If you start slowing down sooner, there's a higher chance that the light will turn green before you're fully stopped. Then you can blast past the people stopped in the other lane.
Even better: learn the pattern of the traffic lights in your commute, and don't slow down if you see it will turn green in less than two seconds.
That's how you t-bone the idiot who doesn't stop at the red light
The only way to avoid that would be to stop at every green light.
You're right, but I think the number of people that run a just-turned-red light far far outnumber the people that just ignore the light altogether.
True. If you're smart enough to time the lights to avoid stopping, hopefully you're also smart enough to watch the cross street and never assume other drivers are obeying the rules of the road.
unless some asshole decides to stop in your lane before you.
Treating green lights as safe = RIP
where's the fun in that. my 300000hp engine can get to the stop light faster.
If you drive manual, the pro move is to engine brake all the way down. If the light turns green, you’re already in gear and possibly even higher up in revs meaning you can quickly swap right back to the gas pedal. Feels cool every time it happens.
Sometimes the opposite happens, though. The aggressive driver hits the light just before it turns yellow, and everyone who didn't drive like a hooligan had to stop. Depends on how well timed the lights are.
That said, people in general need to start coasting to a red light at least twice the distance away that they do. I've gotten passed by people where I'm coasting, there's a red light ahead, and there's no reason at all to hurry. Coming to a full stop is a waste of energy, and you should set yourself up to avoid needing to as much as possible.
This coasting trick works until there's enough of those assholes in a hurry that they all rush ahead to stop in every lane. Now all the sane drivers have to stop too. If I'm feeling plucky, I might honk and flash my brights at those "gotta pass everybody to stop first at the light" types like they're the slowpoke in the way, which they kind of are at that point. Usually I just keep quiet and imagine that they're in such a hurry because they are either about to or have just shit their pants.
Beware though, coasting past stopped traffic just as the light changes is a good way to get T-boned by another careless ass hat that just ran the other light.
Do you drive a BMW by chance?
Nah, a lifted truck
You wanna truck you're gonna have to pay for it kid
I wish we had different classes of drivers licenses in the US for commercial cars. Like a Class 3 license could only allow people to legally drive basic cars (sedans, station wagons, minis, etc.), and to drive things like coupes, muscle cars, sports cars, and those kind of cars you need a Class 2, and to drive light trucks, SUVs, Jeeps, and Hummers, you need a Class 1 license.
I sorta think it would actually help with road rage and aggressive driving since it would at least require those kinds of people to actually demonstrate they can safely drive those kinds of cars.
I used to wish that I could get some sort of racing license so that I could legally exceed the speed limit. The speed limits are ridiculously low, written for the worst possible drivers. I've been successfully exceeding the speed limit for 30 years without incident. Since we'll definitely never have a special license that lets you legally speed, I just got a radar detector and now I'm happy.
At risk of making driving less predictable… how about licenses for more aggressive driving too?
No right turn on red (unless Rated ++ or higher)
I think if you're caught driving like a jackass (not simply speeding, but weaving in and out of traffic, tailgating, blocking the passing lane, that kind of assholish behavior) in addition to a ticket, you should have to keep a vehicular "dunce cap" on your car. Like a pizza hut driver sign but it identifies you as a moron to everyone. This would have to be on there until you take an extensive driving course to learn to be better.
i just like driving fast
Me too, I love driving, I love acceleration. I will let it eat from just about every light. I don't care. If you're going under the speed limit or take half a mile to get to speed, yeah, I'm the asshole passing you for it.
as an expat in the US why do Americans think like this except the only time it really matters: merging on the on-ramp on a freeway?
In Europe we're taught to get up to speed (in the US this would be 65mph most often) by the time you're at the end of the on ramp, but most people I see merge at 40-50mph into a 65
why?!?!!
because some onramps have a speed limit of 15 mph because they curve tightly in a cloverleaf interchange. It takes a while to get up to 65 after you've been going 15 in a tight curve.
There were many days where I was stuck behind someone going 30mph in the on ramp and thought I was going to die. The on ramps I drove were always a straight shot and half the time people were taking their sweet fucking time
you say this and then tonight I leave my house, take the on ramp to the free way just before 7pm - open road, little traffic, guy in front of me, I shit you not, from the on ramp with no obstruction not even a light, continues driving at 40mph from the 40mph road until he is fully merged, still at 40. didn't change speed at all.
aaaagh agony to be stuck behind him.
Even worse agony, imagine what it feels like to BE him
These people need to lose their licenses. Like going 25 under the limit is more dangerous than going 25 over…
I never know which lights I'll beat by driving faster and which ones I won't, but I know I'll beat a few.
Remaining consistent, keeping up with traffic, and not being an asshole who blocks lanes is the bigger key.
People want to drive faster? Go ahead. In the end they aren't wasting that much energy and might just be saving some by not having to idle in traffic an extra 5-10 minutes on their daily commute if lucky. Worse for others.
There's some lights on the way to work that are timed to occasionally let you get through if you go 12 above instead of under 10. Almost everyone on their commute hits that 12. You get some regulars who don't, not too big a deal, get in the right lane or more simply, let people have room around you to pass.
I like timing it if possible to still be rolling when the light goes to green. Then you accelerate past the IHTBF still stopped for the light. Doesn’t happen often at all, gotta be nobody in front of you at the light and have the person who was shouldering their way through traffic stopped there. But satisfying when it does happen.
I mean, the point is usually not to get somewhere faster. But to not drive behind someone that infuriates you in some way.
And since they are still in front of you, it doesn't matter. They will still start moving before you.
Just gonna say that no one into cars that I know guns it from a red light because they think it'll get them anywhere faster. It's just because it makes us happy to do that. You're laughing at something we don't care about at all.
Even if you do care about that, it's not like gunning it never succeeds in getting you just past the next light before the red either.
Also, personally, it's much more comfortable to be at the front of the pack where I'm free to move, rather than being blocked in on all sides where my options to avoid an accident are constrained. This is honestly what I don't get the most about people who are part of rolling roadblocks. If an animal or person runs into the road ahead of you, you have literally nowhere to dodge besides braking and hoping.
While I'm sure it feels good to cautious drivers when this happens, IME it doesn't happen enough for the amount of snarky memes posted about it. If it happens even 50% of the time, the other 50% aggressive drivers do get ahead.
I'm not an aggressive driver, and I see plenty of aggressive drivers I never catch up with.
This. I’m happy for you that this red light gave you the satisfaction of one last look at me but once it turns green I most likely won’t be seeing you again lmao.
I take a different tact. I learn optimum routes so I can get around faster at normal speeds. Favorable right of way, favorable light timing, more direct angled roads. Traffic patterns and hence route selection change by time of day. It takes time, trial, and error to figure out but it pays off. I can get to the grocery store 3 minutes faster than my wife (5 vs 8 minutes) by picking a better route.
There's an unavoidable overpass between me and where we get groceries with 3 lights on it. They're timed such that, heading in either direction, you'll hit one red if you follow the speed limit. They may have sensors, but they change with no cross-traffic as well. However, if you catch the first light in green, and speed by between 7-10 over the speed limit (35), you can get through all 3 without stopping. It's an overpass with no residential nearby; this is the only place I regularly blow through.
I have no idea what the civic engineers were thinking when they progammed those lights. I assume incompetence; what I think really happened is that at one time that stretch was 45, like both sides of the overpass, and they were programmed for 45, which would normally get you through with no stops. Then some asshat changed the speed limit of that stretch to 35 without reprogramming the lights.
Anyway, the point of my long story is that sometimes going around isn't feasible. When it is, it's a great tactic, though!
it's the framerule in Mario Bros
Obligatory
Did this with a Subaru WRX driver yesterday. He still had temp tags. Probably was a good driver before he got that thing.
I drive a Subaru WRX and I take off from stop lights a little fast. I'm not going crazy fast, but I am usually faster than everyone else 99% of the time without putting too much effort in, and I usually go 5 or 10 over depending on how high the speed limit is. But eventually, I always come across some psychopath driving a minivan, or a base model Nissan Whatever that must just start flooring it as soon as the light turns. Impossible to keep up with them without really giving it the beans, which I'm not up for.
There's always someone willing to drive their car more ridiculously lol
On my way to work there is a stretch of road about 1.5 miles in length that's 35mph. The traffic lights there are notoriously shore because it intersects with major 5 lane streets. Every single morning there are people who blow past me at 55+ to cut in front...and sit one single car length closer at the red light.
Ehhh. You all drive aggressively to get there fast.
I drive aggressively because I like it when car goes Vroom.
We are not the same.
I've been both but I wasn't really driving aggressively, the lights just hated me.
So satisfying
I do hate when people are hypermiling or timing a light in front of me when I want to get into the turning lane to turn off.
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