The speed limit is 70 mph. But you prefer to drive ___ mph

sorry that i didn't also provide kph. also if you don't drive, pretend the driver is on the highway and they ask you where you want to set the cruise control compared to the speed limit

78 mph for me.

76-77. But why no "Where in my area is the posted speed limit over 55, never mind 65"?

because nobody's perfect
:P

86-87. 90 is easily attainable, but then it gets a bit "you sir are asking for trouble."

a good poll. 75.

i hate driving

in my george thorogood youth i once got a ticket for 90 in a 70. the police car was going the other direction on the highway and suddenly careened into the grassy median to swing around and pull me over. once i saw the front of his car rise up out of the lip of the dusty ditch i knew i was totally fucked

+9 mph, always

76-77

On I-5 I'm almost always the slowest driver except for big rigs and produce trucks and horse trailers.

lots of 80 mph stretches in ut4h, i do 85 in those.

Ever since I did a 360 cutting across several lanes right in front of a semi (after my front axle snapped) I tend to err on the side of not going too fast.

I'm here to vote and to make the obligatory Samuel Roy Hagar reference but not necessarily in that order

anyone else thanking our lord jesus christ for cruise control on the regular?

i like that moment when you're cruising at 78 and the other person is cruising at 77 and you pull off a ridiculously long and smooth 1 mph pass.

I vary my speed according to traffic, weather, time of day and other circumstances. I don't often exceed 75, unless it is briefly, to facilitate changing lanes. I'm usually in the range of 69-72, whatever allows me to maintain a safe cushion of space around my vehicle.

I figure that at such high speeds a few more mph will only get me where I'm going a tiny bit sooner; even over the course of a 300 mile trip the time margin between 71 mph and 75 mph is pretty negligible. Safety is the greater concern.

and if you're on the other end of the encounter getting slowly cruised, you just gotta let it happen and appreciate it
xpost

my system is usually 110% plus 1-3 mph

i like that moment when you're cruising at 78 and the other person is cruising at 77 and you pull off a ridiculously long and smooth 1 mph pass.

― Karl Malone, Friday, March 30, 2018 8:52 PM (twenty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha. i always edge up a few mph to shorten this moment that makes me irrationally anxious.

I drive 77mph everywhere regardless of the speed limit.

lol

In fact my body is always moving at 77mph in every reference frame

Day, calm - 70 to 75 MPH
Day, stressed - 80 to 90

Night, calm - 65 to 70
Night, stressed - 70 to 80

Rain, snow, fog or ice - subtract 10 to 50 MPH

Where it's lower than 70, I'll generally allow myself to go 5 or 10 MPH over the posted limit, but only on highways and in less populated areas. In town, I strictly follow speed limits.

I like the 80-85 range, it feels fast but still controllable. 90 and above I start to get nervous, more about accidents than police. Maybe I would feel differently in some kind of higher performance vehicle.

FWIW I got pulled over for going 41 in a 25 the other day. It's so fucking hard to drive 25 miles per hour.

80 is probably max I'd go

75 is my baseline i'd say

I set my auto drive to 20 or 40/50 if I'm driving through a limited zone or a motorway works area, respectively.

fwiw this thread is very US-centric

It's not fucking hard

i know i know
the first version of the poll options had kph options all over it as well and it looked like a mess. as opposed to the uniform, clean look it has now.

I've just passed my test and wouldn't dare go faster than say 72, real limit on the motorway seems to be something like 78 though

feel like we could do 170 pph in this efficient and streamlined poll thread

I've come to really enjoy driving fast and weaving in traffic, which is probably a terrible thing

<70, there's no rush

fwiw the metric / SI unit is km/h - seeing "kph" multiple times brings me out in hives.

k3vin expressed my choice perfectly except I am pretty leery of being close to other vehicles if I can help it.

Haven’t driven on the interstate in years. These days I’d probably go the speed limit. My bruxism isn’t so bad, I’ve more of a jaw clenching issue

72-73

76-77, with an eye on the traffic around me. If I see a lot of local plates passing me, I'll pick up the pace.

have always done 90, as a mature adult i tell myself 80-85 is more sensible but i always end up creeping over till i'm back at 90.

probably tailgating people all the time in frustration

I mean, I try not to, but the fuckers the absolute fuckers who won't get out of the passing lane, in their priuses and in their buicks and in their minivans and the octogenarian white men in their pickups with toppers who still have the machismo to take personal affront at anyone who'd dare overtake them, but no longer have the balls to drive faster than 56mph. fuck them all

. I don't often exceed 75, unless it is briefly, to facilitate changing lanes. I'm usually in the range of 69-72

this is the right answer, btw

wow fuck dan i!

I don't actually tailgate. I stay at a reasonable distance and fume

But if your argument is that people should be able to go whatever slow speed they want in the passing lane--let's fite

I have a not-perfect driving record but to this day I have had *crosses fingers* zero speeding tickets over nearly 20 years of driving

and I'm always punctual

I got my first speeding ticket in about 15 years the other day. Had to drive my son to school early, which I don't usually do. I'm driving fairly casually past his school to where he gets dropped of and see police lights behind me. Thinking nothing of it, I continue on until I realize he's following me. I pull over thinking that maybe I had a light out or something. Nope, speeding in a school zone. The sign was right in front of the school partially obscured by tree branches, and only in effect at drop off and pick up times, and the cop was parked right by it picking people off. It's a legit ticket, but I'm still pissed because I was absolutely driving the same speed as the cars in front of and behind me. I guess it was just my turn.

dan I otm

oh hey a good place to say it, fuck the police

Yeah, I'm pretty sympathetic to dan's outlook, people drive infuriatingly slow here for some reason.

Hell yes. My absolute favourite is the "impromptu convoy" where two vehicles driving 10 km/h below the limit occupy both lanes side by side. It's best when there are no other vehicles in the vicinity.

FWIW I got pulled over for going 41 in a 25 the other day. It's so fucking hard to drive 25 miles per hour.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Friday, March 30, 2018 1:18 PM

15, otoh, is still a struggle.

Another voice in support of the heroic and unfairly maligned Dan I. Dawdling in the passing lane = high crimes. Hate the "people" who set their cruise control and resolutely fart along at 71 mph or whatever, even when passing. Like, they'll drag past someone going almost exactly the same speed for (what feels like) minutes on end. Most blatantly evil fuckers on the planet.

If you want to pass, DO IT. Hit the gas and get it over with, then clear the lane.

Don't fucking tailgate

The end

Yeah, that too. Hatred of cloggers is 100% compatible with following distance fetishism.

TBH, ideal following distance = not being able to see any other cars on the road. One of the few luxuries afforded by living in central Maine.

Aimless is the only person in here that I will let drive me to the mall.

When I did drive, I was always +/- 5 mph.

Hell yes. My absolute favourite is the "impromptu convoy" where two vehicles driving 10 km/h below the limit occupy both lanes side by side. It's best when there are no other vehicles in the vicinity.

― startled macropod (MatthewK), Friday, March 30, 2018 11:44 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i call this a 'douche patrol'

I go about 10 over, 15 if I'm in a familiar area where I know people don't get pulled over much.

I'd drive 95 all the time if I could

oh another good tagline is, driving is death

btw the Super Speeder thing in Georgia is balls

FWIW I got pulled over for going 41 in a 25 the other day. It's so fucking hard to drive 25 miles per hour.

Aimless is the only person in here that I will let drive me to the mall.

After driving a school bus for years you get very safety-minded.

Hell yes. My absolute favourite is the "impromptu convoy" where two vehicles driving 10 km/h below the limit occupy both lanes side by side. It's best when there are no other vehicles in the vicinity.

― startled macropod (MatthewK), Friday, March 30, 2018 11:44 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i call this a 'douche patrol'

― map, Saturday, March 31, 2018 12:15 AM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oops, my mistake, a douche patrol is the long line of cars in the fast lane that never seems to make any passing progress.

a cuntwhistle is anyone with an 'in god we trust' license plate. watch this thread for more good traffic terms.

pretend the driver is on the highway and they ask you where you want to set the cruise control compared to the speed limit

American things

Ausssie cops and cameras are pretty severe, only 5% over is allowable. On the freeway I just dial that into the cruise control and sit in the left lane.

Presumably, for an Aussie, the left lane is the 'slowest' lane, right?

What do Brits call cruise control? Probably something different like every other part of the car (and road features too - a "dual carriageway" to me sounds like something trains run on)

Cruise control is useless in Florida, where the left lane only legally became a passing lane like, two years ago, and the fines for failing to obey that aren't enforced by anything other than an electronic warning sign. so everybody gums up the left lane and you can't go a damn ten minute interval without braking.

I love it on the rare occasion when I get to use it, though, like on the Turnpike on Sunday morning going to Miami.

Left lane is the slowest, yes.

I’m not sure if brits call cruise control anything different but my dad has always been very suspicious of it and will never use it.

Varies widely in my driving, depending on where cops and highway patrol post up most often. Usually stick to +5 or under in urban highway driving to be safe, +10 on rural interstates

Cruise control is the American term for what the English call the "steady on, guv'nor"

I was taught the left lane is for passing although it’s not a law here. So in heavy traffic, by all means use both lanes, but it’s common courtesy to move to the right if someone’s coming up quickly behind

Fuck driving a car

not tried that but my ex tried that with her bf years ago and they got pulled over with their pants around their waists

*ankles, jeebus christ I need sleep

Fuck driving a car

^ a pretty small slice of the USA is granted the privilege to follow this advice. Urban mass transit is piss-poor most US cities and interstate bus service has all but disappeared.

i set the cruise control for 10mph above which appears to be the custom in the philadelphia / south jersey region, but actually driving it'll prob fluctuate 79-85. there's a very busy 25 mph road here that the slowest car on it drives 35 mph. that's the starting bid. i always make sure i'm not the fastest car on the road.

it is fun to put it in cruise control and imagine you have front and rear thrusters in a frictionless environment.

74, risk-averse style. But if the speed limit drops to 65 I might keep going 74.

Then you get into Chicago where it drops to 55, but people are driving 80-90.

On lakeshore drive.

Mrs V used to average 90ish on the motorway and that felt just fine

all i know is i can't drive 55

also in the UK if you stick in the middle lane doing a steady 65-ish you are scum and should die

also from observation in the UK 90 feels like the mean

I appreciate it when the representatives of more advanced cultures refrain from confusing me with scary new units of measure.

What do Brits call cruise control?

FP'd you for racism

we still use mph, even in Europe i have to mentally convert back to that

Sammy Hagar song used to confuse me because for some reason i assumed the US used kph

i am sorry to the entire thread for not using km/h in addition to mph. before posting it, i had a version with the metric system included (albeit in the non-existent 'kph', the use of which i understand is eyeroll-provoking in the same way that it is when the person who eats meatloaf 4 days a week says they think sushi is 'gross'), but i took it out because i wanted to leave more room for my hilarious descriptions of each speed and i was already running up against the character limit in several cases. however, at some point i also realized that some people would also have problems with the poll because 70 mph / 113 km/h is not the usual speed limit in their area, or because they don't even own a car and don't drive, or because they live in an area without speed limits, or because they can't drive, or because the ranges for the speed limit options weren't optimal, so i just decided to live on the edge and post it

xposts!

although noodle vague using kph as well did make me feel a little better about it :)

it was less keystrokes

some people would also have problems with the poll because 70 mph / 113 km/h is not the usual speed limit in their area

60 km/h is the usual speed limit in Australia so this entire thread is terrifying

60 km/h??? but everywhere is so far apart!

just within city limits, though, right? speed limit is usually 25 or 35 mph (56 km/h), off the highway

No option for "65-70mph, my car can certainly go faster but it doesn't feel safe to me to drive 75mph in any vehicle"

Actually here Down Under our urban speed limit is almost universally 50km/h and has been for a decade plus - it’s pretty awful. Highway speeds are 110km/h. Anyway whatever the posted limit my derived speed is 1.1 * limit + 3 so the units are secondary.

NB NV I saw your FP bait with “less” but I conquered my impulse to rage-click.

http://a63.tinypic.com/5b2ww1.jpg

Comfortable with 20 as an urban limit but IMO too slow on the motorway/highway/autostrada leads to more accidents than too fast

Many many factors in pedestrian fatalities aside from speed - vehicle shape, visibility, perceived safety, ride height. For example the pointless urban jewellery of “nudge bars” and bull bars added to SUVs bypasses any pedestrian protection factored into the design and makes impacts far more deadly. But people still add them because you know, it looks cool.

Australian highways are 80km/h for single carriageway and 100km/h or 110km/h for dual carriageway. 110 feels pretty slow really.

How many pedestrian collisions happen at those different speeds? Do a lot of them occur with cars driving 40? That seems pretty fast for a pedestrian-dense area.

Australia Face

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTPUtbhy5ANaxW0rdELBqWG6XCTlBZx2I0Dm_l8u55fPvNzzMea5NzK08TT2g

I took a long trip mostly on a 70 mph road today and had the chance to take it up to about 90 for some brief wide-open stretches. Then when we were almost to our destination I blew a tire, so on the way back home (on the spare) I had to drive 50 mph with my blinkers on while traffic roared past me for two and a half hours.

69 mph because that's the sex number

lock thread.

*slow motion epic cruise control pass at 69 mph*

Drove past the place i wrecked last year tonight. Shivered

60 km/h is the usual speed limit in Australia so this entire thread is terrifying

it's like you've never even seen mad max

it's like YOU've never even seen Malcolm

oh god i have

I'd imagine that would be as a sensitive and thoughtful treatment of Autism Spectrum characters as Bad Boy Bubby was!

(I haven't seen it in thirty years and "the spectrum" wasn't really a thing then and iirc the character is not pathologised nor diagnosed in any way in the film, and was based on Nadia Tass' brother.) (A+ car chase scenes, regardless)

i don't remember him being a particularly bad caricature but tbh i can only remember that car that split in two

fucken, spoilers

Do you have speed cameras in the USA? They're all over the place in Britain. I used to happily drive around 80mph and over on the motorways, but got fines and points on my licence about ten years ago (which makes insurance much more expensive). Since then I work on the paranoid assumption I'm being watched all the time, and if I ever go over the limit, it's just 71 or 72mph.

Washington DC area has them all over but haven't really seen them elsewhere in the country

Only 15 states and DC have speed cameras. (link)

Some states specifically have laws forbidding them. (The remote kind, at least. For example, in my state, speed cameras aren't illegal, but a police officer must be present.)

Australia is abso chockers with speed cameras & red light cameras, which is also a factor in my horror at this thread

Only a small handful of red light cameras in Austin, all very clearly identified.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

85-90. I never realized I was such a speed demon before reading this thread! Above 90 things start to get rather serious so I'd only go over that very briefly.

Fastest I've ever gone was about 120 in a pickup on a nearly deserted Texas back road in the 90s. Don't let teenagers drive, folks.

i went 100 once on a highway down to cape girardeau. when i arrived at my destination my radiator was leaking and smoke was coming out of the hood. i was 16.

I'll happily do 85+ if the road is clear or the other traffic is doing same and everyone is respecting sensible distances. But never exceed the limit in built-up areas as I'm not THAT much of an idiot. btw does anyone ever use their cruise control in the UK?

Never heard of it until I saw this thread

On lakeshore drive.

The speed limit should be 65-70.

I’ve read that raising speed limits won’t raise driving speeds - people drive the speed they drive. Raising a limit to the speed people are actually driving doesn’t result in their the. driving 5-10 mph over THAT speed limit.

knew this was a Karl Malone thread as soon as I started reading

Drove on highways this weekend--am once again shocked that people are allowed to operate two-ton death machines at 80mph with impunity. Cars are insane, just how big and fast and heavy they are and how close death and disaster lurk if you even twitch.

The speed limit should be 65-70.

_The speed limit should be 65-70._


No.

The primary determinant of speed limit should be the quality of the road surface, shouldn’t it? Followed by curves, intersections, other traffic types, etc. the preferences of the drivers should be somewhere down in the bilge on the list of considerations imo.

^^ I like to drive fast, but when the state transportation department threw a line out there about raising the speed limit on our washboard interstate, even I was all "Are you fucking kidding us?"

There are speed cameras in Maryland.

There's a road in rural/exurban Md. where the speed limit changes frequently as it moves into and out of towns. So the limit is 50 mph* and everybody's going 55ish, which is comfortable. Then it crosses a county line and the limit becomes 30 mph**, and there's a speed camera like 100 feet after the change. It's caught me once or twice. Then at the town limits it goes to 25 mph*** and people take that seriously for a few minutes until they can get back up to 55ish.

* 50 mph = 80.4672 km/h
** 30 mph = 63 furlongs per fortnight
*** 16.2 versts per fiscal quarter

Which road?

how's life: Maryland 27 (Ridge Road) between Mt. Airy and Damascus. Crosses Carroll, Howard, and Montgomery counties within a few miles. The speed camera is immediately east of Damascus, just after the limit change. You get a photo ticket in the mail, for like $40, but it doesn't come with real points or count as a moving violation legally (I don't think).

We've got a state law that outright punishes speed trap cities. If the revenue collected from speeding tickets goes over a certain percentage of their total revenue, the prosecuting attorney can stop the local cops from issuing any more citations.

xp - and the city I was thinking about as I wrote that post was Damascus, Arkansas!

YMP, thanks! I had a feeling that it would be somewhere up there. Not among my usual travels, but sometimes we get up that way.

I've got those $40 tickets from Work Zones before. After the second one I just learned to set my cruise control when I see orange. I mostly agree with the concept of reduced speed limits through work zones, except that apparently they are still considered active even when there are no construction workers on site, such as a weekend or holiday.

Drove on highways this weekend--am once again shocked that people are allowed to operate two-ton death machines at 80mph with impunity. Cars are insane, just how big and fast and heavy they are and how close death and disaster lurk if you even twitch.

this is why I feel like utopian society is amazing public transpo like subways, trains, and magic tubes, and drivers have to complete a 4 year program so only like 1,000 people in the country are allowed to drive.

after seeing people driving in the Bus only lane this weekend, leading to two near accidents, that desire is reinforced.

Have you heard the one about the guy who got a photo ticket in the mail, with a picture of him running a red light?

He sent in a picture of $40. Then they sent him a picture of some handcuffs, wakka wakka

pplains: interesting. My ne'er-do-well brother-in-law* once got a DWI from one of St. Louis County (MO)'s extremely tiny, extremely dysfunctional jurisdictions. It was one of those towns where the mayor is also the police chief and they have one police car and one police officer, who is the mayor's son, and their one police car is kinda not really registered or something like that.

Anyway my N'-D-W B-I-L's court date came. It turned out that the mayor, judge, county clerk, and police officer (which is really only like two different guys) were all in jail on another matter, so the case was dropped. Some members of my family regarded that as a good thing. But I would have preferred some actual consequences for the reckless behavior.

* = punctuationpalooza

I just did the Intercounty Connector for the first time a month ago. The one where they capture your toll by camera and just send you the bill in the mail. I got worried while I was on it that they might have speed cameras on there too, as I had just been driving along 15 - 20 miles above the limit as normal. But I got my toll bills and no speeding tickets so I guess that must be clear.

I've also wondered about those automated toll roads - do they do the math and realize I've gone 20 miles* in 16 minutes**?

But no, the road is a for-profit enterprise so have more incentive to keep you happy about driving on it than they do to enforce a speed limit, which might make you go elsewhere.

* = 60,000 cubits
** = .9 of one metric "while"

they don't have speed cameras here, Floridians barely let the local politicians off the hook for red light cameras.

The speed limit within NYC is 25 and most of my commute I'm lucky if I get up to 40-45 for short stretches. I do have a habit of racking up speeding camera tickets, mostly in "school areas" meaning idk somewhere in a few block radius there's an elementary, middle, or high school which effectively means most of Brooklyn and Queens are school zones. Fortunately the camera tix don't come with any points.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

All of you 80+ voters are probably murderous psychopaths

I mean not really but come on, where do you have to be

I like to reread this article and feel the exquisite schadenfreude of the deeply self-righteous

https://jalopnik.com/never-speed-in-virginia-lessons-from-my-three-days-in-1613604053

Drove on highways this weekend--am once again shocked that people are allowed to operate two-ton death machines at 80mph with impunity. Cars are insane, just how big and fast and heavy they are and how close death and disaster lurk if you even twitch.

you can even kill little kids and drag them 350 feet in park slope and everyone's all like, well, shit happens

a former friend of mine got momentarily distracted by her cell phone at the wheel in 2004 and struck two children who were crossing the intersection with her van, both of whom died. She was an Elementary school teacher prior to this.

any time my car even makes a weird vibration I keep worrying imminent disaster is coming