GeoffXR200R wrote:
What about the offramps that you just plain can't go above 40 mph on or you slide/roll off into a cliff face. READ: Absolutly NO room to decelerate from 65 to a safe speed, often the speed limit on these is 25 mph. BTW, there are also ON-ramps like this, and no, not all vehicles are capable of accelerating to the posted speed limit in a case like this. Besides, there are some that are just plain sketchy and would require a lot of pedal to the floor driving to be able to come close to 65 mph once on the highway.
Those are exceptions, not the norm. I thought it was safe to speak in general terms. You can throw "what-ifs" at this all day and find a reason to justify braking while still on the freeway, but
in general it's bad form and should be frowned upon.
GeoffXR200R wrote:
Besides, who ever hits someone merging onto the highway at a legal speed (45 IS the minimum) should probably NOT be driving. You should ALWAYS be looking out for that kind of situation, far enough ahead that you have plenty of room to get yourself out of harms way. That's what Driver's Ed is for. Motorcycle riders, of all people, should be well aware of this.
Excuse me?! I'm not worried about hitting these jerks, I'm usually stuck behind them on the on-ramp. Do you have any idea how many times I've had to merge behind one of these numb-nuts while watching semis perform evasive maneuvers in my rear-view mirror? You're essentially asking everyone in the right-most lane to drive 45mph just to be prepared for someone
legally (sic) merging at that speed, and to me that's unreasonable. The safest way to merge onto a freeway is to match speed with traffic by the time your left blinker comes on.
GeoffXR200R wrote:
So, getting pissed off at grandpa going 45 or 50 when getting onto the highway because they're puting YOU in danger, should really re-evaluate their observation skills and think ahead better.
Maybe grandpa should hang up his driving hat or only travel on two-lane roads. A 20mph difference is huge, especially during morning rush hour when traffic is simply too tight to accomodate semis swerving into the passing lane to avoid them.
GeoffXR200R wrote:
On another note about burning off 65 mph on a highway off ramp, what if there's a brake blow-out by a car? Now, let's give this car the best situation, and say it's a manual transmission, with a hand brake. Now, if he waited until the very top of the off ramp to slow down, and at 60 mph, the brake pedal hits the floor, will that be enough room to NOT rearend the cars stopped at the bottom. Now same situation, but the driver decides to slow down gradually by taking his foot off the accelerator. He's doing 55 when he hits the brakes and they blow out at 50 mph. Tell me, who's going to have a better chance of stopping. What if by slowing down that 10 mph BEFORE the offramp, and slowing you down a few seconds, he saves the life of a young child sitting in the back seat of the car he DOESN'T end up actually hitting.
/rant
Wow, a remote and unlikely "what-if". We could come up with these for the next twenty pages if we wanted to. Fact of the matter is, the Department of Transportation designs off-ramps with adequate length to decelerate a moving vehicle to a stop (or slow enough to handle the clover-leaf)
without having to brake on the freeway. Semis generally travel in the right-most lane and it's simply common sense and courtesy to avoid any behavior that would cause them or anyone else to slow unnecessarily. After all, it's called a FREEway for a reason...so people can travel it freely, without traffic lights or intersections to worry about. And the on and off ramps are designed such that motorists can enter and exit said freeway without infringing upon the free movement of fellow motorists.
