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I’m in the US. If you’re on say hwy 395 heading to Mammoth Mountain, the highway is frequently one lane in each direction. If the max speed limit is 70mph, you

I’m in the US. If you’re on say hwy 395 heading to Mammoth Mountain, the highway is frequently one lane in each direction. If the max speed limit is 70mph, you may come up on a semi truck doing 60mph and you will want to pass using the lane with on coming traffic. This means you need to do 85mph to pass. For this reason our max speed limit laws are woefully inadequate at accounting for real life conditions.

zehaeva 2y ago
Why will you _want_ to pass? Is that 10mph going to get you there _that_ much faster? If you were to follow that truck for all 1300 miles of 395 you would get to your destination 3 hours later than if you were going 70mph the whole way. I would doubt that anyone would want to drive for nearly 19 hours straight, unless you're doing some sort of cannonball run like challenge. If your destination is a mere 120 miles away, and you followed him the whole way you'd get there only 18 minutes faster. Was it really that important to get there that much faster?
- surgical_fire 2y ago
  > Was it really that important to get there that much faster? The answer may be contingent on how many tacos you ate before this hypothetical trip.
  - zehaeva 2y ago
    This is the only answer that I've seen that's reasonable so far!
- biftek 2y ago
  It's not always about getting there "faster". I regularly encounter trucks with unsecured loads, drivers visibly weaving, and other dangerous situations. I'm certainly not going to die on some "well this is the speed limit" hill behind them. Driving isn't some binary situation, you have to constantly predict erratic behavior and react to your surroundings.
  - adrianN 2y ago
    You can always go slower and give yourself sufficient braking distance.
- sliken 2y ago
  > Why will you _want_ to pass? Is that 10mph going to get you there _that_ much faster? Actually yes. That truck that's going 60 on the flats is going to be doing much less than that on the hills. Best for everyone involved to pass when it's safe. It increases safety and decreases road utilization. Keep in mind that 3 hours @ 60 mph is 3 hours with another car on the road. To compensate you'd need another lane for 180 miles, not cheap. Also the rush of passing when a truck slows down is avoided. Additionally it's safer to pass when the speed differences are lower. Seems better for everyone involved to let cars pass. It's much easier and safer to predict conditions for half the time when passing at +20mph then trying to predict twice as long when passing at +10mph.
  - zehaeva 2y ago
    A lot of hills have passing lanes _specifically_ for this issue. By that logic, that the time vehicles are on the road are necessarily limiting capacity of the system, then we should be vastly increasing the speed limit! Why not 100mph? 120mph? I mean, it's only 3 times the kinetic energy (over 70mph), so any crash would be that much more dangerous/deadly. It's also very wasteful with respect to fuel, so you'd need to stop more often which would decrease your average speed. Regardless, all of you all drive way too fast as is. It's not safe, it's not efficient.
    - sliken 2y ago
      > A lot of hills have passing lanes _specifically_ for this issue Sure, but not 100%. I'm not arguing that speed limits are useless. Just that the speed limits have always been for steady state driving. You can drive all day at them and never get a speeding ticket. However in the interest of safety you should be able to exceed them to pass, this gets the pass over more quickly and is safer and less frustrating for everyone involved.
    - gambiting 2y ago
      >> then we should be vastly increasing the speed limit! Why not 100mph? 120mph? I mean, Poland has 90mph speed limit on motorways and yet it's still safer than US which generally has very low speed limits everywhere. The only reasonable conclusion is that safety isn't directly correlated to the speed limits but to the state of infrastructure, driver training and culture.
- kolinko 2y ago
  Do you have experience with such roads? I do - we used to not have real highways 10-20 years ago. And the main issue with not overtaking a car-truck that is going just 60 (in your case) is that sooner or later they will encounter someone going 40-50, and they may not be able to overtake. And because of that uou end up driving 40mph on a 70mph road for hours.
  - zehaeva 2y ago
    I mean, I have been driving for the last 30 years of my life, I've driven most of the north east of the US. Through highways, timber roads that are little better than muddy paths, country roads that have never been paved, and pretty much everything in between. I've driven 15 hours straight. I've driven up mountains and across (really small) rivers. Between all the vehicles I've driven in my life I've accrued, got I hate that I know this number off the top of my head, around 350k miles. So yeah, I do have experience with such roads.
    - lolinder 2y ago
      > I've driven most of the north east of the US. Then you have no idea what the rest of us are talking about. Western roads are huge, and travel times are long. When you're driving the ~1000 miles between Denver and Los Angeles, 10 mph difference in speed can make your trip up to 2 hours longer. That's not insignificant, especially if you're trying to do it in a single day.
      - zehaeva 2y ago
        I'm sorry, did you want an exhaustive list of the roads I've driven? How many times I have driven out west? Which routes? For how long? That's a ridiculous thing to expect from a random on a forum. Should I list out all of the 10+ hour trips I've driven to satisfy you? What level of experience would cause you to retract your simplistic dismissal of my option? Also, you did not read my post. I specifically said that over the course of those long miles 10mph will cost you 2-3 hours. I literally said that in my post. You also missed the part where I suggested that no one should be driving for 21 hours, let alone 18. Let me be clear, trying to drive 1000miles in one day is unsafe.
- netsharc 2y ago
  I pass slower drivers not to save a few minutes, but because driving fast is much more fun...
  - zehaeva 2y ago
    At least you're honest about it, thank you!
whazor 2y ago
But now cars can drive 150 to 200mph. Putting the max speed at 85mph would already increase safety.

zehaeva 2y ago

Why will you _want_ to pass? Is that 10mph going to get you there _that_ much faster? If you were to follow that truck for all 1300 miles of 395 you would get to your destination 3 hours later than if you were going 70mph the whole way. I would doubt that anyone would want to drive for nearly 19 hours straight, unless you're doing some sort of cannonball run like challenge. If your destination is a mere 120 miles away, and you followed him the whole way you'd get there only 18 minutes faster. Was it really that important to get there that much faster?

surgical_fire 2y ago
> Was it really that important to get there that much faster? The answer may be contingent on how many tacos you ate before this hypothetical trip.
- zehaeva 2y ago
  This is the only answer that I've seen that's reasonable so far!
biftek 2y ago
It's not always about getting there "faster". I regularly encounter trucks with unsecured loads, drivers visibly weaving, and other dangerous situations. I'm certainly not going to die on some "well this is the speed limit" hill behind them. Driving isn't some binary situation, you have to constantly predict erratic behavior and react to your surroundings.
- adrianN 2y ago
  You can always go slower and give yourself sufficient braking distance.
sliken 2y ago
> Why will you _want_ to pass? Is that 10mph going to get you there _that_ much faster? Actually yes. That truck that's going 60 on the flats is going to be doing much less than that on the hills. Best for everyone involved to pass when it's safe. It increases safety and decreases road utilization. Keep in mind that 3 hours @ 60 mph is 3 hours with another car on the road. To compensate you'd need another lane for 180 miles, not cheap. Also the rush of passing when a truck slows down is avoided. Additionally it's safer to pass when the speed differences are lower. Seems better for everyone involved to let cars pass. It's much easier and safer to predict conditions for half the time when passing at +20mph then trying to predict twice as long when passing at +10mph.
- zehaeva 2y ago
  A lot of hills have passing lanes _specifically_ for this issue. By that logic, that the time vehicles are on the road are necessarily limiting capacity of the system, then we should be vastly increasing the speed limit! Why not 100mph? 120mph? I mean, it's only 3 times the kinetic energy (over 70mph), so any crash would be that much more dangerous/deadly. It's also very wasteful with respect to fuel, so you'd need to stop more often which would decrease your average speed. Regardless, all of you all drive way too fast as is. It's not safe, it's not efficient.
  - sliken 2y ago
    > A lot of hills have passing lanes _specifically_ for this issue Sure, but not 100%. I'm not arguing that speed limits are useless. Just that the speed limits have always been for steady state driving. You can drive all day at them and never get a speeding ticket. However in the interest of safety you should be able to exceed them to pass, this gets the pass over more quickly and is safer and less frustrating for everyone involved.
  - gambiting 2y ago
    >> then we should be vastly increasing the speed limit! Why not 100mph? 120mph? I mean, Poland has 90mph speed limit on motorways and yet it's still safer than US which generally has very low speed limits everywhere. The only reasonable conclusion is that safety isn't directly correlated to the speed limits but to the state of infrastructure, driver training and culture.
kolinko 2y ago
Do you have experience with such roads? I do - we used to not have real highways 10-20 years ago. And the main issue with not overtaking a car-truck that is going just 60 (in your case) is that sooner or later they will encounter someone going 40-50, and they may not be able to overtake. And because of that uou end up driving 40mph on a 70mph road for hours.
- zehaeva 2y ago
  I mean, I have been driving for the last 30 years of my life, I've driven most of the north east of the US. Through highways, timber roads that are little better than muddy paths, country roads that have never been paved, and pretty much everything in between. I've driven 15 hours straight. I've driven up mountains and across (really small) rivers. Between all the vehicles I've driven in my life I've accrued, got I hate that I know this number off the top of my head, around 350k miles. So yeah, I do have experience with such roads.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    > I've driven most of the north east of the US. Then you have no idea what the rest of us are talking about. Western roads are huge, and travel times are long. When you're driving the ~1000 miles between Denver and Los Angeles, 10 mph difference in speed can make your trip up to 2 hours longer. That's not insignificant, especially if you're trying to do it in a single day.
    - zehaeva 2y ago
      I'm sorry, did you want an exhaustive list of the roads I've driven? How many times I have driven out west? Which routes? For how long? That's a ridiculous thing to expect from a random on a forum. Should I list out all of the 10+ hour trips I've driven to satisfy you? What level of experience would cause you to retract your simplistic dismissal of my option? Also, you did not read my post. I specifically said that over the course of those long miles 10mph will cost you 2-3 hours. I literally said that in my post. You also missed the part where I suggested that no one should be driving for 21 hours, let alone 18. Let me be clear, trying to drive 1000miles in one day is unsafe.
netsharc 2y ago
I pass slower drivers not to save a few minutes, but because driving fast is much more fun...
- zehaeva 2y ago
  At least you're honest about it, thank you!

whazor 2y ago

But now cars can drive 150 to 200mph. Putting the max speed at 85mph would already increase safety.