[bloomingeek]

Tailgating is against the law. Tailgating causes hard braking.

I recently pulled my travel trailer from OK to Charleston, SC and back. I never drive over 65 MPH for safety and MPG reasons. I always stay in the right hand, slow lane except if I have to take a left lane exit. Since I was always driving slower then everyone else, not once did I have to hard brake. Tailgating is a choice and a dangerous one.

I was never honked at, even by the crazy semi truck drivers.

[cucumber3732842]

>I was never honked at, even by the crazy semi truck drivers.

Because you were towing a camper and "slow and in the right lane" fits people's mental model of how recreational/nonprofessional heavy traffic or otherwise "handicapped" vehicles ought to behave.

When you have problems is when you behave to a standard beneath what other people expect from whatever kind of traffic you are.

[its_magic]

In the Atlanta area I've experienced a few times people FLYING up on me in the right hand lane while I'm cruising along at a conservative, gas sipping 55 MPH in my old truck, blaring their horn at me like I'm some kind of maniac.

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

[rconti]

Even that can be tricky, with the indecisive behavior people use when merging.

[tadfisher]

That one's easy: leave space in front of you for those merging onto the highway.

So much of road etiquette boils down to leaving adequate space so others can maneuver around you. Trying to optimize your travel by destroying any gaps as soon as they appear actually has the opposite effect.

[bloomingeek]

Very true and it's the reason I will always leave several car gaps in front of me in heavy traffic. Just because I have electric brakes on my travel trailer, it doesn't mean I can slow down normally, they just assist. Most people really don't think about that, of course, so they ignore the trailer and just weave in and out.

Speed is a very dangerous thing when pulling any type of trailer and it always amazes me when I see a truck pulling one at break neck speeds and somehow thinking they can maneuver normally when someone causes a situation where they have to make a split second decision.