Happened to fall in line behind an unmarked State Patrol car yesterday.
Evidently the State Patrol gets its drivers from the dipshit end of the pool. Remember all that stuff about "one car length separation for each 10 MPH" you learned in drivers' ed?
Not if you're a State Cop in an unmarked Ford. Try 1.5 car lengths, max. That's so that you can wear out the brakes by slamming them to "lockup" every time traffic slows down. Hey: taxpayers pay for the brake jobs, anyway.
And all that crap about "speed limits"? Fuggedaboutit. With a State Patrol unmarked car with that Police Interceptor engine, you can hit 75MPH (yup, I clocked the damn fool) inside of Milwaukee County, and hit the exit ramp at 84th St. at around 65MPH. Sure, it's a short ramp--but you can slam on the brakes!
After all, the taxpayer pays for those brake jobs.
And no: the car was NOT 'lights and sirens.' Just another day touring around looking for traffic violations, or something.
Just for the record. A better way to maintain a safe following distance is, you pass a fixed object two seconds or longer after the car in front of you passes it. Cracks in the road and signposts are good fixed objects. Add three seconds if you're driving a big rig. Also, if you see the traffic light way up ahead go red why do you not let off the gas and coast? Seems to me a lot of people like to idle at red lights.
ReplyDeleteI just got 90K mikes out of a set of brakes, because I have to pay for them.