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Question for all the RVers here on HN: why do so many of you refuse to use designated pull outs? The ones specifically created for vehicles like yours to move o

Question for all the RVers here on HN: why do so many of you refuse to use designated pull outs? The ones specifically created for vehicles like yours to move over and let the dozen+ cars behind you pass so they can go more than 20 under the speed limit. Many RVs I encounter even go out of their way to prevent passing. I don't really understand it, and it seems like an RV-specific behavior.

balderdash 3y ago
I don’t think it’s RV specific - there are two types of people in this world people who drive in the passing lane and the people that hate them, some of them just own RVs…
psytrx 3y ago
These lanes and pull outs aren't common everywhere. When I visited NZ, it took me a day or two to realize they had a purpose. RVers usually are not driving in their home country. I just recently tried to use the side lane in DK to let others pass (set signal, decelerate, pull over as far as possible). It actually confused the other drivers so much that they didn't dare to take over, even when there was lots of space to do so.
- seattle_spring 3y ago
  They’re all over the western US, very frequently with several signs notifying drivers that one is coming up.
  - activiation 3y ago
    I never seen those in the US or Canada... I've been mostly on the east coast though
    - MSFT_Edging 3y ago
      Seconded, I was really confused until I watched a video shared. Never seen one of those in my life and I've done a lot of back road driving on the east coast. Typically we'll just have labeled passing zones.
codybontecou 3y ago
I noticed the slow (right) lanes in California are the most beat-up. My guess is because the shipping trucks use them. This could be a possibility as well.
- jjav 3y ago
  At least in California, slower vehicles are required to use the nearest pull-out lane if there are 5 cars or more stuck behind them. https://california.public.law/codes/ca_veh_code_section_21656 https://california.public.law/codes/ca_veh_code_section_2165...
  - jwagenet 3y ago
    Perhaps this is the law, but unlike some other states, there is rarely signage to remind drivers (though I doubt even still it would the followed or enforced).
mindslight 3y ago
I'd imagine it's because it takes so much effort and gas to asymptote up to 40mph or whatever, that they can't fathom electing to stop and do it all again. Most tractor trailers have a large enough engine to handle going up hills with common cargo at highway speeds (exceptions exist, of course). From what I've observed, most RV's just don't. I spent several months living out of my car+tent in national parks/forests and often referred to them as Ruins Views. Breathtaking scenery in those national parks, that you can't focus on when you're stuck in a line of twenty cars riding your brakes and smelling theirs, because Big Bob doesn't want to get his tippy palace going too fast. I do get the appeal, but lugging around so much tonnage seems like a recipe for a bad time. Now I'm at a different life stage where I've been doing a bunch of towing with an underpowered SUV, and I make it a point to get out of peoples' ways. Luckily most of that has been on multilane highways where it's easy to do so.
- massysett 3y ago
  If you’re driving you just can’t focus on scenery period, no matter how many cars you’re stuck behind. Whenever I ride as a passenger on roads I drive every day, I’m amazed at the details outside that I don’t see when I’m driving. Just keeping a car on a road with no traffic takes a fair amount of focus: for evidence, just see how many people don’t do it and plow into objects that are alongside the road.
  - boring_twenties 3y ago
    Some cars can reliably keep themselves on the road nowadays.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    These kind of comments trying to invoke some tangential hobby horse ("safe driving") by taking a word out of context are soooo web forum. Obviously, driving requires attention and is always one's main focus. Having driven various sizes of vehicles, it's quite clear that this amount of attention varies. For example, the sheer amount of work required to drive a 26 foot box truck gave me a healthy respect for truck drivers. On the original topic, I'd imagine a lot of RV drivers don't pull over or are actively hostile to being passed because they're so overwhelmed they don't want to pile on any more requirements. And while this means that they should be taking the opportunity to stop and recover, try telling someone who is drowning to stop thrashing. Piloting a 2500 lb manual coupe barefoot in a non-wooded area on an empty road requires the lowest amount of work I've experienced. Driving that same car while having to continually gauge how hard the person in front of you is applying the brakes takes much more. Braking extra and creating more buffer room gives a slight reprieve, but at the ailing speeds ruined views tend to go on non-straight roads you'll inevitably catch right back up.
bee_rider 3y ago
Is it really RV specific behavior? In my experience most drivers are not very aware of their surroundings and just seem to do stupid things like form rolling roadblocks by accident. I wonder if RVs are just more noticeable because they are longer, and so their accidental traps tend to be bigger. The other vehicles that size are typically driven by professionals, who are at least a little more with-it. Usually.
- bombcar 3y ago
  I refer to it as hippof*cking when two or more large vehicles are blocking both lanes of traffic. Usually doesn't bother me as much, and if I had adaptive cruise I'd be even less unbothered, but it can be annoying. RVs are like moving rental trucks, the drivers of them don't really know what they're doing.
  - chrisdhoover 3y ago
    Elephant racing
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
JohnDotAwesome 3y ago
As an RV-driver, I try my best to use the pull outs when I can. There are a few complications, though. First is the visibility of these pull-outs is often very poor. You'll be driving through long winding roads and then all of the sudden the pull-out appears. In an RV, you can't just slam on the breaks and swerve into the pullout, ESPECIALLY if you're going downhill. Second, often times (in the USA at least), these pull-outs have rough terrain going in an and out of them. There will be a little bump or uneven ground that most vehicles wouldn't mind hitting every now and then, but in my rig, that causes the whole thing to sway back and forth (Class-C built on a Mercedes Sprinter). I REALLY need to upgrade the suspension. Third is time. Since I'm slower than everyone else, people tend to pile up behind me pretty quickly. Pulling into the pull-out, coming to a complete stop, waiting for everyone to pass, then getting back up to speed takes a long time. If I did this every time there was a car behind me, it would take forever. So, I tend to wait until there's more than a few cars behind me before pulling off. Fourth is my wife. She says I have "overly-considerate disorder" and I need to make our safety #1 and stop caring about other people so damn much.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- wesleytodd 3y ago
  Hey John!! Wes here, sitting in the shade of my RV right now. Funny to hear the last line, because mine says the same thing about when I am driving. And when she is driving she literally tell me "fuck em, I will drive how I want" lol.
  - JohnDotAwesome 3y ago
    New number, whodis
  - e40 3y ago
    > "fuck em, I will drive how I want" Says the same thing to people in the US (and elsewhere??) that drive in the freeway's fast lane holding everyone up for MILES. That is one of the most annoying things I face regularly on the road.
JohnFen 3y ago
My big pet peeve about RVs is when they're in the mountains on 2 lane roads and insist on driving with a foot of their RV over the centerline when going around blind curves. I used to live in a small tourist town, and people died on a regular basis because of RVs doing that. You could spot the local drivers because they're the ones hugging the fog line when going around a bend.
- MarkMarine 3y ago
  I don't think people insist on it, it's just very technically challenging to drive any larger vehicle precisely. A Semi, a dump-truck, probably anything with air brakes, these have more stringent licenses and testing. You have to learn to drive them. You can go out today and buy a 3500 diesel truck that can tow 30,000 lbs, weighs close to 10,000 lbs on its own, a crew cab with a long bed coupled to a massive RV that is 45 feet long with triple axles, and the only thing you need to drive that is to have passed a driving test when you were 16 in your mom's Honda Civic. Many RVs are 8.5 feet wide. Common highway lanes are 10 feet wide. There are curvy highways like route 1 that I swear are only 9' wide. I worry more about line selection and holding my rig inside the yellows than I worry about line selection when I'm racing my motorcycle. It's challenging for me and I drive things as a sport. I'm not covering for someone who went over the yellows, that's unforgivable, but I wanted to add some context for you.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Oh, I really do understand. When I lived in that town, I also had an RV and drove it on those same roads. It is challenging. What I (and most of the locals) would do, though, was to go very slowly around those bends. That takes a lot of the danger out of it. In fact, there are advisory speed signs for those curves that are accurate -- if people followed them, there would rarely be an issue. Part of the problem, I think, is that if you're driving a car, those advisory speeds are far too slow (15-20 MPH on a 50 MPH road), but if you're driving an RV or big rig, those advisory speeds are critical. I think most non-pro drivers are used to driving cars and have trained themselves to ignore those signs. I honestly think that people should have special training to be allowed to drive RVs, or at least the larger RVs. Something like a motorcycle tag. > Common highway lanes are 10 feet wide. These roads are also narrower than modern ones (they are some of the earliest "highways" built in the state). When I drove an RV on them, I tended to white-knuckle it. They're rather nervous-making.
wesleytodd 3y ago
It depends. If it is a passing lane and the RV is not passing, shame on them. If it is a small pullout you often cannot slow down fast enough to catch it unless you are really paying attention for it. Remember, slowing down a big rig (especially one with all your belongings in it) can be near impossible to do. But mainly the reason is probably that there is no training or licensing required to teach folks how to drive these things.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
uudecoded 3y ago
As a 25 foot Class C RV driver, I've encountered what you describe from heavy trucks, Class A's, other Class C's, Priuses, and Teslas. It's all over the place. I have to have a certain calm about it, especially on summer weekends on 101/SR2/SR20/etc in Washington. The thing people don't realize is that speed limit advisory signs (on turns or downhills usually) are essentially mandatory for high CG vehicles - to avoid rollover risk. To help you understand some reasons to refuse a pullout, here are the conditions that I think must be true for an RV or heavy truck to safely and practically use a pullout: (Maybe I'm missing something) 1) Vehicle is slower than the speed limit or lower than the safety speed advisory by more than 10 mph. (Yes, this is annoying for people that want to exceed the speed limit, but they can use passing lanes.) 2) Pullout must be visibly paved and clear for entry in advance of safe braking distance. (This is often a problem.) 3) The pullout must have good visibility behind it so the vehicle can safely get back up to speed from 0 after stopping. (Sometimes a problem.) 4) Traffic must be light enough such that rejoining the travel lane is feasible in less than a couple minutes. (This is often a problem.) 5) The pullout must have a safe path to return to the travel lane. (I have had to balk pullout attempts after nearing the pullout because this is not always immediately clear at a distance.) 6) Most importantly, the vehicle must not be followed either at an unsafe distance or by someone driving erratically. (I am not going to risk damage to my vehicle by braking for someone following too closely.) edit:formatting
- gffrd 3y ago
  > in Washington Ah, Washington drivers! Paying no attention at all until someone nears their space, then all of a sudden VERY attentive and territorial yet unwilling to be actually aggressive, so instead just kind of interfering. Highway driving at its finest.
  - carabiner 3y ago
    Every single place you have lived has the worst drivers. Except for you. How does this make you feel?
    - bigwavedave 3y ago
jstarfish 3y ago
> Many RVs I encounter even go out of their way to prevent passing. Only you would know, but this could be something other than what it seems like. When I had a motorcycle, I'd tail a slow vehicle for miles in anticipation of a passing zone. When we got there, they'd all of a sudden accelerate-- which I always assumed was them fucking with me, until one day I realized I do the same thing myself when in a car. We speed up when we perceive it is safe to do so (long stretches of straight road), similar to unconsciously letting off the gas when you notice a cop running a speed trap. If this is what you encounter, it may be an unconscious thing, or the RV driver consciously speeding up for your convenience. If they're swerving, consider that they're tall and wind pushes them around easily. But they could also just be dicks, sure.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  > When I had a motorcycle, I'd tail a slow vehicle for miles in anticipation of a passing zone. When we got there, they'd all of a sudden accelerate-- which I always assumed was them fucking with me, until one day I realized I do the same thing myself when in a car. There's a mountain pass I travel a few times a year where this happens. The limit is 45 mph throughout the curves, and that's a reasonable speed, though I prefer to go a bit faster, but will inevitably get stuck behind someone going 35. We reach a point where there's a passing lane, and the limit is 55 mph. I try to pass the person that was going 35 mph before, and suddenly they seem to think that 70 mph is a reasonable speed. I have to pass these people regardless of how fast they want to go when there's a passing lane, because otherwise, I'll get stuck behind them once the passing lane ends and they decide to drop back down to 10 under the limit. Luckily, these days, I have a car that can easily pass 98% of the other cars on the road, and the remaining 2% are already going at speed.
  - dtgriscom 3y ago
    > I have to pass these people regardless Be careful; getting locked into "have to" can make you do dangerous things.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
nsxwolf 3y ago
What is a "pull out"? I've never heard of this. I googled and it comes up with pull out beds for RVs.
- Johnny555 3y ago
  They are also called "turnout lanes". Often they are a short paved lane meant for slow vehicles to pull off onto to allow slower traffic to pass, but often on mountain roads, it's a gravel off-road area that serves the same purpose. But pulling into one can be a bumpy ride, and the gravel service means it's hard to accelerate quickly until you get fully back on the road so you need to be sure you have a lot of clear space behind you (which can be hard to ensure on twisty mountain roads). https://youtu.be/sKLhtlO_aZs https://youtu.be/sKLhtlO_aZs
  - njarboe 3y ago
    Often not gravel, especially in California.
  - Lammy 3y ago
    Example from the other point of view :) https://youtu.be/E80HdxPkZ5g?t=4604 https://youtu.be/E80HdxPkZ5g?t=4604
- sen 3y ago
  “Overtaking lane” in most of the world.
  - rationalist 3y ago
    Are you thinking of a different roadway feature? As I understand English, that phrase literally means you're using that lane to overtake someone else, when in fact the opposite is occurring.
  - nl 3y ago
    My understanding is that these aren't like the overtaking lanes we have in Australia (where what was a 2 lane road becomes 3 lane with one additional lane for a period of time). I think they are more like what we'd refer to as truck stops - an area off the road where you can pull over to stop. I'd note this quote: > Second, often times (in the USA at least), these pull-outs have rough terrain going in an and out of them. There will be a little bump or uneven ground that most vehicles wouldn't mind hitting every now and then, but in my rig, that causes the whole thing to sway back and forth ... > Pulling into the pull-out, coming to a complete stop, waiting for everyone to pass.. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36410014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36410014 These aren't things that happen with overtaking lanes.
cityhall 3y ago
I was stuck behind a big RV recently who was driving part way over the center line most of the time. I eventually realized he was trying to avoid clipping all the low branches along the edge of the road.
vondur 3y ago
Ha. I always do when I’m towing my trailer. People like that annoy me to no end. I first helped move an old Winnebago class A up to the small mountain town of Idyllwild above Palm Springs in California. The highway is steep and switchbacks up the mountain with great views of the desert below. I must have stopped 15 times on the way up to let others pass.
googl-free 3y ago
If they're going as slow as you claim, then cross the double yellow and pass. Not that hard
m463 3y ago
I really really wish turnouts were designed more like passing zones, with an actual lane. Driving a huge RV I have trouble seeing and pulling off at my destination, let alone a fall-off-the-road-into-dirt pullout that comes up quickly around a turn.
caconym_ 3y ago
> it seems like an RV-specific behavior. Gotta disagree here. Almost always when I get stuck behind something going 20 under, whether it's an RV or a Corolla, the driver of that vehicle blows past every available pullout and accelerates to 30+ over when a passing lane appears. Drivers are just raging assholes, no matter what they're driving.
CamouflagedKiwi 3y ago
I had the reverse experience last time I was driving in the US. Most RV owners seemed to be aware of people behind them and used the pull-outs fairly often. Drivers of Honda CR-Vs and similar vehicles, on the other hand, seemed oblivious to the idea that they might be holding other people up, and never got out of the way at all.
gwbas1c 3y ago
I've driven plenty of windy roads for years, and I've only been "stuck" behind a slow RV (with a line of traffic) once. I've been behind plenty of RVs who don't drive as fast as I want to. But that's what happens on a public road. (These RVs still drive at a reasonable speed, just not as fast as I want to. IE 48mph in a 50 when I want to drive 55.) The big problem is obvious drivers, who often are in passenger cars. I've been stuck behind far more oblivious drivers than RVs. These drivers do 20 in a 50, and ignore the long line of cars behind them.
mathgeek 3y ago
For ease of reference, here's a list of each state's "keep right" laws: https://www.mit.edu/~jfc/right.html https://www.mit.edu/~jfc/right.html

balderdash 3y ago

I don’t think it’s RV specific - there are two types of people in this world people who drive in the passing lane and the people that hate them, some of them just own RVs…

psytrx 3y ago

These lanes and pull outs aren't common everywhere. When I visited NZ, it took me a day or two to realize they had a purpose. RVers usually are not driving in their home country. I just recently tried to use the side lane in DK to let others pass (set signal, decelerate, pull over as far as possible). It actually confused the other drivers so much that they didn't dare to take over, even when there was lots of space to do so.

seattle_spring 3y ago
They’re all over the western US, very frequently with several signs notifying drivers that one is coming up.
- activiation 3y ago
  I never seen those in the US or Canada... I've been mostly on the east coast though
  - MSFT_Edging 3y ago
    Seconded, I was really confused until I watched a video shared. Never seen one of those in my life and I've done a lot of back road driving on the east coast. Typically we'll just have labeled passing zones.

codybontecou 3y ago

I noticed the slow (right) lanes in California are the most beat-up. My guess is because the shipping trucks use them. This could be a possibility as well.

jjav 3y ago
At least in California, slower vehicles are required to use the nearest pull-out lane if there are 5 cars or more stuck behind them. https://california.public.law/codes/ca_veh_code_section_21656 https://california.public.law/codes/ca_veh_code_section_2165...
- jwagenet 3y ago
  Perhaps this is the law, but unlike some other states, there is rarely signage to remind drivers (though I doubt even still it would the followed or enforced).

mindslight 3y ago

I'd imagine it's because it takes so much effort and gas to asymptote up to 40mph or whatever, that they can't fathom electing to stop and do it all again. Most tractor trailers have a large enough engine to handle going up hills with common cargo at highway speeds (exceptions exist, of course). From what I've observed, most RV's just don't. I spent several months living out of my car+tent in national parks/forests and often referred to them as Ruins Views. Breathtaking scenery in those national parks, that you can't focus on when you're stuck in a line of twenty cars riding your brakes and smelling theirs, because Big Bob doesn't want to get his tippy palace going too fast. I do get the appeal, but lugging around so much tonnage seems like a recipe for a bad time. Now I'm at a different life stage where I've been doing a bunch of towing with an underpowered SUV, and I make it a point to get out of peoples' ways. Luckily most of that has been on multilane highways where it's easy to do so.

massysett 3y ago
If you’re driving you just can’t focus on scenery period, no matter how many cars you’re stuck behind. Whenever I ride as a passenger on roads I drive every day, I’m amazed at the details outside that I don’t see when I’m driving. Just keeping a car on a road with no traffic takes a fair amount of focus: for evidence, just see how many people don’t do it and plow into objects that are alongside the road.
- boring_twenties 3y ago
  Some cars can reliably keep themselves on the road nowadays.
- mindslight 3y ago
  These kind of comments trying to invoke some tangential hobby horse ("safe driving") by taking a word out of context are soooo web forum. Obviously, driving requires attention and is always one's main focus. Having driven various sizes of vehicles, it's quite clear that this amount of attention varies. For example, the sheer amount of work required to drive a 26 foot box truck gave me a healthy respect for truck drivers. On the original topic, I'd imagine a lot of RV drivers don't pull over or are actively hostile to being passed because they're so overwhelmed they don't want to pile on any more requirements. And while this means that they should be taking the opportunity to stop and recover, try telling someone who is drowning to stop thrashing. Piloting a 2500 lb manual coupe barefoot in a non-wooded area on an empty road requires the lowest amount of work I've experienced. Driving that same car while having to continually gauge how hard the person in front of you is applying the brakes takes much more. Braking extra and creating more buffer room gives a slight reprieve, but at the ailing speeds ruined views tend to go on non-straight roads you'll inevitably catch right back up.

bee_rider 3y ago

Is it really RV specific behavior? In my experience most drivers are not very aware of their surroundings and just seem to do stupid things like form rolling roadblocks by accident. I wonder if RVs are just more noticeable because they are longer, and so their accidental traps tend to be bigger. The other vehicles that size are typically driven by professionals, who are at least a little more with-it. Usually.

bombcar 3y ago
I refer to it as hippof*cking when two or more large vehicles are blocking both lanes of traffic. Usually doesn't bother me as much, and if I had adaptive cruise I'd be even less unbothered, but it can be annoying. RVs are like moving rental trucks, the drivers of them don't really know what they're doing.
- chrisdhoover 3y ago
  Elephant racing
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

JohnDotAwesome 3y ago

As an RV-driver, I try my best to use the pull outs when I can. There are a few complications, though. First is the visibility of these pull-outs is often very poor. You'll be driving through long winding roads and then all of the sudden the pull-out appears. In an RV, you can't just slam on the breaks and swerve into the pullout, ESPECIALLY if you're going downhill. Second, often times (in the USA at least), these pull-outs have rough terrain going in an and out of them. There will be a little bump or uneven ground that most vehicles wouldn't mind hitting every now and then, but in my rig, that causes the whole thing to sway back and forth (Class-C built on a Mercedes Sprinter). I REALLY need to upgrade the suspension. Third is time. Since I'm slower than everyone else, people tend to pile up behind me pretty quickly. Pulling into the pull-out, coming to a complete stop, waiting for everyone to pass, then getting back up to speed takes a long time. If I did this every time there was a car behind me, it would take forever. So, I tend to wait until there's more than a few cars behind me before pulling off. Fourth is my wife. She says I have "overly-considerate disorder" and I need to make our safety #1 and stop caring about other people so damn much.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wesleytodd 3y ago
Hey John!! Wes here, sitting in the shade of my RV right now. Funny to hear the last line, because mine says the same thing about when I am driving. And when she is driving she literally tell me "fuck em, I will drive how I want" lol.
- JohnDotAwesome 3y ago
  New number, whodis
- e40 3y ago
  > "fuck em, I will drive how I want" Says the same thing to people in the US (and elsewhere??) that drive in the freeway's fast lane holding everyone up for MILES. That is one of the most annoying things I face regularly on the road.

JohnFen 3y ago

My big pet peeve about RVs is when they're in the mountains on 2 lane roads and insist on driving with a foot of their RV over the centerline when going around blind curves. I used to live in a small tourist town, and people died on a regular basis because of RVs doing that. You could spot the local drivers because they're the ones hugging the fog line when going around a bend.

MarkMarine 3y ago
I don't think people insist on it, it's just very technically challenging to drive any larger vehicle precisely. A Semi, a dump-truck, probably anything with air brakes, these have more stringent licenses and testing. You have to learn to drive them. You can go out today and buy a 3500 diesel truck that can tow 30,000 lbs, weighs close to 10,000 lbs on its own, a crew cab with a long bed coupled to a massive RV that is 45 feet long with triple axles, and the only thing you need to drive that is to have passed a driving test when you were 16 in your mom's Honda Civic. Many RVs are 8.5 feet wide. Common highway lanes are 10 feet wide. There are curvy highways like route 1 that I swear are only 9' wide. I worry more about line selection and holding my rig inside the yellows than I worry about line selection when I'm racing my motorcycle. It's challenging for me and I drive things as a sport. I'm not covering for someone who went over the yellows, that's unforgivable, but I wanted to add some context for you.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Oh, I really do understand. When I lived in that town, I also had an RV and drove it on those same roads. It is challenging. What I (and most of the locals) would do, though, was to go very slowly around those bends. That takes a lot of the danger out of it. In fact, there are advisory speed signs for those curves that are accurate -- if people followed them, there would rarely be an issue. Part of the problem, I think, is that if you're driving a car, those advisory speeds are far too slow (15-20 MPH on a 50 MPH road), but if you're driving an RV or big rig, those advisory speeds are critical. I think most non-pro drivers are used to driving cars and have trained themselves to ignore those signs. I honestly think that people should have special training to be allowed to drive RVs, or at least the larger RVs. Something like a motorcycle tag. > Common highway lanes are 10 feet wide. These roads are also narrower than modern ones (they are some of the earliest "highways" built in the state). When I drove an RV on them, I tended to white-knuckle it. They're rather nervous-making.

wesleytodd 3y ago

It depends. If it is a passing lane and the RV is not passing, shame on them. If it is a small pullout you often cannot slow down fast enough to catch it unless you are really paying attention for it. Remember, slowing down a big rig (especially one with all your belongings in it) can be near impossible to do. But mainly the reason is probably that there is no training or licensing required to teach folks how to drive these things.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

uudecoded 3y ago

As a 25 foot Class C RV driver, I've encountered what you describe from heavy trucks, Class A's, other Class C's, Priuses, and Teslas. It's all over the place. I have to have a certain calm about it, especially on summer weekends on 101/SR2/SR20/etc in Washington. The thing people don't realize is that speed limit advisory signs (on turns or downhills usually) are essentially mandatory for high CG vehicles - to avoid rollover risk. To help you understand some reasons to refuse a pullout, here are the conditions that I think must be true for an RV or heavy truck to safely and practically use a pullout: (Maybe I'm missing something) 1) Vehicle is slower than the speed limit or lower than the safety speed advisory by more than 10 mph. (Yes, this is annoying for people that want to exceed the speed limit, but they can use passing lanes.) 2) Pullout must be visibly paved and clear for entry in advance of safe braking distance. (This is often a problem.) 3) The pullout must have good visibility behind it so the vehicle can safely get back up to speed from 0 after stopping. (Sometimes a problem.) 4) Traffic must be light enough such that rejoining the travel lane is feasible in less than a couple minutes. (This is often a problem.) 5) The pullout must have a safe path to return to the travel lane. (I have had to balk pullout attempts after nearing the pullout because this is not always immediately clear at a distance.) 6) Most importantly, the vehicle must not be followed either at an unsafe distance or by someone driving erratically. (I am not going to risk damage to my vehicle by braking for someone following too closely.) edit:formatting

gffrd 3y ago
> in Washington Ah, Washington drivers! Paying no attention at all until someone nears their space, then all of a sudden VERY attentive and territorial yet unwilling to be actually aggressive, so instead just kind of interfering. Highway driving at its finest.
- carabiner 3y ago
  Every single place you have lived has the worst drivers. Except for you. How does this make you feel?
  - bigwavedave 3y ago

jstarfish 3y ago

> Many RVs I encounter even go out of their way to prevent passing. Only you would know, but this could be something other than what it seems like. When I had a motorcycle, I'd tail a slow vehicle for miles in anticipation of a passing zone. When we got there, they'd all of a sudden accelerate-- which I always assumed was them fucking with me, until one day I realized I do the same thing myself when in a car. We speed up when we perceive it is safe to do so (long stretches of straight road), similar to unconsciously letting off the gas when you notice a cop running a speed trap. If this is what you encounter, it may be an unconscious thing, or the RV driver consciously speeding up for your convenience. If they're swerving, consider that they're tall and wind pushes them around easily. But they could also just be dicks, sure.

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
> When I had a motorcycle, I'd tail a slow vehicle for miles in anticipation of a passing zone. When we got there, they'd all of a sudden accelerate-- which I always assumed was them fucking with me, until one day I realized I do the same thing myself when in a car. There's a mountain pass I travel a few times a year where this happens. The limit is 45 mph throughout the curves, and that's a reasonable speed, though I prefer to go a bit faster, but will inevitably get stuck behind someone going 35. We reach a point where there's a passing lane, and the limit is 55 mph. I try to pass the person that was going 35 mph before, and suddenly they seem to think that 70 mph is a reasonable speed. I have to pass these people regardless of how fast they want to go when there's a passing lane, because otherwise, I'll get stuck behind them once the passing lane ends and they decide to drop back down to 10 under the limit. Luckily, these days, I have a car that can easily pass 98% of the other cars on the road, and the remaining 2% are already going at speed.
- dtgriscom 3y ago
  > I have to pass these people regardless Be careful; getting locked into "have to" can make you do dangerous things.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

nsxwolf 3y ago

What is a "pull out"? I've never heard of this. I googled and it comes up with pull out beds for RVs.

Johnny555 3y ago
They are also called "turnout lanes". Often they are a short paved lane meant for slow vehicles to pull off onto to allow slower traffic to pass, but often on mountain roads, it's a gravel off-road area that serves the same purpose. But pulling into one can be a bumpy ride, and the gravel service means it's hard to accelerate quickly until you get fully back on the road so you need to be sure you have a lot of clear space behind you (which can be hard to ensure on twisty mountain roads). https://youtu.be/sKLhtlO_aZs https://youtu.be/sKLhtlO_aZs
- njarboe 3y ago
  Often not gravel, especially in California.
- Lammy 3y ago
  Example from the other point of view :) https://youtu.be/E80HdxPkZ5g?t=4604 https://youtu.be/E80HdxPkZ5g?t=4604
sen 3y ago
“Overtaking lane” in most of the world.
- rationalist 3y ago
  Are you thinking of a different roadway feature? As I understand English, that phrase literally means you're using that lane to overtake someone else, when in fact the opposite is occurring.
- nl 3y ago
  My understanding is that these aren't like the overtaking lanes we have in Australia (where what was a 2 lane road becomes 3 lane with one additional lane for a period of time). I think they are more like what we'd refer to as truck stops - an area off the road where you can pull over to stop. I'd note this quote: > Second, often times (in the USA at least), these pull-outs have rough terrain going in an and out of them. There will be a little bump or uneven ground that most vehicles wouldn't mind hitting every now and then, but in my rig, that causes the whole thing to sway back and forth ... > Pulling into the pull-out, coming to a complete stop, waiting for everyone to pass.. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36410014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36410014 These aren't things that happen with overtaking lanes.

cityhall 3y ago

I was stuck behind a big RV recently who was driving part way over the center line most of the time. I eventually realized he was trying to avoid clipping all the low branches along the edge of the road.

vondur 3y ago

Ha. I always do when I’m towing my trailer. People like that annoy me to no end. I first helped move an old Winnebago class A up to the small mountain town of Idyllwild above Palm Springs in California. The highway is steep and switchbacks up the mountain with great views of the desert below. I must have stopped 15 times on the way up to let others pass.

googl-free 3y ago

If they're going as slow as you claim, then cross the double yellow and pass. Not that hard

m463 3y ago

I really really wish turnouts were designed more like passing zones, with an actual lane. Driving a huge RV I have trouble seeing and pulling off at my destination, let alone a fall-off-the-road-into-dirt pullout that comes up quickly around a turn.

caconym_ 3y ago

> it seems like an RV-specific behavior. Gotta disagree here. Almost always when I get stuck behind something going 20 under, whether it's an RV or a Corolla, the driver of that vehicle blows past every available pullout and accelerates to 30+ over when a passing lane appears. Drivers are just raging assholes, no matter what they're driving.

CamouflagedKiwi 3y ago

I had the reverse experience last time I was driving in the US. Most RV owners seemed to be aware of people behind them and used the pull-outs fairly often. Drivers of Honda CR-Vs and similar vehicles, on the other hand, seemed oblivious to the idea that they might be holding other people up, and never got out of the way at all.

gwbas1c 3y ago

I've driven plenty of windy roads for years, and I've only been "stuck" behind a slow RV (with a line of traffic) once. I've been behind plenty of RVs who don't drive as fast as I want to. But that's what happens on a public road. (These RVs still drive at a reasonable speed, just not as fast as I want to. IE 48mph in a 50 when I want to drive 55.) The big problem is obvious drivers, who often are in passenger cars. I've been stuck behind far more oblivious drivers than RVs. These drivers do 20 in a 50, and ignore the long line of cars behind them.

mathgeek 3y ago

For ease of reference, here's a list of each state's "keep right" laws: https://www.mit.edu/~jfc/right.html https://www.mit.edu/~jfc/right.html