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
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I live in a bigger midwestern city that really doesn’t do tons of traffic enforcement. It’s not uncommon for the “speed of traffic” to be routinely 15-20mph over.
Simple as that.
Okay I grew up and reached driving age and went through my 20’s in the state of New Jersey. But I am also a transplant that has spent the last 15 years of my life living in the state of Texas, first in San Antonio and currently in the Austin Metro. My driving years in Jersey were from the late 90’s through 2010 before I moved. During this time some major highways like the Garden State Parkway and NJ Turnpike still had the archaic 55mph posts in sections and maybe early to mid 2ks just started raising posts to 65 for major highways. Flow of traffic was always 70. Probably weren’t getting lit up on a highway unless you were well past that. Most around town roads most people did 5-10 over the post. Cue Texas. Residential roads in any San Antonio or Austin metro suburb with posted limits between 25-45mph are driven 5-10mph below post. Major city spanning thoroughfares or loops with 60-65mph posted limits, 45mph with light traffic. 50mph if the drivers are feeling particularly generous. Anyone actually doing 60 gets looks like they are a 25-30 over the post maniac. Posted speed limit or above is for I35 between cities or the toll roads. 15 years later this is still quite alien driving behavior to me, and I might like a born Texan to explain this driving behavior to me.
Speed Traps… I am a born Texan, and moved to PA about 15 years ago. I couldn’t understand how everyone sped so often in PA compared to TX, until I found out that only the state highway patrol are allowed to give speeding tickets in PA. In Texas I would often see cops, particularly near the end of a month, looking to write tickets for anything more than 5 over. There are a number of towns in East Texas with reductions in speed posted within 100 yards (65 to 55, 55 to 45, 45 to 35, and finally 35 to 25), where the cops just sit after the 25 mph sign and hand out tickets, because how would you even be able to argue? “I know I was doing 44 mph and then slowed to 32 mph before you stopped me while travelling at 24 mph?”
I’m in Fairfield County, CT – just outside NYC. I remember seeing some study in the last year or two that three out of the top 10 stretches of most congested interstate traffic were between Bridgeport and the CT/NY state line.
I-95 is pretty rotten in Connecticut, and it isn’t aided by people driving 10 under in some lanes and 20 over in others (when it isn’t as plugged up as a 58-year-old cheeseburger aficionado’s arteries).
Lots of people try to avoid the gridlock on surface streets and it’s not uncommon to have people doing 45-50 in a 25 mph zone. I suppose the same could be said for anywhere, but it’s a mixed bag. The mix here seems particularly strange here though. It’s slow on the interstates aside from the left lane, even when traffic is moving, and then people are moving (slow) interstate speeds in residential areas.
I conclude that we’re too fast in places that should be slow, and too slow in places that should be fast.
In Milwaukee, 10-over is practically the speed limit. We get crazy drivers in some places, but the Kia Boys have mostly cooled down by now and every city says they have crazy drivers.
The people in my area all drive like idiots.
I am the only one who drives worth a shit…YMMV
So, you’re a fellow Bostonian? Nice!
Live in Fresno, some people drive like maniacs here, weaving in and out of traffic, tailgate, and jackrabbiting off the line, usually in those brodozer pavement princesses or Dodge Charger/Challenger, and they can’t drive for shit. It’s common to see news reports of these idiots crashing into trees or buildings, or any inanimate object.
I can tolerate crazy but not stupid, as I’m from LA originally, and that describes most LA drivers. Fresno is crazy AND stupid, and heaping spoonful of both.
Most of the people in my city city drive half-fast. Definitely half-fast.
In Ottawa the speed limit is suggestive at best. Anytime of day any day of the week you can encounter brodozers, BMW’s, Civics or RAV4’s tailgating you by a foot at 85. And a mile later some idiot puttering along at 20 under posted. Highways, city streets it does not matter. I set the cruise at whatever the general flow rate, put on a podcast and keep an eye out for the dangerous ones.
Interesting you only call the person doing 20 under an idiot yet the “brodozers, BMW’s, Civics or RAV4’s tailgating you by a foot at 85” get nothing.
I was trying to avoid swearing on the site. They are imo low life, mouth breathing sorry facsimiles for dog excrement on the bottom of my boots. Better?
Much better, thank you.
Even lower are the outhouse basement dwelling wastes of genetic material who jump into the turn or merge lane and cut back into traffic in an attempt to gain a few traffic positions. They should be flayed and fed live to pigs.
In the Albuquerque/Santa Fe metro area of NM traffic tends to hover around the speed limit, mostly. There is a noticeable bubble of 5-under drivers. In open-er and more rural areas the speed increases.
What is surprising to me is traffic light behavior. I grew up and learned to drive in New England, and there the traffic signals were treated like the Christmas tree at a drag strip — you’d best be hard on the gas when the light turns green (or a little before). Here, and in Colorado, I see a solid 1-second pause between the light going green and cars moving. After 10 years I still haven’t adjusted to it.
Currently St. Louis and it depends. If it is rush hours, they are rushing; on many highways upwards of 15 to 20 MPH over the speed limit. Outside of rush hours, drivers aren’t driving as fast. Probably 5-10 MPH slower than rush hours.
I previously lived in Omaha and Chicago and the pandemic seemed to change things in both. Omaha was generally slow because law enforcement watched the interstate systems like a hawk (I believe in part because I-80 is used heavily for cross-country drug trafficking). Now Omahans are faster. Chicagoans were always fast and I’d generally cruise in the “fast” lane at 70 MPH during relative free flow, keeping up with traffic. Fast lane speeds seem to have crept up to 75 post-pandemic.
The time of day you are driving can be just as important as the city.
Despite heavier traffic, the commuters in the mornings and evenings will be running 10-20mph over the speed limit. The same drive midday can be painfully slow, with seniors and shoppers driving 10mph below the limit, hesitating at every turn, and no awareness whatsoever of the cars building up behind them.
Would you prefer those seniors drive faster than their capabilities and make those turns before they’ve verified it’s safe to do so?
Hey if kids, cyclists and pedestrians have to die so the cars building up behind them can get to wherever a few seconds sooner that’s just the price those kids cyclists and pedestrians have to pay!
South SFBA California here. In my many decades of experience driving around NorCal I find most people typically stick to the speed limit with a deviation of +/- 10 mph or so (I’m a deviant on the low end and yes, I stick to the right lane). Vehicles with 3+ axles and trailers in California are limited to 55 mph
Yes there are douchebags who think they’re a badass by weaving through traffic at 85+ including jacked up pickups towing a boat but they’re the exceptions.
Madison, Wisconsin USA. I used to think that our traffic speeds were just normal-ish.
Then I retired, and I don’t really have to be anywhere anytime fast. Now I notice how fast everyone drives here!
FYI – I just bought a nice used Buick!
I’m in charlotte nc. There’s enough of a mix of northern transplants and good ol boys and retirees and everything else that the blend is neither slow nor fast, but it is fucking terrible
Most of indiana likes to drive fast, cause indy 500, but rurally its a blend of either papaw poke ass or henry haul ass.
Alot of us go about 5 or so over the limit. But the college kids tend to fly with no regards or abandon all hope.
I’ll tell you what though, I see this all of the time when I go to visit family up in Northern Indiana, but officers are covering US-31 between Indy and South Bend like wallpaper now. It’s only 60 mph (until they finish the freeway conversion in the next 200 years) and for awhile, doing 70+, no problem. Now I don’t dare go above 65 and from what I see, most drivers do the same. Even the Kokomo bypass, the officers know the hiding spots and I always see people pulled over.
Yeah, its been alot thicker in road pirates up there as of late with all the road construction, cause nothing says spring is coming like our state flower, the road cone, blossoming.
Theyre definitely playing the long game well, especially now with all the cameras popping up everywhere
I’m originally from the Philly area and spent a lot of time living in and around DC. I-95 is the East Coast Autobahn and I loved every second of it. Try driving 70 in the speed lane on the NJ Turnpike and they’ll find your body and car several months later in a ditch or a swamp somewhere. And then I move to Louisville, KY. Sigh… Where do I begin?
For starters, merging here…clueless. I’ve never seen so many people think it’s OK to merge onto an interstate at 40 mph. I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve had to dive into other lanes (or the shoulder a few times) because Mr. or Ms. Clueless in a Rogue or RAV4, without fail or signal, jumps into the travel lanes at a speed barely above a school zone. And then when on the interstate, way too many people think five under in the far left lane is just fine. The sheer number of fractured automobiles on the shoulders here show that they are wrong with the “just fine” part.
Don’t get me wrong, we still have our number of bro-dozers going 80 and thinking they handle as well as a 911 and V6 Charger drivers having Hellcat fantasies, but overall, I pray many of these drivers do not even remotely think about attempting to drive this way anywhere between Boston and Richmond because the best thing that will happen is road ragers out there will do their thing and worst case is accidents or worse. And I love heading back east to visit family and friends and be among my fellow crazy drivers all over again!
I visited family in Westchester (with a day trip to troy) NY and compared to southern drivers in nc it was genuinely enjoyable. And my rental car there was a goddamn mirage.
TL;DR Depends on where you are in the city or, more specifically, what conditions you are facing. People don’t do over or under without decent reason.
We have parts that go faster than others (Richmond, VA). I-95 and I-64 are the same road through there for a bit, and the off- and on-ramps, non-griddiousness nature of the outer roads, and spurs cause for heightened awareness and channeling Mario Andretti. Weirdly, if you get left, it calms down.
On the other hand, in the city itself, there are way more stopsigns than traffic lights. If it is daylight, your turns are ‘windows down, radio off.’ If it is night, you pray their headlights are on. In both cases, you creep to begin but punch it to finish.
This discussion reminds me of the old George Carlin joke – “Anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac”
Twin Cities area (Minneapolis/St. Paul) I feel drives considerably slower than other metros. They still speed, but if posted speed limit is 55, they’ll drive ~60 tops. There’ll be the occasional Charger/Altima/BMW what-have-you, but compared to other metros I’ve lived, they keep it a lot slower overall.
Yep, and 10 under the limit in outstate Minnesota. Especially if driving a beige Buick!
Indeed. There seems to be a lot of people out here in rural Minnesota that think doing 10-15 mph is the acceptable norm.
Old subarus going under the speed limit. It’s all I’ve ever known and it drives me goddamn crazy.
Denver, traffic jams aside, most traffic will be 10-15mph over the limits, with occasional street racers doing 80-100mph on city freeways. The racers are there day and night. This makes driving in Denver like a video game, except the blood and broken glass is real.
This all started after the George Floyd case and Covid, when police decided to stop enforcing traffic laws.
They didn’t “decide” to. It just became evident that it wasn’t worth losing a pension (or your life) over.
Click Bait article!
Same in Tennessee, rarely see police pull drivers over nowadays, although seems to be an uptick lately. I wonder if they’re hoping to score a car load of illegals. Definitely not that way 20-30 years ago…everyone stayed 5-10 over. My wife used to joke that I was a cop magnet. She’s never had a ticket and she’s probably the car riding your ass in left lane.
Now days it’s the Indy 500 on interstate. My daughter commutes into Nashville and regular comments on the craziness including people passing on the shoulders, garbage and all.
Unless someone sees an officer, accident/rubbernecking, fast. The speed limit is a challenge.
I grew up in East Texas but I still remember the first time I drove to Houston, merged onto 610, made my way over to the left lane, and finally felt like I belonged. Cops typically won’t pull you over for anything less than 10 over and there’s parts of Houston, like Memorial between Shepherd and downtown where there’s seemingly no speed limit. But all that said, there are plenty of fools tooling around our freeways at the posted speed limit and clogging everything up. Most have Florida plates but disappointingly a lot of them are locals.
Why are they the fools? You’re the one speeding.
Yes yes yes, technically I’m the one breaking the law and technically I should have clarified I’m referring to the fools in the left lanes going the speed limit. There’s 3 or 4 right lanes they could be in and I’d have no problem with whatever speed they want to go.
Why do you have a problem with someone doing the speed limit in the left lane? They are entitled by law to do so. You are not entitled to speed.
Thanks Mom
No problem manchild.
In FL at least, left lane bandits holding back traffic, even if going the speed limit, can be pulled over and warned/ticketed/lectured about being a self-important ass. (holding up traffic “because it’s the law” doesn’t fly down in the “old west/train-wreck” of FL) https://www.flhsmv.gov/safety-center/driving-safety/the-right-lane/#:~:text=Drivers%20must%20not%20continue%20to,punishable%20as%20a%20moving%20violation.
Counterpoint, anyone weaving through traffic is a much bigger ass. Most folks don’t have any problem with folks risking a ticket to go 10% over (other than school zones), at least down here.
I’d take it to court and have my shark lawyer turn the tables on those cops. Ask them how they figure *I* by adhereing to the speed limit was holding up anyone. That’s a hard one to answer without admitting to the far greater sin of letting speeders/tailgaters/road ragers off the hook.
Now if the response is because *I* was driving in the left lane without passing that’s fair by Florida law but keep in mind that by that very same law if the right lane is moving at the speed limit the passing lane is completely off limits to you speeders too.
Yeah… Houston. Ugh. Six lanes wide, I’m doing 10 over the limit in the third lane in a BMW X5 and some guy is on my bumper in a lifted F-250 SuperDuty or similar. There are two more lanes open to the left and they just sit there and crowd me. Not good for my blood pressure. After a while, I just stopped looking in the rear-view mirror.
Well the SuperDuties are gonna SuperDuty. There’s no reason not to go around on the left but some people just can’t seem to find their way to where they’re going unless they follow someone else’s bumper.
I know that I drive very differently in the US vs Australia re speed limits. In the US, I’ll cruise at up to 10 mph over on an interstate where I deem it safe to do so, whereas in Australia I don’t exceed the limit at all due to the zero tolerance and speed cameras, etc. And I’m generally driving my parents’ car and don’t want the hassle of them receiving a speeding ticket that I caused lol.
On surface streets in both countries I chill the fuck out and follow the limits because peds don’t look and I don’t want to know comparative treatments in vehicular homicide.
But I will also say that despite what Americans would consider draconian speeding laws, driving in Australia is generally way less stressful for me because there is just way less big Altima energy on the roads, so to speak.
I have friends in the Sydney suburban sprawl and they say the same thing – the speed cameras are thick and unforgiving around there. I think he said the tolerance is only 5km/hr over and that isn’t much – that’s a small speedometer error and not much else. He visits the US at least once a year for business and dreads driving in the US. Australia is like many other countries that takes education and licensing as a serious matter, unlike the US where our licenses are handed out by showing up and being barely upright. (In Kentucky, your driver’s test doesn’t leave the center’s parking lot!!!) I think, eventually, more cameras are going to flood the US Interstate system, mainly as a revenue generator and not as a safety measure.