Slow pokes look out! Ouch

If it makes you feel any better, I always go 5-10 miles over the limit along a certain road (limit was once 55 and then stupid yuppies complained and got it reduced to 35mph; however nobody goes 35 there anyway). So here I am going 45mph, and rice rockets still go peeling past me like I was going 20mph. I think it's just the ricer mentality. They like to show off the speed of their cars, so they peel around as if people cared (hate to burst their bubble, but most people only find em annoying instead of cool). And you know, in a collision with those delicate rice rockets my blazer would win....they have no clue.

 

It's amazing how certain cars make you drive. I really learned that I have no consistant driving habits. When I drive the Prius, I drive a little bit under the limit; I get much better gas mileage. I get especially better gas mileage when I drive about 38 mph in a 40mph because at 41/42mph the ICE comes back on. If I have nothing better to do, I even avoid freeway driving which can double my commute( does that make any sense at all?) However when driving my mom's A4 or step-dad's 9-5 Aero, I flash the highbeams at folks on the freeway when they go only 5 over the limit in the left lane, I speed, and I take corners very tightly... Maybe there is a reason as to why the Europeans make safety a top priority...

As for the rice rockets, I know when I'm at a light and they see me, deep down they know that a few neon lights and a dorky spoiler can't compare to Prius...

As for Starbug, maybe you don't have a clue. Maybe those stupid yuppies are just looking out for people like yourself. Maybe your Blazer isn't so tough... Do yourself a favor: check out what the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has to say about your Blazer :idea:
http://www.iihs.org/vehicle_ratings/ce/html/96002.htm

 

We get cool cars without having to do much...maybe a little EV mod here or there. :wink: :mrgreen:

 

Going slower, you will usually catch up to the faster guy at the next light. But one time out of 10 or 20 he'll make it through the light and you won't. So on average he'll get where he's going sooner. ... Until he causes an accident with his reckless driving, but even then he gets to his final "destination" sooner.

I don't think my driving style has changed since I drove my Civic, except that I could not drive with the engine off. I go with the flow of traffic. If there's no traffic I go 3 or 4 mph over the limit, except in school zones, when I go at or one mph under the limit. I really don't want to have to deal with the consequences of hitting a kid.

 

Yeah, driving faster when there are lights just doesn't work much at all. I don't see the sense. It's only on the interstate that you can reap large rewards from high speeds.

 

I had a similar experience too. A ricer started to over take me in a 50Kmh limit (I was doing about 55Km) and as he pulled out, he saw a police car coming towards him head on. He pulled sharp back in behind me, but the police turned around and followed him. He didnt get the chance to rice it for a while :lol:

 

The speed limit is supposed to be the maximum, but at least for the 30+ years I have been driving, society has also considered it the minimum. Since this is the case, driving under the limit is likely to cause more accidents simply because the "five or more over" drivers get really wound up and drive stupidly when you aren't even doing the limit. I have always been a 2 - 4 over driver except where the flow of traffic makes it dangerous not to keep up. Not likely to piss people off and the nice officers don't pull me over

See, they do have their value - they race ahead and trip the traffic lights for you!

 

Not the people on the boards THEY read. They probably don't even think the Prius is cool and make nasty comments about them and their drivers

 

I agree with this. Residential is the one place I do drive under the limit. Especially in my neighborhood. The road is 14' wide, the houses are maybe 10 or 15' from the road, there are no sidewalks or curbs. The road is fairly straight, then has a 30 degree curve you can't see around because of the houses, tress and shrubs, then straightens out again. I do 15 max there. When we walk in that section, I stay on the outside of the curve regardless of the traffic direction because I have a better chance of seeing cars and being seen.

 

It's also nice to be driving slowly in a residential when some kid decides to throw water baloons at you. :mrgreen:

I will agree, though, that driving below the limit on the interstate is a bit of a safety hazard. Yes, if you get in a wreck, your chances of survival go up, but going slow will cause people to break hard if they don't expect how slow you are, it will cause them to tailgate, it will cause them to have some incidents of road rage.

Certainly, in theory you should be able to go slower than the speed limit, but it just doesn't work that way in reality.

 

gee bruce... are you my neighbor?? you describe my neighborhood to a tee. we also have a blind corner that is about 60º and has hedges growing right along the road edge making it even tougher.

add a garage sale or family get together anywhere in the neighborhood and then you have cars parked on the side of the road creating "one car only" situation.

as for the freeway, yes its true that the differences in speed on the freeway causes accidents, but there is no hard fast rule for freeway travel. higher speeds cause greater injury, larger amounts of vehicles involved from chain reaction accidents, etc. lower speeds cause more rear end collisions because people assume lower than posted speed limits means they are allowed to ignore safe following distances.

so as you can see, if there is a way to get in trouble, we as a race will figure out how to do it under any circumstances.

 

Heh, trust me, I know very well that Blazers have a horrible (and well-deserved) safety rep. But the fact that as mine rolls over onto the rice rocket, they get squished underneath. Ergo, blazer wins. Seriously though, we'd probably both be killed or horribly hurt and that would suck for us all. I hope I never find myself in an accident. Ricers get killed all the time on the road I spoke of because they go flying past "slow" cars and end up spinning out (or riquorcheing (sp?) off another vehicle) and flying into powerline posts or off and down the steep edge of the road. You'll get tail-gaited by everybody (non-ricers included) if you go below 45mph on this road, but there really is no reason to be going as fast as the ricers do. The yuppies only complained about the road because "children could be hurt if they are playing along the road". If you saw the road, you'd know that children should NEVER be anywhere near it for any reason at all! It's a high-speed main drag with no sidewalks (just a shoulder); it's not a neighborhood, does not run through one, nor was it ever meant to be one. NO child should be near it without an adult, and there is no reason to be up there in the first place except when driving in a car. It would be like playing on the side of a freeway. Fortunately, I've never seen a child on that road anyway.

 

LOL, serves him right. They get a bit too cocky for their britches more often then not. I love their cars, but I don't like their attitudes.

 

LOL, probably sooooooo very true! At least both parties have an understanding, eh? LOL.

 

They probably think we have to plug it in.

 

I generally 'go with the flow' on the superslab in one of the two right lanes, depending on how many exits there are. If it's fairly sparse, the right lane is fine, but if there's a lot of merge/exit activity, the second lane from the right is usually best for steady progress.

The important point for me is that I find my mileage is more influenced by how often I have to slow down and speed back up than by a couple of mph one way or another average speed.

However, if you're on the road for any length of time, you're likely to come up on one or more people doing the limit or only a couple over in the right lane.

If I want to loaf along, I find I can fall into or behind a group like that, and be relatively safe from the road rage contingent, because they tend to blame the first car in the line. They can race around all of us, doing the same speed, and only shake their fist at the leader

Plus, you aren't contributing anything to congestion, because the group would be going the same speed whether you were there or not.

 

in Western WA i go with the flow, and that flow frequently is 5-15 mph BELOW the limit on the freeway.

that is why i like I-5 south of Tumwater. 70 mph and that is the legal limit. also on two trips of semi decent length i got about 50.5 and 51.3 mpg so still hit EPA. (although on both trips there were several areas where the speed of the car was 50-60 because of congestion) unfortunately unlike Oregon, there is no "drive right except to pass" law here and that SUCKS!!!

driving in Oregon is sooooo much nicer than here!!

 

I actually had a guy flash his lights at me on the way to work this morning. I was going 44 mph in a 35 mph zone. After the first two lights we stopped at, he continued to flash his light for me to go faster. Finally, he changed lanes so I slowed up so he could go around me. He probably got to his destination 2 minutes faster than I did.

Jeff