Yes, really. That’s what I intended to say, if they collect evidence after the crime. Of course this can come from aircraft observation or reading the license plate.
Not with traffic infractions. And other than going over 100 mph, which is an arresstable offence where I live, the rest will be too minor to put any effort into. The police usually need to see you or have some other real evidence. An officer’s judgement can be considered as evidence but a lot of other stuff is just hearsay. Which jurisdiction is going to charge them with something that none of their officers even stopped them for? Extradite them across state lines and charge them with what exactly? It would not go anywhere in court. I just passed a couple cars on my way home today and topped 100 mph doing so. One of the drivers could report my licence plate to the police. The police might even stop by to talk to me about it. Would they do anything? No because the judgement of the other drivers about how fast I was going is not the same as a trained officers.
Those guys put some real thought and effort into this. Customized fuel cell, electronic counter measures that included a thermal scope to detect animals and cop cars that might not have their radar or laser speed detectors on. Aircraft collision avoidance to detect police planes.
Foolish for sure but no harm done.
There was this interesting case:
TL,DR:
Guy uses dash cam to record his speed run around the rim of Manhattan: 26 miles in 24 minutes, in heavy traffic, with streetlights and such. The video was posted on YouTube, and he gave an anonymous interview to Jalopnik, mentioning his car’s make/model. So much for anonymity. :smack: NYPD used his video to reconstruct his journey, then were able to retrieve footage from their own surveillance cameras that they could use to ID his car, measure his speed, and arrest him. There was a trial, and shortly before the guilty verdict (and one-year prison sentence) he fled to his native Canada.
I think they stopped 4 total. From videos I’ve seen of them talking about the run they would fuel from two pumps at once (main tank and the secondary tank in the trunk). A confederate would pump their gas while the trio would stretch/take a bathroom break.
Another aspect of that is E63’s have an electronic speed limiter at 155, so that was also removed from the software. Those limiters are set usually on very conservative estimates of the car’s high speed handling, sometimes the maker even offers a higher setting for $'s (my BMW M2 comes standard with limiter also set at 155, you can pay $2K for the option of a software change to 168 plus an M-car driving course, I did not see compelling value in that option 
)
My entry for West-East record (San Diego-NY) was ~62 hours in a VW bug, friend of mine and I took turns sleeping in back, we did actually also sit in restaurants though.
I got the M2 up to the limiter for a bit on a road trip this summer, on a road in Nevada where you see any other vehicle like once every 20 minutes. Heap your moral opprobrium if you like :). Otherwise I only go more than maybe 7 over the posted limit except when passing on two lane roads (fast as possible to make it short as possible) and on curves posted 45, 35 whatever on desolate roads because that car isn’t being pushed seriously to just not slow down from 55 or whatever, on dry pavement with warm tires.
Need for speed driving isn’t particularly 'Murrican. After all cars in question are made in Germany where people blow past you at electronic limiter speeds in fast cars on the no limit segments of the Autobahn (I tried the left lane in a rented Mercedes C200D, it couldn’t cut it ). You can have high speed without significant danger to others. Something being illegal doesn’t automatically make it immoral. OTOH it is illegal and if you get your license pulled or spend a night in jail: too bad.
You are not going to get very far racing without thoroughly modifying and tuning your car, including reprogramming the ECU, so such regional software limits are not relevant. Maybe it comes that way because they feared some genius trying to get to 200 mph on H-rated stock tires.
Agree with much of what you said.
What I find a little interesting, and puzzling, is that these Cannonballers apparently say that they make their best speeds in the eastern half of the US, and then their averages speeds drop off in the western half. That might be because they start at midnight and cover the eastern half in the wee AM hours, and then in the western half they are driving in daylight when there’s more traffic.
I’m guessing that’s the reason, but I’m not certain of it.
I’ve done some Iron Butt Association rides and a few times I’ve ridden 1,000 miles in 24 hours. But there the goal is to cover long distances safely and they strongly discourage illegal speeds. 1,000 miles in 24 hours is an overall speed average of 41.67 MPH. Not a problem. On my motorcycle, unfortunately, the cruise control does not set at over 100 MPH. I can set it to 99 MPH and to 100 MPH, but not 101 MPH.
And in the wide open west, there are many highways where it is safe to ride that fast.
BTDT. 1000 in 24 isn’t hard to do. I did 750 one day, got a decent night’s sleep, and then did the final 250 the next morning. No big deal, but I wouldn’t want to do two days like that in a row.
The freaks are the motorcyclists who compete in the Iron Butt Rally. This is an 11-day event in which you accrue points for riding to various waypoints around the country; by the end, riders have typically covered 11,000-13,000 miles. At that link, click on the PDF file at the top of the list to read more about how it works.
The original tires on my M2 are Y rating, 186 mph. The 168 mph ‘high’ limit on that car is probably set like I said on a conservative estimate of the car’s maximum safe handling speed with stock suspension and no added aerodynamic features to generate more down force at high speed. You’d reach the rpm red line in 7th gear in the 190’s but the stock engine can’t push that hard, the car would probably max out in the 180’s with everything stock, no limiter. The standard 155 limit is undoubtedly set at least in part to have something to offer as a factory option and charge more for it: the 168 setting.
Obviously you can keep modifying a car, engine, suspension, aerodynamics till it’s safely capable of almost any speed, depends how much you change everything. Point is just that reprogramming the limiter and/or adding power isn’t always safe.
I no longer accuse people of hypocrisy as we are all guilty of it. If you wish consistency, get a dog.
I’m curious re: that last sentence. I’m not and don’t claim to be a driving expert. But I spent most of my adult life living in very remote towns in Montana and Wyoming, and I’ve driven extensively in Colorado, Idaho, Arizona, Washington state, and Utah. Nearly 55%of all traffic fatalities occur on rural roads. In some counties, as much as 90% of all traffic fatalities occur on country roads. These numbers become startling when we remember less than 20% of the U.S. population resides in in small towns and rural areas. When vehicle crash statistics are compared for rural vs, urban areas, the data reveals that the fatality rate of rural crashes is nearly 2.4 times higher for every mile driven, versus on urban roads.
Rural western issues there include:
–absence of signs
–absence of lights
–narrow, two-lane roads (no passing)
–large animals such as deer, cattle
–ditches at sides of roads
–blind curves
–poor road conditions
–farmhouse driveways, field roads, other unmarked entrances and exits.
You undoubtedly know much more than I do on this topic. I hope you can steer me straight, so to speak.
Road & Track article, published today:
Yes, I’m familiar with the Iron Butt Rally. Only from reading, not from participating. It is extreme, and several riders fight off sleep deprivation towards the end. Not for me, no thank you. There have been fatalities, IIRC. But I haven’t read about recent rallies.
Oh I don’t know about that. Sounds like you’ve done plenty of driving in the west. I’m not doubting your data and information, but with all your western states driving do you recall any stretches where you think you can drive safely at triple digit speeds if there were no other vehicles out there?
Southern Utah has some good stretches of nothingness. You can cover most of the 120 miles between Blanding and Hanksville without seeing another car, and the curves/sightlines generally allow for very high speeds.
Likewise with the 72-mile stretch between Bryce and Burrville (save for a brief twisty stretch in the middle).
The IBA will not certify a ride if the rider has flagrantly gone over the speed limit. They’ve also pulled people’s rides after they publicly announced how fast they were going.
You rang? I rode the IBR almost 20 years ago now. It’s tough, but when one trains for it and has a motorcycle that’s set up for it, it’s not as hard as it might seem. I know a lot of those riders. They all have a good idea of what their limits are. I’d rather ride on the back of one of their bikes on day 11 then on someone’s sport bike tooling around town.
I can think of three deaths off the top of my head. One died of a hear attack, one woman had an accident and was given the wrong medication in the hospital, the third was not wearing his helmet and hit an animal. Helmets are required to be worn the entire time one is riding during the rally. The IBA is a safety conscious organization. They do not tolerate high speeds and reckless riding.
I’m not all that impressed that someone can drive that fast across the country. Such speeds really do push being safe. Out west I can see 100mph being safer on the highway, but I’ve been all over the east coast, even at night traffic can be bad.
The guy who hit an animal and wasn’t wearing his helmet, I’m pretty sure that’s the fatality I recall reading about. If memory serves, it was towards the very end of the rally, if not on the final day. Maybe about 5-7 years ago but my memory is hazy.
And this has caused my to wonder about my bike. I guess an experiment is in order.
If you’re in SB (hey! I went to UCSB!) then I-5 is your friend. When I was going to UCSB in my college days, I got enough tickets on US-101 between San Francisco and UCSB.
Turns out, my vision wasn’t great and I needed eyeglasses. Once I got them (and actually wore them!), I realized the CHP can usually be spotted by the alert driver.
I-5, but be careful. Better yet is I-40 east of Barstow.
Ride safe!
I have a question that probably can’t be answered, but inspired by the linked articles.
How many people:
-try the run, but get caught, maybe arrested?
-try the run and succeed, but over the record time?
-try the run, but have a breakdown?
-try the run and have an accident, maybe with injuries?
Does anyone catalog these attempts? Do they get any acknowledgement?
If I went tomorrow and did the run successfully with no tickets no accidents but did it in 28 hours, would anyone care at all?