Road Rules

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I've lived almost my entire life (except college and a few months afterwards) in small Texas towns. We have our own ways of doing things around here. One example of this is our driving.

These habits have developed out of necessity. Most of the roads around here just small country roads. The nicer roads are just little farm-to-market roads or state highways. Most of them are just a single lane going each direction.

This kind of road makes it tough to pass slower drivers. We have a lot of slow drivers. In addition to the elderly, we also have people pulling horse or cattle trailers, long trailers full of hay, or driving tractors on the highway. Naturally, none of those can go very fast.

We have developed a system to smooth things out. If you are approached from behind by a vehicle going faster than you, you are expected to pull over on the shoulder to let the faster vehicle go around you. You don't need to slow down or stop, just drive on the shoulder. The other cars will stay in the regular lane. When all the faster cars behind you have passed, pull back onto the highway. It generally works well. It eliminates the need to go into the lane of oncoming traffic.

I think some drivers are rather sadistic, though. They only pull onto the shoulder in a few situations

1. They are rapidly approaching a hill or curve (where they can't see the road ahead and might have to whip back over into the lane), or


2. There is a lot of traffic (usually diesels) approaching from the other direction, or


3. They are approaching a bridge or other place with no shoulder, or


4. They are only going 5mph below the speed limit

These situations make driving infinitely more exciting for the car doing the passing, especially when one or more of the situations happen all at once. Some guy is doing 65 on the shoulder approaching a hill or curve and a bunch of traffic is coming towards you, and you are supposed to go around him. Very scary.

Other Texas road rules:

1. If a car is turning left, pass them on the shoulder. It actually gets dangerous if you don't, because everyone is passing you on the shoulder and there is a danger of a collision when you don't turn like they expect you to.


2. Use the shoulder as a right-hand turning lane. This is valid for a full half mile before the actual turn.


3. If you are only going a short distance, it is perfectly acceptable to drive the wrong way on the shoulder. Especially if you're checking your mailbox.

When situations 1 and 2 coincide (you are passing a left-turner on the shoulder, and the person in front of you did the same but is now slowing down on the shoulder to make a right turn), it makes for some fun driving.

Entrance and Exit Ramps

Texas also has some pretty interesting ways of dealing with access roads and highway entrance and exit ramps. You see, many of our access roads are two-way. This means that cars entering or exiting the highway actually have to cross a lane of oncoming traffic to do so. But it's OK, that lane always has a yield sign.

Posted by Robert at August 14, 2002 10:49 AM | TrackBack