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Speeding

I'm usually just below the limit for which you get points (system here in Germany.. you do something that gets fined above a certain limit you get points.. driving a red light is usually 1 point for example. Get enough points (18) and you lose your license and have to undergo tests to reapply and those tests are a bitch).

Justification? None.. i just don't see driving well below a roads and traffics capability, especially in the evening or early in the morning where there's little traffic.

However i do tend to adjust to traffic and weather conditions.. you won't see me speeding when it rains, snows or it is foggy or weave in and out of lanes in dense traffic.

On a sidenote; I've only done this twice in my life. But my record on public roads is 288(179mph) and 282kph(175mph). First with a Peugeot 205 GTI (UNG-20 Spec.) and the second with an Audi V8 on a Sunday morning. Probably could've gotten over the 300kph but by then there was a car in front of me and i had to slow to a legal speed. Had roughly 20km without any traffic at all.

Did this once at 19 when i got my boss' car for an errand.. it was mid 90s, a powerful Mercedes Benz and a sunny day with low traffic and an unrestricted highway. At 220 km/h i chickened out (the car could have gone faster) and slowed down to normal speeds. In retrospect it was unresponsible as hell for a newbie driver to drive so fast in such a powerful car. If someone had cut into my lane i might have panicked and done the wrong thing resulting in a crash.
 
I usually stay with the flow of traffic until about five MPH over the limit on surface streets and about 10 MPH over the limit on freeways, depending on road conditions, whether it's an area with a heavy police presence, or if it's an area with lots of kids or pedestrians; in which case I'll go at the limit or lower.
 
I drive very rarely and usually keep to the speed limit. However when I'm driving long distances on the freeway, I've noticed that my foot gets "heavier" over time because I'm getting impatient and want it done with; 160km/h is my "record" though (at 130 speed limit), so nothing spectacular.

And my only speeding ticket happened when there were some roadworks on a freeway with a sudden 100 km/h speed limit with the speed camera immediately after the fucking sign and I wanted to let the car roll down to 100 instead of just hitting the break...
 
However, I never, ever, drive above the 30kph speed limit in front of schools, hospitals and the like. Thats my unwritten law. 60kph on 50 roads or 100-110 on 90 roads I'm fine with. But the 30kph limit is sacred. My philsosphy is if you can drive safely at that speed, I'm fine with it.
Same here. 30 kph is sacred because it's almost exclusively at schools and daycare centers. I also keep to 50 within towns. Other then that, as fast as I feel alright with. But mostly ten or so over

As for fast I've driven...190 kph in my Saab 9-5 I used to have. The stupidest thing I've done is trying to catch up to another vehicle with quite an headstart on a 1-2 highway (something probably unknown to Americans, it's a highway that alternates between 1 and two lane, with wires as a border in the middle, supposedly it's safer :rolleyes: ) in heavy rain, going at about 180 kph. In hindsight that shit could have gone really, really, really bad.

And yes, we caught up with the other vehicle.
 
30km/h is probably the most violated speed law where I live. I can't count all the times I've been overtaken on my bike in tempo30 zones (riding pretty much 30km/h myself, or close) by cars with screeching tires.
 
Oh it sadly is around here as well. I live in a 30 zone and them muthafuckers be breaking that law all the time.
 
Same here. 30 kph is sacred because it's almost exclusively at schools and daycare centers. I also keep to 50 within towns. Other then that, as fast as I feel alright with. But mostly ten or so over

As for fast I've driven...190 kph in my Saab 9-5 I used to have. The stupidest thing I've done is trying to catch up to another vehicle with quite an headstart on a 1-2 highway (something probably unknown to Americans, it's a highway that alternates between 1 and two lane, with wires as a border in the middle, supposedly it's safer :rolleyes: ) in heavy rain, going at about 180 kph. In hindsight that shit could have gone really, really, really bad.

And yes, we caught up with the other vehicle.

I've had my mates 9-5 up to 230 on a closed airfield. there's plenty of power in those babies.

I've repaired dozens of cars with crash damage from so called "wire roads". Those bloody things can do so much damage that you'd be surprised. For motorcyclists its death sentence. It severs limbs, breaks your spine like a bloody toothpick, i dont even want to think about what those things can do to a human body. Its awful. Unfortunately, I've seen it in person.
 
(something probably unknown to Americans, it's a highway that alternates between 1 and two lane, with wires as a border in the middle, supposedly it's safer :rolleyes: )

Could you post a picture of that? I have no idea what that means. (the wire thing)
 
Then everyone will drive at 90mph.

I doubt it. 90 is pushing it on many popular models of car. The Mrs' Ford Ka would never be able to cruise comfortably at 90. The motorway speed limit was originally set at 70 when that was close to the top comfortable speed of most cars - that has now changed so people tend to drive at 80ish, which to be honest has little effect on safety in a motorway environment. It's so universal that you're almost more of a danger doing 60 or 70.

In a residential area, though, 5 or 10mph over the limit can have a big effect on safety. The impact of any accident is much greater, and the chances of death to a pedestrian hit by your car shoot up with only small increases in speed. There used to be a TV ad in Britain that had a kid saying 'if you hit me at 30, there's an 80% chance I'll live. If you hit me at 40, there's an 80% chance I'll die'. It was a bit corny, to be frank, but statistically spot on. Speeding in residential areas causes serious injury and death, it's that simple.
 
I should say there is a chance our motorway speed limit is going up to 80 mph. Since everyone drives at that speed on the motorways anyway, it's probably going to be enshrined in law.

Well the unwritten law seems to be so long as you're not exceeding 80mph the police won't bother with you. (70mph being the current limit) If it does go upto 80mph would 90mph become the norm?
 
There used to be a TV ad in Britain that had a kid saying 'if you hit me at 30, there's an 80% chance I'll live. If you hit me at 40, there's an 80% chance I'll die'. It was a bit corny, to be frank, but statistically spot on. Speeding in residential areas causes serious injury and death, it's that simple.

I take it that wasn't the one recently shown with the little broken girl by a tree, who dragged back onto the road and mended all her broken limbs (and started breathing) to demonstrate the difference between 40 and 30mph.

cuz if you thought that was corny; damn.
 
There used to be a TV ad in Britain that had a kid saying 'if you hit me at 30, there's an 80% chance I'll live. If you hit me at 40, there's an 80% chance I'll die'. It was a bit corny, to be frank, but statistically spot on. Speeding in residential areas causes serious injury and death, it's that simple.

I take it that wasn't the one recently shown with the little broken girl by a tree, who dragged back onto the road and mended all her broken limbs (and started breathing) to demonstrate the difference between 40 and 30mph.

cuz if you thought that was corny; damn.

No that one replaced the old one after they decided that ads where people are horribly injured on screen work better - I still find it hard to watch that one with the woman who gets flung across the bar after that guy sips his pint.
To be fair, though, they do seem to work.
 
Do they work? I always assumed they were preaching to the choir. It would be gratifying to think that they actually make boy racers slow down in residential areas.
 
Research says (why I listen to research I don't know) that awareness of speeding and drink driving issues has risen considerably since the harsher campaigns. Particularly effective, apparently, is the poster with the 10 firemen cutting a woman out of a car crash with "If you don't like this many blokes around your girlfriend..." as the caption.
Instances of drink driving have fallen noticeably the last few years - we're cracking that one because it's beginning to lose its socially acceptable nature. Speeding in 30 zones has also dropped a lot, but I wouldn't be surprised if the loss of a lot of areas' speed cameras to cuts undoes a lot of that.
 
(something probably unknown to Americans, it's a highway that alternates between 1 and two lane, with wires as a border in the middle, supposedly it's safer :rolleyes: )

Could you post a picture of that? I have no idea what that means. (the wire thing)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2%2B1_road

2-1-vag.jpg


800px-E20_2plus1_west_of_Skara.jpg


I once saw a lorry get tangled in the wires and have its rear axle torn off. Not one of those in the pic. Those big buggers. And i'm not going into detail of what i saw when i was the first responder to a motorbike accident on a 2+1/wire road.
 
Uh, yeah, that does look dangerous. In Austria, there would probably be a concrete barrier on such a road, if anything at all. I've never seen anything like that.
 
I usually stay to around 5 over whatever the limit is regardless of road. The exception is the 15mph zones around schools and the 25mph limit through residential areas. Those I stick to. It's far too easy for someone to dart out from behind a parked car in those areas.
 
Which works better a speed camera or the signs that are more common these days that actually tell you your speed sometimes followed by a happy or a sad face. A speed camera punishes you whilst the other alerts you.

As to whether or not the ads work or not in the UK, if the ads change the actions of one driver and save even one life are they worth it? I think most would say yeas.

It takes a long time to change driving habits, i.e compulsary use of seat belts. Drink driving to become totally socialable unacceptable. Next target maybe Drug Driving
 
I once saw a lorry get tangled in the wires and have its rear axle torn off. Not one of those in the pic. Those big buggers. And i'm not going into detail of what i saw when i was the first responder to a motorbike accident on a 2+1/wire road.

We used to have a wire system similar to that in place on our local freeways. It proved to be totally inadequate to the job and was later replaced with concrete.

One afternoon driving along one of the freeways with that system installed, I almost wound up in a 6 car pileup that wound up with vehicles involved on both sides of the freeway. One lady, driving a Chevrolet Suburban, wound up crossing the cable barrier and striking a pickup going the opposite way head-on at 70mph.
 
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