Driving Home, A RANT

What is it with slow drivers these days? I was sticking to speed limits too. A 1.1 litre, 55 BHP Fiat Punto should NOT be the fastest car on the road! Folks, give it some gas!

It might be due to a crackdown on enforcement. I remember a few years ago a lot of pedestrians were being hit by cars on Queens Boulevard. For some background, this is a main thoroughfare about 3 miles from me. It has two sets of three lanes in each direction separated by medians (12 lanes in all). It is posted for 30 mph like all local streets but usual speeds are about 40 to 45 mph on the outer 3 lanes and 50 to 60 mph on the two sets of center lanes. Heck, I crack 30 mph all the time when I cycle this road, occasionally even 40 mph on the downhills. The "normal" speeds are plenty safe since this is a wide street with good visibility. Anyway, as usual the police mentality was that excessive speed was at fault for the high number of killed and injured pedestrians. Nevermind that most of the pedestrians hit were jaywalking and/or crossing on red. The police did a major crackdown on speeders. After this started seeing the traffic was like watching a movie in slow motion. It was actually a little hilarious. Of course, this did practically nothing for the pedestrian death rate since a car hitting you at 30 mph is just as deadly as one at 60 mph, and people still insisted on crossing without bothering to look for traffic. Instead, it was yet another idiotic "feel-good" measure just like sidewalk cycling ticketing blitzes which do absolutely nothing for safety but make for good 30-second sound bites. As far as I know the ticketing has dropped to normal levels and speeds on Queens Blvd. are back where they always were.

My guess is the same thing is probably happening on the roads you drive on. Just keep muttering the phrase "and this too shall pass" as you're creeping along. Once the cops disappear speeds will climb back to normal.

Illegal lane changes. Turning without signaling. Not coming to a complete stop at a stopsign. Passing on the right. Giving other drivers the "finger". Driving while talking on a cell phone and putting on makeup and shushing the kids and changing the radio station while eating a double cheeseburger. These are all things that should take prescience over ticketing for excessive speed. They only go after speeders becasue it's easier to ticket for.

May I advance a theory that most slow drivers are, generally, also bad drivers.

In my area there are some tip-offs whether a particular vehicle will have a slow driver. I watch out for: Buicks, Taurus/Sables, 1/2 the pick-em-up-trucks, sporty VWs, Corvets, any large luxury boat, any vehicles with a support-the-troops ribbon decal, a NASCAR # decal, a God-bless-USA or flag decal. I calls em as I sees em. My observations have nothing to do with my politics but I can correlate some connections in my observations.

MikeSalt said:

What is it with slow drivers these days? I was sticking to speed limits too. A 1.1 litre, 55 BHP Fiat Punto should NOT be the fastest car on the road! Folks, give it some gas!

Click to expand...

Was it raining or other road conditions involved?? that would cause normal drivers to slow down? I drive the speed limit sometimes and other times "go with the flow of traffic" If it is dark,rainy icy I slow down as do most other cars around here.
Topper

Beats me. I find mainly that cops set the speed, so if they go under the limit, so does everyone else. Ive passed cops doing ten over with no problems. With my 2.2 liter diesel pushing 64hp, I try to keep it under 70. although it will do 85

What I hate are the rubber neckers who wont speed by an accident on the other side of the road and are in no way impeded by it or the merge lanes where everyone is chicken to merge.

Lets not forget school buses that pull out in front of traffic. I hate school buses pulling out in front of me in traffic next to LEOs tailgating you. Ive yet to have a greyhoiund pull out in front me yet I pass their station several times a day.

It depends on a few things on how fast I go. During the day on the highway I do 75 mph or slightly above, at night if I have nothing going on and I'm just going home I'll do maybe 65 mph to save gas.

In town I almost always stick to the speed limit or under as there are far too many cops for the small town I live in.

At night time, I'm one of the few vehicles out at all as most people are normally asleep at 4 am. So I don't slow traffic at all.

I try to keep to the speed limit around town. Makes the drive more relaxing and saves gas, too.

Geoff