Speeding

[formulanone]

138 mph in my old Eagle Talon TSi, plenty quick and the limit was 65 on an empty freeway at night many, many moons ago. The road never felt so narrow.

I feel kind of ashamed to admit I once drove 70 in a 25, and that was in a resident area...really stupid, something nobody should do. Had I hit a someone, I would have spent a good chunk of my life in jail. I take the residential speed limits seriously after realizing it's not cool, and cops love to write easy tickets that way.

That said, I occasionally brush 85-90 on the closed-access stuff, but that's rare anymore. Sometimes you're just keeping up with traffic on the interstate, and it happens for a short stretch or two. But I don't feel comfortable going more than 80 for more than a few moments, as I get older...

The exception is suggested limits on curves. If the weather's fair and traffic is light, than 2x the limit's suggestion is a formula than generally works for me, if I know my reflexes are up to the task.

[agentsteel53]

The exception is suggested limits on curves.

oh Hell yeah!  that's not an enforceable law; that's a challenge! I've done 62 around an advisory 15 before, barely surviving past the point of slipping off the edge...

the East LA Interchange has a curve that is signed with an advisory 35 (I-5 southbound) - I've had cruise control on 92 and held my own through that curve.

[Tarkus]

And here I thought I was really something doing 60 on an advisory 35.   My general rule tends to be 10 over the advisory.  If I'm familiar with the road, I'll sometimes take it a little faster than that.  If it's unfamiliar and really gnarly, I usually will follow it, however.

[ftballfan]

Speaking of advisory curves on ramps, the ramps at either end of M-6 are advisory 55, but I've managed to easily stay at 80+ going through those ramps.

[Brandon]

I usually respect the advisory signs as being for inclement weather or for trucks.  Typically around here, I find them to be under posted by 20-30mph.

As for speed, I usually settle in about 70-75mph on the freeways here which is what traffic moves at anyway (even in the 55mph zones).  Now I have topped over 100mph in the Arizona desert, and traffic there was moving about 95mph on average.  What's interesting is that I'll be in the middle of the pack during normal times, but when it snows or rains, I'll pass just about everyone on the road.  It's fun to maintain 65mph in a decent snowstorm.

I have also taken a fair amount of the Hana Highway in Hawai'i at 40+mph.  I wound up going about 30mph on the curves and 50mph on the straightaways.  IIRC, it's signposted for 15-25mph.

[agentsteel53]

What's interesting is that I'll be in the middle of the pack during normal times, but when it snows or rains, I'll pass just about everyone on the road.  It's fun to maintain 65mph in a decent snowstorm.

in California, people do not slow down for inclement weather - even as they are passing vehicles which have spun out and hit the guardrail on the side of the road!  I'll be doing 50-60 or whatever I feel is safe, and having cars bombing past me doing 90-100.  Fools never learn.

[Brandon]

What's interesting is that I'll be in the middle of the pack during normal times, but when it snows or rains, I'll pass just about everyone on the road.  It's fun to maintain 65mph in a decent snowstorm.

in California, people do not slow down for inclement weather - even as they are passing vehicles which have spun out and hit the guardrail on the side of the road!  I'll be doing 50-60 or whatever I feel is safe, and having cars bombing past me doing 90-100.  Fools never learn.

I've heard horror stories from my parents who recently moved out to Bakersfield from Joliet.  The California drivers seem to have trouble even in a light rain much less a big snow.

[Duke87]

I pay no attention to curve advisory speeds. I just judge if/how much I need to slow down based on how the curve itself looks and feels.

[Alps]

Different states do advisory speeds differently. In PA or MA, you should be able to do 30-40 over pretty easily. But watch out when you get to Kentucky - they mean business on the twisty roads.

[agentsteel53]

But watch out when you get to Kentucky - they mean business on the twisty roads.

West Virginia doesn't even put up advisory signs sometimes.

diamond warning sign - advisory 15
diamond warning sign, and chevrons on guardrail - advisory 10
diamond warning sign knocked down, guardrail caved in - advisory 5

[hobsini2]

I have gone as much as 105 in a 99 Lincoln Town Car on I-55 from Weber Rd to Route 53.  Partly because i had someone piss me off with their driving, so i got his plate and called District 5 IL State Police.  It's nice having connections.  So that was 50 over east of Naperville Rd (now Veterans Pkwy).

Other than that, i don't go over 85 at all.  I usually do 67 in 55 and 73 in 65 on the local expressways.

[ftballfan]

Today I approached 80 on a 55 mph back road trying to find a place to relieve myself. I did find a place to relieve myself, but I had to go back in the woods off a two-track.

[deathtopumpkins]

While I'm not going to post how much I've sped by, I will chime in on the advisory speeds. I totally disregard them. They are a useless waste of sign materials. There's a 25 mph flyover here I always take in an SUV at 50 no problem, there's a freeway-freeway cloverleaf signed 35 that I always take at 60, and there are even some 15 or 20 ramps I take at 60. However, I've found the reverse to also be true with VDOT. For example, the ramp from Jefferson Ave northbound to I-64 eastbound in Newport News is signed with an advisory speed of 35, but you WILL flip over if you take it higher than 20. It's little more than a right turn. Also, posting advisory speeds for things like intersections bugs me. A 60 mph divided highway intersects a rural secondary route that's barely paved and that justifies a 45 mph advisory speed? Not buying it. Signals, however, are another matter entirely.

[Bryant5493]

Fastest I've driven -- 90 mph, from Atlanta to Columbus (GA) and back. That was awhile ago.
Speed over the speed limit -- 30 mph over. Most of Atlanta's freeways are 55 mph.


Be well,

Bryant

[1995hoo]

I don't drive nearly as fast as I did when I was younger for various reasons, including (but not limited to) too much traffic in the DC area, not driving on rural highways as much, more traffic on the highways here in Virginia than in the Southeast where I lived during part of the 1990s, not wanting my insurance to increase with a ticket, and various others.

Fastest speed ever was 120 mph late one night. I won't say where. I wanted to see how fast my car would go, but when I hit 120 it felt too fast for the road and I slowed down. I believe at the time the speed limit in there was 55 mph, so that's 65 mph over the limit. Unbelievably stupid thing to do because it would have netted jail time had a cop spotted me.

Fastest sustained speed was an extended run with the cruise control set at 100 mph on I-59 northeast of Birmingham in March 1997. I had driven from Duke down to Montgomery, Alabama, and I was taking the scenic route back since I was tired of I-85. Nobody on the road except for some guy in an S-Class Mercedes who went flying past me.

One of my current cars is an RX-7 convertible and I hit 100 in it once when I got fed up with a couple of aggressive drivers and decided to dust them. I had the top down at the time and somehow my hat didn't fly off.


Regarding the comment by "deathtopumpkins," I don't think advisory speeds are always worthless. I think it depends to a great deal on the car you're driving. I once had a 1977 Ford Granada and I very quickly learned that in that car, you ignored those yellow signs at your peril, especially on the loop-around ramps at cloverleafs.

[mightyace]

Years ago, I've done 105 twice, once on the Schuylkill Expwy outside of Philly, and a second time on a rural two-lane PA Rt 125 (marked 55) in Central PA.   

105 on the Sure-kill???  IMO You're either suicidal or telling a tall tale.

105 on PA 125 - in the midst of the coal country mountains between Shamokin and Pine Grove.  I'll buy that on a downhill stretch, but still tempting fate! 

[Kacie Jane]

I'm going to add a question to my original post, one that most of you have already answered.
3) How fast do you typically drive?

Let me preface this by saying that my car doesn't have cruise control, so I don't have the luxury of choosing a speed and pressing a button.  (And since I'm used to not using it, the past couple of times I've rented a car, I've tried to use the cruise control and just end up overriding it virtually immediately.)  On freeways, my speed tends to be between 65 and 80 dependent on grade, traffic, curves, day/night, but regardless of whether the speed limit is 60 or 70 -- meaning I have little problem going 65 in a 70 (in the right lane of course) if conditions warrant, but ditto for 80 in a 60.

Surface streets I tend to be within 5 mph of the speed limit in either direction -- with the exception of a couple of arterials here in Bellingham that are posted as 25 but I and everyone else treat as 35.  Rural 2-laners I take case by case, and either follow the speed limit, or follow my freeway rule (maybe minus 5 to 10 mph).

Regarding advisory speeds, I don't tend really ignore them so to speak, but I certainly don't treat them as limits either.  More I just use it as a gauge for how sharp the curve is, which is particularly useful if the jurisdiction just tacks up the standard curve sign for everything, regardless of how sharp or numerous the curves are.  For example, south of Bellingham, the speed limit on I-5 is 60, and there are a couple of curves posted with an advisory speed of.... 60!  Obviously, those curves are not terribly sharp, and I can proceed at my normal speed.  However, if I'm exiting on a loop with an advisory speed of 30, obviously I need to hit the brakes a little, but probably not all the way down to 30.

[Brandon]

I have gone as much as 105 in a 99 Lincoln Town Car on I-55 from Weber Rd to Route 53.  Partly because i had someone piss me off with their driving, so i got his plate and called District 5 IL State Police.  It's nice having connections.  So that was 50 over east of Naperville Rd (now Veterans Pkwy).

Other than that, i don't go over 85 at all.  I usually do 67 in 55 and 73 in 65 on the local expressways.

Careful though.  The state trooper likes to hide in the weigh station there, especially in the southbound one at night.

[Eth]

I'm going to add a question to my original post, one that most of you have already answered.
3) How fast do you typically drive?

On rural freeways, it's usually the posted speed limit plus ten (80 in a 70, 75 in a 65, etc.)
On urban freeways, I tend to virtually ignore the posted limit and instead go with the flow of traffic.  Here in the DC area, I find that usually results in roughly 70 in a 55; in Atlanta, that would be 75 in a 55.
On rural non-freeways, traffic permitting, I usually aim for around 7 mph over the posted limit.
On major arterials through towns here in Montgomery County, I keep it down to about 3 over if possible.  If traffic is light, I'm sometimes forced to apply cruise control to combat the widespread combination of artificially low speed limits (what would be, say, 45 most places is 30 here) and ubiquitous speed cameras.

As for curve advisory speeds, the general rule of thumb for my car appears to be that I can exceed the posted advisories by about 15 easily, at least here in Maryland.

[jemacedo9]

Years ago, I've done 105 twice, once on the Schuylkill Expwy outside of Philly, and a second time on a rural two-lane PA Rt 125 (marked 55) in Central PA.   

105 on the Sure-kill???  IMO You're either suicidal or telling a tall tale.

105 on PA 125 - in the midst of the coal country mountains between Shamokin and Pine Grove.  I'll buy that on a downhill stretch, but still tempting fate! 

On the "sure-kill" I was able to sustain for only 1/2 mile, and it was at night when traffic is "lighter".  The PA 125 was on the straighaway that goes under I-81.  Both were years ago when I was younger and foolish...I don't have the nerve to try either again...or really go 100 period!

[hbelkins]

Different states do advisory speeds differently. In PA or MA, you should be able to do 30-40 over pretty easily. But watch out when you get to Kentucky - they mean business on the twisty roads.

Yep. You can generally do 10 over the advisory speed in Kentucky. Of course I do more than that on road with which I'm familiar.

[Alps]

Different states do advisory speeds differently. In PA or MA, you should be able to do 30-40 over pretty easily. But watch out when you get to Kentucky - they mean business on the twisty roads.

Yep. You can generally do 10 over the advisory speed in Kentucky. Of course I do more than that on road with which I'm familiar.

In NJ, advisory speeds would be posted 5 MPH below the design speed on an existing road. (10 MPH for new roads in theory, though I've never seen that invoked. Always 5 MPH anyway.) So 10 over is what I'd expect to be a reasonable limit in a well-signed state.

[1995hoo]

I'm going to add a question to my original post, one that most of you have already answered.
3) How fast do you typically drive?

....

I drive slower than I used to for a variety of reasons. Lately I haven't been out on the open highway outside of the immediate DC area all that often. I try to keep it to 65 on the Beltway, in part because I know there's almost no chance of getting a ticket at that speed because so many people go faster. In the I-395 express lanes I generally set the cruise control at 70 (speed limit is 65). Last time I was out I-66 in the 70-mph zone west of Haymarket it was a fairly windy day and I kept it to 70. I was actually about the fastest car on the road that day, but it was VERY windy.

The fact that 81 mph is grounds for a reckless driving ticket in Virginia, regardless of what the speed limit is (i.e., the rule is 20 mph over OR in excess of 80 mph), definitely affects my speed.

In DC I have a pretty good sense for where the stationary speed cameras are and, like everyone else, I just slow down until I'm past them.

[agentsteel53]

nowadays I do 77 in a 70 or 73 in a 65. 

I insist on a rental car with cruise control.  I've had some rental cars that are so shaky with regards to power (see: Kia Rio!) that one second you're struggling to do 76 up a grade, but a moment later when the road levels out, within seconds you're doing 83 - a change of 7mph within about 2-3 seconds. 

add to that the fact that there is no steering wheel adjustment, so for a tall person, the steering wheel blocks the speedometer numbers between 40 and 90 mph ... I found myself either in peril of a speeding ticket, or having to consciously crane my neck to look at the speedometer once every 2-3 seconds, which just cannot possibly be a safe driving pattern!

so from now on, I insist on cars with a) unobstructed speedometer, and b) cruise control. 

[Duke87]

My car does not have cruise control. Which is just as well, I wouldn't use it if I had it. I'm not comfortable taking my foot off the pedals and giving up that control. Besides, my style of driving is never anything resembling constant speed, so it wouldn't work for me if I was.