What's the Speed Limit? Tales of High-Speed Driving

[Cyrus]

I drive kind of fast Hurkyl. I have not been in an accident that was my fault, in fact I have not even put a dent in my car. But I do have limits to my driving. For example, I don't speed at night. I can't see hidden cops, people running across the road, or *parked cars with their lights off.* That one is very dangerous. If its raining, I don't drive fast. Likewise for snow. *but* if its a nice day out, every once in a while I might take it onto the George Washington Parkway and open it. Driving fast on that road is *alot* of fun. The roads are smooth as silk, its a nice parkway, you can see the airplanes out your window on the landing pattern to national airport. You can also see the georgetown skyline, kennedy center, *and every once in a while a state trooper, and that's when you SLAM on the brakes .* Also, I don't weave in and out of traffic and I don't tail gate. Actually, I usually go about 5-10mph over unless traffic is going slow. Then I that's when I start to go 15 over. I just enjoy being on a nice road going fast with no traffic. Or a small country road that is empty and winds around. Those are fun too. (but for those roads you need to have a nice red ferrari ).

 

[Kazza_765]

Jesus. And I thought drivers in Australia are bad.

I don't get why people speed. Its f****** stupid if you ask me. In high school, 3 kids the year above me were killed while speeding. A friend of mine from work died less than 6 months ago, and another friend of mine lost 2 family members when he was a kid.

What a bloody joke, "its fun to drive fast". I love driving fast as well, that's why I'm a member of two car clubs. Any weekend I have time I can take the car out, drive as stupidly fast as I like, on sealed or dirt race tracks, and you know what? If I make a mistake the only person I'm going to kill is myself, not some poor mother driving her kids home, or some unlucky pedestrian that happened to step out in front of you.

Incidentally, we have an advertising campaign that's been running on TV for a while now here, "take off 5" is its motto. Trying to dispel the idea that its ok to go 5 kmh over the speed limit. Anyways, says how over the same braking distance a car going 65kmph will hit something at 32kmph, while a car at 60kmph would hit at 5 etc... Being the physicist, I'm always asked how that works, is that correct etc. Then I come here and everyone seems to think its ok to speed.

Bah.

 

[Cyrus]

Yeah, like I said I go fast when the roads are pretty much empty. I don't do that when there are lots of cars/people around. (Actually, one of the things I watch out for when I drive is cars with small kids in them or old people). If I go fast when there's traffic its to get out of it, then I slow down again. I don't go driving around like a raging lunatic

What kind of car do you drive at your club Kazzaa?

 

[Kazza_765]

I use an '89 Holden (General Motors) Commodore VC for rallys, and I'll either use my Focus Zetec or, (when he's in a good mood), borrow my old man's WRX STI for track stuff.

 

[Cyrus]

My cars def not in the 'power' category. What's sad is when you literally have the gas pedal to the floor and your getting beat by a Honda odyssey that isn’t even trying to go fast. ...Damn that minivan!

 

[Physics is Phun]

I was driving (at the limit) down Highway 1 late at night a few months back. The only other car in my immediate vicinity was an old El Camino about a quarter mile ahead. I noticed nothing at all unusual about the situation until a cruiser approached from behind me. He moved behind me, a little closer than I'd like, and did the trick of moving half a lane to the left, watching my response. Before I had a chance to finish saying "what the heck?" he had moved back around me, moved to the El Camino, and did the same trick again. Instantly, the El Camino swerved and started oscillating back and forth across both lanes, leaving the roadway on one side, and almost leaving the shoulder. The cop had just demonstrated, in a split second, that the El Camino driver was completely drunk. The El Camino then tried to dodge onto an off-ramp, and the cop hit his lights and was on him like white on rice.

sorry, I don't get it, what was he trying to do by moving over half a lane? you mean half a lane towards the middle? or the shoulder?... I don't get it

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

sorry, I don't get it, what was he trying to do by moving over half a lane? you mean half a lane towards the middle? or the shoulder?... I don't get it

When people are driving drunk they often aren't paying much attention to the road and their spatial awareness and critical thinking are likely off. I think that the idea was that if the person wasn't paying much attention to the road and not thinking clearing that seeing a car not in line with his/her own behind would make them panic and think they were drifting out of their lane.


I picked 10-15 but that's really only on the freeway. Here driving 10-15 mph over the limit on the freeway is absolutely normal. Cops, unless they are trolling, usually go about 90 mph on the freeways and while it's best to slow down around a cop they most likely woundn't pull you over for going around 75-80 unless you were bobing and weaving through traffic at the time.

Once early in the morning with the freeway completely empty I was going about 90. Suddenly I saw a cop cruise past me (He Was Going Faster Than 90!) and give me a sign to slow it down. A couple minutes later I saw him on the side of the road with a guy in a flashy sports car.

 

[rocketboy]

I don't get why people speed.

Time...

...oh yea, it's also an awesome adrenaline rush.

But I'm in teh same boat as cyrusabdollahi (wow ur name is hard to spell), I don't go driving around like a raging lunatic, and I have never been in an accident. At night, or with bad conditions (weather, bad roads etc...) I drive very carefully. Actually, even when I'm driving fast I still drive carefully, there is a difference between kamakazee driving and fast driving. I drive fast so that I can get where I want to go and not have to spend the better part of my day doing it, but I do it safely. I don't go blaring through a residential area, I don't go speeding through yellow lights. I also don't know where I"m taking this post so I"ll stop there.