Driving Speeds

I always give myself more than enough time to reach my destination so am never in a hurry. I drive the speed limit or a couple over if the speed limit is 55 or less. If the speed limit is 65 then i'll go 60-67. If it's 70+ speed limit then i'll go 65-70. I won't go over 70 even if the limit is 85. 85 is the max not the minimum. Nothing wrong with going under the limit. If a three lane highway, I stay in the middle lane and let others do their thing. If two lane I stay in the right unless there's a Really slow car then I may pass or I may just join them and go Really slow. Better to go 10 under than 1 over IMO. I'm not going to break the law just because other people are doing it. I'm not the hazard. The ones breaking the law are the hazard.
 
Sunset said:
People who follow the speed limit, really create a hazard as other cars come up fast behind them and for some reason these speeders don't look ahead, so suddenly they have to brake or swerve.
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I'm sorry, but the party "creating a hazard" in this scenario is the speed racer moron who's not paying attention. It is definitely NOT the person following the speed limit.
 
sengsational said:
Please allow me to submit into evidence my dashboard camera....
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When was you camera last certified and calibrated, sir?

Can you prove the camera was, in fact, installed correctly and operating tamper-proof in your car at the time of the alleged events?

Please submit evidence the images were in no way altered since the recording took place.

-- Evil Judge
 
uncaD said:
I'm sorry, but the party "creating a hazard" in this scenario is the speed racer moron who's not paying attention. It is definitely NOT the person following the speed limit.
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You are correct. That's not even a debatable thing, it's a fact.
 
Perhaps one of the most important reasons to drive the speed limit and to drive defensively is to minimize as much as possible the deep risk of getting into a life-changing accident, and the psychological, emotional, financial and other negative consequences that would entail. In retirement, I've found it's vitally important to minimize as much deep risk as possible. Edited to add: I came to this conclusion after reading Dirk Cotton's blog posts on causes of retiree bankruptcy.

Dirk Cotton has some excellent posts (again) on risk faced in retirement. I started working on hedging fat tail risks before retirement and my ISP calls for me to do so through adequate insurances, optimiizing health, remaining cognizant of safety, estate planning, diversification, and liability matching.
 
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Brother in law was a County Mounty for >25 years. He had a saying, "At 8, you're great. At 9, you're mine". Only time he would let people off was if they had a reason that made him laugh. Of course, he never told them that beforehand.

Interstate highways are a different category. I still seldom do more than 10 over. except in Chicago area where the interstate speed limit is 55. If you are not doing >70, you are run over. There I figure if I am passing 75% and being passed by 25%, I am doing just fine. I get a bid paranoid doing that when traffic thins out.
 
Options said:
Perhaps one of the most important reasons to drive the speed limit and to drive defensively is to minimize as much as possible the deep risk of getting into a life-changing accident, and the psychological, emotional, financial and other negative consequences that would entail.
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While I agree there's no guarantee. I've been sitting stopped 4 different times and some moron ran into the back end of me. Each time was the same carelessly driving too fast. Every time they totaled their vehicles and I need a bumper replaced.
 
I generally drive about 10 km (6.2 miles) over the posted limit.......if I'm in a hurry, (which is rare these days), I look out for someone who's booting it, let them get ahead, (but not out of sight), and allow them to run interference for me.
 
Nemo2 said:
I generally drive about 10 km (6.2 miles) over the posted limit.......if I'm in a hurry, (which is rare these days), I look out for someone who's booting it, let them get ahead, (but not out of sight), and allow them to run interference for me.
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I do that a lot too. Until I lose sight of them. Then I chicken out and drop back to 9 over.
 
Nemo2 said:
I generally drive about 10 km (6.2 miles) over the posted limit.......if I'm in a hurry, (which is rare these days), I look out for someone who's booting it, let them get ahead, (but not out of sight), and allow them to run interference for me.
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I always enjoyed the story of the guy who always felt he was safe as long as he was in a group of other cars who were also speeding. When he got pulled over he asked the cop, "What about all those other cars around me going my speed or even faster? Why didn't you pull them over?"

The cop's response: "You ever go duck hunting?" :)
 
REWahoo said:
The cop's response: "You ever go duck hunting?" :)
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I try to stay quite a way back from that lead duck, and if he gets too far ahead I look for another duck. :LOL:
 
Am in less of a hurry than I used to be but still generally about 11 mph over the limit on highways when conditions permit. This is the threshold at which fines go up and demerit points get issued. The latter are bad for insurance rates (moving violations in general aren't good of course). Close to posted in city. As mentioned, I do recall old studies suggesting that the 'safest' speed was slightly more than the prevailing traffic speed. Of course this doesn't really work.

Most of my driving is in the east and we find that drivers in the US tend to be more respectful of speed limits generally. Recall back to the days of the oil embargo and 55 mph speed limits - great for mileage but long drives were painful!
 
While speeding in the metroplex is very common, and I am talking 15-20+ over the limit, the thing that really gets to me, are all the tailgaters. I usually drive 5-10 over the limit and keep to the right, yet encounter so many drivers that seem to think its a NASCAR challenge to get as close as they can, like 2-3 ft off your bumper at 70 MPH. I do not know how many times, I wished I had a James Bond oil spray that I could lay down behind me or maybe a nice stink bomb.
 
Situational Awareness

My goal is to find a reasonably safe speed for whatever the situation is, including weather, road conditions, traffic, construction, speed and aggressiveness of other drivers, night vs day, lane width, etc. Usually this means driving about the average speed of everyone else or slightly less. If I'm on wide open highway, I'll set the cruise at 3-5 mph above the posted speed. Otherwise I just go with the flow and drive defensively. I'm retired and rarely in a hurry to get anywhere.
 
Cobra9777 said:
My goal is to find a reasonably safe speed for whatever the situation is, including weather, road conditions, traffic, construction, speed and aggressiveness of other drivers, night vs day, lane width, etc. Usually this means driving about the average speed of everyone else or slightly less. If I'm on wide open highway, I'll set the cruise at 3-5 mph above the posted speed. Otherwise I just go with the flow and drive defensively. I'm retired and rarely in a hurry to get anywhere.
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I do the same. Those who drive at exactly the speed limit when everyone else is going a little faster are the ones who block traffic and create unsafe situations.
 
I just drove 900 miles to CDA and back. I normally to maybe 2mph over, if that
 
marko said:
Several years ago a doctor was pulled over for driving on the highway at 60 where it was posted at 55. (Boston's notorious Rt 128)

He announced a few days later that he and several of his friends would drive the entire length of that three lane 55 mph zone (about 80 miles), side by side at exactly 55.

The police begged and pleaded with him not to do that as he'd back up traffic for miles.

I'm not sure what happened but I think we was convinced to not do it (via charges dropped?)

The reality today is that while still posted at 55, I just came off that road having done 75-80 and only keeping up with traffic.
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Ah, now I know why Illinois passed a law in the past few years that we should drive in the right lane except to pass.:LOL:

DFW_M5 said:
While speeding in the metroplex is very common, and I am talking 15-20+ over the limit, the thing that really gets to me, are all the tailgaters. I usually drive 5-10 over the limit and keep to the right, yet encounter so many drivers that seem to think its a NASCAR challenge to get as close as they can, like 2-3 ft off your bumper at 70 MPH. I do not know how many times, I wished I had a James Bond oil spray that I could lay down behind me or maybe a nice stink bomb.
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I have heard that cleaning your windshield while driving a high speed will "accidentally" spray the car behind you too.

We usually stay to the speed limit except on the Interstate, where we go maybe 5 miles over (the 70 mph limit is pretty comfortable)--on the local roads, having more frequent stoplights (vs the wide open roads some of you are enjoying) removes any time advantage that going a few miles over the speed limit gives us.

DH actually is the driver we all scream at who drives at an inconsistent speed when not using cruise control, letting up on the gas if he starts talking while driving. It's not pretty.
 
I don't drive fast, I'm retired. There is nowhere I need to get to in a hurry.
 
marko said:
Several years ago a doctor was pulled over for driving on the highway at 60 where it was posted at 55. (Boston's notorious Rt 128)

He announced a few days later that he and several of his friends would drive the entire length of that three lane 55 mph zone (about 80 miles), side by side at exactly 55.

The police begged and pleaded with him not to do that as he'd back up traffic for miles.

I'm not sure what happened but I think we was convinced to not do it (via charges dropped?)

The reality today is that while still posted at 55, I just came off that road having done 75-80 and only keeping up with traffic.
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They sound like 3 world class jerks. Too bad they weren't given tickets...
 
I don't intentionally drive more than 5 mph over the speed limit. But I did space out and drove 40 in a 25 and 30 in a 20 school zone in my home town in past few years. Luckily the officer let me go both times. Like others, I'm in no hurry to get anywhere since I retired.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
 
Depends on where I am and how familiar I am with the area. On highways, with "medium to heavy traffic" I try to go with the general flow, regardless of the speeds. However, there are a lot of secondary highways in my area with speed limits of 75mph and minimal to almost no traffic, especially on weekdays. Over the years, I've got to know where the cops tend to "hang out" on many of these roads.

I'll stop my comments on this topic at this point!
 
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