General speeding
 

I'm sure everyone here drives the speed limit or under (max fe). But has anyone ever counted how many cars pass you going 10 to 15 miles over the speed limit. Why do people think that this country (in general) is so dependent on oil? If people just slowed down roads would be safer and everyone would use less fuel. Less fuel consumption = less demand = lower prices. I can't stand listening to people complain about the price of gas when they drive 75 mph on a road that is posted at 55mph. Just my rant, I'm done now.

I started counting since I learned about HM and on average about 2 cars pass me every 10 miles of driving. But I'd say most aren't going that much faster -- maybe 5mph more. I'd estimate maybe 1 driver out of 100 miles have I encountered the barn burners. People really have slowed down but they're still accelerating up to stop lights so by the time I get there it's green and I'm passing the guy who raced up to it 5-7 seconds earlier.

(I love that feeling btw)

Wrong! And I do it for fuel economy, too. (Well, sometimes :-))

I live in the mountains, you see, where there are long downhill runs - 20 miles or more, some of them. When I go down them, I'm in fuel cutoff mode so using zero gas. Therefore I go as fast as practical, since the gravity's already paid for, and the extra speed will let me coast over any small rises and further out on the flat.

But in general I have no problem with people going fast. After all, on level ground I can get 50-60 mpg at 70 mph, while those people in the gas-guzzlers would be hard pressed to get 20 mpg at 45 mph. Speed's not the problem: oversized, inefficient cars are.

I was out on the Pa. Turnpike and I-79 today and people have slowed down. I didn't see much speeding in general. Most drivers were running right at the limit or under by a few mph.
I must note one exception. On I-579 heading south into Pittsburgh I had a full size Chevrolet or GMC van with U.S. Government plates blow by me at least 20 mph over the limit. He was also weaving in and out of the lighter than normal traffic.

Most of the drivers on my commute I know are 10-15 over. They are nearly always driving the speed that the NEXT speed limit sign says. So if I pass the last 50 mph sign in a zone, they are already gunning it to be 65+ when the 65 mph sign comes up a mile away. I always feel like I am the only one who does the speed limit...

I have noticed that there is an increasing number of people that are following me and not passing even at 55 mph or less. That is nice, BUT it also means I can't pulse and glide. The good and the bad, I guess.

I just took a trip and drove as the romans drove.. doing 75-80mph the entire 260 miles, filled up before and after the trip, averaged 47 mpg.. better than EPA even at those speeds.. my car has extensive areo mods that allow for this to happen , just proves that cars need to be small light and aerodynamic and you can get great mpg's even at crazy speeds.. the better the aerodynamics the faster you can go with out killing the mpg's

hi all.. long time lurker, first time poster here, and I have to agree with the above. Isn't the ultimate goal to have high FE at all speeds? it certainly is for me. I only hope that I can get half of Basjoos' 80mpg at 80mph with my tc, but then i have no intention of going as far as he has with the mods ^^. My goals are more to be able to improve my car's performance across the board.

lets not go into why gas costs so much, because that is far more affected by our politicians and their policies than by our driving habits.

I drive on major highways mostly (I-95) and I'm usually the slowest out there driving at the speed limit. I do understand that politicians do control the price of gas to some extent, but I believe that some of it is based on the priniciple of supply and demand. I don't know why people complain, we still have some of the cheapest gas in the world. Maybe people should drive smaller, lighter cars instead of their GMC Yukon or Cadillac Escalade.

I realized one day about a year ago that when i drove my regular 200km from my house to my parents' house that nobody would pass me. That meant that I was the fastest person on the highway for 200km. Bad idea. Funny, the ONLY people that ever did pass me drove suv's and pickup trucks.

Now I drive in the slow lane and I pass maybe a dozen trucks and 2-3 cars making the same trip.

thing is, most of those higher prices around the world are caused by heavy taxes, and it has been like that for decades - in sweden for example, gas was somewhere around $1.50 per litre the last time I was there about 10 years ago, which was about the same as it cost per gallon here during the same period. that difference was all in taxes.

I drive mostly on State routes with a 55 MPH speed limit. Most of the time, I do not get passed when cruising at 55 MPH, but when someone does pass me, it's an idiot in a large SUV or pickup going 70+ MPH. I usually catch them and pass those idiots at the next traffic light anyway while sporting "57 MPG" right on my back window.

Which I have no problem with. I'd like to see a carbon tax on oil and coal, if it was offset by a decrease in the income tax. Or as I saw the other day "Tax Burning, Not Earning"

The problem with consumption taxes like this is it disproportionately affects low income people.

I've noticed quite a lot of people in my (right) lane recently. A lot of them are oversized SUVs with a single passenger at that. Of course I get annoyed when they're going 50 in a 55 and hit the brakes when they start to creep over it.

I just want to yell "You're doing it wrong!" but that would mean rolling down my window and killing FE ;)

On a related note: many local parking lots littered with SUVs with FOR SALE signs in the windows...

I'm sorry. My friend was late and FE wasn't the priority at the moment.

I've noticed much slower traffic. It's too bad on 2 lane highways there's someone passing them going only 1mph faster.

I lose track very soon into the trip. Doesnt matter whether its driving around here, or going downstate and back, nearly everyone I see on the road still drives like a bat out of hell. You can never go fast enough for them, so no sense even trying. Even on the beat up country road going to my house, I see people everyday blowing past me at about 65-70 mph. Even through the neighborhood where there are sharp corners and kids playing. People squeal their tires around my corner everyday.

Only thing I have noticed is 18 wheelers are slowing down on the freeway downstate, they tend to run right around 65 like I do. Not around here though, they still drive like jerks. Even just this morning one passed me (I was going the speed limit) and ran the oncoming traffic off the road.

here in wv, i use the mountains, there is 1500 ft elevation change from my house to work. plus i cross 3 moutains. i am usually foine 45-55 mph, but during oec going down hill i can hit 65-70 mph. i have noticed people slowing down alot.....but i only drove at night, well almost.

What part of WV are you from?

The funny thing is that people who drive so recklessly seem to care nothing for our nation's dependence on foreign oil, or the fact that buying oil from "over there" helps to support terrorism. They call us extremists for doing what we do. Extremists?

I say "VIVA LA RESISTANCE!!!"

I drive down IH35 daily. Most people drive the speed limit or about 5 over. I tend to pass people even when im only going 65.

I get passed at least 20 times a day

Chapmanville.:thumbup:

There is no correlation between speed and safety.

i drive really slow, and it pisses people off, but then i get to laugh when i see them at the gas station (hehehe)

LOL, so we can do away with all those pesky school and construction speed limits, heck we don't even need to have any traffic control devices if all speeds are as safe as no speed :)

:thumbup: Good posting, speed + cars = Wrecks They can only stop or turn so fast. Also when people are on there beloved cell phone it is worse, I watched a guy hit a kid walking across crosswalk in front of a school. Because he was on a cell phone didn't want to turn his head and look.

You have a pretty extreme view of the world.

As far as divided highway speed limits are concerned (the subject of this thread), there is no correlation between the speed and safety. The most important point to safety is that everyone on the highway travels at the same speed regardless of the speed limit. Driving slower than traffic (AKA having 20 cars pass you) is more dangerous as driving faster than traffic.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/tfhrc/safety...mages/fig4.gif
So if you want to save a couple of bucks by driving slower than traffic go ahead. You're putting yourself and everyone else on the road at risk.

Because?

Let me expand on this a bit. For each of these scenarios, mostly taken from my own experience, tell me if you would rather be going 80mph or 45mph?

1. a deer jumps out in front of you
2. a part comes off the car in front of you
3. a tree falls on the road just in front of you
4. the load comes off the truck in front of you
5. you lose a wheel
6. you get a flat
7. a retread comes at you
8. a dual truck tire lifts a rock up at your windshield
9. something falls (or is thrown) off a bridge
10. you are on a curve and hit a slippery spot (i.e. black ice)
11. the hood flies up on your car
12. you are approaching blocked traffic and realize your brakes are gone.
13. Someone crosses the median.

etc. etc.

I don't really care if you speed, but it is a bit extreme to make general statements like there is no correlation between speed and safety, even if you did read it somewhere on the net. And blaming the people that are getting rear ended is even more extreme.

BTW, you have at least proven your original assertion wrong, so I'm glad we cleared that up.

There's a lot of good information in that link: Synthesis of Safety Research Related to Speed, Publication No. FHWA-RD-98-154

i.e. The relationship between impact speed and crash severity is particularly critical for pedestrians, the most vulnerable road users. In a recent review of the issues, the European Transport Safety Council (1995) report that only 5 percent of pedestrians died when struck by a vehicle traveling at 20 mi/h (32 km/h); however, the proportion of fatalities increased to 45 percent at 30 mi/h (48 km/h) and to 85 percent at 40 mi/h (64 km/h).

Of particular interest is table 3, where the vast majority of the studies indicate that a slower speed limit is safer

regarding changes in the speed limits worldwide:
"The results suggest that for every 1 mi/h change in speed, the number of injury crashes increases 5 percent or a 3-percent increase in injury crashes for every 1-km/h increase in speed."http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/tfhrc/safety...mages/fig8.gif

So maybe that's why most divided highways have "No Pedestrians Allowed" signs at all the on-ramps? And why your mother (presumably) told you not to play in the street, and to look both ways before crossing the road?

This all seems to be considerably off the topic of speed limits as a means to cut fuel consumption. But I'd just ask you to think about why you're out there on the highway at all. Granted that commuting to work may be an economic necessity, so leave that aside, and think of all the other times you risk your life by driving somewhere for what is basically nothing more than entertainment of one kind or another. If it's dangerous, as you say it is, and you care about safety, then why not just stay home?

1. either way, dead deer and a whole lot of damage to your car. not likely to happen on a highway or interstate in any case.
2. the damage done will largely be determined by the difference in velocity between your car and the part that came off, and if you are so close that you cant react or or the part is still bouncing off the road making it impossible to just drive over or avoid, then you are definitely too close - though you will have a nice lawsuit against the operator of the truck.
3. same as (2) above, just no lawsuit. be glad the tree didnt decide to fall ON you.
4. exactly the same as (2) above.
5. under NO circumstances are you to panic brake... maintain power and steer to counter the yaw while gradually slowing the car and get to the side of the road in a hurry. going 80 might help you in this instance as the torque moment introduced by coming into contact with the road in such a manner will have more built-up inertia to affect. hope the state doesnt charge you for the road repair.
6. same as (5) above, just without the major repair bill. I have had blowouts [u]twice[/i]at speeds of 70+ on the highway and to be honest, it is a total non-event if you handle it right. learn how to handle your vehicle in an emergency american drivers are among the WORST in the world when it comes to their driving skill.
7. omg.. a retread is not gonna take out your car if you know what you are doing. this happens to me down here in florida at least a couple times a year... I just drive over the things - it was easier in my truck, but even in my tc the worst that can happen is the retread will mess up my windshield. I must re-iterate my responses to (2) and (6).
8. congratulations! you were driving too close... now call your insurance company and get it replaced if the rock was big enough to crack it. Its not very likely that a rock of seriously dangerous size could be kicked up and away so far that it would still hit you if you were following at a safe distance.
9. things don't just fall off bridges... if something does, expect the bridge to be following that object down - I certainly hope you are going fast enough to beat the impending disaster. if something was thrown off that is potentially an attempted murder charge, regardless of your speed, and in fact you going faster makes it that much harder to get hit!
10. once again, know how to handle your car in an emergency and be prepared to drift your car thru the turn. this has happened to me as well when I lost traction on a 270 degree turn in the rain... I drifted my tc almost halfway thru the turn before all my wheels regained traction - this made my heart race just a bit as I had never done it before, but once over the initial shock (this was NOT intended, as I was going slower than I usually would in that curve specifically BECAUSE it was wet), it was actually pretty cool.
11. DO NOT PANIC, stick your head out the bloody window and move to the side of the road... why the hell do you insist on wasting our time with responding to hypothetical situations that have simple solutions?
12. downshift in conjunction with gradual engagement of the e-brake. remember that episode of Lois and Clark where Jimmy Olsen lost his brakes on the interstate, and supes had to come and turn his car off for him? yes, that is how retarded your #12 question is.
13. somebody crosses the median... hmm are they in a car or are they walking? if they are in a vehicle then you have to maintain a certain speed in order to effectively maneuver. going slower will make you an easier target unless the action is happening well in front of you (ie you would have ample time to stop). if the threatening vehicle is too close for you to brake to a stop safely, accelerating as fast as you can and maneuvering is the most effective option. fighter pilots aren't taught that speed is life for nothing.

I hate to sound like a smart ass here, but all this talk of speed=unsafe gets on my nerves. of course there are necessary speed limits for school zones, residential areas and all that, but on roads that are intended for the high speed flow of traffic, major deviations from the average speed of the traffic increases both the likelihood and severity of accidents, regardless of the actual speed, but then so does driving while holding a phone to your head, not using your turn signals when changing lanes, the list goes on and on.

Thank you DCB. I for one have experienced many of these situations and had either person been going faster, there would have been a serious accident. Maybe not down south, but up here, car-deer collisions are an everyday thing, even on the freeway. Ive lost track of all the times Ive had to come to a dead stop or swerve to miss one, and had I been going faster Id have cremed it. Anybody who thinks that going faster helps you avoid things better, watch any of those overhead views of police chases when people are going very fast though town and end up crashing into things because the car just cant make a normal corner that is designed for town speeds.

Cuz they are my roads too. I'm not paying all those taxes so only people travelling at the upper limit or above can use the damn things. But I do not frequent them as I do not have the aerodynamic mods to get as good mpg even at the minimum limit.

This was in response to the poster who said collisions on the hiway are more the fault of the slow people than the fast people and that there is no correlation between speed and safety. The data I've seen does not support that. Like I said, I don't really care if someone speeds, I just am calling out this lapse in logic, and don't like folks telling me what roads I should use based on that faulty logic.

Indeed if anybody thinks putting more energy into a system doesn't increase the danger, consider the difference between someone throwing a bullet at you and shooting it.

This is 1st grade physics folks. Faster cars have more energy, more energy = more spectacular crashes. Try running into something at 1 mph. The driver who puts more energy into his(her) vehicle (and wastes energy doing it) is the one more responsible when (s)he isn't paying enough attention and rearends someone. That is how the courts will see it in %99.999 of the cases where someone is rearended. That's how I see it to, you need to not run into other people with your vehicle regardless of the posted speed limit, they may have just hit something themselves.

Stuff happens.

i've been seeing a lot more police on the I-5 with parked motorcycles holding their radar guns

police need to give more tickets... speeding tickets slow people down :)

trust me... the rush of speed feels so good (i tend to forget this as a hypermiler now, because my rush comes from MPG) people drive fast because they think they have to (they dont understand aggressive driving doesn't actually save much more time) and because they feel like it...

being a former speeder i would say that it's difficult for any person to really TELL YOU to slow down.. you have to learn for yourself. either by punishment or by inspiration (like learning about HM and actually BEING INTERESTED)

in my case... the two happened one after another, and i'm so glad they did.

you are going to have to elaborate on your deer encounters... for instance, do deer have a greater tendency to jump out in front of you at ranges where it would be impossible to avoid them, or do they tend to pick the wrong place (on the road) to just decide to take a break? what is the road doing when these encounters happen... straights, bends, blind bends? whether greater speed can help you or not is all dependent on the details of the encounter.

and yes, up to a point (once again dependent on the details of the encounter) greater speed allows a vehicle to maneuver or both increase its' angular rate of change and control the separation distance relative to a potential threat object. in some cases going faster actually allows one to influence the severity of the impact... let me explain:

back in the early-mid 90's (I dont remember what year exactly) I was involved in an accident where an elderly man in a newer lincoln turned out in front of me from the opposing side - either he didnt see my headlights or his depth perception wasnt all that great at night. I was doing the speed limit on this particular road (45mph - its a 3-lane street), but his turn occurred when I was already too close to brake without T-boning him with my '72 dodge dart (no ABS, heavy, would likely end up skidding into him causing major damage and possibly killing his passenger at this short range, as a car's ability to maneuver is severely impaired when braking) so, I floored it (its a dodge dart... they can haul ass) and steered towards the right lane as at this point he was blocking me from angling for the left lane to shoot behind him. he barely clipped me on the rear quarter-panel just before the bumper, and I ended up in a very slow spin (only spun about 90 degrees) and that was it. my car ended up with a barely noticeable dent - 1972 construction FTW - the lincoln had lost a headlight and crunched a fender. no injuries, everybody lived :thumbup:

as to all those police chase videos - I havent seen one yet where the officers were facing an adversary who knows how to handle a vehicle better than they do. remember that police are trained in the dark arts of vehicular combat, and so are familiar with many of the same techniques that combat pilots are trained in, just applied to a 2-d field. granted most are not trained much beyond the most basic of techniques and theory, but that is still light years beyond the skillset of the average american driver (including most 'professional' car thieves). it should come as no surprise at all that the guy running from the cops will eventually break something. besides... once a helicopter arrives overhead, the chase is over - the suspect just doesn't know it yet.

Is that traffic speed average for all lanes or individual lanes? I had my first highway driving experience in the US last week. I drove down to Boston (loved the city btw) on I-93 and back up on I-95. I felt perfectly safe doing 55 mph in the right lane, and I was not alone at that speed. Going 55 in the left lane would have been asking for trouble, but in the rightmost I was not far from the average speed on that lane.

Equation, there are a few issues to consider when swerving to avoid an accident.
1. You risk a head-on collision.
2. Your liability goes up. I had a friend who swereved to miss the car that cut him off and hit a lamp post, and was liable for the repairs to the lamp post.


Still it should be obvious that your reaction time remains constant but you will cover more ground if you go faster. So at a faster rate of speed your margin of safety is reduced regardless of when the deer jumps out in front of you.

The number of people who can slow down is a billion times more than the number of people who can be taught to drive better.

you do realize police are out there to give tickets not so much to slow people down as to collect revenue for the government? it doesnt matter whether you pay the ticket or beat it in court... the moment you get a ticket for anything the government is going to get money out of you. matter of fact it is in the better interest of revenue generation that you *do* beat the ticket or go to traffic school to avoid the points, hence why the government has not gone to the extent of mandating that all vehicles capable of speeds in excess of x mph be banned from public roads, with severe fines imposed for those who modify vehicles to circumvent such restrictions on performance.

there is a vast difference between fast driving and aggressive driving. please do not unjustly equate the two. if they were the same, then roads like the autobahn would have much higher rates of serious accidents than the US interstate system, when in actuality the high-speed 'bahn is safer. it does not hurt that other nations with high speed roads like the 'bahn actually impose different speed limits for different classes of vehicle, impose tighter rules regarding what vehicles are permitted to do on the road (ie driver conduct) and generally train their 'average' driver to the same level as your typical american police officer - minus the combat parts of the curriculum of course.

well.. my own goal is to be able to go as fast as allowed by law (more if possible or necessary) and still get double my current mpg. to each their own i suppose.

You wanna see a hell of a lucky bmw on the autobahn (driver probably trained not to panic) when he hit a small deer at 140mph?

Warning, it's kinda gross:

BMW meets a deer on the Autobahn - evolutionm.net

"It wasn't immediately clear where the dear went"

Once again, it depends on the situation. you cannot deny that braking severely impairs the maneuvering ability of a vehicle. frankly, your friend did the right thing by swerving if braking alone would have found him hitting the opposing car head on or in a T-bone, which is what would have happened in my own case. hopefully they came out of the accident OK.

actually the act of shifting your foot from accelerator to brake increases your reaction time, thus reducing the time and distance you have to brake (or do anything else), increasing the amount of brake force you have to apply. the weight transfer that takes place basically commits you to a straight line path, so if you lose traction for any reason you are boned. braking while in a curve is an ABSOLUTE no-no unless you have no other choice at all. it is the single fastest path to snap oversteer or worse, snap understeer. if you have trained your responses correctly, maneuvering is usually safer. the vast majority of people are not properly trained, hence why the misconception that braking is always safer.

there is no substitute for proper driver training. to be honest the typical american model of driver education is equivalent to no training at all.