rleeq

I hate multiple choice polls because many times, as in this case, none of the choices are any good. If it depends where a choice I bet it would be the most selected.
There are many factors that make speed dangerous. Speeding by itself is not dangerous. Driving faster than road conditions or weather dedicates is dangerous to name a few. You are a hazard if you are driving a lot faster or slower than the established speed limit. Notice I said established speed limit. The established speed limit is the speed that most people drive and is usually set by road condition, traffic level and weather it’s a rural, residential or commercial area. For example a two lane lightly traveled highway in good condition through a rural area might have a posted speed limit of 45 but the established speed limit is more like 60 because, that is what conditions dedicates. The established speed limit for the interstate in this area is 80 mph so I usually drive about 90 mph because it isn’t a lot faster than the speed limit and it is safe to do so.
On the subject of Drivers Education it’s a joke in this country and will continue to be unless the general public pushes to make changes. That highly unlikely mostly because the cost to have a truly effective DE program would be many times higher and the powers to be wouldn’t support such a program. I have read that the average House Wife in Germany is a better driver that most American Males. In many other countries driving is a privilege but in the USA it’s viewed as a right and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
The whole subject is so aggravating it drives me into a rage so I’m going for a drive. What’s the speed limit on the I10?

care4era

"Yes, but a speed limit should be placed"

I see a lot of people voted for that. Heh, what should the speed limit be? On the autobahn you can go as fast as you like ( in certain places). So if there is no limit and you are going fast, do you really want to look at the speedo to see that you are doing 230 km/h?

From experience I can tell you it does not matter. Naturally you go as fast as you feel comfortable. Sometimes that is 250km/h sometimes in is 180 km/h. Just because you can go mega fast, it does not mean you will.

I just chuckle to myself on the autobahn, thinking this is legal, haha. The rest of the world sucks and the autobahn rocks. No restrictions. I hate governments stopping us having fun and over regulating everything.

The US can be this way but you just need to make the laws. What pisses me off that the speed limits have been in place since the 1960's. Not since then has anyone tried a no speed limit rule. Why not just try it? If there are too many accidents then it can be revoked.

rroobbcc

Having lived in Germany for a total of 13 years in the stretch from 1989 to 2005, I think I have a lot of perspective on the autobahn. First, it has changed a lot. Not only has traffic volume increased tremendously, but speed limits are being imposed on an ever incresaing number of commonly traveled stretches. A8 from midway between Augsburg and Munich, all the way to Stuttgart airport is 120km/h. A3 from Frankfurt until almost Wuerzburg is 120-130km/h. A5 from Frankfurt to Kassel is 120km/h. The list goes on, and these are all long 60-100 mile stretches :-( Now days your best chance to really open it up is to get out early on a Sunday morning, where "early" means 4:00AM.

One of the main reasons for this is that the capability of the cars has went way up. In the mid- to late-80's speeds of 250km/h and higher were reserved for exotics, and a select few powerful luxury sedans, the owners of which were usually enthusiasts with a respect for the machine and more capable driving skills to match. Today, even most VWs and Opels can approach the 250km/h mark. This puts high speeds vehicles into the hands of a much larger segment of the population, and these drivers are inevitably less experienced and less skilled.

Things get really different as one exceeds 240-250km/h. Braking distances increase significantly and the heat of repeated heavy braking (usually because some idiot doing 81 moved over to pass a truck doing 80, and he didn't realize how quickly you were closing on him ) can cause a surprising loss of stopping power. Curves that would be wide open sweepers at lower speeds are now tight bends. And situations that could be easily handled at lower speeds (e.g. a sudden swerve to avoid an unexpected obstacle in the roadway) quickly push beyond the limits of car and driver. In other words, things get MUCH more dangerous, and the results are MUCH more deadly.

All of that said, I have often wondered why we couldn't adapt German autobahn laws for the interstates in the US, and I believe there are a few major obstacles. Even if we were to better train drivers before they could be licensed, and enacted laws such as a mobile phone ban (which we desperately need anyway ) and a ban on passing on the right (one of the keys to the autobahn working safely), we would still not be able to remove interstate speed limits. The limiting factors are...

1. The condition of vehicles. Germany requires that all vehicle have TUV inspection every three years to ensure they are roadworthy. This is a much more inclusive inspection than anywhere I am aware of in the US, and it helps ensure that vehicles are not a hazard. There are MILLIONS of cars on US interstates that would never make it through a TUV inspection.

2. The engineering of vehicles, especially US-made vehicles. Travelling at high speed places much more extreme loads on a vehicle. The vehicles suspension must be capable of maintaining vehicle stability even at these increased loads. We have a real problem in the US with vehicles that are engineered with lots of power and VERY soft suspensions. This is a recipe for disaster if we remove interstate speed limits. Any quick steering input, whether to avoid another vehicle or other object in the road, could easily send such softly suspended vehicles into a spin or roll. This problem is even more severe due to the number of SUVs on the road in the US, and the instability inherent to their high center of gravity.

3. On and off ramps are simply not designed to allow for safe merging onto the interstate or safe exiting, without severely interferring with the flow of traffic on the interstate itself, causing even more problems. It would be a multi-billion dollar effort to re-engineer enough on/off ramps to safely open up large sections of interstate to limit-free speeds. In many places it would be impossible, simply because of the development surrounding the exits. There is simply no room left to re-engineer them.

So as frustrating as it may be, I don't see any general or even limited lifting of the speed limits in the US anytime soon.

A few other notes...

90 isn't really that fast. If you are under 120 you should have no business in the fast lane. But the real point is, you shouldn't even be in the left lane if you are not actively passing someone.
Yeah, but if you flash those xenons too much you will find yourself arrested for taking a threatening/bullying posture against someone.
Yeah, it is cool the first few times, but you get used to it and the novelty wears off. This is actually part of the danger. You can get so used to it, that you forget your respect for speed and are more easily surprised, with much more dire consequences. If you want to drive fast there is still no match for the track, where you have curves, braking and acceleration to keep things interesting.
Sadly this is very true. When you live in the US, you become adjusted to the way people drive as being normal as it slowly deteriorates. As I moved back and forth between the US and Germany the last 18 years, I was able to see the delta between two points in time, and the changes were much more obvious. Especially the deterioration of apparent driving skills between 2001 and 2005 was most drastic. I attribute this to cell phones, and the high percentage of drivers today, who don't have a clue what a manual transmission is. I cannot begin to tell you how many people I see that are so obviously braking with their left foot. This is really obvious when their brake lights are almost constantly on, and when they accelerate when the brake lights are still on. They don't realize the heat they are building up in their brakes that is going to cause them to fail further down the road when the need them most. I think people who learn to drive a stick are almost forced to develop a better connection with what the car is doing, and tend to have much sharper driving skills, especially when the vehicle is at ot near its limit.
This is a very good point. Also almost any mistake in the first 24 months means you have to take additional remedial courses and endure an even longer extended probation period. There are also situations in Germany that will result in a life-time driving ban. We have no such threat in the US.
Exactly some of the points I was making.
No the use cameras to chase down speeders. They use the BMWs and Porsches to more important police work, like chasing down the theives, murders, and rapists. Kinda sounds like a more important use of their time doesn't it.


WEWWW!!! I thnk I am done now.

hwk72

That's exactly the point. When most speed limits on freeways have been established, you were only able to exceed them in the fastest cars of the time. Today almost all cars can do >100mph and are better controllable (e.g. distance to break) than most of the cars in the 1960's. There are some EU examples where the lawmakers recognized this fact:

Italy: till the 1990's there were different speedlimits on the Autostrada by engine size - removed

Austria: 1st successful test of an increased speedlimit of 160kmh (regular 130kmh) on a piece of Autobahn in Carinthia 2006 - big success - no increased accident rate, so more zones with a speed limits of 160kmh will follow (variable speed limit - depending on conditions).

However, there are three major arguments used against increased speed limits (beside the not proved accident rate):

(1) higher fuel consumptions and emissions - not a huge political issue in the US but in most EU countries where the Greens are established as a political party (but: most SUVs drink more with 60mph than our P cars with 100mph).
(2) increasing traffic volume - this is actually one of the main reasons why speed is practically restricted anyhow on major parts of the German Autobahn
(3) noise exposure - that's a funny development; whereas true in urban areas, in rural areas building land is cheep beside freeways, so people built there houses there. Some time later, they complain about traffic noise and beside expensive noise barriers (government pays them), speed limits get posted. This actually happens more and more and I know too well about what I'm talking: You go with 200kmh on the Autobahn and suddenly there's a 100kmh speed limit - in the middle of nowhere; suddenly you see 3 or 4 houses beside the Autobahn and know why.

cdodkin

1 Hour!!!

Eh lad, you were lucky.....

In my day, we had 1 hour of driving...

Then we had to get out and change a wheel...

Then we had to do an oil change, and all spark plugs...

Then, we had to demonstrate the principles of the petrol combustion engine...

Then we had to take a 3 week course with written tests every half hour, on road safety...

Then, we had to pay a months wages, and hand print our pink and green driving license on government approved vellum...

Life was 'ard in them days - young'uns don't know they're born!

Now, where's that hand crank for my Morris Minor?

Riad

I think the speed limits are way too low, and random. There is a two lane road near my home that's a 55mph road, yet the Palisades Parkway is 50mph, huh? Just a revenue stream.

spiderv6

I quite agree, and those speed restricted stretches are also full of cameras so you WILL get caught if you break the limit.......the myth of the German autobahn being a huge network of unrestricted race track is, I'm afraid, just that, a myth.

I have to agree with the comments on the comparisons of driving standards Europe Vs US. The standards are significantly lower over here, but what gets me is the number of rust buckets that drive the streets here - cars which would never ever be legal in western Europe.

Having said that, the idea that Europeans are all driving around impeccably behaved, never crashing and never suffering from road rage is quite ridiculous

care4era

Come on. If you interview a load of blokes, they are always going to say they are better than the average driver. No matter what country they are from. If the laws change people adapt. When I drive in Czech, people know to move over when they see **** xenons coming. IN Germany they get it too. If you go to Holland they have that " If I can speed, neither can you" attitude in the 3 lane. That sucks, but if they had an autobahn style road, they would soon adapt.

You change the laws, even dummies will get it eventually.


http://www.es.autoblog.com/2007/02/0...limits-upheld/

Well done Angela Merkel.

washington dc porsche

I don't know why many of you care, especially since so many of you hang at the track.

Wellardmac

yeah, I know, we stood a risk of getting into a "my driving test is bigger than yours" discussion.

I think we're all in agreement - there are too many factors preventing higher speed limits in the US. I generally have the philosophy that I don't wory about things that I cannot change.

LVDell

I could care less about the "unlimited" speed limit since I spend alot of time at the track and get my "speed" out there. But....with that said, dear God, at least raise the limit here in the states. I would be fine with 80. But being on highways where the speed is 55, 60, and 65 is just stupid. Especailly on interstates that are primarily for travel. Some states (as somebody already said) need that as a revenue stream. Trust me, I am MUCH more safe at 100 than most jackasses at 55. The problem though is "the other guy".

Porsche_Smile

i agree.... raise the speed limits.. these limits were placed up back then when the cars are running at lower speed... now and these days, even the prius a hybird..... can hit the speed limit with no problem..... what's the point on selling cars with bigger hp and faster cars if all you can do is 60 mph.....? it's like a huge tease....

cdodkin

Isn't the current speed limit a hangover from fuel crisis days?

i.e. driven by fuel efficiency rather than safety or vehicle capability?

rroobbcc

No that was when we went to a national limit of 55mph back in the 70's (I think). When the nationally mandated 55mph limit was lifted around the late 80's or early 90's each state could regulate speed limits as they saw fit. That meant 65 for most places and an occassional 70. Montana had no speed limit for a while, but there was something wierd about it, like you could still get a $15 ticket for unsafe driving if you exceeded 100mph. I don't really remember all of the details, speeds, or dates, but the story goes something like that.

rroobbcc

Around at Atlanta the limit is 55, but most drive around 80. If you are not going at least 70, you are simply IN THE WAY. The key is simply to avoid sticking out in traffic and you won't get a ticket. As I understand it from a Police buddy of mine, the Police want it this way. It is against the law for the Police to profile someone and pull them over just because they "look suspicious". However, if they wait until they hit the interstate, they will be able to easily pull them over for speeding even though they may have just been following the flow. So essentially it is a way for them to legally profile people and perform vehicle searches.