Bad Driver? 15 Miles on a Busy Freeway - Ethical or Not?

[jobyts]

I drive about 15 miles on a busy freeway from my work to home. I usually stay in the right lane, take exit, reenter, which saves lots of time (even with freeway entrance with metering). I do this at about 3/4 exits.

I do feel it's not an ethical thing to do. Does anyone else a bad driver like me?

 

[russ_watters]

I do that sometimes - why do you feel it isn't ethical?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

15 mph?
Wow... you're the sort of person I honk my horn at! lol

Sometimes when it is really busy you can't go much faster of course but I am often frustrated with the person I find myself behind that has about twenty or more car lengths between themselves and the person in front of them.

 

[lisab]

I feel it's justified if you're in a hurry for a good reason, like you got a call that your kid is sick at school and you need to get there quickly.

Otherwise, yes, it's unethical. Why do you feel you are justified in cutting in front of everyone else? They are your fellow citizens - we're all in this together, right? All of us are supposed to follow the same rules.

Why would you feel so special, like you don't need to wait, like everyone else must?

 

[Moonbear]

I don't think ethics factor into it, but it's just plain rude, and the sort of thing that ADDS to the traffic congestion problem. The other one are the people who know that two lanes are merging, yet try to cut in front of everyone else and merge at the last minute rather than sooner where there's a space between cars in the other lane, and this just jams up traffic at the merge spot. Every time someone merges or exits, they are slowing down other traffic.

 

[WhoWee]

Were you THAT GUY in the blue car last week...I didn't mean any of those things...really.

Seriously though, how is exiting and re-entering any faster?

 

[Flat]

If the freeway is so conjusted that you are hardly moving, getting off and then back on effectively let's you jump ahead of a lot of people.

Around where I live, there are just two half hour or so rush hour times, so it is easy to avoid.

 

[Oscar Wilde]

I wouldn't really call it unethical, but some may take offense. It is an efficient way of driving. I don't do that but I may have to try it sometime, as I spend about 45-60 minutes on crowded freeways every day.

 

[Janus]

I The other one are the people who know that two lanes are merging, yet try to cut in front of everyone else and merge at the last minute rather than sooner where there's a space between cars in the other lane, and this just jams up traffic at the merge spot.

That has got to be one of my worst pet peeves. Another one is when a driver, after merging into congested traffic from an entry ramp, immediately decides he has to be in the inside lane (even though it is also congested).

 

[Moonbear]

Another one is when a driver, after merging into congested traffic from an entry ramp, immediately decides he has to be in the inside lane (even though it is also congested).

Especially if you're the one who moved into the left lane to let them merge more easily, and then they cut you off before they've fully accelerated to the speed of traffic.

Once in a while, I merge on and move quickly to the left lane, but only because the person merging ahead of me is crawling so slowly that I need to get around them before they drive me insane...some people just don't know how to merge at all and think they can just crawl into traffic rather than matching the speed of other vehicles. Even so, I don't do that if there is traffic on the road, or anyone nearby in the left lane...I let anyone trying to pass already to get by me first, then move in behind them to get around the slowpoke merger.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

There's nothing wrong with finding an alternate route, certainly. But getting on and off the freeway continuously...why bother? If you have that many sidestreets that you don't need to be on the freeway, then why get back on the freeway again at all?

I avoid the freeways in general when driving in LA...there are plenty of city streets, and the freeways are always ridiculously congested, except after 9 pm.

 

[Pengwuino]

Wait wait... you actually exit a freeway and re-enter at the same on/off-ramp? Where do you live? Hell? Are the surface streets that bad?

To me, that's completely cutting in line, thus rude. Drive a helicopter.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I grew up in the LA area and learned to drive somewhat aggressively from the beginning. Later, when I worked on the mobile CAT scanners, my area of coverage was primarily from the South end of Orange County to the North end of the San Fernando Valley [for those who don't know the area, that is about a three-hour drive]. When one spends that much time on the road, Auto-Darwinism takes over. I was a real jerk. All in all I drove safely but very aggressively.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Sorry Joby I totally misunderstood your post. I say that so long as you are not holding up traffic yourself then its no big deal really.

There's nothing wrong with finding an alternate route, certainly. But getting on and off the freeway continuously...why bother? If you have that many sidestreets that you don't need to be on the freeway, then why get back on the freeway again at all?

I avoid the freeways in general when driving in LA...there are plenty of city streets, and the freeways are always ridiculously congested, except after 9 pm.

I'm not sure how many there are in LA but there are a few freeway off/on ramps in OC where there is a parallel lane that is used by both incoming and outgoing traffic. You're able to take the exit and stay in this lane with the oncoming traffic which eventually merges back with the freeway. So from what I can tell Joby is saying that when there is lots of traffic (s)he gets into this parallel lane where there isn't any traffic and then merges back on to get ahead in traffic.

Hmmmm... I keep feeling I'm not describing it very well but hopefully you get the idea.

And maybe I'm wrong. :-/

 

[jobyts]

Wait wait... you actually exit a freeway and re-enter at the same on/off-ramp? Where do you live? Hell? Are the surface streets that bad?

To me, that's completely cutting in line, thus rude. Drive a helicopter.

Yup, the same on/off ramp. That's the SFO bay area Highway 101 traffic.

 

[jobyts]

There's nothing wrong with finding an alternate route, certainly. But getting on and off the freeway continuously...why bother? If you have that many sidestreets that you don't need to be on the freeway, then why get back on the freeway again at all?

I don't take any parallel routes. While exiting the freeway, the off-ramp crosses the on-ramp. My path is Freeway->Off-ramp(half of)->On-ramp(half of)->Freeway. Most of the bay area ramps are like that.

 

[Moonbear]

I'm surprised the on/off ramps aren't backed up too, if the freeway is that backed up to make it worth exiting and re-entering. Maybe west coast roads are very different from east coast roads, but any time I've been on roads that are completely congested with traffic, the WORST places are the exits.

Ivan, I was like that when living in NJ too. I drove quite aggressively...my boyfriend used to call me the female version of Mario Andretti, zipping around, cutting around cars...if I could get one or two cars ahead in traffic by zipping into a small space, I would...and I was very liberal with my use of the horn too.

I've mellowed...a LOT. Now instead of giving people the finger and blocking them from cutting me off and racing through traffic, I just let them pass if they want as I mutter, "Go ahead and kill yourself if you want to."

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I'm surprised the on/off ramps aren't backed up too, if the freeway is that backed up to make it worth exiting and re-entering. Maybe west coast roads are very different from east coast roads, but any time I've been on roads that are completely congested with traffic, the WORST places are the exits.

The on/off ramps like I described are sometimes quite backed up too. It depends on the location and just how bad the traffic is. For the most part, if people are actually using it to get off the freeway, there will be at least some short length that is free of traffic before reaching the oncoming vehicles.