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Comment by beachstartup | Hacker News Reader

i punch it at full throttle to 65mph every time i use an on-ramp. i bought a performance car to use it as advertised.

perfectly legal, and appropriate, when traffic permits.

in fact, if you don't, you're probably a shitty driver and need to learn how to merge. when you're merging into a river of steel doing 80mph and you're doing 45 because you're watching the consumption meter on your hybrid, you're an asshole.

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I used to think the same thing until my friend got a ticket for "exhibition of speed."[1] Essentially yes, you can get a ticket for accelerating too quickly even you're just accelerating to the speed limit.

1 - http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/crime-penalties/federal...

> i punch it at full throttle to 65mph every time i use an > on-ramp. i bought a performance car to use it as advertised. > > perfectly legal, and appropriate, when traffic permits.

It's not perfectly legal. Look up reckless driving or exhibition of speed laws. If you have a modern performance car and you do this in front of a cop, you're very likely to get a ticket. (An older car's full throttle might be too slow to concern a police officer and the laws are vague to allow the police officer's discretion.)

One can't legally use a performance car as advertised on public roads.

> in fact, if you don't, you're probably a shitty driver

I think you just mean you have to be at appropriate speed for a safe merge, but is full throttle really required? Unlikely.

Little irks me more than the occasional driver who comes to an unnecessary stop to merge onto a highway (I rear-ended one of these geniuses once, neither car was scratched fortunately). Or the guys who slow down to 20 mph when one is supposed to merge at full speed. Sigh...

That said, punching it is indeed an example of exhibition of speed and these videos clearly fit within its definition:

http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/crime-penalties/federal...

Is someone going to arrest these people or what? J/K...

The DOT shortens on-ramps about every decade or so to save space. Unfortunately this means that only sports cars running wide open throttle are the only ones able to safely use them. GP is simply a safe driver.

that's great, but i'm still going to do it if it's illegal. i'll just deal with the consequences.

In addition to adverts, remember to read the highway code. Typically there’re these niggling rules about appropriate speed, not being disruptive in traffic, and such.

yes, one thing you've got right - a lot of assholes on the road thinking that it is the other people around them who are shitty drivers. These assholes look the same today when i drive a hybrid as they looked before when i drove a sporty V8.

I've had people actually stop in front of me on the onramp a few times. Talk about dangerous. Now I and everyone else behind me has to get up to highway speed from 0 in about 50 feet.

you must live in the bay area...

Highways here don't go at 65, let alone 80.

even worse, i live in LA.

Yeah SoCal has some really short on-ramps. I'm in Santa Barbara, and regularly see people hit the end of some of the sorter ones at about 35 when the freeway is going 70.

part of the reason that stretch of 101 is perma-fucked with traffic.

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