If you let them in front of you there is an excellent chance they are going to continue to drive in a little-old-lady fashion and are more than likely to impede your own progress significantly.

I always signal, but I do so when there is a clear space that I can see that I'll be able to get into, not as a request for someone to make me a space into which to squeeze and I signal not more than a second or so before I start my actual lane change.

When you are going to change lanes you should accelerate, not slow down, this greatly reduces the chances of your getting in the way of someone already in the lane into which you want to go.

Personally I think they should make everyone ride a moped or motorcycle for the first year of their license. The really bad drivers would remove themselves from the gene pool and the rest would have a far better understanding of how to drive both aggressively and defensively at the same time.

Tightening up licensing requirements would help a great deal, in my state it is possible to get a full drivers license without ever having to demonstrate your proficiency on an actual public road to an examiner. Americans bite the big one on driving proficiency and they bite it hard.

Learning to drive is pretty easy, learning what I call "traffic sense" is much more difficult and takes much longer than merely learning to operate a motor vehicle. Traffic sense means that you can fairly accurately predict the idiotic behavior of your fellow motorists and compensate for their stupidity before they even know they're going to do something stupid themselves.

Long term motorcyclists have learned to ride in such a manner that even if they were totally invisible they wouldn't get hit anyway, that is the skill you must perfect to be the safest driver you can be. Don't expect other drivers to avoid you, drive where the other drivers aren't and aren't going to be in the immediate future. Any moving vehicle not driving parallel with you that keeps a constant bearing from your driving position is on a collision course with you, don't expect them to change their course or speed even if they are legally obligated to do so, change yours.

I was really only talking about the TR as an example, Tesla is obviously giving best case scenario figures for their numbers, that really is only to be expected.

What's really needed is for some independent outside testing of various electric cars/prototypes/whatever because manufacturers numbers are never to be completely trusted.

The only EV-1 I ever saw was sitting abandoned on the side of the interstate, almost certainly with a fully discharged battery. I don't think the driver was walking up the road to the closest charging station to get a can of electrons.

I think there are still some serious hurdles to be overcome in bringing a truly practical E-car to the public that will do what most people need to do with their only car. The rest of the systems (controllers, motors) are not a problem but batteries and battery management systems for a practical-for-90%-of-the-driving-public E-car aren't there yet.

The main reason I'm working on an electric assisted bike is that I live in a very hilly area with narrow roads, no shoulders and often a twenty foot or more vertical dropoff as soon as you go off the pavement. At my age it's just too damn hard and scary to puff up the hills in a lather of sweat with the oblivious Hummer drivers flying by six inches from my left elbow while texting on their phones . I need the exercise and could stand to save the gas so an electric assist seems the most logical answer. A twenty mile range would take care of the great majority of my trips and a 35 mph sprint speed would allow me to get out in the middle of the lane in those places where it's just too dangerous to ride where the cars can pass you.

I've looked at the commercially available e-bikes and they are either ridiculously expensive (I could buy a very nice used car for what some of them cost) or pathetically anemic. The only reasonable alternative seems to be roll my own. I have a well equipped shop and enough time to do the R&D as well as the technogeek bent that drives my fascination with technology.

I've been riding bicycles and motorcycles both for a long time but I'm about ready to give up motorcycles, my reflexes just aren't what they used to be and I've had a few too many close calls in the last couple of years. It's my experience that if you have the power, the temptation to use it is very strong so I'm reluctantly moving on to something a bit more sedate.

I'm doing something along the lines of this bike here, but with a touch less power.

http://www.wisil.recumbents.com/wisil/shumaker/default.htm

And this is the recumbent I'm starting with.

http://www.mrmartinweb.com/images/bike/bikee.jpg

After riding a mountain bike, the bikeE is like a two wheeled Barcalounger.