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Notes -
my opinions;
no, although i do see the sense in the habit formation arguments others have raised. In my opinion though as long as you always signal when that signal is needed, then nobody cares if you dont signal when wildly changing 4 lanes on an otherwise uninhabited stretch of highway.
generally you have to stop to assess whether you needed to stop so i essentially agree you should always stop.
id ammended to say speed limit + 5MPH up to 45 and limit+10 for over 50, then yes everybody should be going no higher than that range of speeds. maybe speed limit +30 for low density highways.
i think i disagree? the left lane is the most sensible place for people who want to go fast and arent planning on changing lanes for a long time. If you are in the left and you dont want to go somewhere fast you are in the wrong place.
this is a tough one because generally needing to merge under duress is caused by a failure to plan your route. "oh crap i should have been in the right lane a quarter mile ago but now i need to dangerously merge immediately" is a bad excuse in the age of freely available GPS on every phone.
in general i think people that are better drivers than me can probably get away with breaking way more of these rules than i do, and people with less experience should probably try to follow much more closely than i. I guess this just boils down to "as long as you dont fuck anybody up with your bad driving then godspeed"
One of these happened to me just the other day. I needed to turn left at a big intersection of a 6 lane road with a 4 lane road, and im coming from the 4 lane. I need to cross 3 lanes of traffic to complete this turn, and the left turning signal is the evil RED ARROW of DO NOT TURN LEFT.
Normall, i respect the authority of the red arrow, its color a warning of the dire consequences of failing to comply with its mandate. But today, both sides of the road i needed to cross, all 3 lanes in each direction, were fully bricked up with stopped cars waiting for their light to turn green. I waited for 30ish seconds as no cars went anywhere and then drove in solitude across the forbidden zone. I imagine at least someone in the waiting traffic saw what i did, and i wonder if they saw me as kindof an awesome defiant paragon of truth, or maybe as some sort of rule breaking dastard who belongs under the jail.
But in reality i was just a guy who didnt want to wait 5 minutes to turn left, and i saw a situation where nobody else would be harmed by breaking the rules, so i took it.
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