Here’s one I prepared earlier. Now this is a bit of a rant, but its something that I have had cause to think about over the last ten months or so, having done two return trips Canberra to Brisbane, two Canberra to Sydney, coast trips and a little bit of o/s driving as well. I generally like to travel at the designated speed limit. In doing so you naturally encounter quite a lot of vehicles being driven under the speed limit. I have no problem with that – the speed limit is a maximum, not a minimum limit. What I have a problem with are those slow drivers who seem to dislike people overtaking them. I have repeatedly come across the following two scenarios: (a) Driving along at the speed limit, I encounter a car traveling at least 10km below the speed limit. I wait behind the car until I can overtake safely. Soon after the driver behind increases their speed to something above the speed limit, and proceeds to overtake me and disappears into the distance. About ten minutes later I come up behind the same car traveling under the speed limit and proceed to travel behind them until I can once again overtake safely. (b) Traveling along on a highway with one lane each way and limited opportunities to overtake. I encounter a car being driven significantly below the speed limit, often with quite a number of other vehicles stuck behind them. We then come to an overtaking lane. Just before the overtaking lane the slow vehicle accelerates either to the speed limit or actually begins speeding. This reduces the number of vehicles that can pass the “slow” vehicle while the overtaking lane is present. After the overtaking lane ends, the “slow” vehicle slows back down to their previous speed – below the speed limit.

I can’t work out why these people behave this way – are they almost asleep at the wheel? Off daydreaming, and wake up when being overtaken and decide to speed up? Or are they just kings/queens of the road who prefer everyone else to stay behind them?