Same here. At most, I’ve seen my speedometer under-read by about 1 mph at 65 mph vs. my GPS. They align similarly well with roadsigns that have radar and report your travelling speed. I’ve certainly not encountered a variation as high as 10% in any of the vehicles I’ve driven.
Federal law in the US permits ±2.5% variation, so 1.5 mph at 60 mph.
As bob++ states, in the UK at least you are supposed to keep up with the flow of traffic and not drive needlessly below the speed limit. Its a personal pet peeve of mine that those laws aren’t enforced.
I live 27 miles from work, when I set my satnav it estimates 35 minutes to make that journey, on my usual commute it takes me 45 minutes to get to and from work due to vehicles driving unnecessarily slowly. On public holidays or off peak hours I can easily make it home in 25 minutes, without breaking the speed limit at any point.
By deliberately driving slower than is safely possible and holding traffic up you are being annoying, ignorant and antisocial. You are quite literally wasting other people’s time.
Best advice yet. I’m going to do this from this day forward. 
Wait. What?
Also by driving slower he is actually making the environment worse. By driving slower he is allowing his car to be on the road longer and thus spewing more harmful chemicals into the environment.
With some of his other threads I’m starting to think the OP hates the environment and is secretly bragging about making it worse. :dubious:
As I’m sure you realize, the issue is not for how long you spew harmful chemicals, but rather the total amount of those that you spew.
The obvious problem with this is the fact that his offspring may be among those who help develop brilliant solutions to the problems of human environmental impact.
But they may never get that chance because they spent their time stuck in traffic jams behind people blocking the flow of traffic, rather than working on brilliant solutions to societal problems.
+1, so sad when people assume we are the problem instead of the solution.
And children are awesome!!!
Hmmm…that could be a metaphor for posting.
Seriously though, I often wonder how much gas is wasted/ pollution created at metering lights while all those cars are idling, waiting to hit the freeway “one light per green”.
WHOSE bright idea was it to impose this brake and gas wasting choke point, when most ramps were designed specifically to aid attaining freeway speed by the time one merged?
Why, politicians, of course, who also count on:
In my observations better than 90% of people are too dumb to care about the excess brake wear they put on their cars when racing to the metering light at the bottom of a hill, and then the gas wasted having to apply excess throttle to get up to speed on the shortened ramp distance.
If I try to pace my speed to the light they pass me up so they can form a larger clot at the meter.
I got a sneaking suspicion the waste at meters far exceeds the waste of slower freeway elapsed times in commute, without meters.
Also, numerous studies show that traffic jams are caused primarily by “ripple effect” which is caused by following too closely then having to apply brakes. That’s why *I *go slower than the limit, to leave a ton of room betwen me and the guy ahead. I can let off the gas way before I ever have to brake and rarely have to come to a complete stop. And I keep that distance appropriate to my current speed, because:
The *other *people causing jams and road rage road rage are cell-phone texters allowing 4 or 5 car lengths “for safety” when traffic’s creeping at 5- 10 mph.
Now THEM I wanna take out and publicly flog.
The REAL mystery is, given all the idiocy out there, we don’t have 100 times more traffic fatalities.
Seconding that “this”.
I once had to move on very short notice and wound up taking something temporary about an hour from where I worked. As I searched for something closer to work I was stymied by how much more they cost than where I was living.
Then I realized that I was spending $5 a day in gas driving to and from work, and therefore living much closer to work would save me $25 a week, so I could afford to pay $100 a month more in rent to be 2 miles from work instead of 45. BONUS: my commute took 5 minutes each way instead of an hour, so I gained almost 2 hours a day to use as I please.
I respect that you want to do something to reduce your impact on the environment, but driving 5 under the limit probably isn’t actually helping, and as you observed it annoys people. Maybe you need to resign yourself to having a life that is incompatible with that goal.
OR, buy a scooter. Brand-new they are about $800 and they get 100mpg. Sure, you can only use it when its sunny, and sure they only go about 35mph, but you wanted to do a little for the planet, and there’s something small you can do. If your car gets 50mpg, but you take the scooter to work 1 day each week, you are burning 10% less gas each week. Put off errands until days you can ride the scooter and burn half the gas while doing them. Get a duffle bag for your groceries and bungee-cord it down behind your seat, and add the win of not using plastic bags.
And the scooter is pretty narrow and comparatively easy to pass, so you aren’t annoying people as much.
All I can say is that around here we have some ramps with metering lights, some without, and some with which are broken due to copper thieves. When the metering lights go out the slowdown on the freeway is very obvious - with a lot more cars affected than those waiting for the lights. And when the traffic is light enough that getting up to speed is an issue, the lights go off. In most cases during commute times the line of cars on the ramp is pretty long, so no one is flying down that hill.
I’ve never noticed politicians getting involved. Traffic engineers on the other hand…
Do you have a cite for this? Driving TOO slow will result in a fail, but not driving under the speed limit. When I took my driving test, I took a wrong turn and ended up on a dual carriageway where the speed limit was the national speed limit (70mph) I didn’t go above 50mph and I still passed my test. Taking a wrong turn, provided it’s legal, doesn’t fail you on your driving test.
Everyone obsesses with the cost of gas, but few people consider the other costs associated with owning/operating a car. There’s a reason the IRS allows a tax deduction of 57.5 cents per mile, rather than just the 7-12 cents per mile that you’re paying for gas. Add it all up:
-tires
-oil changes
-maintenance
-repairs
-insurance
-depreciation
Seriously, lay it all out on paper, and you’re likely to come up with a per-mile cost that’s not to far from that IRS figure. IOW, your savings is a lot more than just $100 per month.
I drive a couple of Aus cars, and there is some variation. The 2010 Commodore with the spoiler and low-profile wheels has an accurate speedometer. Not actually a sports model – just the spoiler, low-profile wheels and accurate speedometer. Dummo what exactly it was called when new – I got it second hand.
In general I agree with your point that there’s a lot more to vehicle costs than just gasoline. But …
A sizeable fraction of those ownership costs are fixed or nearly so. IF you can reduce driving to the point you can eliminate the car, you get all those savings in a big lump.
But if you’re still going to own it, and the difference is just whether you drive it 5,000 or 15,000 miles per year, you’ll find the cost per marginal mile is much less than the headline 57 cents. And the more you reduce your driving, the less incremental money benefit you’ll get from each further incremental mileage reduction.
Except that scooters generally are much worse polluters than cars. You may consume less fuel, but you’re putting much more crap in the air
But of those costs, insurance can go UP if you move closer to a job, and thereby move into a higher crime area, for instance. The reduced mileage may tend to lower insurance premiums, but increased insurance can wipe out lots of other savings.