I feel the need, the need for speed!
And no, I am not back on the Adderall...The news came out that some highways are going to be raising speed limits to 80 MPH. To me there shouldn't even be a debate on this, as 70 is not really that fast when on an empty highway. But for some reason there seemed to be this opinion, expressed by CNN, that this would somehow cause gas prices to increase and that it would cause accidents. The first argument was repeated by a number of CNN viewers, saying that they should LOWER the speed limit as a method for lowering gas prices. See this is a very flawed argument, as my car gets far superior gas mileage the faster I go.
I have a lot of experience with the West Texas Highways, and I know for a fact that 80 is actually rather slow for those endless stretches of pavement. The first time I took I-10 across the southwest part of Texas I was afraid to go faster than 80 because I feared the Texan police. However, I learned quite quickly that the cops don't patrol those stretches and that if you are doing 80 in the slow lane you will get rear-ended by a trucker. They don't honk, they just approach your tail with blistering speed, sometimes in excess of 100, and if you don't get out of their way or speed up, they will bump you. Each trip I took between San Francisco and New Orleans, I became more and more comfortable with the pace of the highway. I could easily do 1000 miles in a day's drive with stops thanks to the 100+ MPH stretches. Not only would I cover a ton of distance (and thankfully spend as little time in Texas as possible) but I would also save huge amounts of gas. I normally would get about 300-350 miles per tank (MPT), but on those trips I would get a minimum of 550 MPT. If I could drive that way the entire trip from NOLA to SF, I would only have to fill up 4 times, instead of 7. There, I just saved $150 on gas and conserved 45 gallons.
The other opposition to this logical increase of the speed limit is basically a fear of speed. Take a drive on I-5 in San Diego and see all those morons going 70 in the left lane. People just aren't comfortable doing anything fast, they even turn slowly on green lights. Ever try to drive into Pacific Beach at 5:15 on a weekday? It's amazing how slow people are to react to things, how long it takes them to realize a light is green and how SLOWLY they accelerate. Traffic is caused by people who are just too slow to react to something and those who panic and over-react by slamming on their brakes in the left lane and slowing down to 60 when someone in the far right lane brakes. I see that EVERY day at the 8 interchange.
I just look at this move as another positive step from the 55 speed limits. In this era of sprawling cities and inconvenient locations, we shouldn't have to worry about being pulled over when we're driving perfectly safely. That extra 14% of velocity isn't enough to make that much of a difference. We drive that fast anyway (if there's enough space, I will never go less than 80 on the highway), so why waste our law enforcement on arbitrary speed limits? Reckless driving has very little to do with speed and a lot more to do with attention and aggression. All of my accidents came long before I ever even drove 80, when I was an ADD teenager. The most accident prone people I know aren't the ones who drive like a bat out of hell, but the cautious, nervous and absent-minded ones.
So the next time I drive up to the Bay Area in June I will be driving at least 85 on I-5. Wouldn't it be nice if I could still do that speed without having to constantly check in my mirrors for 5-0? I'm not about to make that drive 15% longer than it should be, I'd do 130 if I didn't have to worry about a felony speeding charge. The danger isn't in the fast drivers, it's in the slow ones. The old people driving in the left lane at 5 MPH below the speed limit, the housewife in her SUV doing 65 in the fast lane, the absent-minded moron who changes lanes without looking in their rear-view...those are the ones who cause the accidents. Sure, the high-speed racing accidents are horrific, but those are incredibly rare and are only major news stories because of their rarity. We have attention-deficit accidents all the time, and they are not given lead-story status on the local news. The Autobahn is successful and makes long-distance travel in Germany a dream. Wouldn't you love to be able to drive from SD to LA in 60 minutes? I know I would!
I have a lot of experience with the West Texas Highways, and I know for a fact that 80 is actually rather slow for those endless stretches of pavement. The first time I took I-10 across the southwest part of Texas I was afraid to go faster than 80 because I feared the Texan police. However, I learned quite quickly that the cops don't patrol those stretches and that if you are doing 80 in the slow lane you will get rear-ended by a trucker. They don't honk, they just approach your tail with blistering speed, sometimes in excess of 100, and if you don't get out of their way or speed up, they will bump you. Each trip I took between San Francisco and New Orleans, I became more and more comfortable with the pace of the highway. I could easily do 1000 miles in a day's drive with stops thanks to the 100+ MPH stretches. Not only would I cover a ton of distance (and thankfully spend as little time in Texas as possible) but I would also save huge amounts of gas. I normally would get about 300-350 miles per tank (MPT), but on those trips I would get a minimum of 550 MPT. If I could drive that way the entire trip from NOLA to SF, I would only have to fill up 4 times, instead of 7. There, I just saved $150 on gas and conserved 45 gallons.
The other opposition to this logical increase of the speed limit is basically a fear of speed. Take a drive on I-5 in San Diego and see all those morons going 70 in the left lane. People just aren't comfortable doing anything fast, they even turn slowly on green lights. Ever try to drive into Pacific Beach at 5:15 on a weekday? It's amazing how slow people are to react to things, how long it takes them to realize a light is green and how SLOWLY they accelerate. Traffic is caused by people who are just too slow to react to something and those who panic and over-react by slamming on their brakes in the left lane and slowing down to 60 when someone in the far right lane brakes. I see that EVERY day at the 8 interchange.
I just look at this move as another positive step from the 55 speed limits. In this era of sprawling cities and inconvenient locations, we shouldn't have to worry about being pulled over when we're driving perfectly safely. That extra 14% of velocity isn't enough to make that much of a difference. We drive that fast anyway (if there's enough space, I will never go less than 80 on the highway), so why waste our law enforcement on arbitrary speed limits? Reckless driving has very little to do with speed and a lot more to do with attention and aggression. All of my accidents came long before I ever even drove 80, when I was an ADD teenager. The most accident prone people I know aren't the ones who drive like a bat out of hell, but the cautious, nervous and absent-minded ones.
So the next time I drive up to the Bay Area in June I will be driving at least 85 on I-5. Wouldn't it be nice if I could still do that speed without having to constantly check in my mirrors for 5-0? I'm not about to make that drive 15% longer than it should be, I'd do 130 if I didn't have to worry about a felony speeding charge. The danger isn't in the fast drivers, it's in the slow ones. The old people driving in the left lane at 5 MPH below the speed limit, the housewife in her SUV doing 65 in the fast lane, the absent-minded moron who changes lanes without looking in their rear-view...those are the ones who cause the accidents. Sure, the high-speed racing accidents are horrific, but those are incredibly rare and are only major news stories because of their rarity. We have attention-deficit accidents all the time, and they are not given lead-story status on the local news. The Autobahn is successful and makes long-distance travel in Germany a dream. Wouldn't you love to be able to drive from SD to LA in 60 minutes? I know I would!
posted by Dan Pasternack at 2:50 PM
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