Speed Limits

[Bigfoot Mike]

Define Speed
<blockquote>Speed equals equivalently the rate of change in position, many times expressed as distance travelled per unit of time.
</blockquote><span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%">****************************

</span> <span style="font-family:Verdana"><span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%"> So. it seems to me that it becomes an average of the time and distance traveled. So if you are in a bottle neck of traffic for a while, can you go a little faster to make up the difference so that your "SPEED" does not exceed 55/mph?

ie: 45 mph for ten minutes + 65 mph for ten minutes = a net SPEED of 55 mph. Now the only problem I see is that an Officer may only get a small sample of your Time-Distance traveled.

Sorry, just having a little tongue-in-cheek fun.

OK, Rog, I'll go to my room...</span>


</span>

[Roger H]

You'll be fine, Mike... unless... you exceed the posted speed limit (which may be a statutory speed and not actually posted at all)... or you're driving at a speed unsafe for conditions... or you're following too close... or you're violating someone's right of way... or your plates are expired... or your participle is dangling!

I can't tell you how many low riders have been stopped in SoCal over the years for having a dangling participle!

BTW, RADAR and LIDAR both get your speed in an inch or so of travel of your vehicle.

Roger

[pjanits]

I know that the last time my participle dangled it was very embarassing.

Wait ! What are we talking about?
Oh my! I did it again.

[CliveAlive]

BTW, RADAR and LIDAR both get your speed in an inch or so of travel of your vehicle.

Roger

Good to know!

I imagine some may consider your enthusiasm rather unwarranted! Perhaps even, could one say, a little sick, if one didn't realize your proffession!

Seriously though, I am right with you, I think. I always get a sense of satisfaction when I see someone pulled over for what is probably speeding. It wasn't always that way mind you. But a couple of tickets and classes, and having slowed down a lot since I was younger.

Anyway, there's really not too much time saved by speeding around here. I almost always catch up to the guys who passed me at the next red light! And I make a point of letting red cars get in front too!

Best regards.

[Pete Dumbleton]

Guy said, "Excuse me, can you tell me where the campground is at?".

Other guy sez "Didn't you ever learn not to end a sentence with a participle?".

First guy sez "Pardon me for that. Can you tell me where the campground is at, A**hole?".

[Frederick L. Simson]

I used to try to do this kind of figuring when planning cross country trips. It gets complicated when you factor in stops, too. I was always amazed to find that after driving all day with the cruise control set at 65 mph, I wouldn't be able to reach my target stopping-for-the-night place, because after factoring in refueling and potty breaks I had only averaged 50 mph for the day. Then it takes an extra half day (or more) to go from West-to-East than it does to go from East-to-West because of time lost from time zone changes.

[james kent]

We find it easier to judge distance and time in number of days rather than MPH. For example ..three days to get out of Ontario. Two days to cross the praries to Edmonton and another day to get up to Grand Prarie. Plus stops for antique sales, museums, sightseeing etc. =about seven to eight days actual travell time. Trip home= 5 days straight through. For some reason the trip out is always longer than the trip back.
PS don't forget to slow down at the Manitoba border because there is always a bubbletopper within a mile or two just waiting for those speedy used to driving in Ontario.
Jim

[Roger H]

I imagine some may consider your enthusiasm rather unwarranted! Perhaps even, could one say, a little sick, if one didn't realize your proffession!

Clive, If you knew me well, you'd find my statement hilarious. My personality causes me to detest doing traffic enforcement just for the sake of writing tickets, and I haven't written a ticket in a couple of years. My people write tickets regularly, but their activity is directed at areas of safety problems, problem intersections, or other high-accident areas, and drunk drivers. Now granted, I'm primarily an administrator now, but I still make a fair number of stops; I just write very few citations. My point was actually that radar and lidar detectors don't do much good. If it can see the signal, I've already gotten you. When my officers run radar, it's usually "instant-on" for a specific vehicle to be clocked. The old "turn it on and snooze until the alarm sounds" days have been gone for years.

I confess though, that the "sick humor" does come out occasionally. I admit that while traveling on I-80 to Des Moines for a meeting in a radar-equipped squad car that I have been bored enough to flip the radar on a time or two at on-coming traffic just to see who slows down. Those are the folks with the radar-detectors...

Roger

[Roger H]

On a different tack, I was told many years ago that a large metropolitan west-coast police department was curious about what kind of time savings running full-speed-ahead and using lights and siren vs. driving regularly, but intelligently. They organized a test and ran a significant distance from one end of the city limits to the other (some thirty miles) with one car driving lights and siren, running stopsigns and stoplights (slowly and safely) and trying to make the best time. The other car was a marked car also, but it observed all of the traffic laws. There was less than two minutes difference in their arrival time over thirty miles.

The moral is that driving intelligently will get you to your destination in the same time as the impatient guy who weaves in and out, passes, and does all manner of annoying and unsafe things trying to get ahead. How many times have you been passed by someone who was driving like a maniac, only to catch back up to them two or three miles down the road?

Roger

[Mike Watters]

How many times have you been passed by someone who was driving like a maniac, only to catch back up to them two or three miles down the road?

Used to happen all the time! The only reason it doesn't happen anymore is that for the last 8 years my commute has been a bit on the short side. 0.7 miles on the odometer - sometimes more depending on which way around the block I go.

Having somebody pass me like a nut and later catching up to them is modestly fun - but it's better when you catch up to them because they're sitting on the side of the road looking for their license and registration.

That's the best!!!

In the interests of disclosure... I DID used to be fairly leadfooted as a kid in my 20's. I never did the weaving around between lanes though. That ALWAYS irritated me. My vice was keeping it down on empty freeways.

Mike

[Pete Dumbleton]

Personally, when I am pulling my Scamp my speed is better measured in Furlongs Per Fortnight. If one needs other systems then one does not consider the Journey to be the Destination!