The Long and Lonely Road – What Ought To Be Drivers’ Rules

Having spent a notable number of hours, perhaps it was days, on the road this month; I have decided to present the driving rules that ought to be part of every driver’s road awareness and traffic monitoring skill set. These rules are few and simple. They are meant to improve your travel experience, efficiency and safety. You will not find these rules in any state’s driver’s manual because they are not intended to define the control and flow of traffic within the situations that are being regulated by a state. Nor are these rules meant to be enforced by the local or state police forces or to be used to generate revenues for applicable jurisdiction.

These driving rules apply to the active state of driving on multi-lane roads and to how each individual driver should be reacting to the constantly changing situations on the road with the traffic with which they are confronted. If drivers followed these rules, they would find that their travels are faster, safer and less stressful than the experiences that they face today.

The Driver’s Rules:

1. If a car passes you in the lane to your right then you are in the wrong lane and should move to the right as soon as safely possible. This rule applies no matter which lane you are in on a multi-lane highway. It basically indicates that you are not driving at a speed that is sufficient to prevent other cars from approaching you from behind and having to go around you. When a car passes you on the right, your safety is being compromised; and if you had been farther to the right, it appears that your speed would not have been impeded and the other traffic would be proceeding at a better overall speed and with less overall congestion.

2. If you are not in the right-most lane and there is one or more cars behind you, but there are no cars even remotely in front of you then you are in the wrong lane and should move to the right as soon as possible. You could give some consideration to speeding up to pass the car(s) immediately to your right if that is the only way to get into that lane. The fact that you are traveling side-by-side with other cars and not really passing them is another indicator that you are in the wrong lane if those cars are to your right. Traveling side-by-side when actual traffic congestion does not require it increases your vulnerability to any traffic situation or action that could result in an accident.

3. As you drive the best place to be is in the pack-gaps between the groups of cars that are bunched-up together due to drivers that do not follow the above two rules. Your safety is maximized when you take every opportunity to isolate yourself from as many other drivers, and if possible all others, that these traffic pack-gaps provide. You can often see these gaps when you are behind a set of cars that are all driving at basically the same speed, side-by-side and with no discernable indication that the car farthest to the left is actually passing the car immediately to its right. You usually have to watch for the occasional car(s) that this front-group is approaching from behind (a slower than average car) that will force them to break ranks. At that time, if you are able to position yourself to take advantage of the open lane that will often be produced then you can slip into the pack-gap and immediately reduce the safety threat that those cars have created.

4. Whenever possible stay out of the left-most lane. This helps avoid the situations which create the need to react to Rule 1 and 2. This helps improve the flow of traffic around you and improves your safety.

5. Think ahead. Don’t just observe the cars directly in front of you. As you are driving down the road, you will have many opportunities to see the traffic minutes in front of you. Use that information to plan ahead, this information can be used to position yourself to maximize your opportunities to get out of situations that cause you to be in the situations where the above rules would come into play; and the longer you can avoid these rules being operative the safer you are, the faster your travel will be, and the less stress you will have from traffic.

6. Don’t be interested in observing an accident. Your job is driving. As soon as possible, as you pass the accident and the police and emergency vehicles handling it, you should return to the speed that you would have been driving at had then been no accident as rapidly as possible given the other traffic around you. After you are back up to you’re your cruising speed, it should be almost impossible for you to tell anyone anything about the accident other than that there was one.

The important aspect of these rules is that they are not rules that you expect to apply to other drivers. They only apply to you as an individual driver. Thus these rules are within your control and you can use them without any involvement or cooperation of other drivers. The rules when used this way will make small improvement in the traffic around you, and in your safety. If other drivers also use these rules then they also contribute incremental small improvements. And if enough drivers use them then the whole system of cars and drivers benefit from them.

Unfortunately, these rules are not taught or even acknowledged within the agencies that promulgate traffic education and training. So I don’t expect to see the general state of traffic and driving on the highways improve at any time in the near or distant future.