[sen2009]

Hi everyone,
This is my first post in Team-Bhp, with a topic which may attract equal amounts of positive and negative interests.

Let us imagine this situation...
I am cruising along a serene two lane (without dividers) highway at 50-60 kph. The oncoming traffic is an endless series of trucks and the occasional small car. I have 40% of my brain engaged in maintaining the line and just enough alertness to ease into the blind curves.
The road side is lush green paddy fields. The sun is setting on the left giving the fields an awesome glow of orange red. Far off there is a huge pond with mirror clean water and a beautiful reflection of the setting sun. Grazing cattle are lazily ambling off to their abodes. A farmer is calling his two kids off from playing in the pond while keeping an eye on the cattle.
I lazily shift my right leg on the break pedal to make space for an oncoming truck slowly overtaking another truck.

Suddenly a shrill two tone horn blows into my ears... Headlight flashes in my IRVM... The indica is on my right side, desperately trying to cut ahead.

Scene 1 -

I have to make a dead stop else the idiot will crawl straight under the overtaking truck up ahead.

The indica vanishes in the horizon and I resume my journey. Now of course all I am thinking about is the traffic I will face while entering Mumbai, the list of chores I kept waiting to accommodate this trip in my schedule. Wife starts about her mother-in-law!

Scene 2 -

I quickly shift two gears, keep the clutch pressed and check the left shoulder 20 - 50 meters ahead of me. I drift slightly to the left and flash my headlights 5-6 times to the on coming truck to request him to merge back in his lane. I let the indica move about half car length ahead of me. I turn the steering little towards left. My left front wheel falls on the shoulder and I correct the steering to ease the left back wheel on the shoulder. I check the left incline of my car for balance. Now I release my clutch and floor the accelerator. Surge ahead and cut back on the road right on the indica's nose.

Within next 4/5 minutes, I find a suitable gap and let the indica pass.
Now Wife is a bit scared but the adrenalin rush she enjoys. I slowly propose my financing plan for an upgrade and she listens!


I am sure we all have been through this and stuck to scene 1 due to the paramount importance of safe driving. At the same time almost all, or at least many of us have discovered techniques and manoeuvres to make highway driving purposeful and fun.
Let us all share things we have done/ wanted to do when that ford fiesta killed our mood or the oncoming volvo which will not dim its light on the twisty roads on the ghats.

Caution: - This kind of manoeuvres must not be done unless the driver is at least 25 years of age AND has 20000 Kilometres highway driving experience.

[reignofchaos]

To be honest... a person with your experience should know that driving at 50-60km/hr on a good highway isn't a stress free experience. Every tom dick and harry will try to overtake you and in essence makes life more difficult for you. Maintain enough speed so that you are not a road block for others since you'd be making your journey more stressful.

One must know what speeds the car is most composed and gives the best FE and drive at that speed. I'm sure in most modern cars - even the alto, this is significantly more than 50-60. If you drive at a steady 80'ish, you'd never face the scenario you described earlier.

PS: This doesn't not apply if you have a really old that is unsafe above 50-60.

[HappyWheels]

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

To be honest... a person with your experience should know that driving at 50-60km/hr on a good highway isn't a stress free experience.
...
If you drive at a steady 80'ish, you'd never face the scenario you described earlier...

Driving at lower speed on highway is a lot more dangerous than driving at high speed. But then, we have too many other things to be worried about, which are slow, on our highways!

And yes, for a Alto, the max mileage is got by driving around 80kmph, which seems to be the best speed for most of the vehicles, in terms of speed and fuel efficiency.

[simply_sunny001]

Its totally bad tendency to drive slow and that too in rightmost lane

by doing this,you are obstructing others which is against the driving manners and makes people get angry

You never know when some already irritated chap who's already getting late for something had to wait behind you and when he gets a chance to overtake you he might cut you so hard

so stop doing that,follow the highway manners and drive responsibly.

[sen2009]

Originally Posted by simply_sunny001

Its totally bad tendency to drive slow and that too in rightmost lane

by doing this,you are obstructing others which is against the driving manners and makes people get angry

You never know when some already irritated chap who's already getting late for something had to wait behind you and when he gets a chance to overtake you he might cut you so hard

so stop doing that,follow the highway manners and drive responsibly.

It was a two lane road without dividers. Means, you have only one lane to drive and get into the way of oncoming traffic for overtaking.
I know that 50-60 kph is kinda less for highways, one should be around 75-80 kph. In todays world with mercs, audis and bmws you can become a roadblock even at 100 kph.
But what really puts me off is the car overtaking me without an warning. All a slower driver needs is few seconds to to move off and make space!

However, all these are not the intention of my post.
The incident I described earlier happened to me probably more than 50 times. I just wanted to discuss techniques used by fellow members in highway driving to maximise the fun. \

BTW... Thanks a lot guys for replying.

[lordofgondor]

Originally Posted by sen2009

But what really puts me off is the car overtaking me without an warning. All a slower driver needs is few seconds to to move off and make space!

The incident I described earlier happened to me probably more than 50 times. I just wanted to discuss techniques used by fellow members in highway driving to maximise the fun.

Hey sen2009, bad example man. I doubt that Scene 2 would qualify as having fun, sounds more like taking unnecessary risk to me. And while one is driving slow on a high speed highway, he/she is bound to be more vigilant about the traffic around.

For me, fun while highway driving is:

1. Ripping on smooth empty stretches. Take curves at high speeds.
2. Enjoying the scenery.
3. Overtaking someone who's doing 100+ Km/hr and watch them trying back to overtake (as if I just lapped them).
4. Not having to apply brakes/change gears for 10s of Km/minutes.
5. Taking a break after coupla hours to stretch my back/take a leak/have a smoke.

[dr_know]

The best thing to do on highways is to stick to the speed of the general traffic at the same time maintaining a 3 Sec following distance.

Driving at high or low speeds put you and others at risk.

The main thing is to know you car and accept your driving capabilities. I know for sure that I will not take a friends car and take a curve at excessive speeds as I would not know how it would handle in such a situation.

Driving on 2 lane highways are a danger by itself, so being extra careful as in maintaining a safe distance, safe speed and being alert will help getting you safely from point A to point B.

Driving can be and should be fun but it should not be a risky experience.

I back some of the points lordofgondor has said.