Sometimes I pick a car in the next lane to track and compare my progress with. Although one of us will sometimes leave the other behind for a few minutes, usually we return to rough parity eventually.
Back when there were tollbooths where you had to pay cash, I remember seeing aggressive lane-changers, tailgaters, etc. pass by and then seeing them waiting in line, having gotten no further than us, at the toolbooth.
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Counterintuitively, in stop-and-go traffic everybody spends more time watching others pass them than passing others.
Let's say you have to drive 100 km. Half of the distance your lane moves at 100 km/h, and the other half your lane creeps along at 10 km/h.
So you'll spend 50 / 100 + 50 / 10 = 5.5 hours in the car, at an average speed of 18.18 km/h.
For every one minute you spend passing other cars, you'll spend 10 minutes watching other cars whiz by you!
Even though the fast and slow distances are evenly distributed, all drivers perceive that they're in the wrong lane.
Excellent observation!
Sometimes I pick a car in the next lane to track and compare my progress with. Although one of us will sometimes leave the other behind for a few minutes, usually we return to rough parity eventually.
Back when there were tollbooths where you had to pay cash, I remember seeing aggressive lane-changers, tailgaters, etc. pass by and then seeing them waiting in line, having gotten no further than us, at the toolbooth.