4 ms·

I stopped speeding about 12 years ago when I got my first (and hopefully last) speeding ticket. I've since discovered that it's actually a lot less stressful,

I stopped speeding about 12 years ago when I got my first (and hopefully last) speeding ticket. I've since discovered that it's actually a lot less stressful, you use less petrol and I don't seem to get places that much slower. I'm also happier with cars with cars with much smaller engines - which saves even more money.

mgkimsal 5y ago
Something that's helped me to reduce speeding is real time GPS/map info. I don't drive half as much as I did a few years ago, and much of that was 'around town' (a... 30-40 mile radius for various events). There's not a lot of places to 'speed' in the 'really fast' sense, but 45 in a 35 zone - that's still 'speeding', and can get you a ticket I know, I've had some over the years!) Having a map with real time info when I'm going someplace helps me ... calm down some. I can see if there's a known accident, I can get automatically rerouted if I take a wrong turn or miss an exit, and if I know I'm going to be vastly late, I just call or message the party I'm meeting. I understand that some of that may contribute to 'distracted' driving, but when I used to miss turns or get delayed 20 years ago, I was still 'distracted', and probably just as much a danger, because of the anxiety/stress. Overall, I think it's been a net win for me - less speeding and no tickets in years, a bit less stress while driving, less fuel consumption, etc.
- arethuza 5y ago
  I don't even remember speeding (and I really did speed a lot) for any particular reason - certainly not for appointments. Maybe buying an expensive fast car makes you want to speed - could easily be something as daft as that. Now I am perfectly happy with my 1L 3-cylinder Skoda :-)
  - mgkimsal 5y ago
    My first ticket was being late for school. I grew up in an environment where being 'late' or 'rushed' seemed to be a default mode - young parents with 3 young kids, everything probably did stress them out more than it should have, and... I just grew up feeling 'late' and 'rushed' for everything all the time. It manifested in many ways, but speeding was one. I've had a few tickets over the years. I think... probably 4 or 5 over... 30 years? So.. perhaps somewhat habitual and just lucky I've not been caught more. But the last few years - per the comment above - real time info has had a bit of a calming effect. Probably age a bit too, but I don't think so.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
I hope you mean speeding relative to the prevailing traffic speed. If you are the slow guy the area in front of you is the area in which everybody elects to make their move. You get cut off 100x (pulled that number out of my ass) as much as if you're just doing what everyone else is doing. If you are going really slow then cars are cutting each other off to get out from behind you all the time. The whole situation benefits nobody and is just as stressful as trying be the fast guy. Source: spent way too much time in the cab of equipment that was only "highway capable" in the context of the sales brochure.
- arethuza 5y ago
  I'm in the UK and I pretty much drive at the speed limit - so at 20 somewhere like central Edinburgh, up to 60 on normal roads and up to 70 on motorways and similar. I'd estimate at those speeds I am about average - I overtake some traffic and get overtaken by others. We now have average speed cameras on some roads I drive on a lot (such as the notoriously dangerous A9) so speeding really isn't a good idea.
- ehnto 5y ago
  This really depends on where you live, in plenty of places the speed limit is heavily enforced and that is actually the speed people expect you to go. Driving faster than the speed limit makes you the one causing the speed differential. It is weird to place the blame of the speed differential on the people not breaking the law, but I get the feeling it's a practical reality of US highways that everyone speeds.
  - gonzo 5y ago
    Varies by state. In New York you can be cited and fined for impeding traffic. In California, a car on a two-lane road with five or more vehicles behind it is required to pull into a designated turnout area to alleviate the jam. Failure to do so can result in a citation and fine.
    - olyjohn 5y ago
      Sadly, those kinds of laws rarely get enforced.
__s 5y ago
Driving into Toronto, some car is zipping by. Watching it weave in & out. An hour later we're in Toronto traffic.. that car has since gotten ahead by a dozen cars, which in traffic now translates to less than a hundred meters Amdahl's Law can be applied to stretches of road
- brimble 5y ago
  It's a statistical play. Sometimes it gets you through a light that would have caught you, or ahead of a wreck or obstruction, or past some knot of cars. Sometimes it doesn't.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  It's really easy to sit on your high horse and say "oh you only gained a hundred meters" but those hundred meters (I prefer to think of it in terms of number of cars) potentially convert to a lot of time. I have the "which lane you want to be in and when" thing absolutely dialed for my commute. On a light by light basis I only move up a few slots as a result of picking the lanes that people will get out of as they make rights or move into dedicated left lanes approaching a light. That inevitably converts into getting through the lights in less cycles than if I had just picked a lane and stuck to it. Over the course of my commute that adds up to 20+min, close to 25%, difference. While I don't necessarily agree with their methodology I think the weaving through traffic people are on to something.
  - foxyv 5y ago
    You are probably right about weavers getting ahead by a few minutes. I've seen a lot of these people in a form of denial when it comes to their driving. That their bad habit is in fact a GOOD habit because in the prisoners dilemma game they won by betraying. Meanwhile the rest of the people are suffering because of their actions. That those other people are in fact BAD drivers because they aren't driving recklessly too. That if only everyone drove recklessly like them then the road would be safer somehow. It's utter insanity out there.
  - avidiax 5y ago
    To save 20 minutes on a not quite hour-long commute by beating lights, you'd need to beat almost 20 lights. The average traffic light waiting time is 60-90 seconds. Even doubling that and taking the high end of the range (3 minutes), you'd need to beat 7 lights on your hour-long commute. On the highway, if you are leaving 2 seconds following distance, and everyone else does too (obviously more than reality), every car you pass on the highway buys you a grand total of: 2 seconds. Not impossible for you to save 20 minutes if you have a peculiar commute, but I have a competing theory: beating a light or getting in front of a couple of cars is the way you game-ify your commute. You get a dopamine rush from it, and you aren't flipping a coin in the morning to A/B test your behavior and using a stopwatch to verify the results. Nothing wrong with that, but just try to be safe about it.
marssaxman 5y ago
I used to budget for one speeding ticket a year. Tickets felt a lot less stressful after I started treating them as merely part of the cost of transportation, like insurance premiums and registration fees. The rate at which I collect speeding tickets has definitely diminished over time, though my driving speed certainly hasn't; I'm not sure whether that's because enforcement activity has been reduced where I live, or because advancing age and different choice of vehicles have made me a less appealing target. (I actually had a cop thank me for letting him pull me over once, when I was out on my bike; he knew perfectly well I could have outrun his cruiser...)
mitchdoogle 5y ago
Interesting that you neglected to mention that it's IMMENSELY SAFER for you and everyone else on the road. This is the worst part about driving - everyone thinks they're great at it and accidents don't happen. But they do, and the faster you're driving when an accident happens, the more likely it is for someone to die.
brimble 5y ago
I found driving as a speeder easier than trying to keep close to the speed limit (I haven't done more than about 5 over on purpose in many years, mind you, except on a handful of technically-55-but-you'll-be-a-hazard-if-you-do-under-65 stretches of highway in my city). You still had to keep an eye out for even faster cars coming up, but it's much easier to mentally keep track of the "state" of the road around you when you're passing everything. It's also far easier to stay awake & alert driving at night, when speeding.

mgkimsal 5y ago

Something that's helped me to reduce speeding is real time GPS/map info. I don't drive half as much as I did a few years ago, and much of that was 'around town' (a... 30-40 mile radius for various events). There's not a lot of places to 'speed' in the 'really fast' sense, but 45 in a 35 zone - that's still 'speeding', and can get you a ticket I know, I've had some over the years!) Having a map with real time info when I'm going someplace helps me ... calm down some. I can see if there's a known accident, I can get automatically rerouted if I take a wrong turn or miss an exit, and if I know I'm going to be vastly late, I just call or message the party I'm meeting. I understand that some of that may contribute to 'distracted' driving, but when I used to miss turns or get delayed 20 years ago, I was still 'distracted', and probably just as much a danger, because of the anxiety/stress. Overall, I think it's been a net win for me - less speeding and no tickets in years, a bit less stress while driving, less fuel consumption, etc.

arethuza 5y ago
I don't even remember speeding (and I really did speed a lot) for any particular reason - certainly not for appointments. Maybe buying an expensive fast car makes you want to speed - could easily be something as daft as that. Now I am perfectly happy with my 1L 3-cylinder Skoda :-)
- mgkimsal 5y ago
  My first ticket was being late for school. I grew up in an environment where being 'late' or 'rushed' seemed to be a default mode - young parents with 3 young kids, everything probably did stress them out more than it should have, and... I just grew up feeling 'late' and 'rushed' for everything all the time. It manifested in many ways, but speeding was one. I've had a few tickets over the years. I think... probably 4 or 5 over... 30 years? So.. perhaps somewhat habitual and just lucky I've not been caught more. But the last few years - per the comment above - real time info has had a bit of a calming effect. Probably age a bit too, but I don't think so.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

I hope you mean speeding relative to the prevailing traffic speed. If you are the slow guy the area in front of you is the area in which everybody elects to make their move. You get cut off 100x (pulled that number out of my ass) as much as if you're just doing what everyone else is doing. If you are going really slow then cars are cutting each other off to get out from behind you all the time. The whole situation benefits nobody and is just as stressful as trying be the fast guy. Source: spent way too much time in the cab of equipment that was only "highway capable" in the context of the sales brochure.

arethuza 5y ago
I'm in the UK and I pretty much drive at the speed limit - so at 20 somewhere like central Edinburgh, up to 60 on normal roads and up to 70 on motorways and similar. I'd estimate at those speeds I am about average - I overtake some traffic and get overtaken by others. We now have average speed cameras on some roads I drive on a lot (such as the notoriously dangerous A9) so speeding really isn't a good idea.
ehnto 5y ago
This really depends on where you live, in plenty of places the speed limit is heavily enforced and that is actually the speed people expect you to go. Driving faster than the speed limit makes you the one causing the speed differential. It is weird to place the blame of the speed differential on the people not breaking the law, but I get the feeling it's a practical reality of US highways that everyone speeds.
- gonzo 5y ago
  Varies by state. In New York you can be cited and fined for impeding traffic. In California, a car on a two-lane road with five or more vehicles behind it is required to pull into a designated turnout area to alleviate the jam. Failure to do so can result in a citation and fine.
  - olyjohn 5y ago
    Sadly, those kinds of laws rarely get enforced.

__s 5y ago

Driving into Toronto, some car is zipping by. Watching it weave in & out. An hour later we're in Toronto traffic.. that car has since gotten ahead by a dozen cars, which in traffic now translates to less than a hundred meters Amdahl's Law can be applied to stretches of road

brimble 5y ago
It's a statistical play. Sometimes it gets you through a light that would have caught you, or ahead of a wreck or obstruction, or past some knot of cars. Sometimes it doesn't.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
It's really easy to sit on your high horse and say "oh you only gained a hundred meters" but those hundred meters (I prefer to think of it in terms of number of cars) potentially convert to a lot of time. I have the "which lane you want to be in and when" thing absolutely dialed for my commute. On a light by light basis I only move up a few slots as a result of picking the lanes that people will get out of as they make rights or move into dedicated left lanes approaching a light. That inevitably converts into getting through the lights in less cycles than if I had just picked a lane and stuck to it. Over the course of my commute that adds up to 20+min, close to 25%, difference. While I don't necessarily agree with their methodology I think the weaving through traffic people are on to something.
- foxyv 5y ago
  You are probably right about weavers getting ahead by a few minutes. I've seen a lot of these people in a form of denial when it comes to their driving. That their bad habit is in fact a GOOD habit because in the prisoners dilemma game they won by betraying. Meanwhile the rest of the people are suffering because of their actions. That those other people are in fact BAD drivers because they aren't driving recklessly too. That if only everyone drove recklessly like them then the road would be safer somehow. It's utter insanity out there.
- avidiax 5y ago
  To save 20 minutes on a not quite hour-long commute by beating lights, you'd need to beat almost 20 lights. The average traffic light waiting time is 60-90 seconds. Even doubling that and taking the high end of the range (3 minutes), you'd need to beat 7 lights on your hour-long commute. On the highway, if you are leaving 2 seconds following distance, and everyone else does too (obviously more than reality), every car you pass on the highway buys you a grand total of: 2 seconds. Not impossible for you to save 20 minutes if you have a peculiar commute, but I have a competing theory: beating a light or getting in front of a couple of cars is the way you game-ify your commute. You get a dopamine rush from it, and you aren't flipping a coin in the morning to A/B test your behavior and using a stopwatch to verify the results. Nothing wrong with that, but just try to be safe about it.

marssaxman 5y ago

I used to budget for one speeding ticket a year. Tickets felt a lot less stressful after I started treating them as merely part of the cost of transportation, like insurance premiums and registration fees. The rate at which I collect speeding tickets has definitely diminished over time, though my driving speed certainly hasn't; I'm not sure whether that's because enforcement activity has been reduced where I live, or because advancing age and different choice of vehicles have made me a less appealing target. (I actually had a cop thank me for letting him pull me over once, when I was out on my bike; he knew perfectly well I could have outrun his cruiser...)

mitchdoogle 5y ago

Interesting that you neglected to mention that it's IMMENSELY SAFER for you and everyone else on the road. This is the worst part about driving - everyone thinks they're great at it and accidents don't happen. But they do, and the faster you're driving when an accident happens, the more likely it is for someone to die.

brimble 5y ago

I found driving as a speeder easier than trying to keep close to the speed limit (I haven't done more than about 5 over on purpose in many years, mind you, except on a handful of technically-55-but-you'll-be-a-hazard-if-you-do-under-65 stretches of highway in my city). You still had to keep an eye out for even faster cars coming up, but it's much easier to mentally keep track of the "state" of the road around you when you're passing everything. It's also far easier to stay awake & alert driving at night, when speeding.