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Comment by lazide | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone in California willingly driving anything less than 15 over the speed limit - including the cops and CHP.

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I like to drive 5 under the speed limit, in the right lane of course. I don't have to worry about swerving through traffic, slamming on my brakes, and generally jockying for position just to shave 30 seconds off of my 20 minute drive.

I always wondered who y’all were and why you did this.

HN in a nutshell.

Same, well, I’ll do the speed limit. But the end result is the same. I get to where I’m going without stressing over navigating around aggressive drivers. They tend to avoid the right lane anyway.

If my travels are so time sensitive that a couple minutes will make or break it the. I’m planning things wrong well before I leave the house.

I live in a rural area with a lot of straight/open roads with visibility and little traffic. Driving 98 mph (since 100 is a felony here lol) shaves nontrivial time off my trips vs. the speed limits which are far too low anyway.

If it’s okay for you to drive 10mph over the speed limit then it’s also okay for me to drive 28mph over. Laws are just words written by people who are irrelevant to me. Reality is about risk vs. reward.

> If it’s okay for you to drive 10mph over the speed limit

That's not what they said.

I find right lane driving dangerous. Every week I see drivers slow down or come to a complete stop on the acceleration lane, others are risking it all to make their exit.

If you drive 60mph for 20 minutes, you will go 20 miles. If you drove 65mph, then you would travel the same distance 1 minute 32 seconds sooner. At lower speeds, the effect is bigger, e.g. going 45 instead of 40 saves 2:13, and 35 instead of 30 saves 2:51. If my math is right, to only lose 30 seconds by going 5 under for 20 minutes, you would have to be going 195 in a 200.

In theory, yes. In reality, you're ignoring the traffic lights at both ends of your trip.

I grew up around the LA area and found that was common under a short interval but not for a long one. I had a diesel & sometimes tried to see how high I could keep the mileage on a tank (record was 52mpg), and one thing I noticed was that the guys blowing by at 90 were just burning cash: they’d fly by but then stomp on the brakes due to traffic over and over again, while I was having a much less stressful time going the average speed and rarely even touching the brakes.

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