It reminds me of all the people that think driving 60 mph on the highway when rush hour traffic is moving at 80 is the safe thing to do. Just go with the traffic. I have seen so many near-accidents simply because of the person sauntering along while full lanes whiz by around them, so that the car that ends up behind them has to slam their brakes on, and/or swerve to miss them. At least they are, for the most part, staying in the right hand lane.
Which brings me to the widespread disorder I have come to both love and hate at the same time: Right Lane Phobia.
Right Lane Phobia is everywhere. If you were to take an aerial photo of the highways, you would find an average of 4 cars in the left lanes and 1 car in the right lane. This is an especially frequent occurrence on the multi-lane highways and during heavy traffic on the two-lane highways. It doesn't bug me so much on the multi-lanes, as any savvy driver can dodge and weave to some extent, and (this is why I sometimes love Right Lane Phobia) just cruise down the empty Right Lane. You can still encounter the driver who insists on staying in the left regardless of whether there is a vehicle in the Right Lane and who consequently appears upset when you pass on the right. Well, if you moved over, then I could pass on the left, and we would all be in a happier (and more legal - ever seen those signs that say, "Stay right except to pass"?) place! As for the two-lane highways however, when people pass during high-traffic situations, it is especially irritating to be slowly driving along as everyone piles into the Left Lane in a long snake-like line just to pass the one person in the right lane driving - you guessed it - 60 mph.
I really do wonder about those people sometimes. Are they distracted? Are they afraid of driving? Are they trying to set an example? It's not that I think we all need to drive at 80 all the time, I just think that we should be driving as safe as possible, and when the highway world is moving at one speed, that speed should be maintained by all drivers to some extent. They don't need to drive at 80, but could easily save the screeching tires of passing motorists by increasing their speed just 5-10 mph.
The same theory goes for the motorists looking to maintain safe driving in the rain. Maintain normal vehicle operation, decrease speed slightly, but stay - and this is key - in your lane. Don't slam on the brakes - that only causes more accidents as the people behind you have to slam on their brakes and so on and so forth until one person's reaction time is just a smidgen too slow and... you get the picture. So if you don't freak out when it rains, or when traffic is moving quickly, the rest of us won't have to alter our driving to become equally erratic to avoid you drifting into us, slamming on your brakes, driving 15 mph slower than expected, etc. And all the world will finally be able to make it to our destinations without any damage to our cars, or white knuckles on our hands.
