Most of the speed limits we obey today were set for the four-drum brakes 40+ years ago.

Texas must be the smartest state rising their speed limit to 80 MPH on few freeways.

If you want to save gas, stay on the right lane.

 

What is the benifit of turning off X and K bands here in Florida?? The radar detector rarely ever goes off unless there is police radar in the area. I get practically no faults, non from other radars, none from automatic doors, mostly just verifyable radar. Thanks!

 

I had three different detectors. In SoCal X and K bands are alarms, motion detectors etc. and they only gave me false alarms. In the RX and GX detectors you can disable any band you like.

 

Sounds good there Pete but finding a Judge who also thinks so, I don't know.

 

I firmly believe the speeds set for rural highways and city/twp roads are fair. If there is room to be had on the highway, I don't have an issue with seeing higher speeds on the open interstates. Mind you, once they enter into populated or highly travelled areas, the speeds should be slower. Just because your reaction time is good doesn't mean everyone elses is. I'd like to see a staggered fine payment for speeding, with higher fines to repeat offenders and younger drivers. These fines are not revenue generators. Its a penalty, you can't go to jail for speeding.

As far as the radar goes, most states have laws prohibiting their use. If you are a safe driver that follows the speed limits, you have no need for a radar. And the 15-25 mph you are going over the speed limit, doesn't get you there much quicker than the next.

I have driven several cross country trips in my Yukon with the cruise set for 0-10mph over the limit and I rarely beat my GPS arrival time by more than 10 minutes. Those are 300-500 mile trips. My .02 about this whole radar debate.

 

Nothing beats situation awareness.

An SUV driver (who must have been blind) thought it was cute to pass me at 90 MPH, using the right lane, the other day after I slowed to +5 over PSL when I saw an ohio state trooper sitting in the median.

I was so excited to see the cop pull out and pull that dummy over.

He totally did not see the cop.

 

Wow!

Did you used to work in streetsboro, OH back in 2001?

Same thing happened to me back in 2001.

I had just installed the hotcam, ported heads, and long tube headers on my 93 vert. I was taking a friend for a ride. It was nighttime and we were heading into a rural area.

When the last of the city speed limit zone switched to 65 MPH, I put the hammer down.

I saw a cop in the rearview light up his lights and I wasted no time pulling over.

I thought I was going to jail, but instead got my license checked, a 'nice ride', and then a 'keep your performance driving to the race track'.

No arrest, no ticket, no warning, no nothing. I was flat amazed.

In fact, if HP Bushrod has a jar-head cut and is kinda stocky, about 45 years old (back then he woulda been about 35) its the same cop!

 

But a 2011 Chevy Malibu brakes 3-5 times better than a 1968 Chevy. The basic speed limits will
never change specially school zones. Cops around my house are **** about you speeding on school
zones. Not even with the detector on I would do it.

 

One time me and a friend were in my s-10 coming back from south carolina, where I had dropped off a car. Anyway, I-40 between asheville NC and newport TN is a fairly curvy mountain pass, known as "the gorge". The speed limit through there is 55 but it's fun to take it at 65-70 and still be completely in control. Chances are very slim you'll run into any enforcement in the gorge itself because the shoulders are narrow and there are rock faces on each side of the shoulder so there's not a lot of room to hide. It's basically out in the middle of nowhere.

However once you come out of the gorge on the TN side there is very often at least one state trooper hiding in the median among some trees. Having traveled this route several times prior, I knew this.

For about 10 miles near the end of the TN side of the gorge, some young lady in an early 00's ford taurus had been screwing with us. My little s-10 was underpowered and sometimes didn't climb steep hills well enough to stop from losing 5-10mph, but it would get it back on the downhill. So we'd hit a hill and this woman in the taurus would rocket around us at full bore. Then on the downhill, she'd slow down to 5-10mph LESS than she passed me at. I'd follow her a few seconds and then pass. Sometimes she'd let us and sometimes she wouldn't.

So this had gone on for several miles. At times I bet she had gotten above 80mph with this game. We're climbing the final hill leaving the gorge, and my V1 starts alerting, so I know that a state trooper is running speed in his usual spot ahead, still at least a mile ahead.



Of course I baited her to my fullest potential, downshifted and hammered my truck for all it was worth. She played right along, and the front end of the taurus lifted up and away she went. Just at the crest of the hill the V1 went crazy and I had already shaved off all my excess speed a split second before. I appeared to be running maybe 58 and she HAD to be running 85-90.

It had been raining out a bit earlier that day although the roads were still dry, but the grass was wet. The cop was sitting in some dirt tracks because he parked there often apparently. All we saw was the state trooper's lights go on (while still sitting still facing us 1/4 of a mile ahead of the girl in the taurus) and TWO PLUMES of brown mud shoot into the sky no less than 20 feet high as he tried to get his cruiser out of the median and onto the road to get her. Me and my friend were laughing so hard it was all I could do to keep control and stay in my lane. By the time I passed the cop's position he had just gotten onto the roadway beside us to pursue her, and he took off like a jet at wide open throttle.

As we passed the taurus we blew the horn a couple times, lol. Good times.

 

I've thought about that a lot. Road conditions vary with weather, all manner of vehicles in various states of repair, wide range of suspensions... ALL constrained by the same speed limit.

Apparently, the posted limit is a defacto guideline, and exceeding it and by how much seems to be at the discretion and judgement of the LEO, all things considered. I'm good with that. Rowing the gears and bumping the shift light on a lone country blacktop is far less likely to draw blood than fking around in traffic. I've go no problem with a WOT blast on a stretch of road, devoid of other traffic or driveways. But, operating "outside the window" of normal traffic flow IS stupid and should be "rewarded" accordingly. JMO.

And then there's Colorado... Never driven in a state that was sooo rigid about posted limits - to the point of being abrasive. It wouldn't be so bad, except some of the limits are totally ridiculous! Waaay too slow for dry conditions, and of course too fast when there's ice and snow on twisty mtn roads.

After getting a ticket for exceeding the limit while passing a slow vehicle, the officer said exceeding wasn't legal - even when passing. Here's your ticket. A few days later I'm going down a mtn road with a posted 15 mph limit.

Still stinging from the ticket I got, I by gawd stayed at 15 mph all the way down the ridge. By the time I got to the bottom, I was leading quite a parade of angry and honking drivers. There was a cop at the bottom, and I get pulled over. He was considering writing me a ticket for something or other related to impeding traffic.

I blew a fuse, and let him know what I thought about CO and their ridiculous posted limits, salted with "you can't exceed", and "you have to exceed so as not to impede!" BS! "I'm damned if I do, and damned if I don't!" (I told him about the ticket for exceeding.)

I was told I needed to "use some discretion and common sense". I told him I always do, but in CO, more than any state I've ever lived in, common sense doesn't seem to carry much weight. I got off with a warning, which surprised me a little. At least there was one LEO in CO that seemed to have a measure of common sense of his own.

Rant off. Sorry... (It makes me mad ALL OVER AGAIN!)


P.

 

Went up there this summer on vacation & you could get radiation burns traveling across southern Colorado on Hwy.160! My Valentine was buizzing all along that road. Colorado Hwy patrol on the open road and locals in every little burg. Not my idea of a tourist trap.

 

I have an Escort 8500. I don't use it anymore - it stays in my master bedroom closet because it's almost useless these days. I had it on, running 57 in a 45 and when it went off, it was to inform me that I was busted. The cop would have let me go since I admited to speeding and even told him my speed, he laughed that my speedometer and his radar unit were syncronized. Then he saw the Escort on the dash, he gave me a ticket but cut the speed to 54 in a 45. 2 points and a $95 fine.

In the 80's, I had a Whistler unit that never failed me. I drove like a maniac and that Radar Detector saved my *** several times. It's a relic today, I still have it in the same closet the Escort is stored (I'm a horrible pack rat.)

The speed limit in Colorado is 75 on the Interstates, so I lock the CC on 80. The police don't look for speeders like me more than they go after people driving too close to the vehicle in front of them or people towing stuff without proper lighing. The State Patrol eats those people up.

 

Dude, you need to go to Wyoming. The LEOs see your Colorado tag and you exceed the speed limit by 2 mph on I-25, you're pulled over within the first 5 miles of being in Wyoming.

I went to buy a snowmobile in Cheyenne and I had so many State Troopers tailing me, I thought I was OJ Simpson and that I was driving a white Bronco.

 

 

Naah brother, Wasn't me. I was working for the department I'm currently employed with in 2001. The closest I've come to Ohio is when I worked for the DOC in NJ.

 

Retaliation...I suspect!