Scruffy The Legend

In my book, there is a chapter on cars. This must make me about as much of a driving expert as anyone.

Have you noticed the following (you have if you live in NJ)?
The only important thing to every NJ driver is to get as close as possible to the car in front of them. So imagine a 20 mile stretch of winding country road where there is absolutely no place to pass. The speed limit is 40 MPH. One annoying driver is going 25 MPH. the only other car on the entire road is a couple of feet behind the first. The second driver is obviously annoyed that he can not go more than 25 MPH, so he sits there as close as possible to let the other car know that he should speed up. This is NJ! The 25 MPH car will never speed up. Here’s what I do when I am stuck behind the slow driver: I go 15 MPH or maybe even less until the slow driver is out of site ahead of me. (It is very important to make sure no one is coming up behind you if you go this slow. As soon as someone appears in your rear view mirror, the game ends and you must speed up again). What I try to do is get as much space between me and the 25 MPH guy, and then go my desired speed of say 40 MPH until I catch up with him. Then the game starts all over again.

Here is another game you can play on a 4 or more lane divided highway on an early Sunday afternoon:
Notice that total traffic volume is low because it is Sunday. Also note that it seems like there is a lot of traffic because some cars are going much slower than others want to go. this causes little traffic blobs of about 10 to 40 cars. The back end fo the blob may be several miles in front of the next blob. There are absolutely no cars in between the blobs (traffic gaps).

In NJ, there is only one person who dares to drive in the traffic gap without trying to catch the blob in front of him: me! It takes some skill to do this. You must match your speed exactly to the blob in front of you. Eventually you must deal with the blob behind you when it finally catches up with you and consumes you. You must very cautiously let them all pass (stay in right lane). Eventually you will be free again.

A third game is:
Now you are on the lonely country road (or any simple 2 lane rd) and you are going the speed limit
or maybe even slightly faster. The only other car on the road is, of course, one foot behind you going the same speed. (This is NJ!)

Here’s what I do:
wait for a good safe place to pull off the road after signalling well in advance. As soon as the car passes, when safe, you signal and get back on the road. To your amazement, you will immediatly see the car who passed you who is now going even slower that you were originally. Its like they need a leader. They will go as fast as any car as long as they can stay on its tail, but once they are in the lead, they cant see where they are gonig and must go very slow. So now I play game 1 (described above) all over again.

Administrator