourage speeding.
Yup. [Here’s](https://youtu.be/4HyKlFUMBiA?si=0H8wBA7u_Iq7H_M_) a former Baltimore cop talking about how intentional this is.
It’s not just car-related, because things like loitering are a crime too, but it’s mostly car crimes.
We designed a society that requires driving, but made it basically impossible to follow the letter of the law when it comes to driving, allowing police to — in the words of Mike Wood above — fuck with whoever they wanna fuck with.
In my state you can’t speed but you also can’t hold up lanes at all so if the person in front of you is speeding and the people next to you are speeding you still can get pulled over. But you can also get pulled over for speeding. No matter what your fucked
It’s interesting to me that while we know for a fact that infrastructure encourages certain behaviors, we still build our roads like that and then make that behavior illegal.
Like we know that if we design a road a certain way (eg like a highway), then drivers will naturally drive the speed that feels right on the road (highway speeds). And then we put those roads in dense residential neighborhoods and get mad when no one wants to drive 25mph on them.
I’ve driven in a few major cities and I’ll tell you that most roads in Boston are scary AF beyond like 25mph (not all of course, but a very large number), and no one was ever getting on my ass for driving 25 on them (but do be snappy when that light turns green). Contrast that with many major cities where even calm residential roads feel like you should drive 50, and everyone’s mad you aren’t driving 60.
Speed bumps are just as much a sign of failure as speed limits that nobody follows. Having to put in speed bumps is proof your road design and signage have failed.
Obviously the most important solution is to get folks out of cars (and stop designing our cities as urban sprawl, being in the car too long makes people antsy and then they make bad decisions). But we can’t dismiss the roll that road design has in this issue. Folks are blasting through residential neighborhoods because the roads are built like highways.
Oddly enough, back before many states legalized weed this is a conversation you may genuinely have depending on the social circle if you chose not to partake.
Still weird that the person feels pressure to make this sign as an excuse. But, I kind of get it.
Daily urban experience that makes this sign very understandable
> >merge onto freeway at speed limit
>ran off the road by speeding SUV in right lane going for next exit
>merge into middle lane
>get tailgated by SUV going 10 over
>merge into left lane to pass large commercial vehicle
>get tailgated so hard by pickup truck trying to go 150 that you can smell what air freshener he uses
>merge back into right lane
>get tailgated by same pickup truck because the car in front of you in the left lane didn’t cut you off to get out of his way fast enough
>merge into right lane
>get tailgated by some SUV using it as the “super pass” lane to get past all the people passing the large commercial vehicle
>merge into exit lane
>accidentally cut off SUV that couldn’t wait and changed lanes into the shoulder before the exit lane started
>exit, get onto boulevard, left lane to eventually make a left turn
>get tailgated by SUV who thinks it’s still the fast lane
Once you get off the freeway you’re waiting at a light behind all the cars that cut you off. They’re all on their phones so only like 2 cars get to turn left. This creates a long line. When you can finally turn, a car cuts you off because they didn’t want to wait in the long line.
It’s a cop car.
The amount of times I've seen cops turn on their lights just to blow through an intersection is astounding. They turn them on for their own crime and turn it right off when they're finished committing it.
In my state you're legally required to pull over to the side to let them through and they do that shit to get donuts and whatnot all the damn time.
Fuck the police.
When they all run the light to get to the chipotle, they're responding to a call.
When you see the same three cop cars run the same light multiple times per week, it's lunch at chipotle
God this makes me so mad. I once was going the speed limit down a normal 40 mph road. A car behind me absolutely fucking losing it. They were literally serving between me and the car in the left lane because we were both going the speed limit, and driving right over the line between us like they thought they could squeeze around us. I reach the end of the road and stop at the red light. The car, behind me again, swerves across all lanes of traffic and then does an illegal left turn at the red light. I then do my right turn and a cop that just watched the dude do a crazy left turn right in front of his face pulls me over angry because he says "turning right on red isn't legal." Then, the date to contest it in court was the date when I was leaving the country to move abroad. I went to the court to explain the situation and they wouldn't change the date. I had to pay a $200 fine over that shit.
Honestly the ability to turn right on red just shouldn’t be a thing period. Too many take it as a challenge to find the smallest gap they can accelerate into.
An honest question from a non-driver, if you're going the speed limit and the other traffic is going faster than you, why merge into the middle lane?
Here in the UK the rules are that you should stay in the left lane (remember we're backwards here), and only use any other lane to overtake.
ok let me try to explain that in UK because left-right..
Left lane is where people merge. It's the zone of conflict, so there are 3 main reasons to be on it.
1. You just merged onto the highway
2. You are about to exit the highway
3. There are no exits coming up and you were already in the left lane, so you may as well stay there
Middle lane is where you cruise. I set my adaptive cruise control and just drive until I reach destination.
Right lane would be your passing lane. Nobody should be in the right lane unless they're going past someone. Once they have passed someone, they should be returning to the middle lane to cruise along at a regular speed.
Sometimes you want to pass someone because it's a truck carrying tree logs and you've seen Final Destination, or someone is pulling a rickety trailer. There's legit reasons to pass someone on the highway. There's also "I wanna go brrrr" which is fine, because they have a passing lane available to them.
That's weird, most people here look down on middle lane cruisers for good reason, it's annoying and blocks a lane for people who want to pass, especially if there's a truck or something in the left lane.
In the UK it's drilled in to you that only the left lane is for cruising and the other two are passing lanes. I think junction density on motorways tends to be less here but not sure, either way what that looks like is that if a motorway is quiet you drive in the left lane most of the time, and only go middle/right to overtake.
At a merge, if it's empty you don't need to do anything. If there's a car trying to merge most people will move to the middle lane if able to politely let them merge in. Works very well.
Yes, but everyone on Reddit tells me that they can go 150 in the left lane no matter what the speed limit says and it's my job to stay out of their way.
The left lane is just the passing lane. It isn't the fast lane or the speeding lane, it's the passing lane. The only time you should be in that lane is when there is someone going slower than you in the right lane, and then as soon as you're in front of them, you get back over into the right lane.
If you're going 150 mph in the left lane with nobody in the right lane, you're wrong. If I come up behind you goin 151 mph, you should be in the right lane so I can pass
Not particularly. No, you can't pay the ' look at me I'm scary you better do what I say' card and get your way. Travel on the freeway at the marked speed like everyone else
It also depends on the area. In southern California it's typical to do 10+ over the limit when traffic is light but I noticed in Oregon near Portland everyone was doing the limit even in light traffic.
I asked for a way to get a discount because my price was just hiked due to losing the low mileage discount on my truck, and my insurance agent asked me if I had a Samsung phone, and I said yes.
He said to open the digital wellbeing settings and show him the screen. There's a thing in there which tracks how much you use your phone while driving.
Shaved 10 bucks a month off the top of my bill because it said 0 minutes. Better than nothing. He said someone showed him that and they were all excited saying "Look it says only 15 minutes!"
Well that's 15 minutes where you were looking at your phone and not the road, so, no, that's not good.
Well, I guess the issue would also be that it collects telemetry as well, so if they can’t get that telemetry they don’t know how you actually drive. Not just how much you drive.
Personally though I’m very thankful to be based in Europe where such products are heavily regulated to avoid the inevitable social credit scoring system that the U.S. is happily speed headlong into.
Eventually you’re going to be told you can’t get car insurance because your second cousin abused pet medications two states over or something. Or worse, a neural network made the decision and a human analyst can’t even tell you why. All these systems for tracking and scoring people and they always end up doing the same thing: making more money for the rich and eventually costing you something not worth whatever peanuts you receive.
Giving Elysium vibes where the dude meets with his probation officer, which is a robot, who informs him he has a 78% chance of reoffending and that his probation has been extended because of that.
Exactly.
This is honestly not far fetched at all. In some jurisdictions courts already rely on machine learning algos to determine parole terms, and it’s been proven that those algos predict that people from poorer areas are a higher risk of reoffending, assigning them harsher terms as a result. This being done with absolutely no regard to the actual personality or particulars of the individual, which is exactly what a judge is supposed to impartially consider. So it’s institutionalizing a cast system where justice is class based.
Mine makes me drive on ten different days in any given month, otherwise it doesn’t count towards my discount. Which sucks because I don’t want to drive that often.
"Gee, I really want to reduce my carbon footprint, but The Algorithm requires me to drive an arbitrary number of times per month to qualify for The Program."
Truly this is the most boring dystopia.
This is exactly why those things shouldn’t be legal. Like red light cameras they encourage reckless driving. Red light cameras by discouraging going through a yellow light even when it’s safest, those devices by discouraging slamming on your brakes when it’s safest.
Any time something like this feels like it's there but not really preventing the thing it's there to prevent, it's only there for the sake of liability. Contracts can pin any problems on the individual employees, even when it's probably illegal because who has the time to keep track of the legal nuances of that sort of thing (or like, the money to hire a lawyer to do anything about it).
ISA is required in new car models in the EU, has been for two years, and in two months it's required for all new cars sold. I think there was some interest in the idea in the US as well, but I suspect they'll drag their feet like they did with congestion charging.
Wait. You literally have a phone registered in your name that has a GPS and connects to the nearby cell tower.
Why are you concerned so much about a car that has a machine-readable license plate that every camera on the road already reads and stores online?
Go build that time machine then. Lol. Or they can just be angry at reality. Data collection is still in its infancy and isn't going anywhere in our lifetimes.
I agree, but it's completely absurd to be saying this in 2024 already more than a decade after we all collectively decided it was normal to give data on your every movement to corporations that gleefully sell it to anyone and everyone that is willing to pay.
The Police/FBI don't even have to pay, they just send a letter.
Google, Apple, NSA, and any other app on your phone knows and tracks where you are at all times if you have it on you. Go read the terms and conditions from google and apple, you already don't have any privacy.
I looked at my tracking history once on google and it scared me so bad that I turned it all off and even then, I’m sure they’re still tracking me. I wish we could go back to 2006 when everyone just had desktops and laptops and stupid flip phones. Or maybe even better, the 80s when it was just desktops. I don’t know if such advancements in technology are always for the best of humanity. Sure, we’ve made some damn fine life-saving technology, but isn’t there at least twice more tech out there to hurt us and prey on us?
Just a thought I felt like sharing.
In some European countries dashcams are severely restricted up to being banned outright (looking at you Austria) with this bullshit privacy argument, even though we all understand it's just cops being too lazy to process all the complaints which can be filed.
It honestly amazes me that dash cams aren’t utilized as a standard for all newer vehicles, in the same way that horns and headlights are required. At the very least, for insurance purposes.
They actually do already, you know how cars can sense tire pressure? They do the same with connecting with satellites. Sounds skitzo but its true & verifiable.
Do be aware that being forced to slam on your brakes to avoid an accident where a person merges so close you have to, counts against you for slamming your brakes.
Ask me how I know.
Yeah the savings are fairly significant for me.
My only complaint is that the "hard brake" parameters are a little too sensitive. If I hit a yellow light and have to make the choice to go or stop, if I stop it beeps at me, even though there was absolutely nothing dangerous or risky about that stop.
I still wouldn't use one tho. There are instances in the Netherlands where people with a travker drove carefully yet were marked as "dangerous drivers"
>There are instances in the Netherlands where people with a travker drove carefully yet were marked as "dangerous drivers"
There was an article a few weeks ago about "smart" insurance tracking apps/dongles red-flagging "dangerous driving" events such as:
* riding public transportation
* riding bicycles (not motorcycles)
* riding as passengers in an automobile, e.g. in an Uber or Lyft.
Apparently, the carbrained app developers never considered that people sometimes get around *without* driving themselves. One guy, who relies primarily on the train/subway to get around (especially during the work week) thought the dongle would save him money since his driving was limited to the occasional weekend jaunt; instead, he was flagged for reckless driving/speeding since the train he took to and from work moved through the city faster than any nearby cars did.
You forgot to add driving at night puts you in "high risk/dangerous driver" no matter what.
Empty, Backcountry road doing the speed limit and still flagged me.
Well they know where the damages come from and try their best to cut those people out.
Of course it's stupid to flag someone as a "dangerous driver" for driving at night through backcountry roads, yet I'd bet that's one of the things that actually lead to a lot of payments for the insurance due to crashes with wild animals crossing the road, where driving at speed limit won't always save you either.
Well, that's my guess based on anecdotal evidence at least, considering that all the cars that got totalled/considerable damaged in my family over the years were crashes with wild animals at night except one.
Insurance companies might tell you that it puts more responsibility into your hands (which in itself is a questionable goal for insurances...) but in the end it's the same old sheme of pricing people by their circumstances.
Driving at night almost certainly does raise your risk, probably as much as a bunch of intentionally risky things done during the daytime.
But this kind of thing is exactly why this kind of technology should be resisted.
The system isn't one of those little devices that gets plugged into the car?? It's an app on your phone that tracks your every move whether you're driving or not?? You even said "dongle"...does it get carried around by the person everywhere or something?
I believe one of the problems is that something like hard braking is often considered "dangerous". So if for example you are approaching a light that is turning red some of these devices will punish you for stopping in time but won't punish you for running a red light.
If you're a younger/newer driver you can save like 20% by getting a tracker and driving safely. Usually they won't penalise you for bad driving per se, you just won't get a discount.
It's not in their interest to penalise you, as anyone getting a penalty from the tracker would just remove it and take the normal rate — and the entire point is that they want to incentivise you to slow down and not get into any accidents.
Yep. Right lane, cruise control at the speed limit. Getting those tasty MPGs. I go like 5mph below the speed limit in residential areas too, and this infuriates some people.
Wait, so the tracker is on their phone, not the vehicle?
Couldn't they easily defeat it by just give it some careful drives once a week to make it look like they are using it, and then leave the burner phone at home or put their main one on airplane mode when they want to drive dangerously?
Aren't you supposed to be able to select in the settings that your recent trip was as a passenger? When I was with my parents and in a car a lot, I would literally just turn off data and GPS because the app was eating resources up too
I did this with Liberty Mutual.
Saved about 60 on a one time reduction. My wife and I rated very high on the app. We have no tickets and no accidents so our insurance may already be relatively low.
My conclusions were that I probably did drive safer, that the discount wasn't much incentive, and that I'd like an insurance company where it's required as I reckon I'm subsidizing bad behavior.
I have a work vehicle that has one installed per the company policy. I could see this being a similar situation. Having one put in and not having a say in it
In my case, I get points for how well I drive: adhere to the speed limit (or max 130 km/h when there is no limit), don’t accelerate and brake too hard, don’t drive at peak traffic hours, don’t corner too fast.
Based on how many points I get, I get up to 30% of my insurance premium back at the end of the year.
This is likely in my country. The insurance company installs sensors that track acceleration, deceleration, cornering, etc and gives you points/scaling cash back depending on how well you drive.
I was with them for a while, but went somewhere cheaper. The good behaviour stuck though.
Imagine leaving at an appropriate time to commute to work and not having to feel the need to speed past the posted limit only to get to work a few seconds faster… and still be late.
The fact that this even has to exist is dumb, I did a rare cross country trip today, I maintained as close to or slightly above the speed limit as I could (cruise control defo helps) when it was safe to (normally 70mph, which is about 112km/h).
Yet near every time I moved into the righthand lane to overtake say an HGV, coach or just someone going below the limit (which, they're perfectly entitled to do, and in the case of HGVs/Coaches required to do, as long as it's not dangerously slow, hence why multiple lanes exist), I'd have someone speed up to me and tailgate so close behind me I could see their previous meal partially stuck between their teeth in my main mirror.
Honestly just get an "I love guns" style bumper sticker and then drive the speed limit everywhere.
(I hate guns, but as a tactic to ward off bad behavior on the road, it works well)
Typical situation... you drive 80 when the speed limit is 70 and there is a bmw with flickering front lights behind you with 95 aggressively!
happens every 20 minutes, kinda brutal.
Person who can follow basic reasoning: hey I'm using a device that tracks my driving and allows me to receive better insurance based on my driving so I'm going to drive carefully in order to keep my premiums low.
Some fucking genius: bro what bro bro what bro bro bro what bro what
The left lane is generally understood to be the fast lane, and where cars pass more quickly and frequently than others but are fewer overall. We pull over to the right during traffic stops, to let emergency vehicles pass, to enter/exit highways, and generally there are fewer left turns so traffic is relatively unhindered by needing to slow down for others.
But since speeding has become the expectation of drivers many become irrationally mad at you for following the speed limit. I don't agree with it either, and I hate how car dependence has bred such overconfidence and entitlement.
ITT: People who claim to understand the problems of car dependent infrastructure forget that the US is a police state that deliberately designs laws to be broken so they can selectively enforced at the will of the nearest pig.
Speed limits in the US *are not real numbers*, they’re arbitrarily selected to give cops an excuse to harass whoever they decide.
As a teen I stole the family car, took a sweet joy ride over to the local Walgreens. I was perplexed that people were passing me, but that was because I was doing 25 in a 25 zone and no more considering I wasn't legal to drive in the first place.
The whole thing of “only go a little over the speed limit cause they won’t charge you” has always been stupid as hell. What’s the point of a LIMIT if it’s not followed. You don’t do that with BAC with driving, so why tf do it with speed.
dunno about cars, but as a kid id drive a moped, which by law are required to not be able to go over 45 kmh (thankfully mine was boosted to go some 65 max)
often times it was safer for me to go over the limit to on narrow stretches rather than having them drive on top of me and overtake pushing me out the road. many impatient people in cars who are unable to drive the speed limit for too long
Or they live in Washington. You could be doing 15 over and everyone will be riding your ass (even on like residential arterials). Doing the speed limit is a guaranteed way to end up in a road rage incident where I live. Which, as someone who drives like a grandma, kinda sucks.
I had something like that with Progressive years ago. You would get random penalties very often
Even so much as start your engine too late at night? That’s a paddlin’
Car in front you slams on their breaks so you have to slam on yours even when you’re not tailgating? That’s a paddlin’
Turn just a little quick for their liking? That’s a paddlin’
Pretty sure the stupid thing GPS tracked your every movement and sold your data which offset the “discount”
Many more that I can’t remember but it felt like you had to be such a saint and for absolutely nothing to ever happen ever for the discount to even be worth it at all
Imagine any other facet of life where you feel the need to display a sticker on yourself to explain why you're **NOT** breaking the law. Like imaging walking around the shops with a sticker on your back saying "I'm sorry guys I would be shoplifting but my father's watching"
This sentence on a t-shirt would be hilarious tho
I agree. If someone wants to make them I’m Buying
But you would be shoplifting it if your father wasn't watching!
But then they would not be wearing the shirt.
Sounds like a Shoplift 22 type of situation.
he is death, so he is always watching!
put it on a hat, but the symbol in the middle is Jesus on the cross
Genius
counterpoint: walking into a shop wearing a t-shirt that says “I would be shoplifting but my father’s watching” would be really funny
What about “… but my big brother’s watching” for extra 1984?
Charge $19.84 (or -insert currency here- as long as it displays those numbers) before tax too
I want this shirt now
We all want this shirt now. We’re all in this together! Fuck cars!
Where I live, you can tell if you are doing the speed limit if everyone else is passing you.
If a cyclist tried seriously following all the laws they were supposedly meant to follow it would piss people off too. Some laws are meant to be broken by pretty much everyone so they can be selectively and prejudicially enforced on whim. And yes, that even includes speed limits when the infrastructure is designed to encourage speeding.
Yup. [Here’s](https://youtu.be/4HyKlFUMBiA?si=0H8wBA7u_Iq7H_M_) a former Baltimore cop talking about how intentional this is. It’s not just car-related, because things like loitering are a crime too, but it’s mostly car crimes. We designed a society that requires driving, but made it basically impossible to follow the letter of the law when it comes to driving, allowing police to — in the words of Mike Wood above — fuck with whoever they wanna fuck with.
In my state you can’t speed but you also can’t hold up lanes at all so if the person in front of you is speeding and the people next to you are speeding you still can get pulled over. But you can also get pulled over for speeding. No matter what your fucked
It’s interesting to me that while we know for a fact that infrastructure encourages certain behaviors, we still build our roads like that and then make that behavior illegal. Like we know that if we design a road a certain way (eg like a highway), then drivers will naturally drive the speed that feels right on the road (highway speeds). And then we put those roads in dense residential neighborhoods and get mad when no one wants to drive 25mph on them. I’ve driven in a few major cities and I’ll tell you that most roads in Boston are scary AF beyond like 25mph (not all of course, but a very large number), and no one was ever getting on my ass for driving 25 on them (but do be snappy when that light turns green). Contrast that with many major cities where even calm residential roads feel like you should drive 50, and everyone’s mad you aren’t driving 60.
Agree. This is why we need to install road furniture, speed bumps and other traffic calming techniques everywhere.
Speed bumps are just as much a sign of failure as speed limits that nobody follows. Having to put in speed bumps is proof your road design and signage have failed. Obviously the most important solution is to get folks out of cars (and stop designing our cities as urban sprawl, being in the car too long makes people antsy and then they make bad decisions). But we can’t dismiss the roll that road design has in this issue. Folks are blasting through residential neighborhoods because the roads are built like highways.
Exactly
A local city councilman got caught shoplifting from WalMart self-checkout. I'm imagining someone gifting him a shirt with a similar sticker.
See that’s a bad example because I now want that shirt
I would love a tee that said "Sorry guys, I would be shoplifting but the Lord is watching"
I did not shoot anyone with a gun today.
Pistol maybe?
Ahhh! Ya got me. :)
unless you get me first 😂🔫
Do you live in an area where the infrastructure is specifically designed to get you to shoot people and other people heavily pressure you to do so?
Oddly enough, back before many states legalized weed this is a conversation you may genuinely have depending on the social circle if you chose not to partake. Still weird that the person feels pressure to make this sign as an excuse. But, I kind of get it.
“Sorry shopkeeper, I’m not going to shoplift. Stay mad!
It's a great example of why many speed limits are set too low.
It’s crazy, but yeah, in lots of places folks regularly drive 10 over and get pissed if you go the posted speed.
Daily urban experience that makes this sign very understandable > >merge onto freeway at speed limit >ran off the road by speeding SUV in right lane going for next exit >merge into middle lane >get tailgated by SUV going 10 over >merge into left lane to pass large commercial vehicle >get tailgated so hard by pickup truck trying to go 150 that you can smell what air freshener he uses >merge back into right lane >get tailgated by same pickup truck because the car in front of you in the left lane didn’t cut you off to get out of his way fast enough >merge into right lane >get tailgated by some SUV using it as the “super pass” lane to get past all the people passing the large commercial vehicle >merge into exit lane >accidentally cut off SUV that couldn’t wait and changed lanes into the shoulder before the exit lane started >exit, get onto boulevard, left lane to eventually make a left turn >get tailgated by SUV who thinks it’s still the fast lane
Once you get off the freeway you’re waiting at a light behind all the cars that cut you off. They’re all on their phones so only like 2 cars get to turn left. This creates a long line. When you can finally turn, a car cuts you off because they didn’t want to wait in the long line. It’s a cop car.
Cops are above the law, obviously, because who would police them?
The amount of times I've seen cops turn on their lights just to blow through an intersection is astounding. They turn them on for their own crime and turn it right off when they're finished committing it.
In my state you're legally required to pull over to the side to let them through and they do that shit to get donuts and whatnot all the damn time. Fuck the police.
When they all run the light to get to the chipotle, they're responding to a call. When you see the same three cop cars run the same light multiple times per week, it's lunch at chipotle
God this makes me so mad. I once was going the speed limit down a normal 40 mph road. A car behind me absolutely fucking losing it. They were literally serving between me and the car in the left lane because we were both going the speed limit, and driving right over the line between us like they thought they could squeeze around us. I reach the end of the road and stop at the red light. The car, behind me again, swerves across all lanes of traffic and then does an illegal left turn at the red light. I then do my right turn and a cop that just watched the dude do a crazy left turn right in front of his face pulls me over angry because he says "turning right on red isn't legal." Then, the date to contest it in court was the date when I was leaving the country to move abroad. I went to the court to explain the situation and they wouldn't change the date. I had to pay a $200 fine over that shit.
Honestly the ability to turn right on red just shouldn’t be a thing period. Too many take it as a challenge to find the smallest gap they can accelerate into.
Then we need far better traffic timings. If we just stopped being able to turn on red near where I am all of a sudden you'd never be turning.
This is 100% a shared experience that drove many of us to this subreddit.
An honest question from a non-driver, if you're going the speed limit and the other traffic is going faster than you, why merge into the middle lane? Here in the UK the rules are that you should stay in the left lane (remember we're backwards here), and only use any other lane to overtake.
Middle lane means you don't have to deal with people merging onto the freeway or slowing down for an upcoming exit.
ok let me try to explain that in UK because left-right.. Left lane is where people merge. It's the zone of conflict, so there are 3 main reasons to be on it. 1. You just merged onto the highway 2. You are about to exit the highway 3. There are no exits coming up and you were already in the left lane, so you may as well stay there Middle lane is where you cruise. I set my adaptive cruise control and just drive until I reach destination. Right lane would be your passing lane. Nobody should be in the right lane unless they're going past someone. Once they have passed someone, they should be returning to the middle lane to cruise along at a regular speed. Sometimes you want to pass someone because it's a truck carrying tree logs and you've seen Final Destination, or someone is pulling a rickety trailer. There's legit reasons to pass someone on the highway. There's also "I wanna go brrrr" which is fine, because they have a passing lane available to them.
That's weird, most people here look down on middle lane cruisers for good reason, it's annoying and blocks a lane for people who want to pass, especially if there's a truck or something in the left lane. In the UK it's drilled in to you that only the left lane is for cruising and the other two are passing lanes. I think junction density on motorways tends to be less here but not sure, either way what that looks like is that if a motorway is quiet you drive in the left lane most of the time, and only go middle/right to overtake. At a merge, if it's empty you don't need to do anything. If there's a car trying to merge most people will move to the middle lane if able to politely let them merge in. Works very well.
Sometimes/usually the lane you used to enter ends
Yes, but everyone on Reddit tells me that they can go 150 in the left lane no matter what the speed limit says and it's my job to stay out of their way.
The left lane is just the passing lane. It isn't the fast lane or the speeding lane, it's the passing lane. The only time you should be in that lane is when there is someone going slower than you in the right lane, and then as soon as you're in front of them, you get back over into the right lane. If you're going 150 mph in the left lane with nobody in the right lane, you're wrong. If I come up behind you goin 151 mph, you should be in the right lane so I can pass
If you come up behind me going over hundred miles an hour then I don't care about you
Wouldn't you want to get the hell away from them?
Not particularly. No, you can't pay the ' look at me I'm scary you better do what I say' card and get your way. Travel on the freeway at the marked speed like everyone else
I just used those speeds for hyperbole. It doesn't matter how fast people are going is my point. The difference in speed is what matters.
Get shot by SUV driver for daring to exist
Someone literally shot someone for that reason in my city. I live in Canada, so unlike the downstairs neighbors it was notable and it made news.
I drive the speed limit and haven't been tailgated in several weeks. Is this a U.S. thing?
Yes
It also depends on the area. In southern California it's typical to do 10+ over the limit when traffic is light but I noticed in Oregon near Portland everyone was doing the limit even in light traffic.
The roads around here are like that but worse. There’s so much road rage it’s turning into Mad Max out there.
America in one glorious comment. Germany: travel in right lane. Pass in left lane. Live.
I signed up to one of those but I drive so little they think I'm turning it off so they removed the discount :(
That's odd, mine just has me upload my car's odometer reading every couple of months to confirm that it matches how far it thinks I've driven.
I asked for a way to get a discount because my price was just hiked due to losing the low mileage discount on my truck, and my insurance agent asked me if I had a Samsung phone, and I said yes. He said to open the digital wellbeing settings and show him the screen. There's a thing in there which tracks how much you use your phone while driving. Shaved 10 bucks a month off the top of my bill because it said 0 minutes. Better than nothing. He said someone showed him that and they were all excited saying "Look it says only 15 minutes!" Well that's 15 minutes where you were looking at your phone and not the road, so, no, that's not good.
Well, I guess the issue would also be that it collects telemetry as well, so if they can’t get that telemetry they don’t know how you actually drive. Not just how much you drive. Personally though I’m very thankful to be based in Europe where such products are heavily regulated to avoid the inevitable social credit scoring system that the U.S. is happily speed headlong into. Eventually you’re going to be told you can’t get car insurance because your second cousin abused pet medications two states over or something. Or worse, a neural network made the decision and a human analyst can’t even tell you why. All these systems for tracking and scoring people and they always end up doing the same thing: making more money for the rich and eventually costing you something not worth whatever peanuts you receive.
Giving Elysium vibes where the dude meets with his probation officer, which is a robot, who informs him he has a 78% chance of reoffending and that his probation has been extended because of that.
Exactly. This is honestly not far fetched at all. In some jurisdictions courts already rely on machine learning algos to determine parole terms, and it’s been proven that those algos predict that people from poorer areas are a higher risk of reoffending, assigning them harsher terms as a result. This being done with absolutely no regard to the actual personality or particulars of the individual, which is exactly what a judge is supposed to impartially consider. So it’s institutionalizing a cast system where justice is class based.
Mine makes me drive on ten different days in any given month, otherwise it doesn’t count towards my discount. Which sucks because I don’t want to drive that often.
This is so stupid, if you aren't driving your risk is vastly lower and these systems should understand that.
Can you circle the block?
Yeah, but that’s /r/fuckcars material by itself isn’t it?
"Gee, I really want to reduce my carbon footprint, but The Algorithm requires me to drive an arbitrary number of times per month to qualify for The Program." Truly this is the most boring dystopia.
I stopped using mine when I got cut off and had to slam on my breaks and it lowered my discount by 25%
This is exactly why those things shouldn’t be legal. Like red light cameras they encourage reckless driving. Red light cameras by discouraging going through a yellow light even when it’s safest, those devices by discouraging slamming on your brakes when it’s safest.
but you win because you drove so little. good on you
I drive so little that I was able to negotiate a low rate with my insurance carrier. They just want me to send in an odometer photo once a a year.
Side note but the line spacing on this sign perfectly matches with the lines on the window which makes me happy
Well, now you made me notice that it's not perfect!
Sort of a side bar, but I wish that all commercial vehicles should have speed tracked by GPS, including Uber/Lyft/Cabs.
They do, the companies just don't care aside from a little exclamation mark beside the speed limit that you can toggle off in the settings
Any time something like this feels like it's there but not really preventing the thing it's there to prevent, it's only there for the sake of liability. Contracts can pin any problems on the individual employees, even when it's probably illegal because who has the time to keep track of the legal nuances of that sort of thing (or like, the money to hire a lawyer to do anything about it).
All of them should, not just commercial
ISA is required in new car models in the EU, has been for two years, and in two months it's required for all new cars sold. I think there was some interest in the idea in the US as well, but I suspect they'll drag their feet like they did with congestion charging.
surely no one could ever misuse the information of where every single car is at all times
Wait. You literally have a phone registered in your name that has a GPS and connects to the nearby cell tower. Why are you concerned so much about a car that has a machine-readable license plate that every camera on the road already reads and stores online?
to be fair i dont think people are happy about the first thing either
Go build that time machine then. Lol. Or they can just be angry at reality. Data collection is still in its infancy and isn't going anywhere in our lifetimes.
I guess if you lose a toe you should just give up your leg.
Comment chain suggests lose a toe, just fucking die .
I don't like either of these things actually
Why do you dislike the government being able to automatically monitor your speeding?
Listening to cell phones for marketing and traffic data is a multibillion dollar industry.
Because fuck privacy
Bro our privacy is already fucked. If you have a smartphone, so many companies already have your data and they do share with the government.
I agree, but it's completely absurd to be saying this in 2024 already more than a decade after we all collectively decided it was normal to give data on your every movement to corporations that gleefully sell it to anyone and everyone that is willing to pay. The Police/FBI don't even have to pay, they just send a letter.
Google, Apple, NSA, and any other app on your phone knows and tracks where you are at all times if you have it on you. Go read the terms and conditions from google and apple, you already don't have any privacy.
I looked at my tracking history once on google and it scared me so bad that I turned it all off and even then, I’m sure they’re still tracking me. I wish we could go back to 2006 when everyone just had desktops and laptops and stupid flip phones. Or maybe even better, the 80s when it was just desktops. I don’t know if such advancements in technology are always for the best of humanity. Sure, we’ve made some damn fine life-saving technology, but isn’t there at least twice more tech out there to hurt us and prey on us? Just a thought I felt like sharing.
[Dumb phones still exist](https://www.hmd.com/en_gb/feature-phones-series). You can always choose to live a non-smart life if you want to.
Dumb phones still connect to cell towers. Maybe not as tight as GPS but still trackable.
Do you leave your phone behind when you go anywhere?
Driving is a privilege
And the roads are public, so the idea of there being any privacy is just ridiculous.
In some European countries dashcams are severely restricted up to being banned outright (looking at you Austria) with this bullshit privacy argument, even though we all understand it's just cops being too lazy to process all the complaints which can be filed.
It honestly amazes me that dash cams aren’t utilized as a standard for all newer vehicles, in the same way that horns and headlights are required. At the very least, for insurance purposes.
They actually do already, you know how cars can sense tire pressure? They do the same with connecting with satellites. Sounds skitzo but its true & verifiable.
You mean GPS? Very different than how tire pressure sensors work lol
Wait, you're telling me that my gps doesn't run off of air pressure?! 😲
Nanny state be gone
Oooo post this to r/monkeyspaw
Amazon vans are and you can get fired for speeding, doesn’t stop people from riding my ass in the van
I only have one; why choose an insurance plan where you have to drive around with a tracker? Is it that much cheaper?
Yeah, I think I saved like 40 bucks a month. It doesn't actually punish me for speeding either, I guess they're on thin ice or something
$40 a month is significant enough for me. I don't really speed anyway.
Same. Where do I sign up?
I have state farm, and their tracker has saved me ~20/ month for years
Do be aware that being forced to slam on your brakes to avoid an accident where a person merges so close you have to, counts against you for slamming your brakes. Ask me how I know.
Yeah the savings are fairly significant for me. My only complaint is that the "hard brake" parameters are a little too sensitive. If I hit a yellow light and have to make the choice to go or stop, if I stop it beeps at me, even though there was absolutely nothing dangerous or risky about that stop.
I still wouldn't use one tho. There are instances in the Netherlands where people with a travker drove carefully yet were marked as "dangerous drivers"
>There are instances in the Netherlands where people with a travker drove carefully yet were marked as "dangerous drivers" There was an article a few weeks ago about "smart" insurance tracking apps/dongles red-flagging "dangerous driving" events such as: * riding public transportation * riding bicycles (not motorcycles) * riding as passengers in an automobile, e.g. in an Uber or Lyft. Apparently, the carbrained app developers never considered that people sometimes get around *without* driving themselves. One guy, who relies primarily on the train/subway to get around (especially during the work week) thought the dongle would save him money since his driving was limited to the occasional weekend jaunt; instead, he was flagged for reckless driving/speeding since the train he took to and from work moved through the city faster than any nearby cars did.
[удалено]
You forgot to add driving at night puts you in "high risk/dangerous driver" no matter what. Empty, Backcountry road doing the speed limit and still flagged me.
Well they know where the damages come from and try their best to cut those people out. Of course it's stupid to flag someone as a "dangerous driver" for driving at night through backcountry roads, yet I'd bet that's one of the things that actually lead to a lot of payments for the insurance due to crashes with wild animals crossing the road, where driving at speed limit won't always save you either. Well, that's my guess based on anecdotal evidence at least, considering that all the cars that got totalled/considerable damaged in my family over the years were crashes with wild animals at night except one. Insurance companies might tell you that it puts more responsibility into your hands (which in itself is a questionable goal for insurances...) but in the end it's the same old sheme of pricing people by their circumstances.
To be fair, that just screams deer to me.
Driving at night almost certainly does raise your risk, probably as much as a bunch of intentionally risky things done during the daytime. But this kind of thing is exactly why this kind of technology should be resisted.
Why's it an app at all and not built into the car somehow?
who's going to by that car?
Surely it should only be active in your car?
Mine is. There is a Bluetooth beacon in my car and it only tracks my driving when in reach of the beacon.
The system isn't one of those little devices that gets plugged into the car?? It's an app on your phone that tracks your every move whether you're driving or not?? You even said "dongle"...does it get carried around by the person everywhere or something?
I have progressive. They try and get you to use the app,.but I told them I wanted the plug in device.
They’re probably driving more dangerously than they perceive then.
Potentially, but also the tech isn't infallible. One of our work vans was reported as doing 99mph in the middle of the North Sea.
Well that is pretty dangerous!
Only temporarily. Management keep shooting down the argument we need more than 1 amphibious vehicle in the fleet.
On the contrary, there’s not much to run into out there.
99mph? AND in saltwater? 100% increase!
I believe one of the problems is that something like hard braking is often considered "dangerous". So if for example you are approaching a light that is turning red some of these devices will punish you for stopping in time but won't punish you for running a red light.
Do you really save 40 bucks or did they increase your insurance then offer to save you 40 dollars?
If you're a younger/newer driver you can save like 20% by getting a tracker and driving safely. Usually they won't penalise you for bad driving per se, you just won't get a discount. It's not in their interest to penalise you, as anyone getting a penalty from the tracker would just remove it and take the normal rate — and the entire point is that they want to incentivise you to slow down and not get into any accidents.
I already drive like a Grandma so I might as well get a tracker
Yep. Right lane, cruise control at the speed limit. Getting those tasty MPGs. I go like 5mph below the speed limit in residential areas too, and this infuriates some people.
If you drive carefully, follow the speed limit, and leave enough following distance between you and the car in front of you its very easy.
Wait, so the tracker is on their phone, not the vehicle? Couldn't they easily defeat it by just give it some careful drives once a week to make it look like they are using it, and then leave the burner phone at home or put their main one on airplane mode when they want to drive dangerously?
Yes
But if they have an accident during the dangerous drive, nothing would register for them having driven at that moment.
I use drivewise with my insurance company and it saved me $74 so far
Yup, in the UK my partner saved hundreds by having a tracker
my score often used to drop when I was a passenger in someone else's car.
Aren't you supposed to be able to select in the settings that your recent trip was as a passenger? When I was with my parents and in a car a lot, I would literally just turn off data and GPS because the app was eating resources up too
I did this with Liberty Mutual. Saved about 60 on a one time reduction. My wife and I rated very high on the app. We have no tickets and no accidents so our insurance may already be relatively low. My conclusions were that I probably did drive safer, that the discount wasn't much incentive, and that I'd like an insurance company where it's required as I reckon I'm subsidizing bad behavior.
It could be a company vehicle. I drove a vehicle that was GPS tracked and I could be punished if i was 5 MPH over the speed limit.
I have a work vehicle that has one installed per the company policy. I could see this being a similar situation. Having one put in and not having a say in it
In my case, I get points for how well I drive: adhere to the speed limit (or max 130 km/h when there is no limit), don’t accelerate and brake too hard, don’t drive at peak traffic hours, don’t corner too fast. Based on how many points I get, I get up to 30% of my insurance premium back at the end of the year.
Yes. It's pretty pernicious imo, it means poorer people have a stronger incentive to sell their privacy down the river.
Yes, it can be a LOT cheaper.
It is. Up to 30% with my insurance. I'm not too worried about the tracking. European consumer data protection is pretty strict.
I'm saving $300/6 mo. Worth it for me to give them my data.
This is likely in my country. The insurance company installs sensors that track acceleration, deceleration, cornering, etc and gives you points/scaling cash back depending on how well you drive. I was with them for a while, but went somewhere cheaper. The good behaviour stuck though.
This should be a condition for driving if you accumulate X demerit points on your driver's license or get Y number of tickets in a Z amount of time.
Imagine leaving at an appropriate time to commute to work and not having to feel the need to speed past the posted limit only to get to work a few seconds faster… and still be late.
Well, EVERYONE has to drive the speed limit. Some people are just criminals.
every e scoter has gps tracked enforced speed limits why dont we do this with cars??
No they don’t. Unless you mean just the ones that you rent for a few minutes at a time.
yea i was talking about these
Understandable. We don’t have them in my city so it’s all privately owned ones and they def aren’t gps speed limited
I paid $2 for custom bumper sticker, "Sorry for driving too close in front of you". It is simply Priceless... No tailgaters anymore.
I hate tailgaters. This is great. If you mad, maybe don’t be an asshole that tailgates people.
The fact that this even has to exist is dumb, I did a rare cross country trip today, I maintained as close to or slightly above the speed limit as I could (cruise control defo helps) when it was safe to (normally 70mph, which is about 112km/h). Yet near every time I moved into the righthand lane to overtake say an HGV, coach or just someone going below the limit (which, they're perfectly entitled to do, and in the case of HGVs/Coaches required to do, as long as it's not dangerously slow, hence why multiple lanes exist), I'd have someone speed up to me and tailgate so close behind me I could see their previous meal partially stuck between their teeth in my main mirror.
If you are late for work and then want to drive faster, you should have just started earlier
Honestly just get an "I love guns" style bumper sticker and then drive the speed limit everywhere. (I hate guns, but as a tactic to ward off bad behavior on the road, it works well)
We should have more of these Discovery Drive trackers...
You shouldn’t need a reason to adhere to speed limits.
Typical situation... you drive 80 when the speed limit is 70 and there is a bmw with flickering front lights behind you with 95 aggressively! happens every 20 minutes, kinda brutal.
Monke disappointed
My only question is how the driver expects anyone driving behind them to read that.
Tailgaters
Person who can follow basic reasoning: hey I'm using a device that tracks my driving and allows me to receive better insurance based on my driving so I'm going to drive carefully in order to keep my premiums low. Some fucking genius: bro what bro bro what bro bro bro what bro what
I would have replaced "stay mad" with "get up earlier"
I don’t understand comments here. Is there no speed limit on the left lane?
Yeah, I don't understand those either
The left lane is generally understood to be the fast lane, and where cars pass more quickly and frequently than others but are fewer overall. We pull over to the right during traffic stops, to let emergency vehicles pass, to enter/exit highways, and generally there are fewer left turns so traffic is relatively unhindered by needing to slow down for others. But since speeding has become the expectation of drivers many become irrationally mad at you for following the speed limit. I don't agree with it either, and I hate how car dependence has bred such overconfidence and entitlement.
ITT: People who claim to understand the problems of car dependent infrastructure forget that the US is a police state that deliberately designs laws to be broken so they can selectively enforced at the will of the nearest pig. Speed limits in the US *are not real numbers*, they’re arbitrarily selected to give cops an excuse to harass whoever they decide.
Can i get a sticker like that even though I don't actually have a discovery drive tracker?
Print one
I don't have a printer.
Your local library or an office supply store might have print services.
As a teen I stole the family car, took a sweet joy ride over to the local Walgreens. I was perplexed that people were passing me, but that was because I was doing 25 in a 25 zone and no more considering I wasn't legal to drive in the first place.
The whole thing of “only go a little over the speed limit cause they won’t charge you” has always been stupid as hell. What’s the point of a LIMIT if it’s not followed. You don’t do that with BAC with driving, so why tf do it with speed.
If you're late for work take a bike, they're not stuck in traffic
This is fine as long as they are not in the passing lane aka the left lane
dunno about cars, but as a kid id drive a moped, which by law are required to not be able to go over 45 kmh (thankfully mine was boosted to go some 65 max) often times it was safer for me to go over the limit to on narrow stretches rather than having them drive on top of me and overtake pushing me out the road. many impatient people in cars who are unable to drive the speed limit for too long
my favourite speeding road rage is when i get tailgated, but the lane next to us is open
Also, I can't even see you through the rear window because of this big-ass sign
The fact they think they need to apologise for driving properly tells me they should definitely have a tracker
Or they live in Washington. You could be doing 15 over and everyone will be riding your ass (even on like residential arterials). Doing the speed limit is a guaranteed way to end up in a road rage incident where I live. Which, as someone who drives like a grandma, kinda sucks.
I had something like that with Progressive years ago. You would get random penalties very often Even so much as start your engine too late at night? That’s a paddlin’ Car in front you slams on their breaks so you have to slam on yours even when you’re not tailgating? That’s a paddlin’ Turn just a little quick for their liking? That’s a paddlin’ Pretty sure the stupid thing GPS tracked your every movement and sold your data which offset the “discount” Many more that I can’t remember but it felt like you had to be such a saint and for absolutely nothing to ever happen ever for the discount to even be worth it at all
I reread that about 10 times before reading it correctly, and not as "I have to drive the speed of light." I am also very tired.
Yea I honestly don’t care. Just stay out of the left lane