[slowmover]

You mean you’ve awakened to the fact of your selfishness being in conflict with their selfishness.

I drive for a living. 100,000-miles in a year. Observations about traffic have to be accurate. And, as the truck is on a schedule which limits the hours worked both per day and per week, a happy medium has to be established with respect to trafffic flow.

Safety trumps FE. They track the same until they don’t. Choose risk-reduction when they diverge.

So, in general: with an Interstate upper limit of 70-mph there’s akways a crowd trying to get ahead of each other. The commercial traffic is usually speed-governed at from 65 to 68-mph.

Safety is in maintaining maximum distance from others. Vehicle Spacing. Call it 300’.

The speed at which it is easiest to stay away from others is a cruise control set speed of 64-mph (up to but not including heavy traffic). As highway FE is strictly about maintaining steady-state, this rules out any accel & decel events as well as lane changes.

64-mph is the rocking chair.

The key to lowered risk driving is the awareness of constantly changing conditions. Having made the choice to be a disposable American among others not capable of making correct decisions in re Time & Distance, you’ll have to do their thinking for them.

The packs of cars are Job One. At 64 or a little higher they’ll sled up to pass you and then lag once back ahead of you. So it isn’t a matter of dealing with ONE car. It’s the ones who can’t function without others in their immediate vicinity.

When that pack has overtaken you, cancel cruise control (over the course of a long day CC is far more reliable than you; our skills deteriorate with vibration, thus fatigue) to drop well below 60-mph. Get them GONE.

Re-engage Cruise once they’re MORE THAN 300’ out ahead and still pulling away. A half mile is the ideal. There’s no hurry to get back to speed. Use terrain to ease the transition, etc.

But there’s always another pack coming up.

When it’s big trucks it will take more time to sort. Big trucks jam up as the difficulties of their total weight and governed speed versus available HP keep it from being easy to pass one another in a timely fashion.

So, at 64-mph with a gaggle of big trucks waddling along abead of me (maybe a mile or more) and yet another pack of Disposables coming up behind me, the better choice can be to accelerate to a higher speed to have the truck flock behind me BEFORE the herd of rats catch up.

The signal evidence of Idiocracy is a mixed pack of big trucks and cars. None bright enough to have avoided the situation in the first place.

The TOOLS available are to be used. Accel. Decel. Passing Lane.

Vehicle Spacing drives all other considerations. We may wish to travel at a given set speed but conditions of Road, Vehicle Load, Traffic, and Weather are constant modifiers. Thus why we have a side range of possible (legal) speeds to accomplish this space maintenance.

Only the right lane of an Interstate has ROW. Not traffic entering. Not traffic moving faster than others. There is NO extended legal travel in the left lane. After a short hard pass (300’ on each end of space), it’s back to the right lane.

Don’t let others drive you. As you come up on someone slower than you i the right lane, it’s time to move over. Irrelevant who is in the left lane UNLESS they are actually passing you. They don’t exist, in a legal sense. Putting on your turn signal is NOT asking permission. You go.

It is strictly illegal to block access to the passing lane. ROW is everything. They don’t have it. Causing the right lane to jam up is the equivalent to Original Sin. The fundamental premise of the design and gigantic capital expense.

It’s the flow of the travel lane that is the health of the Interstate. Why we built 90,000-miles of unused road is that the smooth flow of vehicles past one another is crucial to everyone’s safety. That it enhances timeliness is a great benefit to all, but especially to commercial traffic.

62-mph can be a tad slow. 64 is my slowest set speed versus my together 68. I usually run at 67. I have to work a good deal harder at 67. But as my days are 500-700 miles in length and other big trucks are my concern (cars are invisible; it’s a parallel world, not the same one), keeping my distance while possibly having to set up a pass two miles or more ahead all the while maintaining steady-state FE is the challenge.

One will hear complaints about slow passes by trucks. True. The guy in the right lane needs to back off at some point (preferably when they are abreast) and get the other guy back over soonest. NEVER LET A PACK FORM UP.

But the slow pass is wholly legal. Believe me that I get real tired of the near-retarded (85-IQ) who think it’s a game and speed up to try and cancel the pass of the other. This isn't rare Some stupids speed up because they are so unconscious they match the speed of anyone passing.

In any event my having made the decision to pass is final. There has to be plenty of room out ahead of him to make it both safe and worthwhile.

In a 500-mile day I may pass only a few times. Heavier traffic means a slower set speed. Until I am unable to use CC at all due to traffic volume. (That’s at about 75-miles from a city center).

The point is to ease along. The aero penalty at 64-mph isn’t as important as the necessity of the awareness required to BEST maintain this steady-state cruise, as very good numbers can be obtained.

Were another to jump in here and tell me I don’t get to tell him how much money to spend on fuel, he needs to be able to back that up. The total percentage of annual miles in non-metro highway travel. And his putative savings.

A most excellent insult across the CB is to point out that the way one guy is driving badly (tailgating being the best example) is to put another at high risk of injury or death. For pennies (driver pay is cents-per-mile). As being “CB Rambo” is an ancient part of the tradition, adding that if it’s a tailgating truck driver kills my family . . . he ain’t got long to live either. Bet on it.

So, Mr Save-the-Earth, what’s the change to the CPM figure of your Total Annual Cost of Ownership in going a sensible 64 versus the miserly 58? (fits your realization). It’s surpassingly low, isn’t it? A tenth of a cent, or a hundredth?

Long vehicle life is the real Economy. All else depends from that. Thus further cutting cold starts and combining ALL errands will save far more than a few mph.

Not your fault or mine that millions of the near-retarded and worse have been allowed to invade this country. Proper citizenship is dependent on an average IQ well above 90-points. It’s made the Interstates dangerous. But it doesn’t make high MPG impossible. Adapting to conditions is what the stoopid can’t do. Your ability has the twin rewards of lower risk and lower operational costs when done well.

(And don’t tell me that you’re also a truck driver and “know” these things. 58 is for those empty roads.)

The plan for the day has to include stops for 15’ rest break every two hours. And an hour-long break every four hours. These aren’t optional. Choose them the night before. Combine them with that which is pleasant.

Travel is also an art. Fast food restaurants aren’t part of it. Be above the hubbub in all ways. Spirit needs tending.

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