We’re all supposed to drive to the speed limit, and indeed, to the prevailing road conditions. If it’s wet or foggy, you go slower, if it’s clear, you don’t exceed the number on the signs. That’s what the authorities want us to do, but often, reality is quite different. So I ask you: Do people in your city drive fast or slow?
In my hometown of Adelaide, Australia, people tend to drive fast. It may have a population just under 1.5 million people, but they are spread far and wide across sprawling suburbs that seem to go on forever. The population density is low, the roads are wide, and traffic is comparatively thin compared to the larger Australian capital cities that you’ve actually heard of before.
All these factors combine to encourage Adelaideans to push the limits. I’m not saying everybody’s hooning everywhere all the time, of course. It’s just that it’s almost routine for daily traffic to move at a good 5-10 km/h above posted limits, at least. Increased speed camera presence has dulled this in recent decades, but it’s still a prevailing trend. Particularly on highways, where a 90 km/h sign (~55 mph) is seen as practically as good as 100 (~60 mph). I’m just speaking from personal experience here.
That’s a big contrast to where I’m currently writing from, in Sydney, Australia. With 5.3 million residents, the population density is almost four times that of my home town. The highways are regularly bumper to bumper, and much of the city is connected with a rat run of surface streets that never take you directly where you want to go.
In Sydney, it feels like people tend to drive slower, at least in my experience. There are arterial roads signposted at 70 km/h (~45 mph), and you’d think that drivers would want to use every last bit of that speed limit. And yet, the traffic is often just thick enough to see everyone puttering along closer to 50 km/h (30 mph) most of the time. Even late at night, when the roads are more deserted, cars still peg along well below the limit. It’s almost like they’ve got an ingrained memory that it’s just not safe to hit 70 km/h on these stretches.
I think other factors can play into this too. Beyond the density of traffic, it comes down to things like weather, potholes, general road conditions, and whether you’ve got big open streets or pedestrian-lined thoroughfares. Or whether the authorities have put out one of those “MAINTAIN TOP SAFE SPEED” signs. Ultimately, every city is different.
In any case, you’ve heard my stories. But this isn’t Autopian Tells, it’s Autopian Asks. So tell me: Does your town go fast or slow? Or somewhere in between?
Image credits: Lewin Day
Top graphic image: depositphotos.comÂ
Here in Northern New Jersey, people generally drive over the limit (80+ in a 65 zone), although of course there are plenty of holier-than-thou drivers who think it’s their mandate to stay in the left lane to keep everyone at or under the limit.
On the other hand, there’s Puerto Rico. We just got back from a week there, and almost everyone (outside of the San Juan metropolitan area, where most of turistas never venture away from) drives like they really have nowhere to go. If the ‘velocidad maximo’ is 50, they take the ‘maximo’ part literally. Since we really had no fixed schedule either, it was kinda refreshing to slow all the way the fuck down to match the locals’ speed. Probably helped that I was driving a slow-ass Jeep Wrangler.
I’m also Ex Adelaide now in Melbourne and generally I find the drivers in Adelaide not only drive a few kms over the limit but are fairly aggressive and won’t let you in to change lanes etc. There is a real entitlement to Adelaide drivers.
In Melbourne the roads are often choked by not only cars, truck and buses but in the inner suburbs bicycles, food delivery scooters and trams. However. Drivers here are usually resigned to the fact that they are not going to get anywhere faster by being pushy and let each other in where possible.
I live in a college town (80k people), but my current theory is that 80-90% of drivers here don’t actually WANT to get where they are going. Everyone drives like they’re heading to their own execution.
Drive 5 under, at most. No need to be crazy and drive 35mph! 20 is plenty!Break given ANY excuse.light goes yellow overhead: eagerly STOPlight is green: slow down and tap brakes, it just might turn yellow, with luck.pedestrian is 15 ft from curb: they look vaguely like they might start to think about walking towards the curb, better STOPRoundabouts: Better stop at the entrance, just in case, and wait longer if there is another car anywhere in the roundabout, even if it’s the other side; they just might continue going around 360 degrees…Light turns green: Wait 3-4 seconds, before regretfully creeping forward. As slowly as possible, per car in line.Entrance ramp: Well, road was 35mph, so we’ll just go 35mph all the way down the ramp onto the interstate, no need to speed up until we’re forced to!I hate driving here. Driving according to the laws and at the speed limit makes me look like a psychopath.
Dallas, people here drive like maniacs, and I’m doing my part to keep it that way.
And then I visited Houston, and Dallas seemed like safety town compared to their highway drivers.
SLOW.
I’ve lived in massive cities such as Dallas and Las Vegas. I’ve lived in podunk towns w/ 4000 people. Where I currently live, they are the worst drivers in my experience. It’s SLC, UT.
The people here are clueless, unpredictable, bounding around lanes, puttering 5 under, bunching up together like sheep. Nobody pays attention! I’ll gladly take the speeding of Dallas and LV. There they commit and don’t dawdle. Accelerate quicker from a stop so you don’t get stuck at every light. Yet, they are surprisingly less likely to run a red. In Utah, people will putter under the limit, but once the light turns yellow they’ll floor it thru the red, leaving you to stop, fuming behind them. Had they just moved at a pace above snail, both of us would’ve made it thru just fine.
It’s the same w/ changing lanes. Yes, they are better about signals here, but the fools will turn the signal on while a car is right next to them, keep puttering, and expect the other driver to slow/speed up for them. They’ll put it on, wait 10 seconds, bob in-out the lane then finally get over. Drivers here are completely oblivious to anyone around them. You have zero clue what they’re going to do or when.
I’ll take aggressive, fast drivers over slow and clueless and unpredictable every. single. time.
One of my lessons as I taught my kids to drive: “A turn signal does not give anyone right-of-way.”
I live in Chicago, and a substantial fraction of people drive too fast. The default speed limit is 30, and other than Lakeshore Drive there is very little marked above 35. None of this stops people driving significantly faster, especially on the south side where there are more roads that are larger. I’m disappointed that City Council did not pass the bill to lower the default to 25.
I live in the burbs and commute to Lincoln Park. I agree, people can get too fast in the city. Probably the same people zipping in and out of lanes on the Dan Ryan. Oh, and speaking of freeways, on the occasion that they clear up, there’s still someone driving five under in the left lane . Always.
Yah, it’s idiot young men, but it’s also all sorts of other people, including middle-aged moms in their RAV4s or whatever. I live in Avondale and my living room overlooks a T intersection with a stop sign; I could sit in my reading chair all day and watch people run the stop sign and/or try to do 30 down a single block of a neighborhood street. It is, at bottom, a whole lot of car brain (the bad kind, LOL) that leads people to think their convenience should come over everything. As someone whose primary and secondary means of getting around the city are not my cars, I am not one of those people.
As someone who came in from the burbs, the amount of dipshits skipping the line at The Circle was asinine. Look pal, 90% of this shit is going points north or south, don’t be a dick. Get in line, because you’re ruining my attempt to get downtown. And it was ALWAYS Illinois plates. You know they knew better, but their Velar/Evoque just doesn’t seem to get why they should wait in line with everybody else. (Truly it was 9/10 a Range Rover being a straight up asshole)
As a sport bike motorcyclist in SoCal, I drive as fast as I damn well please anywhere I go. I routinely drive ahead of the pack on the freeways to keep my options open.
It depends on if someone is behind them or not. My city has limited and lousy access to the surrounding areas so the roads in and out of town are always busy. One of them is a ~15 mile stretch of two-lane road that only has one passing zone for each direction. It is super common to be behind someone who’s driving well below the speed limit until you reach the passing zone at which point they’ll put on an additional 30+ mph only to hit the brakes again once it ends. Between that and the morons who pull out to pass slower traffic only to pass so slowly that they’re the only ones to get by after the entire passing zone and thereby prevent anyone else from passing, it’s a study in inducing road rage and naturally is the most dangerous road in the county.
Ever since they added the express lanes to the 405, it’s been all speed all the time in Orange County, CA. My default speed is 80 mph, and I’ve been regularly getting passed at that speed now.
I was in LA for a few days in January for the first time in several years. I spent part of the time driving my friend’s M Coupe and I thought the speedometer was off (it had gotten a transmission swap and diff ratio change, and I forgot that BMW takes speedometer input from the rear end) because I was doing an indicated 75-80 and I was getting passed by half the traffic. My Lyft driver from LAX late at night did 90-95 for most of the trip.
My town goes fast. The Tucson metro area is around 1 million. But it’s pretty spread out, we have the Air Force Base which is larger than most because it’s also home to the boneyard so being on the far side of the base from downtown, where I am specifically is almost rural but somehow still in city limits.
i75 from i4 interchange in Tampa till it hits Miami… If you’re not going at least 80-85mph in the left lane, you’re impeding traffic. (other than when officers are slow-rolling at 72 in the middle lane – then it’s a rolling roadblock until they exit).
I live in Victoria BC Canada. OH DEAR GOD people drive so slow here. Like under the already stupidly low speed limit slow. The worst is on Highway 1 (the Trans Canada). Speed limit is 90; no traffic; other cars are doing 70.
After years living in Vancouver where the speed limit is “as fast as you can”, moving here was a shock.
And when you say 90 you mean kph, right?
Yeah, I live in one of those crazy metric system countries. 😀
Everyone here travels at one of the two most popular speeds: Too fast or too slow.
As bad as driving in the US can be in general, the two WORST places to drive I have ever been are Hungary (the whole country, they are batshit insane) and Paris (just Paris, the rest of France is fine). Hungarians all have feet made of Neutronium and are pathologically late so always in a hurry, and the Parisian French simply have no fucks what-so-ever to give behind the wheel. I will and have driven all over Europe and the UK, I will drive in London or Rome or Naples all day long. In Paris – to my hotel, where the car will remain until I have to leave. I’ll drive in Budapest, but I won’t ride in a car with ANY of my Hungarian friends driving. Mama didn’t raise no fool.
The correct answer is 5+10% over posted limit, works regardless of units, but requires mental math.
This is the way.
Nope.
The correct answer is the posted speed limit and no more.
5+10% over posted limit is just an answer.
So you enjoy being passed by people going 20+ mph faster than you? I find that terrifying.
Not if they are two or three lanes over.
Fair enough, that’s not an option in a lot of places, unfortunately. All interstates should be three lanes, minimum.
As I mentioned earlier in California several heavy vehicles are limited to 55 MPH:
CA Veh Code Section 22406: No person may drive any of the following vehicles on a highway at a speed in excess of 55 miles per hour:
(a)A motortruck or truck tractor having three or more axles or any motortruck or truck tractor drawing any other vehicle.
(b)A passenger vehicle or bus drawing any other vehicle.
(c)A schoolbus transporting any school pupil.
(d) A farm labor vehicle when transporting passengers.
(e) A vehicle transporting explosives.
(f) A trailer bus, as defined in Section 636.
https://california.public.law/codes/ca_veh_code_section_22406#google_vignette
That includes SoCal. So anyone driving 80+ on a two lane highway in this state is a F#cking |d!0t.
If there was an effort at enforcement Sacramento would be made of gold. I’m up and down 5 all the way to Seattle at least a few times a year. The median tractor trailer speed seems to be a little over 70. For passenger cars it’s mostly 80 but apparently there’s a little known law that anyone in a Nissan Altima with full limo tint and fake dealer plates can go as fast as he dares. Last trip I didn’t see one CHP either way, which is amazing because that’s over 600 miles of interstate. As soon as you cross into Oregon you better smile and comb your hair, though, ’cause there’s bears in them woods.
When I go to Sac on 5 I do not see tractor trailers doing anywhere near those speeds. I’m doing ~60 in the right lane and that’s about the typical speed I see tractor trailers going. Its been a similar story the times I’ve gone north of Sac to Redding or Shasta. Passenger cars are a bit faster but again not THAT fast.
Agreed, 5-10, but I am going to say 5-10 mph over the posted limit seems to be where about 60-80 percent of the traffic is at, so you are going with the flow and not driving at insane speeds.
Yeah, MPH, because I’ve seen the people out there and something tells me they can’t do percentages in their head
Both. Here in God’s Waiting Room, FL, the Cryptkeepers all drive 10 under the speed limit with their turn signal on, and the methheads drive 20 over weaving around them.
Out on the Floridabahn (I-75), there are only two speeds – 90 or stopped. usually 90 until you get to Sarasota, Tampa, and Ocala, stop and go for no good reason while getting past those cities.
I live in Dunedin in the Tampa Bay metroplex. Can confirm they’re either pulling out right in front of me and going 10 under or attempting to somehow drive through me at 10 or more over.
Don’t worry, it’ll all be under water soon enough.
Not before I am dead and gone. And since I didn’t breed, I don’t really give the first shit about what happens after that point.
I grew up in Pensacola, and the most common thing I would see is the guy that would pull in front of you and cut you off and then slow down.
In Chicagoland its based on what highway your on . 294 we got 4 lanes and the fast lane means at least 90 mph. 94 is 3 lanes so 80 in the fast lane 90 is how ever you feel lol .
Kansas City drives slow. 5 over means you’re one of the faster cars in the flow majority of the time.
I live in Tampa, in the unholy state of Florida and the home of Florida man. The driving style is insanity, that is all.
90 or stop and go, and not much in-between. Hello from Charlotte County.
Though I swear, the WORST is Manatee County. There is ALWAYS an accident on that stretch of I-75. Basically straight flat highway that is exactly the same as the stretches before and after, yet the Manatee County Florida Man or Woman can’t seem to keep it shiny side up through there.
See my post above. The driving is all over the map bad in Pinellas. Hillsborough is somehow worse.
I-275 is actually fun in a white-knuckle way.
I agree!
I think we just get the worst drivers from across the country and world.
Metro Phoenix, speed limit +10 is the norm, including side streets
I live in Pittsburgh, PA. We have loads of hills and turns. People drive 90 mph in their ridiculous SUVs until they hit a turn, and then slow down to 45, probably because they don’t understand the physics involved and the tall SUV they now have feels “tippy” in the bends. The other really annoying thing people here love to do is slowly proceed down an on-ramp, then realize that there isn’t a space for them in the traffic lane, then slam on the brakes and stop completely at the end of said ramp. Merging is something that less than 5 people in the Pittsburgh metro area actually know how to do. Three of those people are me, my wife, and my daughter.
Ugggg! Or you’re turning left at a light, and see an SUV/Truck coming down the road at a good clip, so you wait, only for them to slow to 5 MPH to take a right.
Without a turn signal or hitting the signal the same time they turn
Glad to see things never changed back home. In driver’s defense, the county should’ve given drivers more than two car lengths to merge onto a highway. Rt. 28 designers, I’m looking at you.
Some drive too slow, some drive too fast. I drive just right. Or, as George Carlin observed, “anyone faster than me is a maniac, anyone slower an asshole”.
Both, and chaotically and recklessly.
Like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl1oYA2ScHY
And this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B-E8uYc0m8
While I have to be extra careful riding my velomobiles around, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Seeing this go down in person is never boring.
On the interstate, sometimes people go “swimming” through traffic at triple digit speeds too.
You do you. I’d rather the cops bust the lot of them and crush every one of those shitmobiles.
In Phoenix, AZ, the speed limits are merely a suggestion. Most highways here have a 65mph speed limit, but if you actually go with the flow of traffic it’s more like 75-80mph. Random old people who drive below the speed limit here are a bigger danger than people who are speeding, because everyone is speeding at roughly the same rate. Street speed limits range from 40-45 which means everyone does 50-55 generally.
When I drove in Tokyo, I had a very hard time following the speed limit because most of them maxed out around 50-60mph tops.
I moved to Phoenix from Portland, and the biggest adjustment (aside from the weather) has been the driving. It’s a goddamn free-for-all out there, especially on the freeways.
Danny those old people are likely driving as fast as their capabilities allow. It may be considerably MORE dangerous to insist they drive faster.
Conversely those speeders, regardless of how many are sharing the road with those old people. By not slowing down to a safe speed in the presence of the slower drivers the speeders are the only ones presenting the danger. It called driving too fast for conditions.
Both. But nobody does the actual posted limit. Most people are 5 under, maybe a third are 5-10 over and not one of them is in the correct lane for the speed they’re doing. Don’t even get me started on freeway merge speeds or zipper merging..