Why do people speed up when you try to pass them?

That's the first time this has happened to you? Been going on for a decade now. I just can't figure out why these idiots try that when they know it's an O/O in an ungoverned truck, and they know they're in a governed truck.

 

My thoughts exactly. I’m guessing the op started driving yesterday or was it the day before? Sorry but the op was some seriously low hanging fruit.

I’m fortunate. My company truck is governed a bit over 70 so this happens less to me than most. But it happens. On the other hand, quite frequently I’ll be in the hammer lane behind a 65 mph truck trying to get around another 65 mph truck and wait a few miles for the guy in the right lane to give way or the guy trying to pass finally tuck tail and get behind the truck he couldn’t pass.

 

On the other hand I do get a lot of sour puss stares when I pass a member of the fleet of 65 mph trucks.

 

Perhaps I can field this one. 4 wheelers have been the bane of truckers since,,,well, forever. You have to remember, for many 4 wheelers, driving a car is the most difficult thing they do, often times, for 20 minutes a day. It's a fact, cars do NOT want to follow a semi, and probably distracted, when you begin to pass them, it wakes them up, and hammer down, only to repeat the process 2 miles down the roads. It's frustrating, but again, YOU are supposed to be the professional, and not agitate the situation. When that happened to me, and I generally drove trucks that couldn't outrun them, so I backed way out of it for a minute, they got way ahead, and eventually got off at the next exit. Try and have patience, that 4 wheeler could be mom delivering some dynamite stew to her friends in the home.

 

One explanation is a lot of vehicles on the road today (4 wheelers and 18 wheelers) have adaptive cruise. Their cruise automatically sets to the speed of the vehicle in front of them, and they are too inattentive to notice until the vehicle in front is long gone and others start passing them.

I speak out often against all these automated safety features. All good ideas on paper I’m sure but in the real world, it just helps the idiots turn into even bigger idiots, instead of letting natural selection take care of them.

 

Crap like that is nothing more than yet another example of a solution in search of a problem.

 

My favorite is when someone passes you, gets back over only to resume thier previous speed which was slower than yours and the hole reason for passing them to begin with. Today some goof did this most of the way threw PA. Slow down to 63, I pick up go around at 70+ drop back to about 68/69 start to relax and enjoy the open road and here she comes again back around me and then down to 63/64 all over again and again. There were a few spurts that she got behind other cars and stayed left at about 71/72 but as soon as that lead car got over or away from her she would slow to 63/64 no matter what was behind her. Eventually I would come up on her again and then the hole fiasco started again.

As for the steering wheel holders in trucks purposely trying to screw with your pass I can’t even begin to understand them. They know or should know thier weight and approximate speeds they will attain and should just let you get by as quickly as possible.
This is especially true if they are traveling slightly over the speed limit or other traffic,because holding up your pass in anyway only ties up traffic behind both of you and then when your pass is finally completed.
They are now all of a sudden on something they want to pass and then are stuck waiting for a bunch of four wheelers trying to sort out why they are all bunched up and the goofball beside you did that and why the car that got up close behind you first is sleeping/daydreaming about killing both of you instead of accelerating.