Ahh.....Pattern Suicide

[Dave1982]

(Bonus points for whoever gets the reference in the title )

Last night on the way home from work I was behind an 18-wheeler on the highway, approaching an on-ramp. A freaking FedEx truck roared up the ramp and actually cut off the 18-wheeler, forcing him to slow down and tightening up traffic even further.

And right on FedEx's tail was a Corvette, also trying to cut off the 18-wheeler!

Well, there wasn't enough room for that, so the Corvette had no choice but to slow down, whereupon he tried to force his way in between me and the 18-wheeler.

Yeah, nothing doing, buddy. I'm not backing off for a jackass like you. Besides, your stunt made that impossible because the car behind me is now too close for me to slow down much.

He ended up flooring it and passing the truck by cutting through the safety zone into the breakdown lane.

[Beki710]

I hate people that do that! There's a road near me that goes between dual and single carriageway and people always seem to leave it to the last minute to overtake as it's merging back to one. No wonder it's one of the most dangerous roads in the UK.

[greek_jester]

I hate people that do that! There's a road near me that goes between dual and single carriageway and people always seem to leave it to the last minute to overtake as it's merging back to one. No wonder it's one of the most dangerous roads in the UK.

You don't happen to be talking about a road near a certain medieval city with a castle, in a county full of windmills that were for pumping water instead of grinding corn?

[Chromatix]

There is a fairly well-known road in the UK which *used* to be considered one of the most dangerous in the country.

They haven't changed it since - why? The road is the A6 as it winds up through eastern Cumbria. It is now parallelled by the M6, so very little traffic uses it any more.

So what made it so dangerous? It was a symmetric three-lane road. The outer lanes were for traffic, and the centre lane for overtaking. This was known as the "suicide lane" because all too often, two people would try to overtake in opposite directions at the same time, both believing that the centre lane was clear to do so.

Three-lane roads are not particularly rare elsewhere, but they are almost universally arranged asymmetrically, so that one direction is able to overtake safely but the other drection is prohibited from doing so. They are useful on steep hills, where heavy vehicles need to slow down considerably on the up side and therefore need to be overtaken, but can go much closer to normal road speed on the down side.

[RealUnimportant]

It's times like this that I wish all countries would enact a duplicate of Germany's "Zipper Law" which requires equal interleaving of combining traffic streams. I don't think it would stop everyone from trying to barge in from the wrong lane, but when they know there's less advantage it would cut it down a bit.

[greek_jester]

So what made it so dangerous? It was a symmetric three-lane road. The outer lanes were for traffic, and the centre lane for overtaking. This was known as the "suicide lane" because all too often, two people would try to overtake in opposite directions at the same time, both believing that the centre lane was clear to do so.

I am so glad I have never driven in Cumbria.

[Pagan]

(Bonus points for whoever gets the reference in the title )

So how much time did you spend on the ISS Defiant?

[Chromatix]

Well, these days the A6 in that area is only used by scenic drivers and vehicles which are not permitted on the adjacent motorway, which is why it isn't considered dangerous any more.

It's a pretty remote part of the country, except for being one of the two major routes to Scotland - the other being on the opposite side of the Pennines.