Here is today’s Clover – an old geezer in a geezermobile ambling along at 5-10 below the underposted speed limit (secondary roads are particularly notorious for having under-posted limits; that is, limits set well below the 85th percentile – such that almost every driver is technically/legally guilty of “speeding”).
Anyhow, the problem here is not really Clover, per se. The problem is the near-elimination of legal passing zones. The entire country, it seems, has been painted over double yellow. Even arrow-straight sections with clear lines of sight where it would be perfectly safe to pass a Clover.
If it were legal to do so.
But since it’s not, all it takes is one Clover (who refuses to move over to the shoulder for the 5 seconds or so it would take to allow the car behind him to get by) to scleroticize a traffic lane for miles.
This makes driving ever-more-aggravating. Your shitty choices are:
Suffer the Clover. Let him dictate your pace, make you late – ruin the drive.
Or, pass the Clover. And risk a ticket. Because it’s illegal – even if there’s no real reason for it to be (other than making it easier to ticket motorists on trumped-up charges). 
And even in the few areas left where it remains (for now) legal, it’s still damned near impossible to do so.
Legally, that is.
Because the insufferable law says it’s illegal to exceed the posted limit anywhere, anytime – even briefly, for the short moment it takes to pass a dawdling Clover.
Nope. If he’s doing 49 in a 55 you are required to go no faster than 55 to pass him. Which of course means it’s almost impossible to pass – ever – due to the time it takes to pass someone doing 49 at 55 (rather than 70) MPH. You’d need a clear shot for half a mile – instead of a tenth of a mile.
So, people are conditioned to not even try. They, in their turn, become Clovers, too. Fearful – and timid. And resentful of the few who still aren’t – who haven’t yet had their spirits gelded. That’s why the Clovers flash their lights and honk their horns at you. It drives them nust to see someone who ignores “the law” – no matter how idiotic/unfair “the law” may be.
No wonder the kids are saying to hell with driving – and not even getting their licenses anymore.
Mr. Clover please take deep breath and at least count to five. 30 years of safe driving is not luck(it’s commendable). I burn around slow pokes stacked up all the time(but only when its safe) and the vehicle I currently have isn’t capable of much acceleration,but as a rule I do not pass in a blind curve,etc.
The people that speedup when you try to pass them are a great deal of the problem; please do not dis the intelligence of Libertarians(you would be suprised how high on the scale they are) at least they can think , I am no longer a bleating “winger” or drink tea with the dolls(not the plastic kind anyway)-Kevin
We ened mandatory sterilization programs.
Under 100 IQ? Euthanize.
100-120 – Spay/neuter.
2-3 generations like that, we COULD all have a normal, real society again – and much more intelligent, too.
BTW – I don’t know where I fall any more. I might be suggesting my own execution – and I’m OK with that! At least the ID10Ts are GONE…
I’ve passed cars on this road almost every day for the past 10 years. If it’s so “unsafe,” Clover, how come I’ve yet to so much as scratch the paint?
You see, Clover, the fact that you can’t execute a competent/safe pass does not mean others are unable. And the fact that you are unable shouldn’t be the basis for casting as “unsafe” what they can do quite safely.
It’s exactly the same as my being able to run faster and longer (and lift heavier weights) than you can. Your debilities are not my debilities. Now get the hell out of my way!
Poor ol’ Clover!
Lucky for 30-plus years now, Clover.
Driving “dangerously” (as you see it) every day.
Agreed. Every country is doing this, it’s called entrapment. What used to be “safe” on a stretch of road is now considered by somebody to be “unsafe”. Who are these people and what qualifications/authority do they have? Ask them – en masse.
You’ve got 2 choices. Rise up or be damned.
Since we moved to this area about 10 years ago, at least six formerly legal passing zones have been painted over double yellow. It’s all so obviously meant to dumb down/criminalize competent driving so as to make driving both frustrating (for us) and profitable (for them).
Everytime a road is resurfaced in my area the passing zone goes away. Very rarely is it preserved.
I get the feeling that many times it’s just the contractor painting the double yellows by default, not giving a damn about using extra paint or what it should be.
Yes Eric if there are more no passing zones it is usually because a lot of people are killed in such places. If you were passing and hit someone in those no passing zones, I believe the death sentence would be not enough punishment. I believe 16 hours a day of torture would be fitting. Those roads as shown are hundreds of times more dangerous driving fast because of lack of visibility and merging vehicles. I do not have any problem locking someone up who is speeding on that road.
If you are incapable of following someone who is doing the speed limit on such a road then you should not be driving or be in jail.
Evidently Gil didn’t choke clover enough, she lives. One straw man after the other.
Last week topping a long downhill stretch with double stripes, I realized I could see every single inch of the road way not only to the bottom of the hill with a couple of rises, but on over to the top of the next hill, nearly two miles away. Natch, clover was following clover and wouldn’t pass even though you could see everything. I had to pass about 3 of them all lined up since I actually had work to do and couldn’t jack around at 65 for whatever reason they were driving that slow. Still, it irked hell out of me since any vehicle out there could have easily driven a speed my old truck could never achieve. More fun and games with the clover idiots.
Clovers aside though, Texans spoke as one before the 55 mph limit and continued to raise hell and want to check out of federal money. No governor(politician)had the balls to withhold our state funds(we fund 16 or 17 other sorry states)and tell the feds to take a flying one. But the speed limit is now 20 mph above what it was then on the same roads. What changed? Politicians that weren’t stupid enough to keep thwarting people who were sick of wasting all day going from one town to the next.(of course, not many people ever drove 55 since it was all such an obvious scam, highway speeds sucked down from 70mph to 55mph to save fuel and then it got spun immediately afterward, to save lives. Nobody ever went for it here and the “oil embargo” was always an obvious lie since we had more oil and fuel than we knew what to do with at the time.
The price of oil continues to drop so everybody out there, get out and do some damned driving now. We need to keep that price up there so we can pay all those other states’ federal taxes. I’m tired of digging in my pockets to keep yankee’s heat on.
Thanks Eightsouthman for your daily example of the stupidity of libertarians. There is more to driving than being able to see the road in front of you. Could you see all of the cross roads and driveways hundreds of feet from you? In Eric’s examples you could not see streets and driveways until you were 75 feet from them. Any car pulling out and there would be an accident you just caused. It all reminds me of a couple of years ago on the interstate. There was heavy fog where you could barley see the lines on the interstate but idiots were driving at 45 to 55 mph. That is how 100 car pileups happen. Libertarians are so stupid.
Then you say you want to use all of the oil because there is plenty? How old are you? If you are young enough then that cheap oil that you are using could turn out to cost an arm and a leg to replace if you are driving another 30 or 40 years. Eric tells us how expensive oil is. If he was not using so much it would be a lot cheaper. When will idiots understand such simple things?
Who taught Libertarians how to drive? Where is their common sense. I have seen none here.
clover, driveways and crossroads? This is ranch country, beyond your keen evidently. There are no driveways or very seldom and very few crossroads but when there are, people have the sense to not turn out in front of 75mph traffic, esp. when so many are huge trucks like I drive. A couple million miles I’ve logged without an accident I caused and only one accident I’ve been involved in, hit from behind at road construction, I must be the luckiest guy alive according to clover standards.
Clover’s a galloping imbecile, Eight.
He has demonstrated this countless times.
And he’s worse than a mere imbecile, which after all can’t be helped. It’s not Clover’s fault that he springs from inferior genetic stock; or that his mother drank Jack Daniels during most of her pregnancy (probably hoping to spontaneously abort the thing growing inside her).
But it is Clover’s fault that he expects the world to accommodate his imbecility. For example, he expects a driver cruising along a mile-long open stretch of road to drive preposterously slowly so that Clover can pull in front of him any time he pleases – rather than waiting for traffic to clear and pulling in after the car has gone by. Clover also expects us to accommodate his obliviousness. That is, it’s up to us to look for Clover – and defer to him – rather than Clover’s job to be aware of his surroundings and defer to traffic that has the right of way.
The guy’s a corn-fed/fructose suckling rip tide of civilization ruination.
I choose to stand.
I hope for a good vantage point as well, and the ability to site them in the crosshairs and… Oh, nevermind. 😀