Any driving advice?

Make sure you are not driving around D.C. on the Beltway at rush hour! It’s a bitch.

If you don’t have a GPS, go to your local AAA (you are a member, right??) and get some maps so you know where you’re going.

Stop every 1.5 – 2.5 hours to rest, stretch your legs, etc.

Don’t bother speeding. Going an extra 10mph is really not going to save you that much. (Figure your 6 hour drive is assuming 60mph the whole way, so it’s 360 miles. Going 70mph instead will save a whopping 45 minutes out of your 6 hour drive. Significantly not worth it)

Buy an audio book on CD or to your iPod before you go. Actually, buy a couple.

Good tunes, drink water, don’t speed or tailgate!

If you’re going around Christmas time, the drivers in the NOVA area are jerks. We they think they own the place.

Make sure you have food, drinks and lots of rest.
Other than that, make sure your phone is charged in case something goes wrong.

Assuming you’re going by yourself, be prepared to talk to yourself after a while.

Know the celphone laws of each state you’ll be driving through before you go. When in doubt, don’t use the phone. You can wait to return that call until the next rest stop.

I used to drive back and forth to Philadelphia from SC (9.5 hours) alone. The best time, in my opinion, to drive is during the night/early morning hours. It might be a bit scary, but worth it to have little to no traffic. Definitely pack snacks/drinks (a cooler) so you don’t have to stop for those things. If you are driving at night, only take the exits for the bigger towns/cities so they’ll be more lit and more populated.

Don’t do rest stops. It’s just not safe for someone alone.

@jeanna – Excellent advice on the rest stops. Head to a restaurant or even a gas station.

@rangerr I talk to myself anyways lol.
@jeanna I doubt my parents will let me drive at night. They don’t even want me out of the house at night. But I’ll see.

@MrItty I was just gonna use some google map directions. Actual maps are difficult for me to navigate while driving.

@Facade Ah. Then as was mentioned before, figure out what time you’ll be driving and whether you’d be around any major cities during lunch or around 5pm. Definitely want to avoid that! (I learned the hard way one time on my way back from Philly. Got stuck for about 3 hours around Deleware.)

@jeanna Yea. I’ll try to swing it though.

Don’t use the cellphone, regardless of the laws of the state.

Number one rule, always, keep as much distance between yourself and other cars as possible. If you’re on a two lane and are in a situation where you can’t pass (like there are five cars stacked following each other like sheep, and not leaving enough room inbetween for a person to pass one car at a time) forget the “One car length per 10 mph rule” about following the car in front of you. Drop back at least a quarter of a mile. People seem to have this herding thing. They just want to run with the pack. Resist that urge. It’s dangerous.

On a four lane (2 and 2,) don’t cruise in the passing lane.

Use your cruise control so you don’t fall into the trap of speeding up or slowing down because the car in front is speeding up or slowing down.

Sometimes, when you pass a car who is going slower than you, for whatever reason some drivers think they need to speed up and go the speed you’re going and then they sit right on your tail. Increase your speed rapidly until you’re about…IDK 100 feet in front. There is something about that phenomenon. It’s like a rubber band stretching, and the guy just really wants to catch up with you…until you get a certain distance away, when, it’s like the rubberband snaps, and that urge of theirs goes away. (It makes me so mad when people do that! In fact, sometimes I’ll play a game with them…I’ll increase my speed really slowly until I’m doing 85 or 90 something, and kind of keep an eye on them and crackup when they finally glance at their speedometer and go “OH S$%^!!” :)

Don’t get flustered if you go wrong somewhere. My kids joke about how lost I can get but I always get there in the end. And don’t try for shortcuts, little roads might not be as safe.

Keep it on the road.

I call shotgun

If you miss your exit, no worries. Just take the next one. (You wouldn’t believe how many people freak out because they missed their exit, and start slamming on their brakes…on a 70 mph highway. My mom used to do that! Made me hysterical. “What are you gonna do Mom?? Stop and back up???)

OH! Major rule for six lane highways. Cruise only in the center lane. Use the far left lane for passing only, then get right back into the center lane. NEVER pass on the right. The far right lane is for people entering and exiting. If you pass a car on the right, for all you know their exit is coming up, and they might go “OH CRAP!! THERE’S MY EXIT!!” And instantly pull into the right lane without looking. You don’t want to be beside them if they do that.

@PretentiousArtist I’m gonna need you to sign a waiver first
@Val123 They don’t teach the whole right lane left lane thing here in VA. I never knew anything about it until I started dating my SO. He’s from NY. Told me about using the left lane as the passing lane and whatnot.

If you’ll be driving near the coast, maybe early morning/night isn’t the best, especially at this time of year. You might encounter a lot of fog. Not cool for roads you don’t know.

@Facade My dad taught me. In the olden days the biggest problem was there were no side view mirrors on the right side of the cars! The truckers used to have mud flaps where the left one said, “Passing side,” and the right one said, “Suicide.” But even after the earth shattering realization that right side view mirrors would be good, it still makes total sense to never, ever pass a car on the right. My philosophy is, every car on the road will be exiting, pulling into the right hand lane at some point or another. Not every car will be going into the far left lane.

There are so damn many, common sense things they don’t teach the kids…

Take the Parkway and avoid the trucks. Drive from when you awaken as early as possible (say 4ish) til 9–10 a.m. for best and safest results.

Be aware of your surroundings. When you get ready to pull over for gas or anything else, make sure no one is following you and make sure to go to well lit places. This may sound paranoid, but on my last trip a guy followed me into a gas station. Someone pulled in back of him so he got trapped and I took off. When I looked back he was hitting his steering wheel.

@chyna Ohhhhhhhhh…..

Where in VA are you starting from? When I lived in the Norfolk area, we’d go up the Delmarva peninsula. It wasn’t divided highways but it sure beat the Beltway traffic. ‘Course, if you’re in northern VA that would be way out of the way. I’m assuming you’re somewhere in eastern VA from your time estimate.

@chyna Whoa! I bet that was scary :(
@ccrow Va. Beach

He passed me then slowed down a few times and when I saw an exit and he was in the fast lane beside me, I took it and he did too, from the fast lane. I thought I would get rid of him that way, but I guess not.

@chyna How freakin scary…I had some truckers playing games with me on a dark, long, lonely stretch of toll highway in the middle of the night…no where to exit. This was before cell phones….

Yeah, how manly of them to pick on females alone in the car.

@chyna Oh, I wasn’t alone. No. My 70 year old mother was with me. She slept through the whole thing. I remember thinking, I can always run, but, of course, I wouldn’t have left my Mom….

When I finally broke free, I ran it up to 95 and kept it there, pretty much all the way home, praying I’d get stopped….

@Facade We were in Chesapeake. You might want to look at Google maps & compare the different routes, but for me, I’d rather avoid the crazy traffic. All our family is in New England, so we were driving from Chesapeake to NH at least twice a year. We refined our route as time went on, but really the first thing to go was traveling up 95 and going around DC! We would go over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel & go up rt 13.

Google maps told me the 95 was quicker by like an hour. I guess it depends on the time of day. I’d actually rather have traffic than be on the road alone. I get tunnel vision pretty easily and need the distraction/ moving objects.

Quicker assuming you aren’t stuck in gridlock!! They obviously don’t allow for traffic. Rt 13 is divided part of the time; it just goes through towns so you are going through traffic lights etc. It’s not like it’s deserted, there is plenty of local traffic. Good luck whichever way you go! (Have snacks & drinks available!! :-))

* Oh yeaaaa! Snacks and shit will definitely be had. And water! so I don’t get constipated. haha. OK that’s enough.

* Ambien. Beware.

@Facade the reason I suggested AAA over Google Maps is that Google Maps is a machine. It can only tell you the shortest distance between A and B. The people at AAA who give you a “TripTick” will create a customized map flipbook showing you each route along the way, and will more than likely be able to tell you what roads/routes to avoid due to traffic patterns.

@MrItty Okie dokie. Sounds good.