Some thoughts on the pointlessness of having powerful cars we aren’t allowed to use:
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The roads these days are a lot more crowded than they were in 1973. Rural interstates carry anywhere from 300% to 500% more traffic than they did in the early 1970s as people spread from the cities to the suburbs and metro areas grew. That said, the only honest way to gauge a speed limit is to measure the 85th percentile. Realistically 85th percentile speeds are up to 80 mph in many states while they were roughly 70-75 in 1973. Several western states have boosted their limits to 80 mph and I believe that we will see more go up. On the east coast, I forecast that at least one state will go to 75 mph.
What I hate about today’s car is their sameness. Whether you are driving a Hyundai or a Mercedes, they have a controlled generic feel with subtle differences in body roll and acceleration. Another thing I despise about today’s cars is their complexity. Even worse than their complexity is the lack of accessible documentation (repair manuals) for today’s cars. It’s ridiculous.
I am trying to think about another automotive move. I love the feel and efficiency of today’s cars on the freeway, but cannot stand everything else that comes with it.
Hi Swamp,
I view speed limits much as I do “limited” government!
Throw ’em both in the woods!
The premise underlying both is absurd – and vile.
Why should anyone be forced – be punished – merely for driving “x” speed? Is it not of a piece with punishing someone for merely consuming an arbitrarily proscribed substance?
The “might cause harm!” cry of Clovers is immeasurably dangerous because there is no end to it; nothing beyond its reach.
Let the standard be harm caused – and only those who have caused harm need sweat being punished.
Doesn’t that strike you as both fair – and sensible?
Imagine: The only people having to worry about cops or facing a judge would be those charged with tangibly causing harm to an actual victim or actual property owned by someone else. There would be an end to this byzantine – and cynical – business of people being put through the system who know they’ve done no harm and feel no guilt yet who are nonetheless punished for their manufactured offenses against the state.
Agreed. This is the reason I get off most fines these days. I ask the cop who the victim is:
“The State”.
“Really? The State is an intangible fiction, owned by who? That’s right, Queen Elizabeth of England. Have her in court tomorrow detailing exactly how she was harmed and if she even knows she was and by whom.”
“What’s your name?”
“I call myself Olly”.
“What’s your full name?”
“Sorry, I can’t use that as it’s owned by the government and anyone who falsely represents himself can be imprisoned for 3 years under laws of personation”.
“You have to give me your name.”
“Must I under common law?”
“Yes.”
“Is that a lie?”
“No.”
“Is that another one?”
“Where do you live?”
“In here (pointing to chest)”
“I mean your address.”
“Anywhere I choose to stop.”
“So your vehicle doesn’t have a garaged address?”
“What vehicle?”
“That car you’re driving.”
“Prove I’m driving, which is a commercial activity as you know, and this isn’t a vehicle, it’s my private property, a private conveyance which I’m using to travel.”
“Listen, I’m not going to sit here and argue this all day.”
“Good. Am I under arrest or free to go?”
“You’re being detained.”
“Detained is arrest. I require reading of my rights now.”
“No you don’t.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Detaining is not arrest.”
“Thank you. So I must be free to go as there’s no other option. Bye.”
No name, no contract, no victim, no case.
This is where the cop in the USA beats you, shoots you, or tazes you.
Yup. That’s where I put a lien on his house, drag the fucker through civil court and grind his bones to make my bread.
Luckily, I haven’t had to do that here just yet. Aussie cops are a bit too timid to full-on assault someone that’s recording the encounter.
In 1973 the speed limit was probably 70mph 😉
You think that’s bad…. I see this now and then and the speed limit is still 55mph:
http://clovercam.com/?p=31773
Yup. 70 MPH… 40-plus years ago.
And today? It’s 70 MPH again (on some roads). Which would mean we’re “even” – if the cars of 2014 were comparable to the cars of 1973. But of course, they’re not. If it’s “safe” to drive 70 in a 1973 vintage car (as it was in 1973; after all this was legal and as Clover knows, what it is legal is always safe) then surely it is safe to drive at least 70 MPH in a 2014 car, with the benefit of almost 50 years of technological advances…. ? I’d argue highway limits (if we must have them at all) are under-posted by at least 10 MPH.
Highways are at least where they were back in the ’70s, for the most part. But secondary road speed limits are still mired in the “Drive 55” mentality.
55 is the maximum legal limit you’ll find anywhere off-highway, notwithstanding that many secondary roads are for all practical purposes “highways,” too. Sure, there are driveways and so on (which you would not find on a limited access highway) but – as I ranted I (and as I’m sure you’ll agree) in a modern car, with modern brakes/tires, etc., a competent, attentive driver can still deal with that and other situations while operating at speeds higher than 55.
The key being, of course, competent and attentive drivers.
That is, drivers who aren’t Clovers!
Competent driver? You Eric? You can not even figure out why there is a no passing zone with invisible entrances until you are right across from them. I would say that is the most incompetent driver on our roads. Eric that shows us that you do not have a clue what speed limits should be. You think you should have a 70 mph speed limit around a curve with an invisible entrance 2/3 of the way around it. Yes Eric the speed limits are I am sure under-posted if you are the only car allowed to be on the road. I have been pushed off the road by a car that had to pass in a no passing zone and heading right at me. He was as smart as you are. Oh, there were a couple of those instances and others when I had to hit my brakes.
Brent in countries like Germany that have no speed zones in places have speed limits lowered around heavily traveled roads by and through cities. Are you saying all countries are stupid or would it just be you? I would vote for you. Are you up to a 50 IQ yet to figure out why they have lower speed limits where there is heavy traffic?
Clover,
You’ve never driven this road – hell, you’ve never been in this county. Just like you’ve never been to Germany, or driven the Autobahn.
Yet you presume to tell people who have driven there – and know a road intimately – what it’s all about. Hilarious!
On speed limits and my “not having a clue what they should be.” You’re right, Clover. I don’t believe there should be any speed limits. Suggestions, perhaps (for those unfamiliar with a road). But no driver should be forced to drive an arbitrary speed because a sign says so.
Eric if you would have taken all the time you have spent complaining about traffic laws and other drivers and put it towards your travel time over the years you could have driven 5 mph every trip and been on time to where you were going.
Today when I came home I pulled behind a large boxed in trailer and later found it was being pulled by a Jeep. He was traveling 10 to 15 miles per hour under the speed limit. There was a no passing zone that we passed and I thought about you stepping on it and passing the guy even though if I or you had done it there very well could have been a car come around the corner a couple of hundred feet ahead. You are willing to endanger others or delay others by having them slam on their brakes for you. Eric I did not pass. When we did get to where there was a passing zone other cars were coming. Then he made a turn and pulled off the road I was on. Eric it was only 2 miles or less. I was only delayed seconds. You would have had a stroke for not being able to drive over the speed limit. I had no problem. Again Eric you have mental problems and should not be driving.
Eric I am not guessing what your road is like because I have videos. When there are trees and brush a few feet from the road blocking the sight of a road or driveway then only a stupid driver would pick that place to pass. Only a stupid traffic control person would not have a no passing zone there.
Clover, the only thing I’m complaining about is your whining about other people more competent than you behind the wheel passing you by. About your refusal to wave them by (which neither impedes your travel nor costs you any time). Your obnoxious demand that others drive at your dumbed-down level; that their time doesn’t matter. That it – effectively – belongs to you.
You’ve got no arguments, Clover. Which is why you resort to calling people “stupid” and intimating that they have “an IQ of 50.”
Yet you manifest atrocious reading comprehension (e.g., arguing points never made by the writer) and seem unable to follow a simple, logical discussion.
Eric you say I am a dumbed down driver? Last year there were two incidents on one of my trips within 20 miles or so of each other. The first one I slowed down when I felt ice on the road and the car behind me flashed his lights for me slowing down. It was something like 200 yards later over the next hill there was a police car with his lights flashing and a car with a family in the ditch. You tell me who the superior driver was in that case? Down the road many miles there was a superior driver in your words that flew past me. I told my nephew who was in the car with me that he was an idiot. It was about a half a mile later that the 4 wheel drive pick-up flew into the ditch for a hundred yards if not more. Yes Eric I know all about your so called superior drivers. How about those race car drivers that killed themselves on our roadways. Would they be superior or just stupid?
Eric the roadways belong to everyone. Not just you. They belong to the farmer driving his 18 mph tractor down to the next field, They belong to the person that wants to drive a certain speed which may be the speed on the sign. Eric it is you that feels you own the road. You want others to pull dangerously off the road so you are not delayed 2 seconds. Eric you need to go to a drivers school and learn how to drive because driving is not all about pointing the steering wheel straight ahead and stepping your foot through the accelerator. Eric you have mental problems. I have no problem waving a person by if it is safe to do so but I am not going to pull off the road unless I am in a slow moving vehicle just to save someone a couple of seconds because it is a dangerous and stupid thing to do. My advice to you is to either move or kill yourself because you will never be happy driving on the road you have shown us.
Yes, Clover, I do.
Eric,
I do not think clover is dumbed down.
This is as good as it gets with clover. Clover’s actions and writings demonstrate that he is not too bright.
Even when tries his best, clover’s bulb is dimly lit, if it lights at all.
As the Shrub once reportedly said, he’s not the brightest light in the knife drawer.
We don’t know what Clover could have been. We only see what Clover is after years government school, crony corporate media, and either government or corporate employment.
Like most people in the USA Clover became invested in a belief system as a child and cannot accept that his grade school teachers lied to him or repeated lies they also believed.
This is why most people do not accept new information. They have to confront this reality. They feel foolish for believing something that isn’t true. So they defend it, and continue to believe it. The TV news reinforces it.
Some people can’t break free.
Hi Brent,
Yes, but in Clover’s case (our Clover) there is also the fact of sub-par intelligence, combined with a personality deficient in both empathy as well as introspection. In a very real sense, Clover is a kind of almost-human… or rather, a failed human.
Eric the video you posted for this link showed the only way you know how to drive and that is with no other cars on the road. That is because you are stupid.
You say that cars should drive as dangerously as they like and when they kill someone then prosecute them. Is that how you live you life? Do you change your oil after your engine seizes? Do you replace your brakes and then do not try them until you get to the steep mountain downhill? Do you wait and put gas in your vehicle when you run out of gas? Do you wait to replace your balding tires when you have a blowout on the highway?
Eric there are stupid people out there of which you are one of them. They are not smart enough for things like not passing when there could be a car or truck come at them when passing over the hill or around the corner or from a blind entrance. They are not smart enough not to drive 70 mph around a corner where a car could be entering.
I often drive on a road that has the speed limit drop to 45 mph at a small hill. At the bottom of that hill there is a cross road in which many cars enter the road I would be traveling on. Yes Eric I am sure I could safely drive 55 mph or more and have no problem if there were no cars entering at the bottom of the hill but you can not see that until you are a very short distance from them. If you were in control there would be a 70 mph speed limit there and after the first 20 people die there you might think about lowering the speeds. Eric I can not say how stupid of a person you really are.
Clover, you’re babbling. Strawmen through questions seems to be what you are appearing to do. Grow up.
TEXAS
That road you were on, if it had wider shoulders, and was in TX, would have had a speed limit of 70. I’ve seen it firsthand.
Hi Warp,
Yup. Been through Texas many times… Virginia is a particularly Cloverific state with regard to traffic laws. Most speed limits are still what they were back in 1980.
Warp, only a few Farm Roads in Tx. are 70mph now. I’m about to run I=20 and then RR 33, both of which are 75mph and a great deal of traffic on both will be well above that including me if I could by-pass that damned speed limiter. Yall have a good one. Keep the shiny side up and help those who “can’t” help themselves, not the lazy assed ones who won’t. Oh, I wanted to mention something earlier, a product that enables mortal people to do almost immortal work…….gloves. Be safe, take it as it comes and try to live with it. I’ll try to do the same…..but clover, get out of my friggin way and go cause harm to yourself….and yourself only……please
Hi Eight,
US 221 in VA – my “main drag” – should be posted at least 60-65 MPH (if we have to have arbitrary speed limits at all). 55 is preposterous. It – like most speed laws – turns pretty much every driver (even Clovers) into law-breaking “speeders.”
Any law that is routinely broken by large numbers of otherwise sensible people is on the face of it an idiotic law.
The solution?
Just as we do not punish adults for merely drinking alcohol, so we ought not to punish someone merely for driving “x” MPH.
If he wrecks and injures someone or their property then – just we (rightly) punish the drunk who beats his wife (for beating his wife, not for drinking) – he deserves to be punished; that is, to be held responsible.
But otherwise?
Throw this business of punishing people who’ve harmed no one in the effing woods!
Always insightful, and I look forward to more vidcasts such as this. (side note, may have just been a quirk on my end, was kind of hard to hear )
It truly is absurd that with all the safety obsessed features in vehicles, speed limits have not been adjusted accordingly. The one thing I did enjoy about driving in western states, TX, NM, AZ was the 75/80 mph speed limits.
Keep up the great work.
Thanks, Jayson!
I decided to try this route rather than Podcasts per se. This amounts to the same thing – me monologuing about stuff – but with the added element of video. I assume this recording can be copied and transposed into other formats, too.
Speaking of which – please do so! I hereby give leave/approval a priori to anyone out there who wants to copy/re-transmit or air this puppy in whatever form you wish!
When I decided to “branch out,” I looked into Podcasts – and there’s a lot involved (and a lot to learn). I figured, rather than spend time I haven’t got learning how, why not do what I already know how to do? It accomplishes the same thing (I hope, we’ll see).
Feedback from y’all will be much appreciated!
And: Another one will be “up” on site later this week….
You must live near Massanutten. That road looks very familiar.
Out here in Colorado that same road would be posted at least 60, if not 65. In Utah or Nevada maybe 70 or 75, but there’d be nothing around for miles. After the state widened I-25 going through Denver they decided to raise the speed limit because just about everyone was ignoring the 55MPH limit anyway.
Rural SW Va, actually!
We’re about 30 miles from Roanoke, up in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
that’s a good description of Clover – a Massanutten, at least not between the ears.