Yes, I wondered how many people would remember Sammy. He pretty much said in a song, what most people were cursing about the 55 MPH limit.

But seriously, why the govt picked 55 and not 60 illustrates how out of touch govt really is.

At 60, I can easily estimate my time to my destination (i.e. 60 miles = 60 minutes)
I'm kinda glad they raised the national (suggested) speed limit to "65" (on interstates) instead of 70 or even 80 proposed in Texas.

Otherwise Sammy's lyrics wouldn't rhyme. I can still hear him screaming "I can't drive 65"

 

On swapping the speed limit for a 20mpg limit...

FYI, the 5-speed Insight on a steady cruise above 100mph gets 35-40mpg. Sorry, I'm not going to figure out the exact amount.

Little background into the 55mph speed limit: During the 1973 oil crisis, there were a number of suggestions made to Pres Nixon:

• Year-round daylight savings time (repealed)
• Thermostat in govt buildings at 68F in the Winter - 78F in the Summer.
• a 50mph speed limit

Nixon raised that proposed speed limit to 55mph

 

Well, that's one theory. I think that on my commute, stoplights rather than congestion, conditions, or posted limits set the real speed limits. The maximum speed that's safe for conditions may be higher, and it's pretty straight and mostly flat, but by the time someone has accelerated to speed, they have to slow again for another light. Such a waste of gas! My commute is 45 most of the way, but one stretch goes up to 55 and I often find that it's the slowest part of the trip, sometimes hitting 30 or 35, because the two lanes merge into one, there are three poorly-timed lights, and everyone slows down.


I hear this complaint a lot- that people accelerate to 'block' people from passing. I'm not a mind reader, so it's possible that that's really the intent on the part of the slow driver, but I would be willing to bet money that more of them think like me than you apparently expect.

Here's my view: Impatient speeders get stuck behind someone slower and, after tailgating them, try to pass. Sometimes they will first ride the bumper in an attempt to 'send a message,' usually they will not signal while passing, and often they will cut over to complete the pass with a *really* narrow clearance, again, as if they are trying to signal contempt.

As for the slower driver, when it's me, it could be two things. First, I may have slowed down a bit without realizing it, in which case I will speed back up when I notice. Having a tailgater tends to make you notice how slow you are. Since the speeder behind me riding my bumper was *trying* to make me speed up to +5 or whatever, it's hard to understand why they have any cause for complaint when I actually give in to them and do it. If I do it slowly and, meanwhile, they try to weave around, it may make it harder for them to pass, but whose fault is that?

Second, I may be going slowly intentionally. Maybe I'm doing the speed limit (strange, I know) but then I come to an incline and slow down a bit; as I crest the hill and start to descend, the incline speeds me back up again. It's called DWL, and it's perfectly legal, doesn't disrupt traffic, and usually only varies my speed by about 5 mph, give or take. But. If at the crest of the hill the guy behind starts to pass, by the time I get back up to speed, he's impatiently trying to change lanes to get in front of me again

Did I 'speed up to keep him from passing?' No. Frankly, I'm happy when people pass me, if they do it in a legal and safe way (signal, leave enough space, etc.) because it's a heck of a lot better than being tailgated.

Now, who's the extremely dangerous driver here?

 

Leah - that may be your explanation for the "speed up to prevent getting passed" but not my experience (from the other side). I can be driving in the right lane, somewhat ahead of a vehicle on my left. When I turn on my signal to indicate that I plan to move over, they will speed up to prevent me from coming in. This is NOT due to DWL or any previousl tailgating from me or whatever... I'm simply driving with the traffic and decide to move over for one reason or another. I've actually seen this when signaling that I want to move to the RIGHT also... some ppl simply don't want another vehicle pulling in front of them. I doubt that it's that I'm "too close" as I tend to allow for LOTS of spare room before changing lanes, making a left turn, etc.

 

We humans are supposed to use our brains better than the animals in the jungle, yet on the road we do things like...

• Posturing (getting bigger or "bad a$$" vehicles for sheer intimidation)
• Getting others to back off with aggressive behavior
• Being territorial by not letting others pass or passing others
• Agressive/Reckless driving for dominance
• Hostile gestures

We are supposed to be civilized.

 

This is true in some cases, however, the ones that I see are where people behind are following at a reasonable distiance, use their signal to indicate they are about to pass, then the person rapidly accelerates 5-10mph while the other person is in the lane against traffic, then quickly decelerating to their original speed. I was actually behind such a driver, but didn't mind going at their speed. when people went to pass me, I kept steady or slightly pulled back, to allow them to pass. When they in turn went to pass the guy in front of me, he would accelreate 10mph then decelerate shortly thereafter. Multiple people ended up passing me, but couldn't get past that one guy. The aggressive, reckless type you described will usually just cut it close when people accelerate on them like that, but people who actually indicate will get blocked. This is one of the reasons I suspect why many people don't indicate turn signals on the freeway -- people will move in to block, either intentionally or subconsciously.

The DWL one isn't be very common as hill crests are usually no-passing zones due to the fact that they are blind.

I do think in many it could simply be that they are not paying much attention, and when someone goes to pass, they realize their speed dropped more than they wanted it to and speed up -- not really intentionally blocking the person passing, but it does have that effect -- even amongst people who do so legally (signalling, not tailgating etc), then shortly after, get distracted and slow down again. Hwoever, there are other that are quite blatantly attempts to block perfectly legitimate passing atetmpts -- those should be cited.

On major thoroughfares, lights are supposed to be synchronized to always be green when driving about the speed limit. This will not work though if the road is actually filled/congested though. In optimal traffic conditoins, that means you should be able to make most of the lights at a steady speed. At certain times though, such as driving home late at night, there are some 65mph surface streets where I can drive for miles hitting every green light. Going any faster than 65 though would be dangerous, unlike on the freeways. Even when the road is empty I woudl not consider doing so.

The only gripe I have about lights is that while most of them integrate sensors, which is great as it does'nt need to ever block traffic if nobody needs to turn from a rarely-used street. However, they are positioned too close to the light, so occasionally often a light will turn red to allow someone to make a left turn because it "thinks" the road is clear, when in fact, a whole wave of cars is just short of hitting the sensors (a few feet behind). If they could actually synchronize the sensrs on major streets so their sensors could all be fed into a central database, and that be used to direct light timing with adaptive software, overally city driving efficiency -- both in time and gas mileage -- could be improved dramatically.

 

Actually the limits can vary. Here it's 70 in open country. (When I-4 was widened to 6 lanes between Orlando and Lakeland recently, the limit was raised from 65.) On I-15 north of Las Vegas you can go 75. And the Texas legislature just approved 80 mph on the virtually empty stretches of I-10 and I-20 west of the Pecos. (As a native of that area, I can attest to just how empty it is! )

 

Double Trinity:

I agree with you that some people don't like to let anyone in front of them- it's a strange crossover between our behavior when waiting in lines and our behavior when moving in traffic- something irrational about the 'herd mentality,' perhaps? However, it is simply not my experience that in a slow driver/ fast driver situation, the overly agressive driver is typically the one going slow. Come on now, everyone, admit it- agressive drivers are the ones who cut around people, who don't signal, and who drive faster.

As for your hill-passing point, I am at my slowest point at the top of the hill, so when someone decides to pass me, they usually begin to get over right after the top of the crest, which wouldn't be blind. I also drive most of my commute with two or three lanes in my direction, so the people passing me aren't going into reverse traffic and wouldn't have to worry about no-passing zones, in any case- they're just moving into the left or center lane.

Last, the bit about stoplights that are 'supposed to' be timed to always be green-that's the theory, but it just isn't the reality in my area. There are a couple of stoplights along my commute which will be red when I get there more than 95% of the time, and a few others that are red nearly that often. (out of 25 stoplights from door to door- I know, that's brutal, but it still beats the tollway by 10 minutes each way). It really affects the traffic flow, and the people who don't drive it every day would never know that I'm slowing down early because I KNOW it's going to be red when I get there, even if they can't tell how long that yellow light will last, etc.

I'm sure that if enough people complained to the DOT and they spent years doing traffic studies, someday they would change the timing of the lights, but in the meantime, it's a pain and it irks me more because I know that stoplight sensors are more advanced in other places. In college, the lights near campus would change to let you through before you got there if you were travelling at night, for instance, and I knew friends who would test to see how fast they could go to trigger the light before they went through. We just don't use that technology here. Why do so many cool things show up in California first?

 

Re: getting 35 -40 mpg at 100 mph:
How much faster can the "Enzyte" go? With only a 900 cc engine, I mean no disrespect, but I'm surprised it will even do 100 mph. I still might buy one before they become extinct.

re: The 55 mph speed limit:
Year-round DST, or regulating the thermostat in govt buildings makes a lot more sense. Tricky Dicky probably hadn't driven himself in a decade before he made that decision to set a national speed limit. No, I don't blame Nixon (in hindsight he was not the worst president during my adult life), but if he had to commute or drive from Washington DC to his home in San Clemente, he would have set a higher limit. Remember, this is before airline deregulation, when fares were sky-high.... Hey, that sounds like a good name for a new start-up airline. Either that or DeRegAir.

 

GaveUpOnGM,

A couple of times in the first two years of my 5-speed Insight I went 113mph racing someone. At that time, 80mph was not that uncommon at all on the Bush tollway.

Others at InsightCentral can testify 113mph as when the speed limiter cuts in to avoid a tire blowout. I could only get my 1988 CRX HF to 95mph.

The Insight is certainly not the fastest car, but a weight of 1,800 pounds and a 0.25 Cd helps.

My guess is the Insight could not sustain that speed and you would be very foolish to do so. I'd expect a very short life expectancy of the hybrid battery pack. I'd go so far as to say cruising over 80mph with heavy assist is hybrid battery pack abuse. I did keep ahead of a black Suburban cruising at 95mph for about 100 miles between Childress and Amarillo Texas. I did that inspite of a recal or two. In retrospect, that was stupid.