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I know that I have been saved from tickets due to heavy traffic before.
Of course, if someone is being VERY obnoxious and tailgating overly aggressive, I'll just let them fly by and hope they get nailed by the cop.
I've even sped up to make them feel more comfortable and then pulled over as if I'm going to maintain a faster speed. Just wish Ohio State Patrol were more aggressive about hiding in the medians and behind bridges like police in other states.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I am not trying to be critical here but if we want to lay out the case for LL dominator, why not have a passive aggressive dominator. You know the type: on a 65 mph highway (no traffic snarls) goes between precisely 44-60 mph. Well if you can do that in the far right lane you can do it in ANY LANE!!??
The law really doesn't dictate a specific "speed" In fact the keep right except to pass or slower traffic keep right is part and parcel to this. One is supposed to figure out his place in the food chain and take the appropriate actions.
Let me give you an annecdotal example. I was breaking in a set of new tires for my Corvette Z06. The break in procedures called for VERY easy early operations (no herky jerky type driving) and so called low speeds up to the 200 mile range. One upshot: how well you run during break in has a decided effect on the longevity of the tires.
So I go to a smooth highway (for around here anyway) and in the right lane do app 45 mph. in a 65 mph zone. Average speeds on this freeway are usually between 80-85 mph. My first perception was: BRAVE NEW WORLD HERE!! But I have to admit that once you got used to it, you are pretty much in your own bubble. Even merging lane cars easily passed!! During this break in time 3 Highway Patrol cars, with not even so much as a nod passed me. (I am guessing at 80-85 judging by the traffic speeds of other cars also) Nary a nod for going 45 in a 65 mph zone.
And if someone is going faster than me, I have no problem moving over if there is room.
1. the population of vehicles being at record levels,
2. more miles being driven
3. more trips being taken
4. highway speeds both real and posted being higher
5. etc
that the USA highway system is the safest that it has been since they have been recording these statistics!!!
I have followed people who stayed in the left lane from Dayton to Cincinnati and vice-versa. They never moved out even when the middle lane was empty.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
As for "Left Lane Dominator", that could actually apply to both camps. The Speed Racer wanna-be who expects traffic to part like Charleton Heston and the Red Sea, or the pig who just wants to sit there in the left lane, going at or below the flow of traffic, and make his point that it's his world and everybody else needs to adapt. Both of them want to dominate the left lane, just in their own way.
The later one was called "The Wraith".
The Wraith doesn't have the same fear me factor. That was a pretty sweet car, mostly terrorized a bunch of "inconsiderate driver" punks, after they got a guy killed(wasn't it Charlie Sheen?) Loved that movie, lots of car chase/race scenes. Pretty cool how that turbo Dodge gave that Corvette a good run.
Reminds me of a story I read about 15 years ago. Some guy was racing a black seden, all tinted and completely blacked out, and hummed like a power generator, or turbine. Guy had a Rolls Merlin in the back of a Nomad. Had the Devil beat by a desert mile, until he blew tire and wiped out before the finish line. Was a great story.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
I'm a professional driver and I'm not saying that to try to make myself look like I'm better than anyone else. I'm saying this because of my profession, I spend a lot of time behind the wheel and I'm constantly exposed to these dangerous drivers. Because my job relies on me having a clean driving record, I choose to conform to the laws to avoid the risk of being ticketed or being involved in an accident. What I don't understand is why law enforcement doesn't do anything about all of this disorder on the roadways. I know the inital argument would be that they don't have to manpower to deal with all the traffic violators. But that argument would be quickly extinguished because if they were ticketing even 1/10 of all the violators, they'd generate enough revenue to erase the national defecite.
Who can I approach with this matter to see about getting something done to curb all of the idiot driving?
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/PPT/2003EARelease.pd- f
Then police can concentrate on the real dangers - tailgating, improper turns, left lane campers - instead of wasting time randomly stopping people who are exceeding the obviously too-low speed limits.
The remedy chosen, of course, will depend on whether the real goal is to improve highway safety or merely raise revenue through traffic fines.
While the NHTSA, among others have been repeating the mantra "speed kills" the wholesale highway speed limit increase to 65 mph FROM 55 mph did not have a significant increase of fatalities. These agencies were predicting massive increases in fatality rates. In fact the rates have not only gone down, but we are the safest that we have EVER been! Again this is true with increased speed limits, more vehicles, more travel trips, more vehical miles. etc
Also you will not hear any safety agencies beating the drum in favor of raising speed limits, but fully 85% of FATALITIES happen at speeds of 45 mph and UNDER!!!!
"Fewer young drivers died in accidents in 2003 than the year before, but the total still was 429 more than a decade earlier, the government reported."
In other words the roads are not safer for every segment of the population. Raising the speed limit is not the answer, better enforcement is.
Kinda throwing those numbers up with no basis, but it looks scary! Ohhhhh. Wait, actually 429 people out of the U.S. increase isn't scary. Even disregarding the population and miles driven increase from a decade ago.
"Raising the speed limit is not the answer, better enforcement is."
Also as you so ignore, when the national speed limit was raise from 55 mph TO 65 mph, the fatality rate has actually GONE in the precise opposite direction of the increase carnage that was predicted!! So does that really mean raising the speed limit was better enforcement?
Unfortuately that study may hold water on an empty mid-west road, but in New Jersey it hasn't been the case. Higher speed limits have resulted in some very high profile tragic loss of lives as people go even faster.
I think the public as a whole might drive a little faster, since the speed limits have been raised, but as a whole, I'm sure that when the limit is set to a more realistic level, more people drive closer to it than they did before! And sure, you're going to have some nut cases who want to go 100 mph through a blind curve in a school zone, but they're gonna drive stupidly no matter what the speed limit is!
HUH?
The RATE of fatalites may be going down simply because of increased numbers of drivers on the roads and better education. That, and the idea that locations on the roads where accidents are more likely due to road conditions or design are pretty much a finitie, ungrowing number. (The "bad" intersection in your town produces 3 fatalities per year even though the number of cars on the road keeps increasing.)
But that's an aside... back to the speed issue.
I'm just going to think out loud to illustrate why my gut is telling me that the concept of being more likely to survive a crash BECAUSE you're going faster is wrong. Thinking of some of the ways people die in fatal crashes...
1) Hitting that bridge abutment; running off the road into a ditch; wrapping yourself around a tree or utility pole; running into stopped traffic ahead of you - and the reason it would be BETTER to do so at 75 instead of 55 is what exactly???
2) Head ons - I don't think the idea from the football field of "hit the other guy harder than he hits you and you'll win" works when it comes to cars.
3) Loss of control leading to a rollover - Am I missing something or is rolling farther or faster REALLY better for you?
Do you see what my gut is trying to tell me? Higher speed means more energy to dissipate. And we're NOT comparing older less safe cars with newer safer cars. The point trying to be made was getting into a car crash at a higher speed will improve your chance of living after it.
With all due respect...nope.
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Dramatic advances in structure have been made in 10 years. Cars have gotten, safer, people are becoming more educated, DWI/DUI fatalities are down, people are wearing there seatbelts more.
None of these has anything to do with being able to justify the supposed decrease in fatalities solely on the increase in tye speed limit.
getting into a car crash at a higher speed will improve your chance of living after it.
That sentence starts with a condition, getting into a crash at a higher speed, that you then go on to say will IMPROVE your chances of survival. That seems absurd.
If you meant to say that you can be involved in a higher speed crash in a 2004 vs a 1981 model of the same car and come out better, MAYBE... Even if I'm in a car that's safer now than it was then, the safety factor of the car is a constant. It doesn't increase with speed. I'd wager that the statistics would should that as well. Injuries HAVE to become more frequent and more severe as vehicle speed increase.
And, as long as you're comparing vehicles of a similar weight, I'd be inclined to agree. However, really heavy vehicles actually tend to fare poorly when they hit objects that simply aren't going to move, because all that weight just amplifies the forces put on the front of the vehicle. If it's something where you sit really close to the front, like a van, SUV, or pickup, you're going to be screwed. In something like a full-sized car with a long hood, where the bulk of the car's mass is in front of you, you'll fare a bit better. Kinda like being in the last car of a train, versus the first car, in a head on collision!
One thing that should be considered, though, is that those crash tests are done at relatively low speeds, like 35-40 mph. And in the majority of cases, the passenger cabin was compromised. In some of the poorer performing cars, you still had an excellent chance of being severely hurt in an impact. And in many cases, even though the airbag deploys, the crash test dummy still ends up getting smacked by the steering column as it and the entire dashboard gets thrust up into it face, actually pushing through the airbag. So the airbag softened the blow somewhat, but it would have been better still if the steering column and dash had stayed in place. As for higher speeds, well consider this: if those passenger cabins were starting to breach at 35-40 mph, just imagine what would happen at higher speeds.
And while this isn't something that I would advise trying, I do believe that there might be a few situations where you might be better off hitting something at a higher speed than a lower speed. For instance, I know I've brought this up before, but some things, like telephone poles, smaller trees, etc, WILL snap if you hit them hard enough. So what's better, hitting one at 40 mph and stopping dead, or hitting one at 45, snapping it like a twig, and only decelerating maybe 10-15 mph? Of course, you usually can't predict when the best time to speed up is, and if you have the time to speed up, you have the time to slow down! Plus, chances are that after you hit that telephone pole and snap it, you'll be out of control afterwards, and may hit other things, roll the car, etc...
Also, states were given the option of increasing the speed limit to 65 mph in 1987, which meant that it happened before the last decade of improvements in car structure.
The same result happened when the 65 mph speed limit was abolished in late 1995.
Again, there was a drop in the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles driven in 1996, which cannot be explained away by safer vehicles, or safety improvements that have occurred in vehicle design over the last decade.
As for New Jersey - I looked up the figures for the number of fatal crashes that are related to speed, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). (New Jersey went to a 65 mph speed limit in late 1997.)
The figures are from 2000-2003.
In 2000, 7 percent of fatal crashes in New Jersey were speed related. This increased to 9 percent in 2001, before dropping to 8 percent in 2002. For 2003, it was down to 6 percent.
(NHTSA has a rather loose definition of what constitutes a speed-related accident. Falling under the definition of a speed-related fatality, as per NHTSA, are: improper lane changes; following too closely; unsafe passing; inattention; reckless driving; high-speed chase; erratic speeds; driving too fast for conditions [50 mph in a snow storm is too fast for conditions, even if the speed limit is 65 mph]; and driving LESS than the posted minimum speed limit.)
There was a middle-aged couple inside. They seemed oblivious to the flashing lights behind them as cars ran up on them. The right lane was CLEAR. I was even using the right lane at 65 mph.
I thought of fintail and his Mercedes; would he be going 40 in the middle lane? I don't think so.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Year-Fatalities
2003-38,252
2002-38,491
2001-37,862
2000-37,526
1999-37,140
1998-37,107
1997-37,324
1996-37,494
1995-37,241
1994-36,254
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/main.cfm
Just going by raw numbers, today's stats wouldn't look much better compared to the 50's, when, IIRC, on average 40-50,000 people yearly died in car crashes. And back in the 50's, one of the biggest saftety features was how far back from the front of the car the steering box was located! The further back it was, the harder a hit it took for the steering wheel to spear you.
When the speed limit was raised back to 65 in certain areas, people were driving carefully and stayed closer to 65. As years went on they became more careless and speeded up. So the initial years the accident rate did not increase after the rise to 65.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,