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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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!
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..