My dad weighs in with some thoughts about caravan driving. These thoughts have merit. Observe:
Leaders
You mentioned that they should make moves early. I would add they should avoid unnecessary moves altogether; keep the driving “vanilla.” That is, even if you’re normally one of those (ugh!) drivers who cannot bear to have any vehicle in front of you (i.e., your mission in life is to always overtake and pass the next vehicle), when leading someone step out of character and just find a nice consistent speed and stay there to the extent possible. If it means going only 68 where you would normally be burning the wind at 75 and changing lanes every 50 feet, tough it out for the good of the person you’re leading. I’ve tried to follow people who zipped in and out of traffic exactly the way they would if they were trying to lose a pursuer. Go ahead and change lanes when it’s truly necessary and if you get behind a genuinely slow or oversize vehicle, its okay to pass but make sure you only change lanes or pass if it’s worthwhile to do so. And “Amen” to the admonition not to yellow-light your follower.Followers
Keep up. I’ve tried leading people who acted like they didn’t particularly care where I was going. After ten minutes of driving the speed limit I can barely see them in my rearview mirror. If a follower pulls that stunt while going through town it is next to impossible to avoid yellow-lighting them. There is a difference between staying with the car ahead and tailgating. Except in extremely tight traffic, one can usually follow at a safe distance while still being close enough to respond to the leader’s moves and making it relatively undesirable for most drivers to want to get between you.
Also, Bosslady was horrified to hear that I was suggesting people back up on the freeway. Obviously you do not want to be cruising along for half a mile on the shoulder, but I don’t think 30 yards is going to hurt anyone. Still, the point is valid.
The problem this presents (and this is why I wanted commentary) is that as the leader who has taken an exit the follower did not, what should your response be? If we’re going to assume that backing up and actually taking the right exit is not an option for the follower, their only recourse would be to take the next exit after that. If that exit is close enough, they may be able to navigate surface streets back to the general location of the missed exit, but that can be confusing for the separated cars to try and get back on course. Also, the whole point of the caravan exercise is to prevent people from trying to guess where they should be going. Ideally the follower who has missed an exit will get off at the next exit, get back on going the other way, exit again after they’ve passed the intended exit and get back on going the right way before that so they can take the exit they missed. In that case, should the leader be sitting there on the shoulder for what could be a very long time while the follower does this or should there be some kind of universal meetup location so followers can do whatever they feel most comfortable doing in order to get back there?
I Am Every Web User
If you’re very observant you might have noticed a couple of new badges down in the Meta section. I have been using Flickr and Last.fm lately and find them to be nighttime attire suitable for felines. The badges direct you to my personal Flickr page and Last.fm overview, but if you take digital photos or use iTunes, I heartily recommend you set up your own accounts on these sites because, frankly, I feel like a loser for having only one friend on each site.
Granted, I am a loser, but I see no sense in feeling like one all the time. Especially when these sites are cool things that all you non-losers out there would enjoy.
