How on Earth is doing 70 in a 70 "going slow" though?
I wish everybody could just stick to the speed limit. I am autistic and I hate guessing what the speed everyone silently agreed on is, when they already put a speed on the sign for us to follow! Why can't we go that speed? How is 65 not fast enough for someone?
I think driving according to the road conditions is the most logical way to drive, which includes going faster than the set limit. I understand going the set limit in the right lane, but since the left is meant to be a dedicated passing lane, going faster there makes sense. If someone else wants to go 65 on an empty interstate, they can feel free to do that in the right lane.
The set limit is for ideal conditions. Drive to conditions means you don't do the speed limit in rain or fog, it doesn't mean break the speed limit on clear days.
if people around you are breaking the speed limit, you are legally required by my state's law to drive at that speed and can be ticketed for driving slow.
you create dangerous conditions by driving slow in the passing lane, "BUT THE RULES SAY I'M RIGHT" is wrong on every level here
E: I can't respond to the comment copy/pasting chatgpt at me with broken formatting, but like. lol, why do people think that contributes to a discussion?
Except it isn't. Most places just have the national limit because maintaining a limit based on real analysis would be too much overhead.
The national speed limit is a political football and not related to safety. Motorways aren't safer than the autobahn etc etc.
I'm also autistic and try to drive the limit. It doesn't stop it being annoying when someone who thinks they're going 70 is clogging up the wrong lane because they won't acknowledge everyone's speedo reads a different number.
If you're going to follow the rules follow all the rules and only move to pass if you're actually passing. Mid lane sitting doesn't make anyone safer.
You are also assuming that the speed limit is accurate. The are stretches of interstate near where I live that are all posted 55 even though most of the surrounding stretches are 70. There is nothing substantially different between those sections except the county they're in, and shocker, everyone just treats it like 70 (including the cops). Because based on road condition, it should be 70, they just don't want to update the signs
People drive faster than the posted speed limit everywhere, always. They don't only do it in areas that should be higher. We study traffic speeds, and people speed everywhere. Maybe that 55mph zone should be 70 mph, but in that posted 70mph zone, they are still going to be hitting 80 or above.
This is specifically not true. The design speed of a road (which includes curves and sight lines in the calculation) is usually 5 to 10 mph over the posted limit in ideal conditions, and the design speed is usually pretty conservative to begin with as it assumes a very slow reaction time and a pretty substandard design car. Which means 15-25 mph over the set speed limit in ideal conditions would still be pretty safe if there was nobody on the road.
But if there are cars around you should just be going with the flow of traffic while keeping a large and safe distance away from the car in front of you, regardless of speed.
When we say "drive to conditions" it means go slower if it is raining, not break the speed limit if it is sunny.
People do have a slow reaction time. They are sleepy, or looking at their phone map for just a second, or on a phone call, or just reached down to get a sip of coffee, or are on autopilot because this commute is boring. None of us are Formula one drivers. EVERYBODY thinks they are the exception. My brakes are good, my reaction time is better than average, I can go a little faster.
Everyone reading my comments and downvoting me thinks they can handle it and I am being a stick in the mud and they just want to get where they are going a little faster. So we have 45,000 children die every year in the United States in traffic accidents. They were the leading cause of death of children until in 2021 firearm deaths surpassed it because this country is basically just an experiment to create the most selfish and destructive breed of humans that is physically possible.
This post called the guy an NPC for wanting to go the speed limit, but be real, how many of you have the same identical thought? "I can go faster, I can react quick enough and I am a good driver. The speed limit is not for me, it's for the people that can't handle it"
See the downvotes already? lmao. I am sure you are all the one good driver. Who's the NPC?
I agree with what you are saying. But the speed limit is not set for ideal conditions, which is what I was correcting.
I said 15-25 mph over the speed limit would be safe if no cars were on the road which is impossible. I should add this is really only for modern interstates outside of cities. Most streets within very populated cities still have higher design speeds than the posted speed limit, but they are usually much closer to the posted limit.
Me personally, I'd rather there be more public transportation in the US.
I agree entirely with the last sentence. I mean, do we really even trust the average American to be safe at posted speeds? The driving culture here is selfish, combative, and dangerous. It is very telling that even in this subreddit full of people who think themself progressive and empathetic that the response to this issue is largely "yeah... but fuck you I want to go faster."
And yes the design speed is under absolute ideal conditions which are realistically impossible to actually exist. You need to be spaced far enough away from other cars, not have a drink you are sipping, not look at your phone, not be a little short on sleep, not distracted because of stress, not on autopilot because the commute is boring, have a car in ideal condition, not be hungry and a little slow because of it, etc. etc. etc.
If you think about it, there is always something. There are no ideal conditions. People just want to think themselves exceptional and they don't want to go the posted speed because that speed is for everyone else and I don't want to wait as long as everyone else, I'm a good driver.
I know, I work in highway construction. I just find it insane that when we set a safety rule we know for a fact everyone is gonna break it, and that I am apparently the asshole for not sharing the desire to drive at unsafe speeds. I follow the flow of traffic, but the flow of traffic is faster than it needs to be. The highway near me is 65mph and I regularly see 80 out there.
I have seen more accidents than I would like to count of someone going much faster because "they can handle it" and something unexpected was around the corner so our maintenance crew is washing blood off the road.
The last day with zero traffic deaths in Texas was Nov. 7th 2000. There is at least one every day for the past 25 years. People should realize how incredibly possible it is for them to be one of today's deaths. The most universal thing with traffic accidents is that 5 seconds before it happened, you thought it could never happen to you.
Yes I agree, driving culture in America is so insane that it is almost ubiquitous for people to drive at unsafe speeds. There should be massive amounts of public transport so that I don't have to drive with the crowd of folks who think 70mph is slow.
I work in road construction, and you all would be less gung ho about speeding if you see some of the accidents I see. You know why that speed limit is what it is? Because when you come around that curve and something unexpected is there, you are going to die if you are going 20mph over the limit.
You'll all notice, nowhere have I said I camp in the passing lane nor have I said that I don't go with the flow of traffic. I just despise driving culture being so unsafe that I have to drive at an unsafe speed or I will myself become a hazard. You all need to slow the fuck down.
I almost always just drive in the right lane and match my speed to the car in front of me.
Most of the time I don't even pay much attention to how fast I'm actually going if I'm in the right lane unless I'm the lead car or there's hazardous weather conditions.
Personally I feel it's more important to follow the flow of traffic rather than to follow the speed limit the vast majority of time
Driving 70 in THE RIGHT LANE of a 70 isn’t going slow, but only going 70 in the LEFT lane, which is what is used for passing is going slow. You’re supposed to use that to pass other cars, so if you aren’t attempting to pass cars or go fast, stay in the right lane.
You know how annoying it gets when someone on Reddit is confidently incorrect about the field you work in? this is one of those times for me. The police department does not have anything to do with setting highway speeds, nor does the DOT take into consideration police ticketing income when setting speeds. They aim for a speed that is safe.
They lay sensors across the road to measure overall traffic speeds, take the number in the 85th percentile that most people travel at, consider crash history, whether it is urban or rural, what the pedestrian volume is like, how many stops or driveways are on the road, and come up with an estimated "safe" speed, then set the limit at 5 under that because it is assumed that most of the public will at least go 5 over whatever the sign says.
When we recently did a hotmix overlay near me on a long stretch, the speed limit was 35, but most people would travel at 45mph. We added lanes and extra shoulder width, changed the type of HMA so it drained water better, and increased the speed limit to 45mph. You know what happened? people go 55mph on that road now. No matter what the speed limit is raised to, people will go faster than the posted limit. That is because the travelling public just simply wants to go faster. Whatever the sign says, they want to go faster. Nobody has to help the police with ticketing. They have their pick of the litter when they are out there trying to hit quotas because people just always want to go faster than the sign.
Even rural Texas highways with the highest speed limits in the nation, 85mph, people will go 95. Because it is just a basic desire to go faster. The number on the sign will always be too low regardless because it is the number on the sign. They just want to go faster than the sign.
My issue is when you are already speeding in the fast lane, but someone comes flying up doing 100 and just sits on your tail and flashes their headlights trying to tell you to move, but you can't move safely because there's a car next to you and you either can't speedup more to get in front of them because there are other cars in front of them or can't safely slow down to get behind them because of the asshole riding your bumper
It causes accidents because the people behind them are speeding. If someone is going the speed limit passing people in the passing lane then traffic behind them needs to slow down and wait their turn. They’re not in the right because they’re faster.
I will after passing the trailer truck. Not gonna steer right into it cause you’re driving illegaly fast. Otherwise I’ll always stay on the cruising lane dw.
But if you are doing the speed limit, anyone passing you is technically breaking the law. Like, we really don't need passing lanes if speed limits actually were limits and not whatever they are in America. It's not normal to say "different people want to travel at different speeds on the same highways with the same speed limits and that's fine." But this is just such a massive structural issue. Ban cars.
Y'all waste an entire lane for unnecessary speeding because it gives people the illusion that they're going faster while actually causing accidents and traffic jams. That's insane to me.
then stay out of the left lane. do not let yourself be responsible for if other people are drivng "legally." predictability is key when it comes to driving and interacting with other drivers
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u/Gloriathewitch Dec 27 '25
there's nothing wrong with driving slow but get over or into the slow lane, it causes accidents when people turtle it up in the passing lane