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Comment by imoverclocked | Hacker News Reader

It is poorly specified but also pretty common with the obvious variations. Eg: the person you are trying to pass, passive-aggressively speeds up.

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If this is common where you are, you are near some pretty bad drivers? Passing on a two lane road is something that you pretty much should only do if the lead car is below the speed limit.

Half half the drivers on the road are worse than median. And road rage is a very real thing. Being passed triggers road rage like you wouldn't believe sometimes.

Yes, even when they're going under the speed limit.

Funny framing of it, but that isn't necessarily how the median works. Consider, what are the median number of fingers on a person's hand? How many people have less than the median number of fingers? :D

Is a fair point that it could be more common than I'd expect. I remember being a teenage driver and we were quite bad. Would love to see data on this.

The normal way I hear it stated is "half of X are worse than average". But an average would not work with that statement in a pedantic environment. HN is a pedantic environment.

"On a distribution curve of driver skill, half of the drivers will be of lower skill than the driver at the median of the data set. Unless there's an even number of entries, in which case there is no median driver, just an inferred skill value based on the values to either side of the middle of the data set."

Before I finish typing this, I want to make it clear that I'm just having fun with the numbers/math/language here.

Even that statement doesn't really work outside of fully unique values across a specific distribution. Take samples where you have many duplicates, and you can easily have the vast majority of values flat out be the average/median when you have some distributions. Is why I picked average number of fingers. The VAST majority of counts there are the same value. The outliers being dwarfed to insignificance both high and low.

For more continuous distributions, https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/326304/in-a-given-... is a pretty good quick google of what I mean.

Now, what is the distribution of driving ability? I have no idea. I see no reason to think it is a normal distribution, though.

There is nothing passive aggressive about speeding up when being passed. The previous behavior of going too slow is what was passive aggressive; but once that driver accelerates, they have disrobed themselves of all pretence of passivity.

That might be true but only if we know their motives, which we usually don’t. One could argue that any driver isn’t passive aggressive because they are actively driving their vehicle. However part of the passive aggressive definition includes intentionally making mistakes in response to others demands. All of that being said, the difference is subtle and probably not worth arguing in this context.

> Eg: the person you are trying to pass, passive-aggressively speeds up.

Happens all the time to me. It's usually people in big trucks who get angy that a car dares to pass them. They'll go up over 80mph in a 45mph zone if you don't (or can't) finish the pass, or give up. And if you give up, they'll brake check you for your audacity.

Having your controls start misbehaving while accelerating, or loud beeping (which is currently reserved for "you're about to hit something" while driving) is asking for a driver to lose control.

Here's a protip for dealing with impulsive / aggressive big truck drivers.

Big trucks go max 30 mph uphill. It's their achilles heel.

Cool your jets let them cuck you and be in front of you going slow all they want. When that big hill comes up, with that sweet passing lane, just pedal to the floor.

Now, if you get in front of them, or any car, and have the balls, and it's hilly country, you do this. Imagine they're tailgating you hard. You're going down a big hill. Put your gas pedal to the floor, downhill, You're max-accelerating. BUT .. ... LIGHTLY touch your brake pedal. Brake lights on. The tailgater will now back off because brake lights, as you rocket ahead at maximum acceleration. Aha! The tailgater catches onto the ploy and puts their pedal the floor as well. Now they too max-accelerate. Now you're at the bottom of the hill. Now you let go completely of the gas pedal, and the brake. You are now going uphill and you are slowing down quite aggressively, just from the uphill consuming momentum.... ... BUT your brake lights are now OFF! Thusly: you have maximally accelerated while braking, and maximally braked while accelerating. This will melt in anger the mind of any aggressive tailgator and they will either back off believing you're a total psycho, or shoot you (also believing you're a psycho). But it is a lesson in non-impulsive tactics & strategy versus impulsive driving. Patient strategy wins every time.

I think your tactic is too much of an escalation. Prefer Morse code on the brake light: it will make them think, wonder who or what you are, get less angry.

The big trucks I'm referring to are a Dodge Ram, or Ford 250, etc. They have more than enough power to do hills.

Shitty semi drivers are thankfully super rare, if you drive normally. AKA, I've never had a semi driver get annoyed at me. Might help that their CDL can be pulled regardless of who's at fault in an accident if the DOT thinks they could have de-escalated the scenario.

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