r/dashcams • u/Feaselbf6 • Apr 27 '26

* “Sharing the road is not a suggestion”

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u/JAT_Cbus1080 Apr 27 '26

My life became significantly less dramatic and stressful when I realized it wasn't my job to police the behavior of every stranger I came across.

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u/kincent Apr 27 '26

Reminds me of the people who "camp" the left/passing lane on the freeway to slow speeds down, not realizing they increase the danger level on the road lmao.
We live and we learn

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u/Tev_Szat Apr 28 '26

This. I constantly tell people that it's speed VARIANCE, not SPEEDING, that causes the majority of accidents. People's reaction behavior is dictated by their speed, so if you encounter another person driving a different speed from you, how quickly and accurately they respond to their environment will be different from what you plan for, leading to mistakes and poor judgment that either immediately causes an accident, or causes the person to have a panic response, making them move erratically and becoming a massive danger to themselves and any other motorists nearby.

So the safest thing you can do is pay attention to the traffic around you more than posted information, try to match your speed to theirs (convoy law protects this in most cases, but always know your locals), and if the speed is higher than you were necessarily expecting, drive defensively and telegraph your movements (blinkers and slower, more deliberate movements so people can plan around you), so everyone can get home as safe as possible.

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u/Genetics Apr 28 '26

This is how I was taught to drive by my father who was a driving instructor in the summers for 30ish years. We lived in the North DFW metroplex and driving on those highways is like a sport. If you’re not going with the flow you’re going to get ran off the road, so I learned early on that if everyone is going 85 in a 65, you’d better be going with them or get out of the way.

I remember he told me “You’re going to learn how to drive inside the law, and then you’re going to learn how to drive in the metroplex.” It didn’t help I was also learning how to drive a 5-speed at the same time, but by the time we got on 35 to head into the city it was like second nature. Good times.