Here’s video of a Clover Encounter I had the other day. I – along with two others – got caught behind a minivan creeping along at the Clover Usual 10-15 MPH below the speed limit and making no effort to relieve the back up by moving off onto the shoulder or some such to allow all the cars stacked up behind him to get by.
For a Clover, the less than 30 seconds or so it would take to pull off onto the shoulder is too much trouble; he rather waste 10-15 minutes (or more) of your time instead.
There is a secondary Clover in this video as well. It is the frustrated Jeep driver behind the Clover in the minivan at the head of the conga line. I understand his frustration – but riding the Clover’s ass will not (usually) make the Clover change his behavior for the better and besides, tailgating is also bad (and dangerous) driving behavior. One does not solve the Clover problem by becoming a Clover.
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Based on the headline I thought you were going in a different direction. However, it reminded me of an incident last spring. I was in downtown Charlotte, NC on a one way street that had 2 of 3 lanes blocked due to building construction. I was making a right hand turn and waited while a couple Urban Hipster types leisurely strolled across the the street on to which I was turning…while traffic stacked up behind me at the light. As soon as they made enough room for me to turn behind them I did. With the top down on my car I heard the shouts of anger, “what’s your hurry?” “watch it, m-f’er” with hand signals to match. Believe me, if I’d wanted to hit them I could have…I didn’t want to until after I made the turn.
Some people just think the entire world is to bend to their whim and the sun rises and sets on their a$$.
Unfortunately if you’re like me you have a sports car with good performance but the state keeps removing passing lanes so there’s fewer and fewer opportunities to pass people like this.
Hi Dave,
I worked this one out. A proper (safe) pass requires “speeding.” So you’re risking that already, even in a legal passing zone. So, why not just double down and pass the Clover whenever you have line of sight – and regardless of “the law”?
I have a top-drawer radar detector with me at all times; it’s not perfect immunity but it has reduced the number of times I get nailed from once a year at least to once every three or four….
On the expressway I have people who just tailgate me but won’t pass with a lane or lanes to the left clear. There’s a cloverific behavior where they just tailgate because that’s what they do. Doesn’t matter the speed they just have to be cluster in on someone. They’ll do it in neighboring lanes as well. If there is reincarnation they were probably herd animals in a previous life.
Brent, I get it and suffer it terribly in a big rig. Anyone driving less than 75 in Texas is IN THE WAY.
Too many drivers on multiple lane roads are going faster than my truck, and no matter how much traffic there might be, they slow down a few feet behind the trailer and just hang out.
It’s maddening for the trucker and everyone else
I’ve tried slowing down but they slow down also
I’d love to speak with one and try to understand their thinking……which I won’t describe as logic
It’s not as if I wouldn’t pull off and do a walk around but Id be doing it every few miles
I’ve experienced this as well, my theory is that they’re people who are only paying partial attention to their driving and are just trying to match speed with the traffic around them. If I speed up they remain at the same distance, and if I slow down they do the same unless I slow waaaay down which tells me they’re either on some cruise-control and refuse to adjust the speed, are uncomfortable moving between lanes or are preoccupied and using the surrounding traffic as a gauge of what speed they should be going.
Yeah it’s like everything else in this society. Push all the work on to other people.
Sometimes I get so frustrated with these people (when they are in a neighboring lane) that if it’s clear I’ll brake hard enough that they shoot past me. Then they just seem lost and confused.
Sorry to have to put this here rather than on a related “Tesla Rant Page”, but I don’t have time right now to hunt the latest most relevant article to do so. I stumbled across this article last night. It seems someone has gone the extra lengths to gather data scattered here, thither, and yon, in a pretty decent effort to come up with some REAL Tesla Fatality Stats, as opposed to the fan-boy bullshit we all have to hear from the “Elon” worshipers who have never provided a shred of data to back up their sensational claims of “safety”.
Read and ruminate on this for yourselves!
https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-rate-is-more-than-triple-that-of-luxury-cars-and-likely-even-higher-433670ddde17
Did you notice that in BOTH of the latest Clover vids, the lead Clover Car was the same dark-red color? The ealier one was an SUV, and this on a minivan, but both looked nearly identical in the drive-by, lol!
On the subject of the tailgater, some people think that by riding a slow drivers a** it will get them to speed up or get out of the way.
Of course I haven’t seen it work, if anything, it will make the slow poke go even slower if he notices there is someone there.
They aren’t as stupid as they’d have you believe. It’s human nature to get frustrated and truckers sometime reach their limit even though they know better but I have seen them speed up and even move over when all they can see in the rear view is PETERBILT.