Cop doing 35mph in fast lane

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I was driving down the highway yesterday, all 3 lanes came to a screeching halt, almost a couple of colloisions, and why, the ding dong cop decides he wants to get off the highway, on the left side to look for speeders on the other side of the highway, He had his lights on, but because he slowed down to 30 mph that caused everyone else to panic and slam on there brakes. No one wanted to pass the cop. I have passed many cops doing just below the speed limit. I usually dont even slow down for them. I have found out they travel in the right lane just below the speed limit and look for inspection stickers. In mass they put them in the lower right corner of the windshield.
 
Lets not think that he may have been waiting for a vehicle that just killed someone, Nooooo he was just day dreaming, or maybe a vehicle that just kidnapped someones child Noooo cops like to go slow on the highway and put his or her life in danger with all the great drivers out there that must drive 10 to 15 MPH over the speed limit to get home 5 min faster that sound like fun to me.  ;D
 
3labs,
When I got to your comment, I had just been thinking,'did he just get away from an accident, or a kid died or whatever morbid thing you could think of'.  It is just possible that something like that occured, we are only seeing what is happening NOW.
I am one of the first to criticize 'stupid drivers', cause I never do anything foolish behind the wheel (not that I care to admit to anyway), especially when it is a cop.  I have caught myself doing something utterly foolish on the road, and occassionally I will think, 'if someone else was doing that I would be calling them all kinds of names, soooooooo,  let's give the benefit of the doubt.  Besides, our blood pressure will be stay down.
I have a feeling blueblood may have some stories to tell!!! 

By the way, nobody signals in Texas, they are all on a cel phone, unbelievable, doing 35
 
carbuff34 said:
I am one of the first to criticize 'stupid drivers', cause I never do anything foolish behind the wheel ....

A prior colleague once told me how he deals with seeing others doing 'dumb' things on the road - he figures that he makes at least one mistake once a month, so this is just the other guy's turn and he doesn't let it bother him. That's a great way of looking at things and one I sometimes remind myself of, but not as often as I should.

In my original post I was asking what others would do if they came across this situation, rather than criticizing the cop. The driver in front of us clearly didn't know whether to pass or not and slowed to the same speed for a while before passing. My driver had the same hesitation, as did some of the traffic building behind us. The combination of our hesitation and the slow car in the fast lane could have been a safety hazard for traffic behind us.

I have no doubt that the driver doing 35mph in the fast lane had a reason for it, although it wasn't obvious. But, since he continued that way for some miles, he wasn't pulling away from an accident. I was just surprised that he didn't have his lights flashing to warn anyone coming up fast in the fast lane. OTOH the lack of flashing lights might have been the 'signal' to pass him in the slow lane.

My driver later made the observation that truckers didn't appear to be hesitant to pass on the inside. I'm wondering if these pro drivers know that this is the "correct" way of dealing with the situation. I've picked up a number of good habits by observing what truckers do in different situations. I've never attended truck driver school, but have often thought I'd learn a lot from attending.
 
You know.. .It might have  been a dirty air cleaner on the cop's car.  Had that happen to me once, could barely get it up to 45mph (Minimum freeway speed) popped in a new Air Cleaner and 70mph in mear seconds

Also, I just completed the RV-Driver safety course (The FMCA six hour classroom course) and the retired LEO who teaches that had a few stories to tell.

Kind of hard to do 70MPH when you are LYAO (That's lMAO but "your" instead of "MY") cause of what you just left.

He had some good stories, I can tell you that.  And all of them contained a safety message as well.
 
LOL John, did you change the air cleaner while moving?
 
Carbuff34

I hear things like that all the time and I try to make people look at it in a different way. Cops always get criticized for what they do. But people need to think about what may be going on at that time not that that cop is day dreaming I don't think that a cop out there would drive slow in the fast lane on a highway for no reason.
people don't know what we do every day and the last thing is to cause a accident that he would have to cover. I try to take people out on ride a longs as much as possable to show them what its all about and I get the same responce at the end of the shift (I don't know how you do this everyday people are crazy)

Tom had a good question. If you see a cop driving slow with no lights on pass with caution if the lights are on don't pass and he's also right about truckers watch them and you will learn from what they do, very rare to see a trucker pulled over for a moving violation other then weight violations these guys do it for a living and most do it right and are some of the best drivers on the road.
 
AMEN, brother, from a retired Deputy Sheriff who served 27 yrs.

Woody
 
3labs said:
If you see a cop driving slow with no lights on pass with caution if the lights are on don't pass

Thanks Brian, appreciate the confirmation of what I thought might be the right thing to do, but really didn't know for sure. Sometimes when I just don't know the law, I'll try to apply some logic, but don't always have the necessary time before I need to react.

On the day in question I was also concerned for the safety of the officer, especially given the speeds I see some folks hurtling down the freeways. Many of these folks don't seem to allow themselves enough margin to have been able to avoid hitting either the officer or whoever was in front of them in the slow lane. I felt he was out there like a sitting duck and was somewhat surprised by that.

... he's also right about truckers watch them and you will learn from what they do ...

Thanks also for that. There was a time in the early days of our forum when I used to read messages suggesting that "truckers don't like RVers". I've never found that to be the case and have usually found truckers to be courteous in addition to anticipating what I'm going to do. Most are also appreciative when I anticipate their intentions. I also enjoy talking with RVers who are retired truck drivers; They're always eager to share some tips. Last year I learned quite a bit from eavesdropping on a "ladies only" RV driving class conducted by a retired UPS driver at a Monaco factory service center.
 

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