Getting Flipped Off Is A Badge of Honor

I thought about radar.

Navy ships are well known for their over-staffed bridges.
Merchies will usually operate with a VERY small crew relative to the size of the ship, and I read once where they were tinkering with an autonymous bridge consisting of an 'iron Mike' and a sector-scanning radar.
"Iron Mike" is the old sailor’s name for the autopilot. These days he is likely to go by the name “Otto” or some other variation of the name. They were invented in the 1920's for reducing "snake wake' and increasing efficiency....something that ship owners are even more concerned about than self-absorbed hypermilers.
Fun Fact:
Shipboard autopilots were most probably named Mike because aircraft autopilots used to be called "George" most probably for the inventor George DeBeeson, although there is a more apocryphal story about a reference to autopilots originated in the RAF in WWII naming the device after the aircraft's "owner" King George. Like many such things (i.e. "whole nine yards) sometimes the story > the facts.
If you HAVE to ask why shipboard gear goes by different nomenclature than airdale stuff - then you do not understand how military appropriations work....

SO....
Submarines operating near the surface (periscope depth) generally do not use radar, but rather they LISTEN for radar. This goes all the way back to Dubbaya Dubbaya Two with the Germans and the IJN.
They have all kinds of gollywog automated electronics to intercept and classify radar emissions but the most 2 most important things are probably still on either side of your nose.
You can sometimes hear the amplified radar intercepts in the cacophony of bridge noise on submarine documentaries, and just listening to them can tell you VERY MUCH about what kind of radar that you're listening to.

Anything non-circular (beep......beep......beep......) = BAD!

Sometimes it is a 'sector scan' radar (beep..beep............beep..beep) which is BAD because somebody is either actively LOOKING for something or using a radar that is designed to warn them if it FINDS something.
Anyway...I'm told that a really big ship, blundering along at night in a really big ocean will sometimes use a sector scan radar to alert a drowsy bridge watch if something is right in front of them.
It's hard to imagine a warship getting squished by a ULCC...but....er......well, they draw up to 90 feet, and submarines can be some 40 feet in diameter.
If you're operating in constrained waters, which are almost always SHALLOW, you're more keenly interested in really really big things that can't stop or turn very efficiently.


Submarines also listen for radar that's worse than BAD....like fire-control stuff....but that's a sea-story that I will have to disrupt another thread for......

 

One of my favorite comedians of all time, George Carlin, once said: "Have you ever noticed that everyone driving faster than you is a MANIAC and everyone driving slower than you is an A$$HOLE?". Very wise words to remember.

While I wholeheartedly disagree that hypermiling saves the planet in any way, shape or form and is nothing but a distraction and impedance to others, I have also grown acutely aware, what with the advance of GPS driving aids that tell you with surprising degree of accuracy the ETA of where you are going, that speeding and road rage based on being delayed by a slow driver is basically just as inconsequential in ETA as hypermiling is in saving the planet.

I love to drive fast. I ride a motorcycle (also fast if possible). I have driven fairly fast for most of my driving career. I am a very good and safe driver. I know my cars, I practice my driving skills, I am what you may call an enthusiastic driver. I've been driving since 1980 and riding a motorcycle since 1989. Most of that time I've driven, shall we say in a spirited manner. I have lived in an urban environment most of my driving career and have been that guy that tailgated and passed slow drivers in an irritated way.

Now? Well, after having traveled with Waze app running for a while I noticed in a very pragmatic and metric way that my ETA changes almost not at all no matter how fast I drive. If I drive faster, I find I have to take longer bio breaks and all the time I gained by fast driving is lost anyway. By driving fast I increase my chances of getting a ticket (and when that happens I also loose about 30 minutes of my time). The only justification for driving fast for me is to keep alert. Believe it or not, if I drive slow I begin to fall asleep at the wheel and that's no good for anyone. So I drive just fast enough to keep myself on the edge of being super-alert and that has kept me accident and injury free (from driving) up to now. Don't worry, I no longer go crazy with speed to keep me awake. These days 73mph on a 65mph highway is more than enough.

As for badge of honor for getting flipped off, I don't think it is. It's a badge of being self-righteous. Sure the flipper is probably a badly behaved individual, but that does not give the flipee the right to feel righteous for eliciting the reaction, especially when the behavior that elicited the flip is a false honor. Hypermilers DO NOT save the Earth any more than the road ragers get to where they are going faster. Both behaviors are equally bad. However, to give perspective to the flipee, I would like to propose the following analogy. Say you have an itch, a real itchy itch that is driving you crazy. Now try to drive 11 miles without scratching it. How do you feel? Try it next time you have an itch!

The fact that you chose to drive a Prius is already a check in your "save the planet" category. Just drive it, be safe, enjoy it and please, PLEASE, do not try to shove your values down anyone's throat. Difference between 55MPG and 70MPG for 11 miles is not a planet saving amount, but the fact that you own a car that does not get less than 40mpg IS! Stop playing video games on roads. Be safe and practice empathy.

 

Curious about this - are you scaring the crap out of yourself? Isn't 4 hours in the car at 75 mph the same as 4 hours in the car at 60 mph from your bladder's point of view?

 

I do not scare myself driving fast, I quite enjoy it. But it's just something I noticed. No matter how fast I drive my GPS tells me ETA is the same in the end +/- a few minutes. It never amounts to big time savings. Try it and you'll know what I am talking about.

 

My comment wasn't regarding the ETA vs. speed you drive, I was curious that you need to stop for bio breaks more frequently when you go higher speeds.

 

I'm hoping that as a new and aggressive Prius driver that I am the one doing the flipping off to non hybrid drivers not getting out of my way, heh.

 

Not more frequently, but I seem to take longer during the bio break after having driven fast. Perhaps I feel a bit more "tired"? Not sure, I only noticed this when I started using GPS and my ETA was surprisingly insignificantly effected on my well traveled routes between fast (85 and higher) and cruise set at 73 mph.

I had more fun at 85 and higher, I can tell you that much, but I did not get there (much) sooner. I just LOVE speed and cruising at 100 is bliss for me. I visited Germany once and truly enjoyed their sans speed limit Autobahn where I was getting passed going well over 100 mph.

 

I have made the run from Los Angeles to Omaha (non-stop) with my son on occasion, and when we cruise at 82 for most of the way it still takes about 24 hours. If our average speed dropped by 10 mph, that's a lot of extra hours on the road.

For most trips, I run 3-6 mph over the limit and that works fine. I'm generally moving with traffic, not the fastest out there. More people pass me than I pass others. If it's a multi-day trip and the longest day on the road takes me an extra hour, that's OK.

When I want to go fast, I take the MX-5 to an open track day and have at it.

 

I agree. On trips that are super long faster speeds add up, but for myself and many others a 100 - 500 mile trip is really not going to make a difference. Especially if it's an occasional trip and not professional. These days I also tend to go with the flow and now and again I do get a wild hair up you know where and I do a few miles at high speed just for funzies (and if some idiot in a "fast" car thinks he can out-drive me in a Prius ). I always chuckle when a would-be coal roller gets left behind by lowly Prius getting 40+ mpg.

 

...and I got 99.9 mpg in my 2015 going 4.8 miles down hill from the grocery store to the house on a 4 lane road.

I saved the planet.

 

At that distance, you should have been hoofing it and hauling the groceries home on your back...

 

Hell...it's only 26 miles each way to work too. Why not.

 

"Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!"

 

There's another reason besides fuel economy for sticking to lower speeds. Specifically: crash severity.

 

FINALLY!

That it took 5 pages to get there..... we've got to do better PC.

 

Assuming that's what you mean, total agreement. Up here NOBODY comes to a legal stop at stop lights, or when turning right at a red traffic signal. There's a couple of issues with that:

1. Running over pedestrians.
2. Giving the through traffic heart attacks. Or worse...

On the topic, speed limits:

I have a hunch a significant portion of the speeding and tailgating is due to drivers "running late".

I've been a passenger in cars where's I'm almost pushing my foot through the front of the footwell. Sadly my daughter's in that category. She picked me up yesterday, very early, for a lumberyard run. For the first few blocks she had some ultraviolet-glowing dental gizmo in her mouth (teeth whitener??). On her phone she was checking texts, Google Maps, all the while applying make up. Floorin' it up to red lights, with one wiper blade dangling, whipping back and forth. I could barely find a place to put my feet, among the empty kombucha bottles.

Sometimes I get tired...

 

Not too shabby for 10 miles, this was on my way to work.