Rant | Overly cautious slow drivers are dangerous

I pride myself on trying to be a good, responsible, courteous driver, giving way when needed, keeping a safe  following distance, accelerating and braking evenly, and I try to keep up, as much as possible, with the general flow of traffic.

I think though I cannot tolerate is slow drivers, and an American car journalist correctly labeled them as the Anti-Destination league. People who given enough road, would start accelerating slowly, and then continue to accelerate until they hit the to speed, causing enough havoc along the way to allow some authorities to institutionalize you, people who are on the road for no apparent reason. They also have member who insists on driving in the fast lane, way below the minimum speed limit. Rightly so, in some countries they are fined, as it is equally as dangerous for people to drive too slow.

Like I said, I am considerate, and understand if you are in an unfamiliar surrounding, I completely understand you are nervous, and don’t have the confidence you need to be on the road. Overly cautious driving, and slow driving can be dangerous. These people tend to be selfish, hogging a lane, and creeping along at snail pace, braking for absolutely no reason, causing you, the frustrated person behind them, to brake, and this has a chain effect, right through the car stuck in the line 25 kilometers behind you.

Driving slow or over cautious in my opinion is more dangerous than speeding, because the behaviour of these drivers are unpredictable. Now before you stop reading, I am stating slow drivers, and not drivers who keep to the imposed speed limits. Yesterday I was stuck behind a lady in a Toyota Fortuner for 15 minutes. There was ample time to turn into the main road, but every time she pulls off, she brakes, hard! Rolls back, and waits again, and only a good 30 seconds later the car she is waiting for passes.

The queue behind me was backed up all the way for around 500 meters, and this is usually a very quiet road. What happened next? People started getting fed up, climbing the sidewalks, holding a competition on whose hooter makes the most sound, and throwing fingers out the window. Yet this lady stayed. When she finally did let go, she nearly caused 3 accidents, because instead of driving off like a normal person, she was crawling at 30 km/h over a blind hill, right at the spot where she is supposed to be doing 60. Her indicators also didn’t work.

In the US alone, a study reveals that nearly a third of drivers were in a near miss situation because of slow drivers, and in the worst case, you would be found guilty of the accident, because proving you were speeding (while overtaking) is easier than proving she was going slow.

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