Originally Posted by sbhikes
We are slower but we are not slow-moving vehicles. We are operating our vehicles at their intended speed at or near the maximum speed and on the surfaces for which they were designed to be used (not on the factory floor or on the farm), and for the same purposes as all other faster consumer-use vehicles. So we ought to be entitled to the same considerations.
We should not be "tolerated" like tobacco trucks. We should not have to pull over for everyone who is faster. Our needs should not be at the bottom of the pile, or ignored altogether, when roads are built. I make a hell of a lot of money and have no write-offs so I deserve my tax money going where it helps me. And I deserve a subsidy as well, while I'm at it. Somebody should give me tax credits for the pollutants I'm not spewing.
Again, its interesting to me the distinctions you make, possibly based on where we live.
Here, the tobacco wagon haulers don't usually pull over for faster traffic. The state law in NC never requires drivers of slow moving vehicles to pull off the road, only to use the right lane available for their direction of travel. The purpose of building many of the roads was to transport tobacco in the first place.
Garbage trucks and mail trucks here often travel at reduced speed as they stop and go short distances, but this is required for their function. People understand why they travel slowly and accept this.
To be "tolerated" like a tobacco wagon driver or mail truck operator would, in my mind, be a step up from what we have in my area now, which is a lot of drivers who think we don't belong on the roadway at all unless it is striped with a bike lane. I would rather be viewed as the driver of a vehicle with limited speed capability than the driver of a class of vehicle that has reduced legitimacy on normal, unmarked roads.