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Horrors! What are people THINKING when they drive the speed limit? That it might actually be a LIMIT? We can't have those!
The most dangerous drivers on the highway are those who think that the traffic laws are a suggestion (which would include the OP if they were really driving that fast in a 55) to be obeyed only if you really really feel like it, but mostly not because they're such extra special good drivers and there's no one else on the roads that counts, anyway. This attitude usually extends to things besides speed (or driving, for that matter), and is indicative of the worst drivers, not the best (as they inevitably consider themselves).
1. Everybody knows that the real speed limit is the posted limit +10. Thats what the police expect people to drive.
2. Drive as slow as you like, as long as you are not impeding traffic. Just move over and let traffic pass you. The OP obviously wasn't doing that. Thats why people were pissed off at him.
1. Everybody knows that the real speed limit is the posted limit +10. Thats what the police expect people to drive.
2. Drive as slow as you like, as long as you are not impeding traffic. Just move over and let traffic pass you. The OP obviously wasn't doing that. Thats why people were pissed off at him.
No, "everybody" doesn't know that because it's not true. You WANT it to be true, so of course you pass it around in hopes that it magically will become true.
The problem isn't so much the speeding, as the truly lousy drivers who think (a) that there isn't really a speed limit but they are competent to judge how fast they should be driving in traffic and (b) that they're not smart enough, or honest enough, or both, to acknowledge what they are really doing, which is a huge contributor to their being lousy drivers.
Actually you very much can, not have those. Robert Moses(?) designed 'modern' roads to an 85th percentile driver would feel reasonably comfortable at 80mph. A 55mph speed limit is an answer to a question no one asked. It makes huge amounts of revenue, however, for those municipal jurisdictions that choose to exploit the inbuilt instinct in people to "do what comes naturally". Enlightened jurisdictions flirt with the concept of doing away with speed limits all the time. They know it wouldn't actually hurt anyone to do that. Greed and corruption win out every time it goes to a vote though. Just saying...
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I am amazed at some peoples egos.. they think they have the reflexes and reaction times that they will always be able to stop or slow down to avoid a collision. Sadly they usually harm someone else. these are the same ones who think it is fine to multi-task while driving........ texting, applying make-up,eating a sandwich,etc. Speed does kill. you are not that superior with your reflexes.........
When I was younger I was more aggressive and reckless. Now that I'm older (in my 30s) and usually have kids with me, I am safer but still drive aggressively when there is little to no risk around me. I cannot drive 55mph as that would bore me to death. It's really as simple as that for me.
When I was younger I was more aggressive and reckless. Now that I'm older (in my 30s) and usually have kids with me, I am safer but still drive aggressively when there is little to no risk around me. I cannot drive 55mph as that would bore me to death. It's really as simple as that for me.
So, you are so undisciplined a driver that you cannot abide boredom and yet you think that you are safe to be behind the wheel of a multi-thousand pound motor vehicle on the public roadways with many other drivers of many different abilities and vehicles in many different states of condition with your children in the car and that's your excuse for speeding and driving aggressively? And you think this is something that you should air, and expect to be admired for, on a public forum?
1. Everybody knows that the real speed limit is the posted limit +10. Thats what the police expect people to drive.
2. Drive as slow as you like, as long as you are not impeding traffic. Just move over and let traffic pass you. The OP obviously wasn't doing that. Thats why people were pissed off at him.
#1 is not true, my friend. I got pulled over for 10 over the limit when I didn't even know what the limit was... and the cop wouldn't let me off with only a warning despite how, in 13 years of driving to that point, I'd never gotten a ticket. This was in Texas, by the way.
#2 is not always possible. You can't just pull over. First of all, you don't know what's on the side of the road that could burst a tire. Secondly, stopping and then re-accelerating wastes gas. Thirdly, if you're in such thick traffic that you'd have to do this anyway, good luck getting back into the flow of traffic from a dead stop. Fourth, if you're in the slow lane, you're allowed to drive slowly as long as you're at or above the posted minimum speed (if there is a posted minimum speed). Fifth, let 'em get mad. Maybe you have to drive slowly. You owe nobody an explanation. (However, this is indeed one reason why people get mad on the highway. I myself have screamed at drivers who don't seem to know where the accelerator is. And, like everyone else, I was not thinking at the time about how the targets of my wrath could not hear my screams.)
I suspect that aggressive driving is more likely to manifest itself during the daily commute. When you leave the structure and monotony of what is too often a dull workplace, and fire up your vehicle, you're back into some sense of control (and when you're on your way into the daily grind, things are the other way around).
Furthermore, it's a situation in which you are likely to lose more of a valuable and irreplaceable asset -- your time. When the powers-that be schedule a construction project on you route to the sweatshop, the boss's only answer is "budget more of your limited time just to get to work" -- so the resentments simmer. I don't find it at all unusual that highway department workers have a disturbingly high fatality rate.
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