Quote:
Originally Posted by Arragonis
Gallane has a point (to some extent) about what we in the UK call "Road Captains" - those who decide what speed everyone else should go. They sit in the passing lane holding up traffic to their chosen speed for no reason other than their sense of public service.
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In the 1970's, during the gas shortages in the U.S., our government decided to make 55 MPH a national maximum speed limit on all highways. In order to enforce it, some states decided to have three marked police cars routinely travel alongside each other on an interstate highway, going exactly 55 MPH so that no one could pass them. Road captains, indeed. It was more of a show of force than anything else.
Why did they abandon this strategy? Because those police cars traveling in that pattern created a situation that caused accidents to occur.
Slow driving is not necessarily
safer driving. It doesn't necessarily save fuel in all situations, either. Unpredictability and impeding the flow of traffic is a safety hazard.