Why do Americans drive so fast?

[jeff88]

Originally Posted by justme1969

I usually just smile and wave when they give threatened or quizical looks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_B2...e_gdata_player

[pdizzleccc]

I should clarify, when I talk about the people that can't pick a speed, I'm referring to the ones that vary their speed between say 57 and 61, just enough to be irritating. I know that there are people out there doing P&G and that is obvious. My confusion lies with the ones that appear to want to stay at a set speed, and can't. My best friend is like that, he accidently P&G's, riding with him once on a 30 mile drive his speed was between 50 and 75, you could almost fit it to a sin or cos wave, all because he wasn't paying attention and texting some girl. He had the drafting thing down too, when he was going fast. I think that I aged 5 years on that trip.

[Frank Lee]

^ Oh gawd, that.

I have ridden with several drivers who have "right ankle seizures" on their gas pedal foot; I swear the first thing to wear out on their vehicles will not be tires, belts, hoses, filters, or bulbs, but the throttle body and linkage. I suspect it is caused by restricted blood circulation to the brain as a result of sitting on it.

This common condition is similar to "right wrist seizures" which for some reason afflicts 98% of Hardley-Ableson riders and 100% of gas leaf blower and chainsaw operators. Modus of causality for this variant seems to be triggered by noise and vibrations.

There are no known cures but conversion to EV may mitigate some symptoms.

[pdizzleccc]

HAHA! Love it ^

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Occasionally6

Trying to drive at exactly the speed limit can result in a queue of other traffic behind being 'held up'.

Often doing that you will get drivers trying to intimidate you into driving at the de facto limit by tailgating. At the least you will be annoying them by not travelling at the socially accepted speed. That's a different kind of stress.

Arguably, that's the other drivers' problem but it's wilfully ignoring a cultural norm.

Cultural norms are apart of the 3 step process to learning.
1. Ignorance
2. Violent Opposition
3. General acceptance

my general thought is that if they are tailgating on a 4 lane rd they obviously have a very underpowered vehicle incapable of passing me at the current speed so my only choice is to reduce speed until they can pass.

[pdizzleccc]

I find it entertaining watching people drive way over the speed limit. I was filling up the other day and there was someone complaining about how horrible their gas mileage was, then when leaving the station they went racing out of the parking lot and slammed on their brakes at the stop sign

[Fat Charlie]

Speeding has its place. We're an optimistic culture, and they sell powerful cars by showing them on the open road, not by showing them stuck in traffic.

There are also times when it makes perfect sense. One of my favorite drives in my Subaru was from Virginia to New Hampshire. I stopped three times for gas and/or food, and traffic was a standstill in the NYC area because a major bridge had been closed that morning. So when I wasn't stopped or in first, I was pushing. I did the whole trip in 7:45, making it an average sustained speed of just under 71 mph. An average sustained speed of 65 would have added an hour to my trip. Top speed of 65, combined with my stops and the NYC traffic would have made it a two day trip.

So sometimes when you see someone moving with a sense of urgency, he might actually be behaving sensibly. Of course, trying to get somewhere quickly doesn't involve driving like a jerk.

[Rokeby]

I suspect that the reasons why some folks routinely exceed the PSL is a complex, changeable, self justifying mix of many underlying factors including one or more of:
1. unsophisticated personal definition of 'freedom'.
2. misconstrued 'pursuit of happiness."
3. no clearly defined injured party for exceeding PSL
4. overblown sense of personal importance and primacy of personal beliefs
5. no appreciation of long term effects of a high speed accident; death/physical injury, legal, financial, emotional, social.
6. over reliance on modern safety systems; design and construction of vehicle and roadway.
7. expectation that a good lawyer will 'beat the rap.'
8. failure to have an individual commitment to the social contract necessary to sustain accident-free travel at high speeds.
9. expectation that other drivers do or must share these same character deficiencies.
!0… (Add your own observations.)

[wdb]

10. Patently ridiculous low speed limits set by local authorities with an eye towards revenue.

There is a township near my home that set the speed limit on every road that crossed a certain valley at 25MPH. Every single road. For a while I couldn't get from my home to the town without driving on a 25MPH road. These are rural roads going through fields; good visibility, lots of sight distance, not many places to be surprised. The traffic volume never gets above 'light', if you can even call it that; many times I do not see a single vehicle on these roads when I traverse them. In most other similar areas around here roads like these have no speed limit signs at all, and don't need them.

The local folks finally got the sh**ts of it and forced them to change. They're 35MPH now, a much more appropriate and practical speed.

[campisi]

It's just what we do, bro.