Despite vast evidence to the contrary, I’m not an idiot. I’m smart enough to know that I can’t actually pass the molecules of my car through the one in front of me.
Of course. And if everyone were going the speed limit, there’d be no swerving in that case, either.
Call it whatever you want. Your mind seems made up. Call it George for all I care.
I think you are missing my point. My point was that you said that you don’t ever speed. Then, upon questioning, you clarified that you don’t deliberately speed, and that you give yourself some kind of leeway that doesn’t count as “speeding.” What do you think most of us do?
A somewhat sad fact of life when driving is that always remaining at or slightly below the speedlimit can cause as much or more danger than driving at the traffic flow rate.
Quite simply though what you do is lawful, it is neither safe nor curtious driving. Unless you are so rarely in traffic that your speed does not effect anyone else, you are likely to cause problems simply by sticking to the speed limit. It is well known that the majority of drivers will be driving at least a few mph above the speed limit, and so speed limits are set accordingly.
I’m interested how many miles you drive per year (roughly).
From what I’ve read in this thread, it seems like most people ignore their speedometers altogether. Surely that can’t be the case.
Do you understand the difference between going 5 mph over to go with the flow – and going 30 mph over without being aware of it?
Evidently, post #51 is invisible.
Yes. Do you understand the difference between saying “I’ve driven over the speed limit once in my life” and saying something like, “I try never to drive more than, say, 5 miles over the speed limit, depending on the flow of traffic”?
Well, they’re accidents that result in felony arrests. No one intends to kill someone, but shit happens due to negligence; willful or otherwise. I’m guessing Brandy was on the phone or changing the station or looking for lip gloss or thinking about something else and didn’t notice that the traffic had slowed. I would not push for jail time for any of those scenarios, even though she would be negligent in each case. It’s a matter of degree and intent.
Sorry, my bad. I should know better than to say something so precise around here. There’s always a lawyer wannabe lurking around the corner.
Let me restate: I have never in my life sped, and by never, I attach the disclaimer of once that I know of, and any other time I may have forgotten, void where prohibited, no warrenty implied, serving suggestion, e pluribus unum, veni vidi vici, quid pro quo.
The bug in the ointment (or on the windshield) is when the speed of traffic is too fast for the conditions. A person who normally would want to slow down is faced with either having to drive deviently slowly with respect to the speed of surrounding traffic, or having to drive at a speed that is unsafe for the conditions. What’s a safe driver to do?
For myself, I rarely speed, for I find that if I were to exceed the speed limit, I would be getting into territory where I would not be able to control my vehicle properly with respect to road conditions, terrain, other traffic and pedestrians, and, in all seriousness, moose.
When conditions worsen, I slow down or pull off.
The problems caused by drivers not all driving at the same speed can be solved either by the slower driver speeding up, or the faster driver slowing down. Forcing a slower driver to speed up is a poor solution, for that forces the driver to drive at a speed at which the driver will no longer have as full a control over the vehicle. Forcing a faster driver to slow down (particularly through enforced speed limits that are posted after considering the design of the road and the populations through which it passes) will not cause that driver to drive at a speed at which that driver will have les control over the vehicle. Thus the solution is to encourage people to drive at a safe speed, slowing down when necessary, but otherwise driving at the speed limit.
Just as it would be safer if all the speeder’s vehicles disappeared off the road – or if everyone’s vehicles disappeared off the road.
Qurery for you: what should I do with my normal route out to my satellite office?
It is a 400 km drive along a winding, hilly road, frequently through shit le merde weather (fog, snow, ice, wind), with one heck of a moose problem. The speed limit happens to be what I would prefer to drive at, given that I would not want to take some of the turns at any higher a speed (I am licenced to drive an ambulance, btw – I’m not a Pokey). Cross-country truckers, however, like to go significantly faster than me (and significantly faster than the speed limit) on the flats, and go tearing down but crawling up the hills. Let’s assume that they are good, safe drivers, and that I am a good, safe driver, but due to the differences in our vehicles, we travel at the same speeds.
Should I significantly speed up so as to not be in their way, despite this being beyond my competence level?
When I have hit the limit of the speed I feel I can safely drive on a two-lane road, I generally look for ways to get off out of the way whenever it looks like I am going to lead a parade.
For multi-lane roads, if I cannot maintain the predominant speed [added]in moderately heavy to heavy traffic[/added], I generally look for an alternative route.
Occasionally, there is simply no good alternative. Then I grit my teeth, hunch my shoulders, and pray to get off the road without causing an accident. (It’s happened about three times in the last 40 years.)
You’re worse than Hitler! OMFG!!!1111eleventyone!
Ah crap, make that “we do not travel at the same speeds.”
OK, then, Mussolini. 
Damn tdn, I’ve never seen anyone get so much abuse for attempting to follow the law. The facts are that driving slower prevents accidents. The judge told me that when I was contesting my speeding ticket last month. His exact words: “Speed kills. Drive the speed limit! If you’re in this court again, I will show no leniency on you, even if you’re only exceeding the limit by 1 mph.” Keep in mind that this was my first moving violation in over 10 years. I subsequently got another one earlier this month (in another jurisdiction). So I made it a point to follow all speed limits. This was impossible! I was going to get killed, even if I stayed in the right lane on a 6 lane highway. I’ve changed this policy to a 10% above the speed limit max. Even still, most of my time is spent looking in my rear view mirror at cars tailgating me or swerving around me. If the Law is serious about speed liits, they’re going to have to start handing out alot more tickets and increasing speeding fines significantly.
I kind of agree with tdn that many of you are nitpicking here. He/she may have been a bit hyperbolic in describing his/her history. But the point was easily understood.
Same here. Unfortunately, my route has very few places to turn off, so somtimes it can take half an hour or more before I can pull over to let the truckers pass. The good ones are patient about it. The bad ones ride my ass and attempt to pass in bad places. Such is life.
What post #51 ? :smack:
OK you do drive normally then, ie speedlimit +/- 5mph depending on traffic conditions, that makes more sense. I’m not sure we have all the details necessary to say if up to 1 year is reasonable. If the accident investigation showed that the drivers speed was over the safe limit but not excessively so, then the result seems reasonable, and I would hope no prison sentance is given. If the driver was going excessively over the speed limit to such a level that a reasonable person should have considered the driving likely to cause an accident should the traffic conditions change (as they did) then a potetntially larger sentance would seem reasonable to me.
IMHO if a normal passenger in the car would be telling the driver “for god sake slow down you idiot” then the driver should face worse penalties, if the imagined passenger would simply have felt a little uncomfortable with the speed then the max 1 year seems reasonable.
Thanks, Jackknifed Juggernaut. I’m glad someone was able to take the trouble to understand what I was trying to say.
I don’t think people were nitpicking. Nobody asked tdn to come in and make a sweeping claim that he never speeds. The entire point of QED’s post was that we all speed at one time or another, we all make mistakes at one time or another, don’t try and tell us you don’t. tdn came in, contradicted QED and said, essentially, “I never speed, call me a liar if you want” when the reality is that he does speed, just not deliberately.
You want to come in and contradict someone, challenging them to call you a liar, hyperbole is not the way to do it.
I can give eyesight to the blind. Why the hell shouldn’t I be sanctimoneous? 
To answer your previous question, when I did drive, it was normally 11 miles to and from work. Back roads whenever possible, so my comfortable rate of travel was more or less the speed limit anyway. I have a phobia about highway driving, so speeding up to 70 to match the flow was something I was unwilling to do.