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Comment by h2odragon | Hacker News Reader

I drive slower now than I did 30 years ago, not just because of advancing age and increased sense / reduced stupidity; but because the roads just ain't is as good shape as they used to be. A nasty pothole at 65mph is a wheel destroyer at 120mph. There's more around now than there used to be and they hang out longer and get a chance to grow and have families.

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I stopped speeding about 12 years ago when I got my first (and hopefully last) speeding ticket.

I've since discovered that it's actually a lot less stressful, you use less petrol and I don't seem to get places that much slower. I'm also happier with cars with cars with much smaller engines - which saves even more money.

Something that's helped me to reduce speeding is real time GPS/map info. I don't drive half as much as I did a few years ago, and much of that was 'around town' (a... 30-40 mile radius for various events). There's not a lot of places to 'speed' in the 'really fast' sense, but 45 in a 35 zone - that's still 'speeding', and can get you a ticket I know, I've had some over the years!)

Having a map with real time info when I'm going someplace helps me ... calm down some. I can see if there's a known accident, I can get automatically rerouted if I take a wrong turn or miss an exit, and if I know I'm going to be vastly late, I just call or message the party I'm meeting. I understand that some of that may contribute to 'distracted' driving, but when I used to miss turns or get delayed 20 years ago, I was still 'distracted', and probably just as much a danger, because of the anxiety/stress. Overall, I think it's been a net win for me - less speeding and no tickets in years, a bit less stress while driving, less fuel consumption, etc.

I don't even remember speeding (and I really did speed a lot) for any particular reason - certainly not for appointments.

Maybe buying an expensive fast car makes you want to speed - could easily be something as daft as that.

Now I am perfectly happy with my 1L 3-cylinder Skoda :-)

My first ticket was being late for school. I grew up in an environment where being 'late' or 'rushed' seemed to be a default mode - young parents with 3 young kids, everything probably did stress them out more than it should have, and... I just grew up feeling 'late' and 'rushed' for everything all the time. It manifested in many ways, but speeding was one. I've had a few tickets over the years. I think... probably 4 or 5 over... 30 years? So.. perhaps somewhat habitual and just lucky I've not been caught more. But the last few years - per the comment above - real time info has had a bit of a calming effect. Probably age a bit too, but I don't think so.

I hope you mean speeding relative to the prevailing traffic speed.

If you are the slow guy the area in front of you is the area in which everybody elects to make their move. You get cut off 100x (pulled that number out of my ass) as much as if you're just doing what everyone else is doing. If you are going really slow then cars are cutting each other off to get out from behind you all the time. The whole situation benefits nobody and is just as stressful as trying be the fast guy.

Source: spent way too much time in the cab of equipment that was only "highway capable" in the context of the sales brochure.

I'm in the UK and I pretty much drive at the speed limit - so at 20 somewhere like central Edinburgh, up to 60 on normal roads and up to 70 on motorways and similar.

I'd estimate at those speeds I am about average - I overtake some traffic and get overtaken by others.

We now have average speed cameras on some roads I drive on a lot (such as the notoriously dangerous A9) so speeding really isn't a good idea.

This really depends on where you live, in plenty of places the speed limit is heavily enforced and that is actually the speed people expect you to go. Driving faster than the speed limit makes you the one causing the speed differential.

It is weird to place the blame of the speed differential on the people not breaking the law, but I get the feeling it's a practical reality of US highways that everyone speeds.

Varies by state. In New York you can be cited and fined for impeding traffic.

In California, a car on a two-lane road with five or more vehicles behind it is required to pull into a designated turnout area to alleviate the jam. Failure to do so can result in a citation and fine.

Sadly, those kinds of laws rarely get enforced.

LA is plagued with drivers who will not (or in many cases cannot) keep up with the flow of traffic and it’s one of the most dangerous things I ever encounter as a driver.

45 in a 70 with the lane on your left and right barreling down at you at 75 is a nightmare scenario. Driving too slow is just as dangerous as driving too fast.

I wish US had stricter license requirements (like Germany) and car upkeep requirements (like Japan). Would keep the roads to people who knew what they were doing and cars that could do what they needed to do.

In fact, the “cannot” category is worse. I cannot fault the driver for being only able to afford a 1989 Previa with a engine held together by duct tape to get to their minimum wage job. So now I’m in a dangerous situation of no one’s fault and pray that my decision to get a sportier car will let me get out safely.

Driving into Toronto, some car is zipping by. Watching it weave in & out. An hour later we're in Toronto traffic.. that car has since gotten ahead by a dozen cars, which in traffic now translates to less than a hundred meters

Amdahl's Law can be applied to stretches of road

It's really easy to sit on your high horse and say "oh you only gained a hundred meters" but those hundred meters (I prefer to think of it in terms of number of cars) potentially convert to a lot of time.

I have the "which lane you want to be in and when" thing absolutely dialed for my commute. On a light by light basis I only move up a few slots as a result of picking the lanes that people will get out of as they make rights or move into dedicated left lanes approaching a light. That inevitably converts into getting through the lights in less cycles than if I had just picked a lane and stuck to it. Over the course of my commute that adds up to 20+min, close to 25%, difference.

While I don't necessarily agree with their methodology I think the weaving through traffic people are on to something.

You are probably right about weavers getting ahead by a few minutes. I've seen a lot of these people in a form of denial when it comes to their driving. That their bad habit is in fact a GOOD habit because in the prisoners dilemma game they won by betraying. Meanwhile the rest of the people are suffering because of their actions. That those other people are in fact BAD drivers because they aren't driving recklessly too. That if only everyone drove recklessly like them then the road would be safer somehow.

It's utter insanity out there.

To save 20 minutes on a not quite hour-long commute by beating lights, you'd need to beat almost 20 lights. The average traffic light waiting time is 60-90 seconds. Even doubling that and taking the high end of the range (3 minutes), you'd need to beat 7 lights on your hour-long commute.

On the highway, if you are leaving 2 seconds following distance, and everyone else does too (obviously more than reality), every car you pass on the highway buys you a grand total of: 2 seconds.

Not impossible for you to save 20 minutes if you have a peculiar commute, but I have a competing theory: beating a light or getting in front of a couple of cars is the way you game-ify your commute. You get a dopamine rush from it, and you aren't flipping a coin in the morning to A/B test your behavior and using a stopwatch to verify the results.

Nothing wrong with that, but just try to be safe about it.

I commute during the leading edge of rush hour. My commute is 50-70min assuming no backups. I'm not "beating" the lights. I'm picking my lane coming up to the light based on how much of that traffic is likely to exit the lane into a left or right turn lane. Getting through them in less cycles than I would otherwise has a compounding effect because the luckier I get early on the less traffic/congestion there is later in my commute (because I have arrived at those points earlier in time). The portion with the lights is a "would be a limited access highway if it weren't for NIMBYs" type of road and speeds reflect this. A minute or more to wait for a light is more than the time it takes to get to the next light. There are six lights. The bulk of the highway is after this portion of my commute so a few minutes at the lights may very well mean I get past the problem points on the highway before they become problems. There's no lane advantage at the first light but getting lucky and not waiting on the first light pretty much always translates to 1-2 less cycles waiting at the second. There is a massive lane advantage there so choosing the proper lane means you wait ~2 cycles less. The last light is the worst and +/-5min arrival time can easily have a ~10min influence (the difference between being several cycles back vs getting right up to it and only. I've been doing this same commute and leaving at the same time for years. There's definitely a gambling aspect to it but there is also quite a bit of improvement to be had if you know where to be.

>On the highway, if you are leaving 2 seconds following distance, and everyone else does too (obviously more than reality), every car you pass on the highway buys you a grand total of: 2 seconds.

Right, but now imagine that working you ass off to pass dozens of cars means four less cars in front of you at the end of your really crappy exit ramp that takes ~30sec/car because of cross traffic. You've just saved two minutes.

You maybe ahead of 12 cars on your offramp, but you've also caught up to 12 cars that haven't had a chance to get off the offramp, yet. The amount of traffic on said ramp is only going to vary based on the time of day and some dumb luck.

Butting ahead of people in line at the bank doesn't make the line go faster. It may work on a highway without congestion, but if your route is going to enter congestion you're only getting in front of someone who would otherwise be where you are at that very moment

My frequent remark watching so many reckless drivers from my car:

RACING TO NOWHERE!

It's a statistical play. Sometimes it gets you through a light that would have caught you, or ahead of a wreck or obstruction, or past some knot of cars. Sometimes it doesn't.

I used to budget for one speeding ticket a year. Tickets felt a lot less stressful after I started treating them as merely part of the cost of transportation, like insurance premiums and registration fees.

The rate at which I collect speeding tickets has definitely diminished over time, though my driving speed certainly hasn't; I'm not sure whether that's because enforcement activity has been reduced where I live, or because advancing age and different choice of vehicles have made me a less appealing target. (I actually had a cop thank me for letting him pull me over once, when I was out on my bike; he knew perfectly well I could have outrun his cruiser...)

Interesting that you neglected to mention that it's IMMENSELY SAFER for you and everyone else on the road. This is the worst part about driving - everyone thinks they're great at it and accidents don't happen. But they do, and the faster you're driving when an accident happens, the more likely it is for someone to die.

I found driving as a speeder easier than trying to keep close to the speed limit (I haven't done more than about 5 over on purpose in many years, mind you, except on a handful of technically-55-but-you'll-be-a-hazard-if-you-do-under-65 stretches of highway in my city).

You still had to keep an eye out for even faster cars coming up, but it's much easier to mentally keep track of the "state" of the road around you when you're passing everything.

It's also far easier to stay awake & alert driving at night, when speeding.

Where were you driving 120mph like it’s no big deal in the US?

Anywhere in the West and parts of the South have large stretches of empty begging to be driven at 100+. Plenty of freeways posted at 80 (one place in Texas at 85,) so you're not more than double the speed limit at 120 like you were in the 55 mph days.

Have you driven between big cities in Texas? There are some awfully straight stretches of road with absolutely nothing at all as far as the eye can see. Now you're supposed to be doing like, 80mph posted, but if nobody is around to see it... I've encountered packs of cars keeping up with each other doing 100mph+ and someone in a big truck breaking 120 just for fun wouldn't surprise me. Illegal? Oh yes. Doesn't matter if nobody is there to enforce it.

Between cities? Even on SH130 on the east side of Austin doing the speed limit is often nerve wracking because so many drivers are attempting to drive 100 mph or faster.

Well, it depends on which big cities.

The East Texas set of DFW / SA / Austin / Houston is mostly connected by highways that stay busy. 45 between Houston and DFW is thinner, but I-10 is almost urban levels of busy from the Louisiana state line until you get well past San Antonio.

West of San Antonio or DFW? Oh yeah, it gets thin FAST.

Nevada Highway 50 is one place you could.

I take my sports car to the west Texas desert. Think the Big Bend Marfa area.

Long, empty, straight roads with great clarity thanks to no hills.

I heard a story of a dude getting a ticket down there. Had to be the unluckiest guy in the desert that day. There is nothing there (except a cop on this day).

I was going to post this before I saw your reply. Fastest I've ever been on the ground was in my cousin's car coming back from Big Bend. Hit 155MPH. He did ask if we were OK with him opening it up to see what it could do.

It's probably about as good a place as possible to do it on public roads (at least anywhere close to my part of the country) - long straightaway through the desert with miles of visibility. He got it out of his system and got back down to saner speeds for the rest of the trip.

Agreed, most places along Highway 90 are usually dead.

You just have to watch out around Del Rio and such because Border Patrol and a bunch of other Federal LE enjoy hanging around random places and hassling people.

In southern Colorado, speeds will often reach that. I got passed by a Honda minivan once down there. Looked down at my speedometer and saw I was doing 117, and this minivan was just casually pulling ahead.

120 is on the high side, but on big empty roads with light traffic and great visibility, e.g. eastern Washington, I've seen packs of cars pushing 100 pretty regularly. Modern cars, modern tires, it's probably a good bit safer than going 55 was in the 70s.

One time I was driving on the I-5 a ways north of Seattle late at night. There was a stretch of freeway with virtually no lighting, surrounded by trees, and there were no cars in sight in either direction. I completely lost any sense of speed, and when I looked down at my speedometer I was going about 120 MPH. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to not slam on the brakes and to let the car slow down naturally, but it was scary to realize how dangerous my speed was, and I was lucky a deer didn't tumble out of the woods.

Midstate IL (I 57), and the "Purchase Parkway" in KY, both had sections I used to run hard on. I wont say "no big deal."

As others have mentioned there's long stretches of many roads out west that can be run at those speeds.

Edit to brag: I have done 100mph+ down Lake Shore Drive at least once, but that was special circumstances and an extra helping of st00pit.

That's whitetail country. 120 MPH around dusk, come up on a dozen deer in the lanes, and it turns into a bloody mess. It can be done, but be aware in your risk assessment that there are cars on the shoulder, animals crossing the lanes, semis passing each other, and all sorts of other factors besides you and the road.

Depending on the vehicle, you don't need a lot of room to get going that fast. No, your typical passenger vehicle is probably geared to not go much faster than 100mph, and a lot of cars have a rev-limiter at 115 or 120. But, for example, my Mazda CX-5--which I wouldn't call particularly powerful at "only" 225hp--can do it quite easily just on the on-ramp for the 395 express way to DC.

I don't drive more than 80, usually, but, I mean, you gotta open it up at least once.

120 is a big deal anywhere in the US, but there are absolutely stretches of the west where you can be very, very alone on long, straight stretches of road.

Margin of error vanishes at speeds like that, but yeah, you could do 120 fairly safely in a well-maintained car on good tires in those places.

Here in Maine we have I-95 up north. From about Bangor to Houlton, you have 180 miles of two lane, usually very well maintained highway, with nearly zero cops, and almost zero traffic on the average day. There's a solid hour and a half of driving highway speed with about five actual exits. I used to make that trek at least twice a month.

I may have tested a couple cars to limits up there.

> but because the roads just ain't is as good shape as they used to be

Wow, key infrastructure declining like that must be depressing. Is this a widespread thing or just in your area?

widespread - here in Michigan the Governor ran on a campaign of "fix the damn roads"

A ton of places in the US built a bunch of civil infrastructure (primarily roads, water, sewer) to support suburban sprawl that is simply not sustainable given the level of property-taxes-per-square-area and the cost-per-mile to keep it in good working order.

Lots and lots of suburban decay is scheduled for the next 2-3 decades. This stuff has a working lifetime and with no money to replace it it's just going to sit there and rust.

>but because the roads just ain't is as good shape as they used to be.

Fundamental core functions of government is roads, borders, preventing of violence(military and police), justice, and refereeing the economy.

Roads as you say are in disrepair.

Borders are wide open.

Military has been at war for how many decades? War exhaustion can't be higher.

Violent crime is vastly under reported. Police brutality seems to be at historic highs. Victim of violent crime? Dont call the police because when they show up, the situation gets worse. Antifa is burning cities down, in part due to police brutality.

Where's the justice? If your car or property is stolen, there's a ~90% chance you never see it again and nobody is caught. Arson is worse than that. Murder is the only violent crime which has a clearance rate above 50% but only barely. There is no justice.

Ref for economy? If financial crisis proved anything, they clearly dont.

The core function of government is clearly failed. Lets say we form the HN political party and we're going to fix this. We can't. Government debt to GDP is over 100%. The budget isn't in balance. The central bank is bankrupt; https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/central-bank-bala...

> Borders are wide open.

Talk to anybody working in this space and you'll learn this is simply not true. CBP is still chasing people down and turning them away. ICE is still deporting people by the planeful.

>Talk to anybody working in this space and you'll learn this is simply not true. CBP is still chasing people down and turning them away. ICE is still deporting people by the planeful.

"Anybody working in this space' seems vague. Let's look for a more official position.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/30/immigration-us-will-no-longe...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/06/politics/immigration-arrests-...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/new-biden-rules-for-...

Quite clear borders are wide open.

The better discussion, why?

https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/workforce-cris...

Baby boomers will have retired by 2030, there is simply not enough people to replace the boomers. Birth rates were too low for decades. This shortage is set in stone unless we drop the whole 'child labour laws' which will never happen.

There is no denying the borders are wide open, it seems clear to me why they are doing it.

CBP is still chasing people down and turning them away.

If you make it into this country it becomes mostly catch and release.

And then comical stuff like this happens: TSA reveals illegal migrants flying without proper ID can use an ARREST WARRANT as identification

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10418877/TSA-reveal...

Your comment manages to be innacurate and terribly unhelpful at the same time. Good job!

I'm sorry you're having a hard time.

I think you might want to moderate and adjust your media consumption. I don't think the information you're getting is benefiting you.

>I'm sorry you're having a hard time.

Hmm? What makes you say that?

>I think you might want to moderate and adjust your media consumption. I don't think the information you're getting is benefiting you.

Is there something you disagree with?

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