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
In Grand Rapids MI people generally drive around 80 on the freeway but on non freeway roads people drive so freaking slow. The traffic lights are timed so when you drive the speed limit you hit all the green lights. It drives me absolutely insane being stuck behind someone going 38 in a 50 then the light turns red just as I get to it. To make it worse these people usually run the 1-2 second old red as well. It happens every single day and it’s so irritating. Sometimes they start speeding up and I think they might actually hit the speed limit but then they slow down again to 15 under and I miss another green.
north suburbs of Detroit here and it’s the same thing. I’m baffled by how everyone can drive correctly (fast) on the freeways and wrong (5-10 under) on the suburban streets. Are there two different sets of people that only drive on one type of road or the other??
Both, which is a pain. Sometimes I stumble upon a left lane cruiser going way below the limit and will not move even if you honk on them, and at the very same time someone may get at my back asking to pass.
Sometimes will be something that should not go that fast (like a bus or a truck), sometimes is someone looking at their phone for directions and them slowing down (sometimes, they will just stop).
My city’s streets are a constant battle between two opposing forces – bullshitters vs people in a big hurry. Some people even manage to be both by staring at their phone long after the light turns green until someone honks at them and they peel out and try to pass everybody again.
I’d say slow, at least compared to most of the country.
Our town is absolutely chock full of elderly people, despite this not being Florida, we must rival some parts of Florida for median age. Mostly just due to an aging semi-rural population (small city in the Northeast). It’s rare to go anywhere without getting trapped behind someone driving ludicrously slow. Which is fine within city limits (I’m all for slow speeds in pedestrian areas) but real annoying outside of town.
On the highway, the limit is 65, and people average around 72 or so. Which is pretty reasonable, even though I wish we could get away with driving faster in the mountains . Too many troopers in NY for that to be feasible though.
Surprisingly, the state with the oldest population (and it’s not that close) is Maine. The thing with Florida is that the Cryptkeepers are all concentrated in about three areas of the state – but they are WAY overbalanced by the relative youth in the four big cities in the state.
All the really terrible drivers in Maine are from MA, NY, and NJ though.
This is correct. In general, the rural Northeast tends to be the oldest, not so much because there’s hoards of old people, but because there are basically zero young people.
Not exactly a tremendous number of jobs in dead mill towns above the various fall lines. But if you’re retired, that doesn’t matter so much.
In Baltimore, they usually drive too fast. But on some days, everyone is 5 to 10 below the speed limit. I was just assume a new strain of drugs have arrived.
I got a different perspective on this driving in Ireland last year. When I was on the motorways driving between destinations I would set the cruise control on our rental to 1 MPH under whatever the NAV indicated our speed was. When talking about it with locals later, the gist of the responses was, “The speed limit is that, a limit. It’s not a goal.”
When talking about it with locals later, the gist of the responses was, “The speed limit is that, a limit. It’s not a goal.”
Good people.
Where I live people seemingly drive the 10 mph over that is standard most places except in neighborhoods where most people stick to within 5 mph of the posted speed limit.
Mostly slow, and even slower reactions to lights changing.
Yes
This, and it is at times intensely frustrating.
The people in my midsized suburb are far inferior drivers to the people in every other midsized suburb around, but if you want to see real insanity, trying visit the largest city in our region. That place always makes me glad to come home to the relative normalcy of my town.
Naples, FL here. A small town with McLaren, Ferrari, Maserati, Lotus, Aston Martin, Lamborghini and Porsche dealers. A town with one of the world’s finest motorsport museums. We shut down our main street once a year to celebrate great performance machines in a mile-long outdoor exotic car show. Speed and power should be in our blood.
The only problem is that the vast majority of these achingly powerful cars are driven by very old people who are TERRIFIED of them. Every other car on the road is a Mercedes being driven by someone with no particular place to be, a rental car being driven by a lost tourist or a Lexus SUV being driven by a real estate agent simultaneously setting up an appointment for a showing while berating Consuela for letting the kids have sugar. Add in a heaping helping of rogue Altimas weaving in and out of traffic and every landscaping and dump truck IN THE WORLD and it’s a recipe for chaos.
Then you get to I-75. You see, most people who actually work in Naples can’t afford to live here. They commute from the Ft.Myers area north of here. Any disturbance in the force causes the interstate to back up for MILES.
Off season, when the traffic lets up and the car carriers head back north, traffic loosens up somewhat. 45mph surface roads where the average speed is about 55. The interstate moves along at about 80 as you would expect. But between December and April? Settle in, pick some good music and prepare to spend time in traffic.
Spring Break is almost over, hang in there. We just gotta get through St. Paddys and shuffle along until Easter, lol.
I have family down on Marco and can vouch for your Naples experiences. It’s like a melting pot of insanity driving there. All of the major roads are at least 6-8 lanes, turn signals are laughed at, speed limit signs should be removed or replaced with the shrug emojis, and way too much money combined with way too powerful cars driven by way too old people equals Thunderdome. Something happens when heading south on 75 entering Fort Myers where 75 is flat and straight all of the way to the eastbound turn to Alligator Alley. I was going 85+ mph in the middle lanes just to keep up with traffic. Felt like New Jersey all over again.
Can vouch for I75 south of Tampa…if you’re doing 85, better be in the right lane. Wrecks/deaths all the time.
It’s the Floridabahn, but with a much higher accident rate. Sigh. Sarasota is bloody awful these days too – took me more than a half hour to get from the airport to I-75 yesterday at 2pm!
I live in the DFW area, and it’s mostly just a slightly more civil Fury Road. On my morning drive to work, there are at least 10 drivers who blow past me like they have a pregnant wife in the back of the car moments away from giving birth and they’re rushing to the hospital. And almost all of them are in a car/truck clearly not designed to drive that way. And Altimas, of couse Altimas
Hampton Roads area of Virginia here. And yes, we get both extremes. People speed like crazy in the Virginia Beach area, usually doing 80-100 on Interstate 264, which has a 55 speed limit, and we get our share of people who putter along on that same Interstate at 55 or less.
We have a ton of bridges and tunnels here and once you get near a tunnel it’s a different story. People just freeze up and bring traffic to a halt for no reason.
I drive through the area to get to the Outer Banks most summers and it’s a nightmare. The roads have potholes the size of small nations, the right and middle lanes are usually going right at the speed limit or even lower, and the left lane is mainly an assortment of Nissans going 100 in a 55. As someone who drives fast-ish but tries to adhere to the “more than 9, you’re mine” rule (ESPECIALLY in VA where the penalties for speeding are absolutely insane) I find it challenging to drive there because the left lane is lawless but the inner lanes are usually too slow.
Preach! I am the exact same way! I just don’t understand people who have no problem going 100 in a 55. Is someone paying their insurance bill for them?
VSP will literally throw you in jail for that too! I don’t understand why people even mess with going over 80 in Virginia. 85 or up is an automatic reckless and I believe 15 over any posted speed limit is as well. That’s not just a moving violation either, it’s an actual crime.
Like…you’re going to have to go to court, pay for an attorney, and it’ll show up on your criminal record if you’re convicted. It’s not just a moving violation. I had a buddy who went through it back when we were in college and it’s just not worth it.
If you want to speed cross state lines into MD. You’re basically on the fury road out there. Get behind the wheel of your noble Nissan steed and you shall ride eternal, shiny and chrome.
And they aren’t kidding about the radar detectors being illegal in VA. When I had mine (before someone broke in and stole it), I was parked at a bank in Arlington. When I left the bank, there was an officer standing next to my car pointing at my windshield. That was not a cheap ticket. It stayed at home from that point on until I left there. With the way people drive there, especially when traffic thins out, you’d think everyone was rocking one of those.
It’s because most of us work for the Navy where there’s hell to pay if your late and there’s no parking.
As a former juvenile delinquent in 00s, the rule is 80+ and 20 over for reckless driving. I’ve had my fair share knocked down to speeding in court.
I stay around 70 down 264 in the mornings and afternoon practice the rule of 9 everywhere else. The last time I was pulled was in 2018 I think, and yeah it was expensive AF to get that knocked down to a speeding ticket.
“It’s because most of us work where there’s hell to pay if you’re late and there’s no parking.”
FIFY. Pretty sure everyone whether they’re civilian, military, bureaucrat, student, Wal-Mart greeter or whatever can say exactly the same.
I’m not fond of cops in general for reasons I won’t dive into in this setting…but Virginia cops (particularly the state troopers) are some of the worst out there. I’ve never encountered one that has had a day of fun in their entire lives. There’s no leeway, no empathy, no emotions other than anger and condescension, and you’re getting whatever the highest penalty that can be given is…not to mention outside of NOVA, Richmond, and Charlottesville VA is a dark red state that backs the blue as hard as any.
As I’m always telling my fellow commenters here and my friends from out of state…do not speed in Virginia. It’s not worth it. You will get caught, you will pay the price, and you will not be shown mercy.
First of all, I’m noticing more and more Autopians in Hampton Roads. We should do a meet-up here.
Second of all, this thread makes me feel so much better knowing other people see what I see on 264 every day. I can also add that when I went to court to be a witness for the state trooper against the idiot who rear-ended my Thunderbird, I saw a lot of the people who actually got caught doing 80+ on a specific stretch of 264. A few of them were military, all of whom brought a commanding officer with them to stand by while they contritely apologized. The rest were just straight-up idiots (if they even showed up). I saw quite a few weekends in jail doled out.
I’d also be curious what the Night Moves- Autopian Venn diagram looks like.
I also hit up the Landstown Commons Saturday car events.
My experience on I-264 was that traffic could go to 75 but there was general lane discipline in Virginia Beach, speeds were a little slower in Norfolk with slightly less lane discipline, and west of the Downtown Tunnel – even the same cars that had been moving quicker on the Norfolk side – everyone slowed down to barely the limit or less on the Portsmouth side despite the same lane count (before Norfolk’s HOV stretch) and less traffic. I-64 between Wards Corner and the 264 interchange was narrower, bumpier and faster than all, with a lot more weaving required to manage it.
Accurate. It’s because historically the order you described was the order of police presence. The police presence is different now but the habits remain.
I always assumed that Portsmouth’s lower speeds were because the average age is a fair bit higher than other local cities. I didn’t know that about the enforcement patterns.
Yes. Often at the same time in the same lane, resulting in road rage dramatics.
In Raleigh NC, por que no los dos
Can confirm.
The slow driver can usually be found in front of you on any given road while the reckless speeder can be found behind you weaving through traffic as you pray to your preferred deity that the inevitable wreck they cause doesn’t involve you.
Either too fast or too slow with no in between. It’s a nightmare.
Yes.
Short answer: yes.
The Austin area has a fairly diverse population, but I swear we get the worst drivers from across the world. Absolutely zero lane discipline on highways with drivers going anywhere from 50 MPH to 90+ MPH on I-35 between Austin and San Antonio (speed limit is 70-75 outside city limits). It amazes me that there aren’t more fiery accidents.
And particular to Austin, turn signals are optional, stop signs are optional, red lights mean floor it, green lights mean put your phone down and prepare to go on yellow, etc.
Here in London, it’s slow, mainly due to conventional speed cameras and average speed cameras, not to mention the horrible traffic. But I am constantly surprised/annoyed that on the motorway, even when traffic is light, you routinely have the majority of people going 5-10 mph under the 70 mph limit.
In Michigan (at least, the southern half of the lower peninsula), you drive fast. Highway has a posted limit of 70? That means the passing lane is flowing at a minimum of 80 at all times. The main E/W corridors, especially I94, are usually 85 unless a passing semi gets in the way. And if you’re heading over to Ann Arbor on a Saturday for a University of Michigan football game… if you’re not doing 90 you’re going to get tailgated.
In my time in Indiana, it was the opposite. 5 over on the highway was about as fast as most people go.
Do people in New Orleans drive fast or slow? Yes
Boston MetroWest here – 5-10 over is the norm regardless of what the actual speed limit is, with occasional outliers going much faster or much more slowly. The only exceptions are I-95, which is stop-and-go no matter the time of day, and Route 2 where the speed limits are made up and nothing matters. Out there, 65 in a 45 is the sweet spot between outright reckless driving and being dangerously slower than the speed of traffic. The one other place in the country I’ve had that experience has been East St. Louis.
Where I live the cop turned in his Corvette because he couldn’t slow down the speeders.
I’m just laughing a bit at the idea of 5-10 km/h over the limit being considered “fast”.
Merely going 80 mph in a 55-60 zone will get you run out of the left lane on I-294.
The US generally doesn’t use speed cameras.
The speed cameras would be shot out.
Yes, totally true. For those not aware, I-294 is Chicago. The tollway speeds are 55-65 generally, pace of traffic is 75-80 if things are flowing, and it’s not unusual if I’m driving 75 mph for some hoonigan to blow past me on the right going 100+.
Confirmed. The posted speed limit on DuSable Lake Shore Drive is 40 miles per hour, which is laughable. Most traffic is usually moving at 50-55, I usually do about 60, and I’m frequently passed by cars doing 70+. The city has speed cameras on arterial streets that pass by schools, but if the mayor really wanted to fill that budget gap, he’d string some up over DLSD.
The Illinois Tollway could definitely start citing drivers for speeding tomorrow simply by timing how long it takes drivers to get between toll gantries, but they don’t because it would be bad for business. I used to work in transportation planning in the Chicago area and the Tollway had the nicest offices of the Chicagoland transportation providers. I imagine they rake in a number of pretty pennies from toll collection.
Tulsa, Oklahoma metro area here. On the highways, it’s pretty much the limit +5-10mph.
However, on the surface streets, people run red lights and stop signs with RECKLESS ABANDON, but at least 5-10mph BELOW the limit.
I was once behind a guy who, while I was following him, ran two stop signs and a red light, but never got over 5mph under the speed limit.
I lived in Tulsa, I can comfirm this as gospel