I think anyone getting hacked off at being held up by traffic actually doing the speed limit need to chill out!
It's called "going with the flow". If the flow is doing 80 in a 70 and you are "in the way" putting along then you are impeding traffic. And that WILL get you a ticket. Yes thats right, you can get a ticket for NOT speeding.
Minnesota might have a "presumed" speed law, where even if one is driving faster than the posted speed, if one can prove it was safe the road, traffic, and weather conditions it might not be speeding. If the road was long and straight, with little traffic, in a rural area, with good weather the speed limit isn't an absolute. At may be why he wrote it at 79. In those conditions, 70 might be an absolutely reasonable speed.
I could understand this if the obstruction was chugging along at 30. But 70? Ticketing would be ridiculous. Can other americans confirm\deny?
I don't believe that. There's no situation where you could be going dangerously slowly, but at the speed limit. Not unless everybody else is speeding absolutely wildly, in which case the cops would have better things to worry about.
^ On the New Jersey Turnpike, it's probably extremely dangerous to only go the speed limit. However, as I'll point out below, I don't think they ticket for going the speed limit. It's more self-enforced (drive like an asshole right on somebody's bumper until they change lanes). That depends on the place. I don't know of any place that will ticket you for not going over the speed limit. Most turn a blind eye to going over the speed limit in those cases, though. However, I have seen seven cars pulled over in one place because everyone was going over the speed limit (note, more than seven were, but there were only seven cop cars). I'll have to ask. Have you ever gotten a ticket for not speeding and/or know someone personally who has?
I would suspect that if road and weather conditions dictated a slower speed for safety, one could get pulled over while driving the speed limit if the speed limit were too fast to be considered safe for the conditions, but that's not what you're asking here.
Of course. My aunt was given a ticket maybe 10 years back in Columbus for "impeding traffic". She was in the left lane going 55(in a 55 zone) while people were trying to get around. She would get over to the right. In her mind she was "teaching them a lesson". She got a ticket. To this day she still just does't "get it". You wanna drive the speed limit stay the hell out of the left lane. (in the US anyway).
That's surprising. It's weird to have a legal limit in the first place then say speedy people's desire to go faster , ie "the Flow", over-rules that. It's like an automotive Mob Rule. I will grant that 55 is a fairly stricy limit for a multi-lane highway. I've been thinking more of 70 limits. In fact I originally gave an example of already going several mph over that limit (to overtake a truck, say). At that sort of speed, anyone tailgating and impatiently demanding to go even faster should really piss off and go do their Fast and Furious fantasies at a Track Day or something.
Fair enough, although I suspect the ticket would not have held up in court had it been fought. I think that's an outlier, not a rule.
Sounds to me like she deserved a ticket since she was deliberately blocking the passing lane and preventing it from being used properly.
Indeed, thats my point.. Stay out of the left lane if you wanna do the limit. No one is telling you speed. But we stay the hell out of everyones way.
I just got a little scare: mail from the Photo Enforcement Division of the PD. I thought it was a photo radar ticket. When I opened it I was relieved to see that it wasn't. It was a photo of somebody else speeding in my car. An included form gives me the opportunity to identify the driver, but the letter says I'm under no obligation to do so. Of course, I'm not happy about somebody borrowing my car and driving unsafely. If she wrecks it, she won't be able to pay for the damage so it will come out of my pocket. I'm thinking of telling her next time she borrows my car she'd better keep it safe and legal, because if I get another one of these things I will ID her.
Yep. I knew a guy who was stopped for doing 51 in a 65 zone in a snowstorm one night. His truck also did not have a working defroster. Strangely enough, the reason i remember this is that he called me to come get the truck. The officer discovered he also had an outstanding warrant for speeding in another city at the time.
Just "stopped" or actually ticketed? I find it hard to believe a cop would bust someone for going too slowly during a snowstorm. On the other hand, doing 51 during an actual snowstorm itself sounds pretty unsafe.
Yeah, stopping someone for slowing down in a snowstorm doesn't make sense. Whether or not 51 is even safe depends on a number of factors. Was the car 4WD capable, how heavy was the snow, was it accumulating, was it nighttime, etc. I drove through a blizzard once where I didn't feel safe exceeding 35MPH on the highway. Cops had better things to worry about than me, for certain. That turned an 8-hour trip into 12 hours. The only time it got dicey was when I ran out of windshield fluid and the salt began to reduce my visibility.