So satisfying
I never know which lights I’ll beat by driving faster and which ones I won’t, but I know I’ll beat a few.
Remaining consistent, keeping up with traffic, and not being an asshole who blocks lanes is the bigger key.
People want to drive faster? Go ahead. In the end they aren’t wasting that much energy and might just be saving some by not having to idle in traffic an extra 5-10 minutes on their daily commute if lucky. Worse for others.
There’s some lights on the way to work that are timed to occasionally let you get through if you go 12 above instead of under 10. Almost everyone on their commute hits that 12. You get some regulars who don’t, not too big a deal, get in the right lane or more simply, let people have room around you to pass.
If you start slowing down sooner, there’s a higher chance that the light will turn green before you’re fully stopped. Then you can blast past the people stopped in the other lane.
where’s the fun in that. my 300000hp engine can get to the stop light faster.
Treating green lights as safe = RIP
If you drive manual, the pro move is to engine brake all the way down. If the light turns green, you’re already in gear and possibly even higher up in revs meaning you can quickly swap right back to the gas pedal. Feels cool every time it happens.
Even better: learn the pattern of the traffic lights in your commute, and don’t slow down if you see it will turn green in less than two seconds.
That’s how you t-bone the idiot who doesn’t stop at the red light
The only way to avoid that would be to stop at every green light.
You’re right, but I think the number of people that run a just-turned-red light far far outnumber the people that just ignore the light altogether.
True. If you’re smart enough to time the lights to avoid stopping, hopefully you’re also smart enough to watch the cross street and never assume other drivers are obeying the rules of the road.
unless some asshole decides to stop in your lane before you.
Do you drive a BMW by chance?
Don’t forget Lexus, all the Lexus drivers in my area drive this way as well.
Nah, a lifted truck
You wanna truck you’re gonna have to pay for it kid
I’ve been both but I wasn’t really driving aggressively, the lights just hated me.
I love making fun of asshole drivers because they chose to pollute and they’re making life worse for all of us normal people.
So you make fun of someone for driving a car while you’re driving a car? You’re a left lane camper aren’t you?
Engines burn fuel to accelerate. Just, like, follow the logical train a little further from that with the context provided.
Bruh, I don’t even have a licence
I mean, the point is usually not to get somewhere faster. But to not drive behind someone that infuriates you in some way.
And since they are still in front of you, it doesn’t matter. They will still start moving before you.
I’ve been saying for a while now that this phenomenon needs one of those overly specific German words
i just like driving fast
Me too, I love driving, I love acceleration. I will let it eat from just about every light. I don’t care. If you’re going under the speed limit or take half a mile to get to speed, yeah, I’m the asshole passing you for it.
as an expat in the US why do Americans think like this except the only time it really matters: merging on the on-ramp on a freeway?
In Europe we’re taught to get up to speed (in the US this would be 65mph most often) by the time you’re at the end of the on ramp, but most people I see merge at 40-50mph into a 65
why?!?!!
because some onramps have a speed limit of 15 mph because they curve tightly in a cloverleaf interchange. It takes a while to get up to 65 after you’ve been going 15 in a tight curve.
There were many days where I was stuck behind someone going 30mph in the on ramp and thought I was going to die. The on ramps I drove were always a straight shot and half the time people were taking their sweet fucking time
you say this and then tonight I leave my house, take the on ramp to the free way just before 7pm - open road, little traffic, guy in front of me, I shit you not, from the on ramp with no obstruction not even a light, continues driving at 40mph from the 40mph road until he is fully merged, still at 40. didn’t change speed at all.
aaaagh agony to be stuck behind him.
Even worse agony, imagine what it feels like to BE him
These people need to lose their licenses. Like going 25 under the limit is more dangerous than going 25 over…
I wish we had different classes of drivers licenses in the US for commercial cars. Like a Class 3 license could only allow people to legally drive basic cars (sedans, station wagons, minis, etc.), and to drive things like coupes, muscle cars, sports cars, and those kind of cars you need a Class 2, and to drive light trucks, SUVs, Jeeps, and Hummers, you need a Class 1 license.
I sorta think it would actually help with road rage and aggressive driving since it would at least require those kinds of people to actually demonstrate they can safely drive those kinds of cars.
At risk of making driving less predictable… how about licenses for more aggressive driving too?
No right turn on red (unless Rated ++ or higher)
How would that be managed
As an european light truck driver I find it interesting that truck drivers have such a bad reputation in the US. Here the biggest assholes drive sedans and wagons. BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Volvos etc. Trucks are big, slow and clumsy. We’re the people others fly by in the traffic. The only assholines I’m guilty of is drifting in the snow but I’m not doing it because I drive a truck but because it’s rear wheel drive and without traction control of any kind.
It might have to do with car culture and even urban infrastructure in the US. US is very much a “cars first” nation where a lot of areas do require a car to even get to the closest grocery store, and a lot of people who live in the suburbs like that tend to have bigger cars since it’s perceived as one-part functionality (more space for stuff = less trips to go drive 30+ minutes each way for necessities), one-part status symbol, and one-part fear and/or overcompensating, since a good whack of people here do follow the line of thinking of “if I get into an accident, I’d rather be in the bigger car” despite the fact the chance of killing the other person is greatly increased due to the bad crash collision light trucks have with other cars.
Companies also found a loophole to bypass CAFE laws and can make light trucks cheaper without worrying about safety and emissions too much, so in the US there’s a ton of marketing for comically oversized trucks and SUVs (as a 2m tall person, you can barely see me in some of those cars), with nary a station wagon in sight. Since they have to follow CAFE laws in other countries, I would assume your guys’ trucks are more “normal” and comparable to station wagons and sedans, which also might help with safety.
I would assume your guys’ trucks are more “normal” and comparable to station wagons and sedans
Yeah I guess you could say that. Here’s me parked next to an American truck. Don’t get me wrong, mine is still a big and heavy vehicle and it would absolutely suck to get hit by one, but people don’t generally buy trucks for everyday use here. They’re work vehicles like vans and intented for transporting cargo. Mine only has two seats because I need the longer bed (and lower taxes) Our infrastructure is also more designed with pedestrians in mind and I feel like drivers are much more considerate towards them. Especially when it comes to kids.
I used to wish that I could get some sort of racing license so that I could legally exceed the speed limit. The speed limits are ridiculously low, written for the worst possible drivers. I’ve been successfully exceeding the speed limit for 30 years without incident. Since we’ll definitely never have a special license that lets you legally speed, I just got a radar detector and now I’m happy.
I think if you’re caught driving like a jackass (not simply speeding, but weaving in and out of traffic, tailgating, blocking the passing lane, that kind of assholish behavior) in addition to a ticket, you should have to keep a vehicular “dunce cap” on your car. Like a pizza hut driver sign but it identifies you as a moron to everyone. This would have to be on there until you take an extensive driving course to learn to be better.
Did this with a Subaru WRX driver yesterday. He still had temp tags. Probably was a good driver before he got that thing.
Sometimes the opposite happens, though. The aggressive driver hits the light just before it turns yellow, and everyone who didn’t drive like a hooligan had to stop. Depends on how well timed the lights are.
That said, people in general need to start coasting to a red light at least twice the distance away that they do. I’ve gotten passed by people where I’m coasting, there’s a red light ahead, and there’s no reason at all to hurry. Coming to a full stop is a waste of energy, and you should set yourself up to avoid needing to as much as possible.
This coasting trick works until there’s enough of those assholes in a hurry that they all rush ahead to stop in every lane. Now all the sane drivers have to stop too. If I’m feeling plucky, I might honk and flash my brights at those “gotta pass everybody to stop first at the light” types like they’re the slowpoke in the way, which they kind of are at that point. Usually I just keep quiet and imagine that they’re in such a hurry because they are either about to or have just shit their pants.
Beware though, coasting past stopped traffic just as the light changes is a good way to get T-boned by another careless ass hat that just ran the other light.
The real trick is coasting to a stop in an open lane next to the person in a hurry; then if the light turns green, you’re still moving and you can zoom right by them, which is incredibly satisfying.
What about the guy behind you that wants to make the green turn light that you make him miss because you’re coasting to YOUR light? Dick move that is.
Different lanes? Nonissue. Same lane? He would have had to wait for it to turn green anyway.
In what context does this even make sense?
You’re blocking access to the turn lane by going slow a half mile before YOUR light. I don’t know where you live but the major road through my city is like that. Right and left turn lanes at the light, two lanes leading up to it.
I choose to believe you are twelve years old
So now it’s half a mile? Two lane roads like that aren’t going to have dedicated turn lights, just a blanket green yellow or red for all traffic coming from a given direction, which is almost certainly what the initial user in this thread was talking about before you invented that left turn light.
And even if they did slow you down, so what? Waaaah you made my drive last another 30 seconds like big fucking deal, if you haven’t yet figured out you should give yourself some buffer time when you plan your drive that’s on you tbh.
Or you could drive like a normal person and drive the fucking speed limit instead of acting like you’re the only person on the road. But hey, you do you, just don’t cry when people like me fly past you. (we know you will, and your tears fuel my right foot)
Damn you’re cool.
They should probably be using the lane that’s turning right and has a green light, so there’s no conflicts there.
That is a very specific situation you’ve invented in your head to he mad about.
Obviously use your judgement Amelia Bedelia, nobody said you must always cruise from far away.
The coasting thing is how I ride my motorcycle. It’s so satisfying when you don’t have to stop and put a foot down for a light because it turns green while you’re still rolling.
While I’m sure it feels good to cautious drivers when this happens, IME it doesn’t happen enough for the amount of snarky memes posted about it. If it happens even 50% of the time, the other 50% aggressive drivers do get ahead.
I’m not an aggressive driver, and I see plenty of aggressive drivers I never catch up with.
This. I’m happy for you that this red light gave you the satisfaction of one last look at me but once it turns green I most likely won’t be seeing you again lmao.
I take a different tact. I learn optimum routes so I can get around faster at normal speeds. Favorable right of way, favorable light timing, more direct angled roads. Traffic patterns and hence route selection change by time of day. It takes time, trial, and error to figure out but it pays off. I can get to the grocery store 3 minutes faster than my wife (5 vs 8 minutes) by picking a better route.
There’s an unavoidable overpass between me and where we get groceries with 3 lights on it. They’re timed such that, heading in either direction, you’ll hit one red if you follow the speed limit. They may have sensors, but they change with no cross-traffic as well. However, if you catch the first light in green, and speed by between 7-10 over the speed limit (35), you can get through all 3 without stopping. It’s an overpass with no residential nearby; this is the only place I regularly blow through.
I have no idea what the civic engineers were thinking when they progammed those lights. I assume incompetence; what I think really happened is that at one time that stretch was 45, like both sides of the overpass, and they were programmed for 45, which would normally get you through with no stops. Then some asshat changed the speed limit of that stretch to 35 without reprogramming the lights.
Anyway, the point of my long story is that sometimes going around isn’t feasible. When it is, it’s a great tactic, though!
it’s the framerule in Mario Bros
Obligatory