What are speed limits, exactly?
I know … a number on a sign.
Exactly.
But why pay any attention to them?
I mean, assuming there isn’t a cop around?
They’re not much use as far as advisories about the maximum safe velocity for a given road. If they were, then everyone (just about) wouldn’t be driving at least that fast.
Probably, they’d be driving slower.
If speed limits meant anything substantive, that is.
Like the redline on a tachometer, for example. That is a real limit.
Most people do not run their engines at or even near redline for more than brief moments. Because the redline is the fastest you can safely spin the engine without risking engine damage.
So they don’t do it.
The idea that driving over the speed limit is risking anything (other than a ticket) is ridiculous.
If that were not the case, then most people wouldn’t “speed” as a matter of routine – because most people aren’t reckless with their own lives or the lives of others.
The fact that speed limits are almost universally ignored (by cops, too) says something about their merits.
Prohibition comes to mind. Another absurd law that was respected accordingly.
But Prohibition went away.
Speed limits are still with us.
It’d be nice if they’d go away, like Prohibition.
It would tolerable if they at least plausibly represented a speed faster than most people on a given road normally drive.
That is, in fact, how speed limits are supposed to be set. Such that most drivers would not be “speeding.” The few who did could then at least be characterized as driving faster than most other drivers and one could then at least make the claim that maybe these people are driving too fast.
But that is not good for revenue – which is what speed limits are really all about.
By purposely setting limits so low such that nine out of ten drivers on any given road are “speeding,” it makes it easier to catch “speeders.” Which means more revenue via tickets issued for this manufactured offense.
So, speed limits have little, if anything, to do with “safety.”
They are useless as far as informing drivers about reasonable speeds for a given (and perhaps unfamiliar) road.
They are not (for the most part) posted on the basis of traffic engineering surveys, as they are supposed to be.
They are arbitrary and typically under-posted, deliberately – in order to criminalize reasonable/safe driving so as to give police an excuse to issue “citations” which just happen to be a major source of local government income.
When there is a profit motive underpinning a law – and when most otherwise reasonable (and presumably sane) people routinely violate a law, there is a problem with the law.
And those who enforce it.
Arguably, the entire concept is flawed because it assumes there is a single “safe” speed for every driver. But each driver’s abilities vary. As does the capability of the vehicle they’re driving. A one-size-fits-all speed limit arbitrarily defines Driver A as a danger merely because he is traveling faster than a number posted on a sign – even if his actual driving can’t be faulted. And it envelopes Driver B – whose actual driving can be faulted – in the aura of legality (and “safety”) merely because he is operating at or below the arbitrarily-set speed limit.
It might be saner – and safer – to get rid of enforceable speed limits altogether. Perhaps post advisory speeds – realistic speeds – as an aid to drivers not familiar with a given stretch of road or curves up ahead. That would be genuinely helpful as a well as safe.
But then, it would reduce revenue, by taking away the excuse to pull over people whose driving can’t be faulted but who did exceed a dumbed-down, arbitrarily set, least-common-denominator number on a sign we’re supposed to obey but which virtually no one does.
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Just saw on the news that it’s “Obey the Sign or Pay a Fine” weekend in Missouri.
Our heroes are doing their best to keep you safe, so don’t be getting any silly ideas about thinking for yourself or paying attention to what’s going on around you.
Obey the sign.
Obey the sign.
Obey, obey, obey.
Or, get shot.
Like the guy in Oklahoma.
Speaking of which, it appears the female “hero” has a history of domestic violence… surprised, not.
Perhaps if Oklahoma had a cutesy slogan, the mundanes would know what to do.
They should make this “Submit Submit and You Won’t Get Hit” weekend!
Oh wait: Crutcher was submitting. Back to the drawing board.
Of course.
Who can forget?
They Live!
https://s3.drafthouse.com/images/made/they-live-2_758_426_81_s_c1.jpg
And everywhere I turn they don’t discuss the way cops are trained to be paranoid enforcers no… it’s that people are sufficiently obedient and submissive.
@ Roland
Sickening isn’t it. Around my parts we have these “We Back the Badge” yard signs that people, and even a lot of businesses, like to put in their yards. Infuriating to say the least. And the other popular one, courtesy of the county police force is the “Please slow down” yard sign. And to think, people have to actually go out of their way to obtain these fucking things. Argggghhh….clovers abound.
There’s several of these residences around me that have like 4-6 of these “Please Slow Down” signs planted like 10 yards apart from each other in their 1 acre lawn. Like one isn’t one too damn many? Anyway, there’s lots of times I’m driving by these homes so I just lay on the aftermarket horn (sufficiently loud) for several seconds. Futile (and prob. against the NAP) I suppose but necessary in my opinion. Fuck ’em.
http://nebula.wsimg.com/2e3e8a80724f5c94f85d11e82a746ddd?AccessKeyId=59CA646A524231AAEAAF&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
Eric, you might find this interesting:
http://www.wgal.com/news/a-new-state-law-goes-into-effect-today/41728634
The new law in PA lets drivers go through a red light that they believe to be malfunctioning if they believe it is safe to do so. Sensible, eh? But look at the overwhelmingly cloverish comments. For example:
“There is nothing (short of a medical emergency) that keeps you from just waiting out the light.. you ain’t more important then the life you may take because you couldn’t sit at a red light for 5 minutes for Christs sake.”
Heck, if “you ain’t more important,” then why even make an exception for medical emergencies?
To Clover, the prospect of people thinking for themselves is horrifying. If the light is red, you sit – for as long as it takes. If the speed limit is 12 (don’t laugh; I’ve seen it), then 15 makes you a maniacal baby-killer.
Hi Roland,
Yup… !
Clovers can’t abide the exercise of individual judgment. They insist everyone abide by their judgment (or the judgment of fellow Clovers). They get enraged when anyone deviates. The classic example being the Clover who will speed up to prevent others from passing, then slows down again once he’s succeeded.
Dear Eric,
“… the Clover who will speed up to prevent others from passing, then slows down again once he’s succeeded.”
I would be inclined to define “clover” as above.
I would probably let the fuddy duddy who is afraid to drive fast off the hook. I would not call him a “clover” as long as he exercises lane discipline, remains in the slow lane, and refrains from appointing himself the state’s “rules enforcer”.
I might call him something else though!
I agree, Bevin!
It’s not slow or even over-cautious driving that defines a Clover. It is his insistence that his slow driving and over-caution be imposed on others!
PS: How’d you like the latest rant?
Dear Eric,
How do I like your latest rant?
Love it!
Speed limits are laws. And like all laws, they are merely gang rules laid down by a crime family.
This crime family’s only difference from other crime families is that it has indoctrinated people into believing it is “legitimate”, merely because it operates out of white marble buildings and issues its gang orders on “official” looking stationery.
“Organized Crime: the term the government applies to criminal organizations less organized than itself.” https://anenemyofthestate.wordpress.com/quotations-from-chairman-zhu/
Don’t hurt other people and don’t take their stuff. That’s law. The rest is crap invented by politicians to get votes, steal from the productive, and, above all, ceaselessly expand the power of the state.
That’s why I call these guys “legislation enforcement officers.”
snail boy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKn0xjpEsgk
I’ve come on many a signal that wasn’t operating, stuck on red my direction. It never took me long to figure it out and go on through. Just the other day I got tired of waiting for one. A DPS has just turned right and he was over a block away. No traffic coming from any direction so I turned left and went on. My wife said “I’ve done that before”. FEFEFH’s.
Heaven forbid! Clover is now faced with a high anxiety situation. ” THe Law says I can use my own judgement (what’s that?) as to whether of not I should break the law.
Clovers need direction. They therefore take umbrage at those who do not.
“It’s… the law!”
Eyes bugged out.
Jaw trembling with outrage.
This is great news, and a sensible law (for a change). I often have to honk at the first puss in line at a stuck red light. Most drivers will just not do it under any circumstance! after all, IT’S THE LAW! Or was.
Agreed, Steve!
Never give a Clover a break… 🙂
Waiting at a light today on a 5 lane major highway crossing under the interstate. Light turns, traffics moves at a decent clip and there’s lots of it backed up. No problem though, everybody’s either hauling ass straight or going around this huge turn onto an access road and things were looking good……right up to the time this old shit in a new Suburban is lagging 40′ behind everyone else. He gets up to the turn and I anticipate turning left to fall in behind him when his speed continues to go to nearly nothing. If I had been driving I could have shown him how that Suburban could easily have done 30 mph around that corner. Not him though, he takes it like when I used to haul a huge backhoe on a drop deck trailer never meant for such. I hated it and his turn made me think of it. That’s when I wished I’d had my one ton pickup with the new design pushing cowcatcher on the front. It will have rubber on the major push points and leave no paint on the offending vehicle. I can’t wait to get the vehicle and build that thing.
About 15 years ago a buddy of mine had an old 74 Chevy 3/4 ton 4X4 pickup and had been out working all day in the cold and was in a shit mood to begin with. He gets home and unfortunately, he lived in town, a place he shouldn’t even go much less live. So it’s a New Year’s Eve night and somebody’s having a party. He’s a party guy and has no problem with anything anybody wanted to do…..except park right in front of his driveway leaving him no way in. He drives to the end of the block, turns around and gets behind the last car, shoves her down in low range and locks the hubs and proceeds to push a whole line of vehicles down the street past his driveway. He turns in and parks and goes into the house. Somebody comes out from the party and sees what he’s done and the shit begins in earnest. He ended up with a shattered ankle that was done purposely. I wouldn’t want to have been in on that. He’s the kind of guy that when you say, “You’ll need to leave your weapons here”, he’ll take five minutes to empty them all and he still isn’t admitting that ceramic knife in an all nylon chest holster he can get fast just by reaching down his collar behind his head and having it in his hand…..his weapon for flying post 9-11. He’d make Mel Gibson checking into Thunder Dome look unarmed. Only clover seems to live no matter what though and Jon succumbed to a congenital problem. RIP Jon, we miss you every day.
In Oklahoma, people can request the state or local authorities to change the posted maximum speed without a citation being issued. I know: That’s a runabout way of saying, “speed limit,” but if the definition fits, use it. The governing authority will then conduct an actual traffic survey and set the number at the 85 percentile level to the nearest 5 MPH.
The big problem with this method is that the police vehicles doing the survey are positioned where they are extremely visible, which causes an involuntary reflex of every driver slowing to way below the posted magic number to avoid being issued a ticket. The result, as anyone can see from 50 miles away, is that the posted magic number will never get raised, even though all the rules were followed by everyone involved.
Which is why that method of conducting a speed survey is invalid as indicated by the written engineering standards.
Old? News Flash! Today Uber’s on the streets of Pittsburgh with their self driving cars.
No matter how highly developed this technology gets I can’t imagine not having a manual override.
http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-self-driving-car-fails-2016-9/#first-a-brief-introduction-to-ubers-self-driving-car-a-ford-fusion-retrofitted-with-driverless-tech-the-car-has-a-massive-spinning-lidar-on-top-and-20-cameras-that-doesnt-even-factor-in-the-several-radar-and-lidar-modules-on-the-side-and-gps-positioning-units-helping-the-car-drive-safely-1
All divided highways should have no speed limit, or rather the “limit” should be determined by the vehicle. Lefting while slow should be a felony, punishible by death.
Hi Rust,
If lane courtesy were practiced generally, speed limits would be an irrelevance. Everyone could travel at the limit that felt right to them (that accorded with their skill/comfort level and the capability of their vehicle) and Clover Congas would be a thing of the past…
Last xmas eve we started for the big D early. Plenty of traffic as the hiway Nazi’s had been advertising all their worst, Click It or Ticket, DWI, You can’t afford it, etc. Don’t recall there being one about speeding specifically but it was the regular litany of bullshit taxpayers get to pay for even if they don’t violate any of these threats.
I was doing 80 in a 75 but that’s more boring that I can tell. I’m just dying to have some good tunes but the rent car had no CD, my Zen was on the fritz so we’re bored(xmas songs on the radio and the Sirius had run out). The wife says she needs something to drink so I stop at a clogged convenience store and there are big signs saying how everyone sitting there is being video recorded and other such shit that really pissed me off so I sit behind the sun visor doing a little steam. The wife finally gets her thing done and comes out with a bag of goodies, the Shiner the only one I care about. So instead of using a radar detector which I no longer have since I am rarely in a four-wheeler and they’re illegal in big rigs, I just drink a little beer and stick it on 75. I know I’m not the only one who does this and if I’d had a good detector I would have driven like that low-profile car that came up on us fast only using the inside lane since people no longer know how to drive but most will stay to the right. That big Mercedes coupe blew around us and I smiled. At least there was one non-clover I would see that day. Plenty people passed us when I was doing 80 but next thing you know you’re having to pull out and pass them….or either get right beside them and their courage comes back since that non-logic of “if he can do it, ,I can too” kicks in so you speed up a bit and they’re still right with you. That’s when I lean out, make eye contact with the driver and open my hand(what’s up idiot?”. They either back off or speed up, most speed up. I have been known to show them I think they’re No. 1.
I’m amazed at all the clover drivers everywhere and it’s been like that forever.
So my daughter got a photo ticket for *speeding*. 42 in a 30 zone. A clear shot of her in her car that could be blown up with no loss of detail to get her face and her plate. After some contemplation, I’ve decided I’m all for this. Only the “guilty” are caught; no random shakedown by an armed code enforcer and sniff test by Scooby Do looking for that big DUI or possession arrest. That camera can probably generate more revenue than an army of highly compensated cops and their SUVs and Dodge Chargers, with a fraction of the expense. With any luck the bean counters country wide are putting the pencil to it and contemplating laying off the unnecessary muscle, which as we all know are just one paranoid moment away from a Jack Yantis episode resulting in a lawsuit payoff that wipes out all that good revenue.
My daughter paid the fine/bail/penalty ($132) but I would think it wouldn’t take too much imagination to defend against such a ticket in traffic court. They are going to be so busy cashing the checks that come in that the few that get away are just the cost of doing business.
I’m sorry, but that has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever read on EP.
Those scameras remove due process from the person. Now that is a criminal act in itself. Especially when no harm has come to any individuals. So you justify imposing a criminal act to prevent what may or may not be an event? That’s alright, shilo, but one day it will happen to you and you will fucking bleat, like a sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepie!
Great thinking!!!! So let’s also put a few cameras in every home and on every back yard, street corner, inside everyone’s car, etc. so that everyone is under surveillance at every minute. I’m sure that crime rates will drop and we’ll need fewer cops on the streets and save lots of money. And we will all live happily ever after in a total surveillance/police state…… How about we start with your house, Shilo???
Dear burrodan,
Well put.
Needless to say, “crime” will not disappear at all.
After all, the most egregious crimes committed are the crimes committed by the crime family with a flag.
Vastly enhancing its power will vastly increase the number and magnitude of crimes that it commits in the name of “fighting crime”.
Hi burrodan,
Shilo’s attitude is (unfortunately) very common in “red giant” stage America. And what happens to a star when its fuel begins to run out?
Automated enforcement is every bit as rigged as a human cop.
For instance Chicago has speed cameras. They went everywhere where the speed limit is under posted or where people naturally speed up. Irving park road has a section between two cemeteries where the road widens up. Here people speed up a little. So the city took advantage of the fact there is an obscure little park a block away to put a speed camera there.
A decade ago I was called all sorts of names when I stated how the red light camera program would work. Now that the convictions for corruption have occurred and the trib’s red light camera investigation has proven they game Chicago’s absurdly short yellow signals for revenue everything I stated came to pass.
Where proper engineering prevails automated enforcement can’t make money.
Hi Shilo,
“Guilty”… of what?
Of exceeding an arbitrary, under-posted number on a sign. Did your daughter cause anyone any harm? How so?
You support her being fleeced – without due process, I might add (presumed guilty) on account of this?
Are you aware that these automated enforcement scams (and that’s the right word) simply streamline and increase the rip-off process?
You want more of that?
No actually, I want LESS meatheads with guns, and that’s the trade off I’m willing to accept. Getting out of a photo ticket is a lot less dangerous than a roadside stop, but does take some effort and education. I am plenty tired of the amount of time it takes out of my life to finesse the red tape systems so I drive my big duramax dually at posted speed limits and life seems to go on fine.
Just wanted you know that cops with radar guns are passe’.
Comments about due process are correct. Fines in the mail are not proper process. I would personally handle something like this by writing NO CONTRACT over my address and sending the UNOPENED envelope back where it came from.
A roadmap for those of you wanting to go fight them on their own turf (they cheat): https://taooflaw.wordpress.com/2016/06/08/texas-muni-justice-courts-understanding-the-due-process-consequences-of-entering-a-plea/
If speed limits were set higher or removed altogether, cops could solve REAL crimes like they’re supposed to. For openers, they could track down who stole my laptop computer.
Dear Steve,
But that’s not their job. That’s merely their “cover story”.
Cops are hired thugs for the powers behind the throne. Their real job is “to protect and serve” the 0.001% who constitute the Deep State. They’re doing their job, their real job, and doing it very well. thank you.
The “failures” of government are nothing of the sort. They only look like failures if one still believes the cover story that “Governments are instituted to serve the people”.
Once one realizes who governments are really instituted to serve, so-called government “waste, fraud, and abuse” suddenly makes perfect sense.
Bevin, “cover story” is a great way to describe it. I also like to call it “the fairy tales we were taught in fourth-grade civics class.” When someone really means to do you harm, the government cops will never be there. Never. They will show up 20 minutes later and write down what happened. Stenographers with guns.
Dear Roland,
Yup. I can’t believe I once believed all that happy horseshit.
One incident in particular made me realize how naive I was. My 10 speed racing bike, a classic Peugeot PX-10 was stolen from my apartment in Manhattan.
Anyone who knows bicycles, knows that had to be a LONG time ago.
Laugh if you want, but I actually told the two NYPD cops that arrived that I made sure not to touch anything so that they could lift the thief’s fingerprints.
They went through the motions of poking around, told me something along the lines of “We don’t do that for burglaries”.
These days I’d be lucky if they didn’t find some excuse to arrest ME after poking around.
Don’t feel bad. I once called the cops after thieves broke my window and stole a jacket while my car was parked in downtown St. Louis. They literally laughed at me.
Hey mang, live and learn. Live and learn.
At least we finally took the red pill.
Yup. I call the current liberal ideology “DirtBag Supremacy” and it is obvious the police are completely on board and in support of it.
Something similar happened to me Bevin.
While I was still in the military and stationed at Fort Riley, Ks., the drivers door window of my car got smashed by a thief stealing my expensive – looking cheap radar detector. It was a clone of a much more expensive one made by the same company. The replacement window from a salvage yard was more expensive than the detector was, so the thief gained very little for that crime.
The military was supposed to reimburse me for damage caused to me which occurred on government property, but the government reneged on that policy by claiming that the stolen devise was designed to be used to commit crimes.
And here I always thought a radar detector was a device to make you pay attention so you wouldn’t commit a crime.
We’re getting to the point of needing to run cams in our vehicles but not dash cams that can be identified and taken. I always though a video recorder hooked to a button type cam in a seat belt holder or speaker or cab light with a hidden mic would be the ticket. I realize a dash cam is easier but it could be your undoing or at least of no benefit. If you have a one ton pickup you could put it in the center light on top or in your rear view mirror…..or buy a rear view mirror that’s made for that. hide the recorder under the dash or anywhere not readily found. It’s all bluetooth, no wires anyway.
Dear 8,
“And here I always thought a radar detector was a device to make you pay attention so you wouldn’t commit a crime.”
And you would be mistaken.
Don’t you know you’re not supposed to avoid committing the “crime” of “speeding”?
You’re supposed to commit it so the crime family with a flag can extort more money from you.
Hope that clears that up.
Dear Brian,
“The military was supposed to reimburse me for damage caused to me which occurred on government property, but the government reneged on that policy by claiming that the stolen devise was designed to be used to commit crimes.”
As Slick Willy would say, I feel your pain.
The rule of law: rule by those who write the laws, interpret the laws, and enforce the laws. https://anenemyofthestate.wordpress.com/quotations-from-chairman-zhu/
Government has no business posting speed limit signs. It may post recommended or “advisory” speeds in a legitimate effort to protect us — and actually it does — those yellow signs warning of dangerous curves ahead/35 mph, e.g., are recommended “safe” speeds.
That being said, there are plenty of lunatic drivers out there who will drive through residential streets at 50 mph. Most of the time nothing happens, but if something unusual crops up — e.g., a car backing out of a hidden driveway — there can be no time to react at that speed, and BOOM!
Then there’s the problem of “almosts.” By that I mean accidents (property damage, injury, death) that *almost* happened. Drivers with a lot of “almosts” will likely cause a real accident someday. How can they be prevented?
The government answer is traffic fines and penalty points. Not a perfect system, but the best that government brains can envision. A better system would be if signs stated *recommended* speeds and exceeding them were not be penalized. “Almosts” would be logged, if possible (not so difficult in today’s Big Brother world), and fines issued after a driver has accumulated a certain number of them during a specified period.
Hi Steve,
The big problem with “almosts” is their subjectivity. A controlled drift no doubt seems utterly reckless (an “almost,” to a Clover), or a fast pass… and so on.
But these are opinions. I’d rather not use opinions (and feelings) as the basis for punishing people. If we do – even for just “this one thing” – then a precedent has been established that will inevitably be expanded.
And, here we are – a suffocating busybody-police state! Where “safety” (alleged risk) becomes the pretext for controlling and punishing … everything.
So, what’s the alternative?
Accept risk – and demand accountability when harm is caused.
But not before.
Hi Steve,
I think that the government should post 195 MPH speed limit signs everywhere! Sane people would only have to stay off of the road for a day or two while the idiots kill themselves off! We have so many idiots because they have been protected and have been reproducing for decades. Lets make the world safe for rational and sane people for once!
I have to say that I and the rest of the traffic herd have really been increasing speeds on I-75, I-95, and the turnpike in Florida the last few years. The pigs are few and the locals know where they hide out. The speed limit on Fl highways is usually 70. I set my cruising speed to 89 all the time now and I’m in the flow of traffic. There has been talk in Tallahassee of pushing the posted limits up again. As high as 85 mph.
Hi Zach,
My 50: If we must have speed limits, they ought at least bear some relationship to a number above which it can at least plausibly be argued one is driving well above the flow of traffic. Given that on most highways, most traffic is running 75-80, a speed limit – as in a maximum allowable speed – would (should) be around 90-100 MPH.
This would de-criminalize probably 90 percent of all highway driving! 🙂
Zach – really? that sounds like good news. I used to live in Florida and I was trying to get some legislators to sponsor legislation to raise the speed limits to 75 mph interstate and 70 on the 4 lanes with 65 on the two lanes. A couple of years after I left the state, a bill to raise the speed limit to 75, 70 and 65 was introduced, it passed, and Governor Scott Vetoed it.
When Texas raised nearly all roads to 75 mph it was done without fanfare and the little the state said about it coincided with a 20% pay increase for all state thugs. I read a brief statement saying the thugs were going to concentrate on border patrol and other “priorities”. That lasted about as long as a square of TP in a campfire. Local cops and deputies then got the latest, greatest radars and extra cars and they were soon joined by legions of newly hired DPS who hide like crocodiles. Some from small counties toodle on over to the interstate to make their required revenue and let the county mounty’s take the heat for stopping mostly out of county vehicles. Not hard to see the reasoning behind any of this crapola.
But lets not give Tx. too much credit. When they decided to raise the limits they wouldn’t say what the new limit would be but the highway dept removed all speed limit signs. This shit goes on for months. People get tickets for all sorts of speeds. Even a bunch of fishermen I knew going to a tournament got tickets at 70 mph, the suppose new limit. When they complained(raised hell), the DPS told them that the limit for pulling trailer was 65. My cousin from Ca. came to see us and I said I hoped he hadn’t been ticketed. He said his rent car wouldn’t do the speed limit. The only sign with numbers he saw were 180. Good point. They finally put up 70mph signs with 65 for trucks at night and all sorts of shit. All of a sudden there were 75 mph signs everywhere and no day/night bs and that’s where it was stayed. A DOT’er told me big rig accidents were up a couple years ago. Nobody knew why. Reckon it had to do with a huge amount of trucks doing oilfield work along with an increase in coast to coast trucking? I-20 is a madhouse(and everywhere else at that time). 2 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic and the closer to the week-end, the faster the traffic and more of it. The state could fuck up a cannonball with a rubber mallet.
There’s no incentive for the state to eliminate speed limits; Money, money, money, money! And a road system without speed limit signs is almost counterintuitive to most drivers since we were raised on them.
Maybe the success of no-speed limit towns in Europe will encourage similar acts of political courage in this beautiful country we call America, where the sovereignty the individual had it’s greatest flourishing, and in these darkening times continues to flourish among people I see here and at other internet sites.
Control, control, control and control. And then there is the most important: the bastards have stolen your time. Time cannot be replaced or renewed. Once gone it is forever gone. And you only get older and feebler. That is what the crats like more than anything is stealing your time.
Dear Joe,
Yes indeed.
Time. The often forgotten “What is not seen” factor in the equation. Precious time stolen nickle and dime fashion from our limited lives.
True, joeallen, but they can’t steal what’s in your mind. “Have a nice day, Officer krumpky and don’t forget, the little old lady from Pasadena is coming to town and she’s lookin’ for YOU! And btw take time and smell the new mown hay.”
I agree with Eric, somewhat, in that there shouldn’t be any speed limit on interstates. I do like speed limits in residential areas. I am much more mindful of my speed. out of concern for kids chasing balls, dogs dashing out, and other things, in a neighborhood setting. But on a controlled access freeway? Not needed. The traffic is controlled by who you enter and exit the roadway as to not need to manage the traffic by dictating what speed it can travel.
I view speed limits as a indication of what the area is:
25 – 30mph = Neighborhood/kids/driveways with little time to react (no access control)
40 – 45mph = Boulevard with lights, turning lanes (some degree of access control)
55 mph = Country road
55+ mph = Full access control
I think the principle is the same even on a neighborhood street. Drivers should be watching for kids, not looking for a sign to tell them what to do. Of course that’s just my opinion. Without private owners and the threat of going out of business if they don’t please consumers, we can’t know what the best solution is.
Even better, kids should learn to stay out of the road!
🙂
I’ve always wanted to make a bumper sticker with a picture of an infant sitting on a 2×4 and the words “Baby on Board.”
Years ago I saw a rubber baby doll stuck on a wooden cutting board labelled like that.
I’d like a sticker that reads:
“Who gives a fuck about your baby”
Excellent, Joe!
I, too, have always been appalled by the public narcissism of such people. Of course, we all think our own kids are the finest specimens and worthy of endless admiration. It’s hard-wired into us to so believe. But you’re tetched in the head if you think random others are as interested in the beatified baby as you are!
Haha, yes, witness kid sports. But when our daughter was playing softball (like watching paint dry, except it doesn’t smell as good), one mom who had been through it before had the right attitude: “When they’re this age, you’re just putting in time until they’re big enough to do something interesting.”
Aw, come on Eric. I was going to send you some pictures of my family on vacation! You tellin me you’re not interested?
As if others are going to drive more carefully just because your ‘baby’ (human or canine) is with you. That should not be the case IMHO.
Back in the day I saw those it was inevitably a dumbass driver behind the wheel. Seems like I once told somebody on I-35 if they continued to drive like they did neither themselves or the baby was likely to survive. It seemed to piss of everyone who didn’t have one of those signs.
“Back in the day I saw those”
Wasn’t that about the same time we saw a bunch of stickers that said “Love NY? Take I-30 east!”?
Least ways they had them on LBJ in Dallas.
I think that was about a decade later or so. Baby signs started in the 70’s and seems like those heart NY came in the 80’s. RR got into the WH and oil immediately got expensive(funny how that works).
I don’t remember seeing the ‘baby boards’ until late 70s. early 80s when I moved to TX from boondocks Iowa.
The narcissistic “Me! Me! Me!” mindset of the clovers who sported “Baby on Board” signs always irked me.
I mean, what friggin difference did they think their “helpful information” that an infant was in the car would make?
Idiots.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/43/75/2a/43752a2914321ded80b150c354eb1741.jpg
bevin, I took it as an insult to every other human traveling the road. I also took it as a sign of stupid, spoiled fools.
During this last round in the patch some equipment haulers would strap down a Tonka toy or similar on their trailer, esp when they had no other load. I thought that was pretty funny but it may just be a trucker thing. I never bothered. I never knew what I’d be hauling to where ever it was something was needed. Start the day with a belly dump and end it hauling a track hoe. I would probably have done the same if I had my druthers. For some reason, I just like hauling big equipment.
Dear 8,
Tonka toy.
Now that shows far more genuine self-awareness and humor.
The “Baby on Board” signs back in the 70s brings to mind the recent Swedish anti-rape wristbands folly.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-03/swedish-solution-muslims-attacking-women-dont-grope-me-wristbands
Swedish police revealed on Friday that they will offer young women wristbands with the slogan “POLICEAVSPÄRRAT #tafsainte” [Police cordon, don’t grope] printed on them in Swedish, to prevent sexual assaults.
“By wearing these wristbands, young women will be able to make a stand. No one should have to accept sexual molestation. So do not grope. And if you are groped, report it to the police,” Police Chief Dan Eliasson said, according to the press release.
bevin, it was all in good fun. You feel sorta strange with a multi-axle trailer and no load.
Anti-rape bracelet….now that’s the shits. That’s what I’ve always used for protection, that and the threat of calling the Po Leez.
Those women would be better off with a CDL and a “tire bumper”……or Cholley Jack.
Dear 8,
This relatively recent film comes to mind as well.
“The Brave One”, starring mainstream Hollywood actress Jody Foster, was a pleasant surprise. So totally un-PC.
It was basically a remake of Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish” with a gender change.
That is how you prevent rape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4GMrG0cekw
Here in Illinois it’s so absurd. We have five and six lane (each direction) interstates with 55mph speed limits and pot holed two lane roads with gravel shoulders with 55 and 65 mph speed limits. Some sections of interstate (still many lanes) are posted at 45mph!
I recently drove between St. Louis and Indianapolis on I-70, and it was quite unpleasant. With the idiotic lower speed limit for trucks, the right lane is always full of tractor-trailers.
The calm, just-want-to-get-there driver has three options:
1) Stay behind a truck all day.
2) Pass at about 70 mph and immediately have a slobbering dunce who fancies himself a racecar driver six inches from your bumper.
3) Pass at a speed significantly greater than 70, and risk attracting the attention of the pests in government costumes.
It is absurd that traffic does not flow easily on relatively lightly-traveled interstates, and of course this is not unique to Illinois. Central planners could screw up a ball bearing with a rubber mallet.
I know what you’re thinking: “Two words: radar detector.” Might have to consider that.
Yeah – the maniac tailgaters are really my issue. I DON”T drive slow and that is the one thing that pushes my button. Hey Eric – any advice on that? I guess there’s nothing that can be done but stay calm – stay focused.
Hi River,
I hate ’em, too (tailgaters). It’s a very Clover behavior. Like left lane squatting, it needs to be unlearned but in the meanwhile, how to deal with them?
Well, without justifying tailgating (it’s dangerous, it’s rude) if you’ve got a guy on your bumper, he clearly wants to go faster than you’re driving. Let him.
Move right/yield/wave him around you.
It dissipates the situation.
“It’s a very Clover behavior.”
That’s a great way to put it, Eric. These are crybaby amateurs who can’t control their emotions, let alone their vehicles. When it comes to driving, there is nothing wimpier than not having your vehicle under control, and tailgaters de facto do not.
The trouble with “Let him” is that on a two-lane road it is at best very inconvenient, and often impossible. I have slowed to a crawl on a straight stretch when it simply was not safe to continue because of a flagrant tailgater, and he’ll usually just sit there glaring even though he is free (and it’s safe) to pass. I’m sure he thinks I’m being a dick, but I just want him to go the hell away. And on a divided highway he’ll often cling to you like a tick mile after mile when he could pass any time he wanted. In short, there is just no getting away from these knuckle-draggers a lot of the time.
At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all, I would caution against any “waving around.” I learned a long time ago never to direct traffic from the driver’s seat. There is too much risk that one of you will misinterpret the other. My attitude is that I’ll make room for you if I can, but you have to make your decisions and I’ll make mine. I never try to drive somebody else’s vehicle by remote control.
I would signal and pull over and let the tailgater pass. He could be having a legitimate emergency, or he could be crazy. Either way, I’d pull over.
You’d be surprised how many people won’t even move to the slow lane with a vehicle behind them emergency flashers going and the driver telling them it’s an emergency. Of course they’d need to speak English but the flashers and a pickup right on your ass flashing the headlights ought to tell you something. Evidently it doesn’t translate to Spanish.
According to the guy who rushed me high speed to the ER after my having passed out from carbon monoxide poisoning, a trucker intervened with these two other truckers who evidently speaka no English and cleared them out of the way. I was floating up into space at that time so I can’t comment. It was a luxurious feeling floating away into the nether but they said it was near fatal.
Tailgaters don’t bother me unless I’m hauling ass, passing cars. If someone is tailgating me, it is likely I’m temporarily in a clover zone. When that happens, I move right as quickly as I can unless passed on the right. Even then, I move right.
Tailgating is the opposite of a Cloveritic behavior. It’s something else, but very few clovers I know would tailgate. They instead block every conceivable car from passing by driving slowly.
Dear swamprat,
“Tailgating is the opposite of a Cloveritic behavior. ”
Yes and no. If the tailgater passes the first chance he gets, he’s not a clover. He’s just somebody in a hurry.
But if he stays on your tail just to harass you, and refuses to pass when you allow him to, then he is.
I’m jealous, Swamp. Around here, the Clovers tailgate all the time. I told my wife that if I die in my Triumph, it will be at the hands of a trophy wife in an Escalade driving over me.
Oh, and I don’t drive remotely slowly.
Hi Yeti,
I probably ought not to post this… well, fuck it. Here goes….
A very fun thing to do with a tailgating Clover – particularly a she in an SmooVee – is to ever so gradually increase speed in anticipation of a corner up ahead.
Ideally, a decreasing radius curve you know really well.
You’ll want to avoid any touching of your brakes prior to the entrance of the curve.
School’s in session!
Dear Eric,
I like it.
No, scratch that.
I LOVE it!
I used to drive 60 miles of interstate each way to work and there was a 12 mile stretch of one lane closed construcion in the middle of it, signs posted 8 miles out etc…
Every day the same thing, people would fly up to the lane closure then brake hard and try to cut in, then after the lanes open up they would block both lanes for miles before traffic could get back up to speed.
Bastards got under my skin one day and I blocked a bunch of them from passing and once in front I set my cruise to 40 mph for the entire 12 miles.
Once thru the construction zone a couple of them tried to whip around me but I mashed the gas (my old camaro street/strip car) and took it up to about 120 while delivering the one finger salute. Didn’t see another vehicle going my direction for miles lol.
You do this too?! I thought I was the only one!
I have a story for you… 🙂
And I have a story for you.
Do tell…:)
Excellent, eric! And some good practice, as well.
This could be highly educational.
It could provide a wealth of first hand empirical evidence about vehicle dynamics, lateral acceleration, cornering ability, understeer vs. oversteer, and oh, let’s not forget, crashworthiness.
Yep Eric, I’ve been pulling the same sort of stunt for a long time on one of the roads between here and town, except I’ve found that you don’t even need to speed up. I just maintain a constant 60 mph for the whole five-mile stretch, never touching the brakes. Off-camber left-hand corners with 35-mph warning signs are particularly entertaining. The wanna-be racecar driver suddenly gets soooooo small in the mirror. And I’m driving (at best) an 11-year-old Ford Focus SE, for crying out loud. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure they’re all too clueless to be embarrassed.
When you’re driving 40 tons of truck on a two lane road with no shoulder tailgaters can be irritating although I don’t worry about getting knocked off the road but if they did run into me I’d be carted off in cuffs to the nearest hospital for drug testing if they were injured, one of the little perks of being a professional driver.
I will pull to the very edge of the pavement when there isn’t a vehicle in sight just so they can confirm the way is clear as vodka. When they continue to simply ride my ass I just forget about ’em.
What’s really infuriating is they’re in such a big hurry but I get to an S curve marked 45….that I’ve been around a thousand times it seems and know exactly how fast I can take it. I’ll drop to about 65 and use every inch of that road from one side to the other and they fall way behind slowing for it when they could go around it at 70 no problem. Eventually, they’re riding my ass again and given up their chance for me to give them a bye if I could. Every now and then when they’re coming up on me fast I like to grab the trailer brake and move it just enough to not apply brakes but make the brake lights come on. Then I hit resume and wait for them to do some other stupid thing. I’m rarely disappointed in that respect.
This is for fourwheelers only and it is technically illegal but I have installed switches to cut power to the running lights and another for the brake light. I use these for field work at night when I don’t want for deer or hogs to see my lights and avoid having those bright brake lights come on. A good mounting spot is above the ashtray inside the dash. Pull the ashtray out and you can use them, put it back in and no one is the wiser. For those a-holes who’ll run all out trying to stay with you, run hard to a curve or two and brake hard and they’ll do the same. Cut the brake light and run hard and brake hard going into a really hard curve and that’s possibly the last time you’ll see them. I used it a lot on cops when I was young and dumb. Once around a curve you can’t see around you can turn your tail lights off and it’s surprising how hard it is to see somebody’s headlights from the rear, esp. if you’re going uphill or topping a hill. This will really screw them up and you can tell they’ve slowed down trying to figure out how you can disappear. It’s one of those Where he go…….to? moments.
Dear 8,
I must say I have gotten a real education in “life on the road” reading about your experiences as a trucker.
Allow me to tip my hat to you in gratitude.
Just to show you how long I’ve been away from trucking, I was shocked to hear not long ago that treddle-style brake pedals have been extinct for some time. I loved those. You could slide from the throttle over to the brake easily. Now I suppose you have to lift your foot way up to get on the brakes? I wonder why they changed that. Do they think professional truckers are going to step on the wrong pedal, a la Audi 5000?
Roland, pedals in trucks vary with manufacturer now but the only ones I know who’ve dropped the big brake pedal and accelerator pedal is Volvo. I sorta like those hung pedals since they’re easier to use opposed to the ones that lay flatter. I prefer the aluminum clutch pedal that is sharp points rather than rubber you can slide off. I have drilled holes in clutch pedals and screwed sheetmetal screws from behind, then clip the really sharp point off so it’s non-slip. Don’t forget if you’ve removed your boots.
So you can still get what I call a treadle brake pedal (looks just like the accelerator)? I found that easy to control, since my heel stayed planted on the floor, instead of my whole foot being up in the air as it would be with a suspended pedal. And very little motion required to go from accelerator to brake and back.
I assume the brakes still work the same way, i.e., the intensity of braking depends on the position of the pedal, not on how much pressure you’re applying to it?
I’ve posted a very similar technique to the interwebs countless times probably including here.
Usually I hold speed, typically the posted limit and take a curve without braking. It’s funny to watch the tailgater fade into the background. Sometimes I’ll accelerate in the curve if I know it very well.
Trouble is they come racing back up in the next straight.
Yes they do. And I’m sure they still feel oh-so-superior. 😉
Too bad they don’t feel like what they really are – excrement.
Funny thing is I do that pretty often on this 2 lane curvy stretch with no place to pull off. I just shift down and get pretty far away, but lotta times wouldn’t you know, they feel compelled to drive like heck to catch you. Sheesh.
Man – Comments post all willy-nilly. Sure don’t post under the comment one is replying to – ??
“Sure don’t post under the comment one is replying to”
If someone else has already posted a reply to that comment, yours will drop below it.
Thanks a lot! Appreciate it. Yeah – like that – “a clover behavior”. You got that right. Keep up the great work – for all those who believe in thinking for themselves!
I have heard this gripe about tailgaters throughout my entire life. I would like for that vague accusation to be clearly defined by the accusers for once. Rivercity has been the only person in this thread to list a definition of what a tailgater is in his opinion: Someone who drives faster than Rivercity likes to drive and follows close behind him. What are the rest of your definitions?
I am the oddball truck driver who stays far behind other vehicles which are ahead of me when practical. If you see a line of semi-trucks driving in a convoy nose to butt: I promise that I will not be their unless I inadvertently became the lead vehicle.
I define tailgating as the unnecessary following of a vehicle in front of you at excessively close range. This definition at first glance seems to be obvious on a multilane highway, but lets look closer: Safe truck drivers always prefer to travel at enough of a distance behind the truck in front of him to easily stop his truck completely if the forward truck suddenly stops/crashes/rolls over. Car drivers see the gap that the trailing truck driver leaves as a great place to merge into. The truck driver then might try to give the car ahead equal space for safeties sake; but another and another, and another car will fill that space up tightly, especially during rush hours. It would be completely irrational for the truck drivers to park their trucks on the highway until such time as they can drive while maintaining their safety zone, so they have no choice but to tailgate cars in this situation that happens twice daily. If truck drivers did decide to park on the highway you can be certain that they would be ticketed and their trucks would get towed away. Lets now define ‘unnecessary’ in the context of 2 lane highways as I see it.
My following uses of the word ‘you’ is not aimed at anyone here in particular.
Unnecessary tailgating doesn’t include people following close behind you waiting for a chance to pass you! If you are driving 50 mph in a 60 mph zone and he stayed 5 vehicles or 5 seconds behind you while waiting for a chance to pass; he would probably be traveling at close to 100 mph by the time he became abreast with you. Would you then gripe about his speeding or blowing your doors off? If he stayed that far back and obeyed the speed limit; you both would probably encounter oncoming traffic or a curve before he finished. Only a clover would expect him to drop back to the entire original following distance in order to wait for a chance to try passing you again.
The state thrives on the unclear definitions its subjects try to adhere to.
Sorry about my errors above, but I was nodding off as I tried to finish the post. My points and question remain solid.
“define tailgating as the unnecessary following of a vehicle in front of you at excessively close range.”
Define “unnecessary”. Define “close range”
Rush hour traffic in Houston on a Fri. is a nightmare. 4 abreast and bumper to bumper, tearing off to as fast as they can go to the point they have to slam on the brakes to hopefully not run over whoever is in front. You can’t leave a gap. People will pull back in so close you can barely see part of their car. It’s a losing game in a big rig. I find a bar, a nice, cool, dark one or a motel room and stay till after midnight when most of the wrecks have been cleared not that it will be a picnic even at that time.
Part of the problem too is that most rural interstates (at least here in the Midwest) are congested and at capacity with little or no plans for expanding. I-65 should be six lanes the whole length of Indiana. Same thing with I-57 in Illinois. East-West routes like I-70 can even be worse.
Most people think I am crazy to suggest six lane interstates out in the “country”. But its not like doesn’t exist already in places, I-94 between Chicago and Detroit is six lanes the whole way. They built it when it was connecting the second and fifth largest cities in the US (now the 3rd soon to be fourth connecting to the 14th)
That’s a BIG problem in this country. As the 1980’s drew to a close, I definitely started seeing the need for wider interstates nationwide. Traffic levels were accelerating as the country was recovering from the twin 1970’s energy crises and the early 1980’s recession. We hit 2 trillion miles by 1990. Today, it is at 3.2 Trillion with no sign of abating. Rural interstate highways have been taking a disproportionate part of the increase. State gas taxes need to be raised and state highway departments need to take on the task of either adding capacity to existing roads or building new ones with very LIMITED access between cities. New highway constructions cannot have the unlimited roadside development that older ones do. Highways are not a welfare program for developers; they provide a way to get between cities fast. At least that’s the way they do it everywhere else. It’s too bad that it will never happen here. The only way that it could is by toll roads.
“The only way that it could is by toll roads.”
And what’s wrong w/that? Especially if ALL the roads were privatized, as they should be. But then gunvermin would have no excuse for fuel taxes, which are supposedly for building and maintaining highways, but often end up subsidizing ‘mass transit’ projects.
The whole highway design system was flawed from the beginning thanks to bureaucratic ineptitude! The interstate highway system should not have been routed from city to city. A more efficient national transportation highway design should have been routed between large cities instead of to/through them, with diagonal arteries leading to each of the major cities. There should also have been more diagonal transportation highways than we actually have.
Dear Brian,
That is indeed the problem.
Whenever violations of the NAP have occurred in the past due to the existence of crime families with flags, the infrastructure has already been distorted.
It has been artificially shaped in a manner such that fails to reflect what people actually need. As a result, problems surface, sooner if not later.
Clinton/Gore type “policy wonks” are the clearest example of this. They assume that the solution is for “political leaders” such as them to “study the problem and implement solutions”.
It isn’t.
The solution is for these busibodies to butt the fuck out and stop widening the gap between what people actually need and what government rams down their throats.
bevin, fucking shit up and calling it golden is what politicians call progress for which they can take credit…..if it gets some good reviews, even if they have to be elicited by the same paid for lackeys as usual. Fucking shit up is their raison d’etre or raisin detree in west Texanese.
And how else do they get their name stuck up on a public sign and collect some of the under the table booty if they don’t spend our money like it’s water and they have a pump dropped in the ocean. Oh hell yes it looks good in pictures but it kills everything it touches eventually but the politicians and contractors have “moved on” by this time and we’re left with another mess to fix.
Dear 8,
Amen to that.
Ayn Rand called them “monument builders”. She did not mean the as a compliment.
The monuments they build are of course to themselves. It began with the Pharaohs, but unfortunately did not end with them.
http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/texas-motor-speedway-president-eddie-gossage-and-denton-county-andy-picture-id107432040
As Rand put it:
The seekers of unearned material benefits are merely financial parasites, moochers, looters or criminals, who are too limited in number and in mind to be a threat to civilization, until and unless they are released and legalized by the seekers of unearned greatness.
Unearned greatness is so unreal, so neurotic a concept that the wretch who seeks it cannot identify it even to himself: to identify it, is to make it impossible. He needs the irrational, undefinable slogans of altruism and collectivism to give a semiplausible form to his nameless urge and anchor it to reality—to support his own self-deception more than to deceive his victims. “The public,” “the public interest,” “service to the public” are the means, the tools, the swinging pendulums of the power-luster’s self-hypnosis.
Since there is no such entity as “the public,” since the public is merely a number of individuals, any claimed or implied conflict of “the public interest” with private interests means that the interests of some men are to be sacrificed to the interests and wishes of others. Since the concept is so conveniently undefinable, its use rests only on any given gang’s ability to proclaim that “The public, c’est moi”—and to maintain the claim at the point of a gun.
No such claim has ever been or can ever be maintained without the help of a gun—that is, without physical force. But, on the other hand, without that claim, gunmen would remain where they belong: in the underworld, and would not rise to the councils of state to rule the destinies of nations.
There are two ways of claiming that “The public, c’est moi”: one is practiced by the crude material parasite who clamors for government handouts in the name of a “public” need and pockets what he has not earned; the other is practiced by his leader, the spiritual parasite, who derives his illusion of “greatness”—like a fence receiving stolen goods—from the power to dispose of that which he has not earned and from the mystic view of himself as the embodied voice of “the public.” [pp. 88-89.]
Ayn Rand, ([1962] 1964), “The Monument Builders”, The Objectivist Newsletter 1(12): 53, 55. Reprinted in The Virtue of Selfishness. New York: Signet, 86–91.
So have you heard about the latest ‘honor’ to be bestowed on our Dear Leader?
“Baracktrema obamai is a 2-inch long flatworm that lives in the lungs of turtles. And there have been other creatures named after President Obama.”
Of course the parasitologist who named this creature is so enamored of parasites (calling them beautiful, among other things) that he really does consider it an honor.
For more, see – http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0909/Parasite-named-for-Barack-Obama-That-s-a-compliment-right
Ayn certainly saw enough of it to put a name to it whenever she saw it…..or heard it. And not any difference in this country. Retire one name to eternal grace and replace it with another that still breathes.
One politician since I’ve been alive has always amazed me by the followers who thought he was some kind of real person. I guess in the US an actor is as close as you can get. What did RR give us besides the worst gun bill to ever come along at the time and the most notorious people who ran the show? I guess he was photogenic in a non-threatening way. So many of his worshipers were detractors of his wife who was quite possibly the only person in DC with an ounce of honesty.
PTB,
I wonder if this man sees the irony and the analogy between the parasite Baracktrema obamai residing in the lungs of endangered turtles and the political parasite Barack Obama residing in the bowels of the endangered species liberum Americae? Ha Ha So Funny!
“I wonder if this man sees the irony and the analogy”
I doubt that he did, but I sure did.
Dear Phil,
Obomber honored by being equated with a parasitic worm?
How very appropriate!
Diagonal eh? This has been one of the big fights in Tx. since I can remember. It was easy enough to make a new interstate on the high plains,just use the old 87 path and call the result I-27 but at Lubbock we have a major political problem. Due south on to Big Spring, San Angelo, put up I-27 signs on I-10 to San Antonio and on to Pleasanton and eventually skirting every town to Corpus Christi. Or go east at Lubbock down to I-20 to Abilene and south on 84 to 36 to Houston. But now we have the new superintercontinental highway to Mexico that comes up I-35 from the border and heads up to Ok. That was supposed to be stopped a decade ago due to no agreement twixt the various parties but now it’s being done at a really fast pace and nobody in the MSM will even mention it. Plenty cars, pickups and big rigs with Mexican tags going for broke. I suppose most of the trucks would pass a DOT inspection but the driver’s wouldn’t. All the truck companies we have in the US have plants in Mexico too although their emissions wouldn’t be legal here yet they ply the roads night and day. Only politicians with help from a great many idiot bureaucrats could or would create such a clusterfuck.
Tailgaters don’t bother me unless I’m hauling ass, passing cars. If someone is tailgating me, it is likely I’m temporarily in a clover zone. When that happens, I move right as quickly as I can unless passed on the right. Even then, I move right.
Tailgating is the opposite of a Cloveritic behavior. It’s something else, but very few clovers I know would tailgate. They instead block every conceivable car from passing by driving slowly.
There are two factors which weren’t really discussed but have a major impact on what is, or is not, a “safe” speed on a given road. First, some roads were designed for high-speed travel. For example, the US interstate system, in addition to being designed to allow planes to land at certain intervals in the event of a war, was designed for travel at 90 MPH by 1950’s military vehicles. There are very few steep turns or angles. The vast majority of the interstate was intended to be traveled at almost twice the current speed limit.
Second, the design and technology of the vehicles on the road is a major factor. Anyone who has driven a car from the 1950’s or 1960’s knows that even the entry level car in 2016 is leagues beyond the old models in terms of suspension, braking, control, crumple zones, air bags and other important safety features. Collectively, these massive improvements mean that the car is more likely to respond well to emergency maneuvers and, in the event of a crash, to minimize harm to its’ occupants.
Having pointed out two reasons why speed limits could be much higher, I also have to point out that there is one limiting factor that most folks pay no heed: tire ratings. By far the most common car tire rating is “M” which means it is safe up to 81 MPH. If you plan to travel at speeds higher than 80 MPH, you need tires which have a higher rating to handle the heat, vibration and rotational velocity involved. Tires with a “S” rating, for example, can handle up to 112 MPH, while tires with a “W” or higher rating can handle the speeds of sports cars and exotics. A full list is here: http://www.ntb.com/tires/Tire-Speed-Rating-Education.j
So, while the roads and tech can and should support speeds of 90 MPH quite handily, it’s a question of whether the right tires and equipment (does your state require annual safety inspections?) are in place. Then there is the question of the driver, their training, experience, fatigue, etc. We can and should be allowed to go much faster, but like anything, there’s a safe way to do it.
Good stuff, Cadeyrn!
I’m with you on tires.
Also, there is the problem of diminished expectations of even basic competence (let alone skill) behind the wheel, which has resulted in legions of marginal drivers operating cars far more capable than they are.
Welcome to EPautos, by the way!
No military truck or other such road vehicle goes 90mph.
The design criteria was that a package on the shelf under the rear window of a 1950s big three sedan not slide at 70mph.
A 1950s sedan is incredibly unsafe by modern standards and yet this thing was permitted to be driven at 70mph. Bias ply tires. Four wheel manual drum brakes. The handling of the Queen Mary. 70mph. But do 70mph on the same interstates here in IL in a modern car in the 21st century and it’s illegal.
My sister and I used to be the packages on the rear window shelf of Dad’s 49 Chevy – fast asleep.
I don’t think even modern military vehicles can do 90 mph. The fastest Willys Jeep I’ve been in could barely top 65, and even a Duramax H1 would struggle to pass 80 within the minute mark.
Don’t mistake the H-1 diesels for Duramax with nearly 3 times the power. Soldiers would be killing themselves left and right.
^^Good point. My neighbor has an 06′ Duramax Alpha, so I assumed wrongly most diesel H1s were Duramax/Allison powered.
Seems like what I’ve driven was the 6.5, which was a complete pig.
I’ve seen several military vehicles doing 90 mph on the interstate…..chained down to that lowboy.
There is something about Illinois drivers though. I was speaking recently to another driver on the phone. He all of a sudden says “you stupid sob……blah blah”. I asked him where he was. He said he was going through Chicago and the stupid sob he was cussing who moved into his lane was a truck driver…..for god’s sake he added. Then he said something like These people cannot drive. Must be something in the water.
We have people in Tx. who can’t drive too but out on the interstates they’re often referred to as the “newly deceased”. I don’t understand why but people wreck out going in a straight line on a flat road. For some reason people seem to need to put up crosses for the deceased at POI. I saw a car in the center barditch last year. The centers are divided to sorta, kinda keep vehicle from going all the way across but it’s just light posts and flimsy cables so anything from pickups on up generally blast through them. Two people, dressed as if to go to church had gotten out and were headed for a couple crosses with some flowers. That’s all well and good but this was rush hour and it was bumper to bumper big rigs doing 75-80 with smaller vehicles doing their best to stay in between those rigs, a phenomena of its own I never understood. How the hell they were going to get back up on the interstate at that point I didn’t want to see. Rush hour Friday’s goes on from about noon till midnight or later. Even the badged crew with their radar guns hangs it up during this period.
Truckers around here are very much a ‘me first, f’ you’ type. Just day before yesterday one pulls out into a lane he’s not even supposed to be in, forcing me to brake.
When I was stationed at Fort Bragg I got to see a D5 Caterpillar exceed 90 mph. They were doing a heavy drop and there was a ‘chute malfunction so it freefell from about 1200’. You’d think somebody wasn’t too fond of that dozer…
It took a wile to dig it out of the ground but it ended up in front of the 27th eng. battalion motor pool (with a big ‘safety’ sign planted next to it), looked like someone stomped on a pop can.
“Perhaps post advisory speeds – realistic speeds – as an aid to drivers not familiar with a given stretch of road or curves up ahead. That would be genuinely helpful as a well as safe.”
Eric, I disagree. Get rid of all this crap so drivers get used to the idea of paying attention to the road, the conditions, and the vehicles around them instead of constantly scanning the roadside for a sign to tell them what to do. If you can’t see what’s around the next corner or over that hill, then you damn well better slow down and pay attention.
Politicians blabber constantly about distracted driving, but they create the biggest distractions of all with their omnipresent rules, signs and threats.
I hear you Ronald… well-sad!
Survey of 800 Auto Execs From 38 Countries:
Sail Fawnication of Entire Auto Industry Is #1 Concern
https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2015/12/kpmg-global-automotive-executive-survey-2016.html
I’m going to argue in favor of speed limits on the basis that it has been shown regarding crashes that there is a “dead zone” where if you are at a certain speed and your velocity suddenly becomes zero or close to it, you are dead regardless. I believe that speed was 50 mph (80 kph), or thereabout. So I can see the case for speed limits to be in force to emphasize a < 50 mph limit for crash speeds (25 max for each direction of traffic). I don't necessarily agree this would ever work in the real world, but if people where interested in saving lives, you could make the case that if no one drove over 50 mph, no one would die.
Of course though, most people enforcing speed limits like to make exceptions for the special, and it infuriates me when cops go roaring by at 90-100 mph to "get somewhere", especially when it's been proving that speeding almost never gets you anywhere faster in the city because of stop lights, turns, traffic, etc.
Whatever the case though, I think we all can agree that teaching the actual skill of driving to people and how to be alert is the best course of action. Everyone I know that has taken defensive driving courses or racing lessons has either been in one or no crashes.
Controlled Chaos
European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs
Are streets without traffic signs conceivable? Seven cities and regions in Europe are giving it a try — with good results.
By Matthias Schulz
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/controlled-chaos-european-cities-do-away-with-traffic-signs-a-448747.html
Excerpt: The new traffic model’s advocates believe the only way out of this vicious circle is to give drivers more liberty and encourage them to take responsibility for themselves.
Comment: Anarchy is order. Government is chaos. This article may only be directed at traffic laws and traffic signs. But in fact it has far larger implications for societies and social order.
Hi Bevin,
I favor anything that discourages passivity and using one’s own judgment. If people are taught instead to obey signage like trained labrador retrievers, you get two-legged labrador retrievers – dependent creatures who always look to their master for instructions.
Dear Eric,
I was surprised that this move originated in Europe, which is ostensibly far more collectivist than the USA, “where at least we know we’re free”.
The article was from a decade ago, but apparently the plan was extremely successful.
I guess some Europeans have retained the most admirable trait of Western civilization — individualism.
Thanks for that, Bevin. I’m assuming they still have signs telling you what street you’re on and such. Informational signs are useful; regulatory signs distract and create conflict.
The sure-fire way to get people to act like four-year-olds is to make a lot of rules.
I did cringe when I read “The utopia has already become a reality…” Sheesh.
Dear Roland,
My understanding is that they eliminated only regulatory signs. Speed limit signs. Stop signs. Yield signs.
I assume they kept One Way Street signs and what not. LOL!
Hi AJ,
Heck, let’s make it 10 MPH, maximum. Very few people would ever be killed as a result of car crashes. Isn’t it all about saaaaaaaaaaaaaafety?
Then again, I drive 100-plus every day – or at least, try to. I hit 150-something yesterday on my bike. I needed to clean out the carbs…. .
Yet – bizarrely this “speed” hasn’t killed. Or even scuffed a fender.
I’ve been doing this for decades.
Maybe I am special.
Or maybe it’s not speed that kills… 🙂
I agree that speed limits (in general) are the complete wrong way to go about bringing “safety” to the community, which may not have come across in my post. I was trying to point out that if the collectivists wanted to make a good argument for safety, they’d back up their numbers with facts and a well reasoned argument, which I have never really heard from them…like with most policies.
Personally I think people just need to use their heads when driving, and develop skills to handle their vehicle. i.e. I felt much more comfortable doing 170 in my old Mitsubishi vs. 40 with my ex-girlfriend in her Kia. I’ve also never been in a wreck while she’s been in at least 4, probably more now.
Hi AJ,
Ditto… . Skill (and comfort level) varies. It’s ridiculous to apply a one-size-fits-all speed limit. It’s like restricting how fast people are allowed to walk.
People can natter all day about whether “x” is “too fast.” It’s all subjective. The only objective criteria is whether a driver has lost control and caused harm. If he has, then – objectively – he was going too fast.
But to cite him for merely for traveling faster than “x” is a textbook example of a victimless crime.
eric, long ago I touted 5 mph as the speed almost no one would be killed at. Hell, we could take the old Briggs from the mower the transmission went out on and install it in Caddy’s. No transmission, just a couple pulleys and belt. You might want to put the big Briggs on the power steering and a/c by itself. Quit hauling cattle and go back to drives……right through the nice neighborhoods, esp. the ones with their own little lakes, plenty of grazing and plenty of fertilizer for the next herd.
Hi Eight,
It’d be very safe! 🙂
” 5 mph as the speed almost no one would be killed at”
I’m glad you said ‘almost.’ Maybe it never happens in TX, folks down there being smarter and all, but I’ve heard of smartass kids rolling a farm tractor at some similar speed – one of the older ones w/o ‘ROP.’
PtB, 14 years ago one of my best friends rolled his small tractor, a ’49 model, while building a tank dam. It didn’t exactly roll, just flipped upside down on him. My old 4020 has no ROP’s but I try not to put it in that sort of places. I have been losing friends and acquaintances my entire life due to tractors rolling over that were barely moving.
When I was a kid I saw a tractor safety film that stuck with me. They chained the rear tires to a timber and let er rip. Nothing moved but the tractor rotating on the rear axle 180 degrees. Of course that never entered my mind with a broom handle in one hand pushing the governor to make a tractor really cook while somebody else did same with another tractor. We used to slide around corners on them all out(maybe increase speed from 12 to 16 mph). Some friends were moving a trailer house with a farm tractor(45 years ago). They were headed east on US 84 headed toward Post Tx. from a small town just north. The problem being is Post is nearly 1000 feet lower than the plains and the grade covers about 3 miles. This idiot clutched it and kicked it out of gear. Soon he’s passing cars and trucks and luckily didn’t touch the brakes. He actually survived along with tractor and trailer house. I think he bought new underwear and jeans in Post though. They didn’t mention it but I’m sure they stopped at the liquor store and got plenty of “nerve medicine”. The mold got broke with those high plains people.
You have a 4020? Cool – that’s a classic. I bought a new 4320 about a year ago. Not to be confused with the old 4320, which I believe was around 100 hp. This one’s at the upper end of the compact tractor spectrum at 48 engine hp. It’s a handy little thing with a short wheelbase and front-wheel assist, but has enough mass that it doesn’t feel like a toy. I put a vertical exhaust on it, so it now has a pretty cool little whistle from the turbo. It’s hydrostatic, which I never thought I would like, but for PTO work it is wonderful. I can leave the engine throttled up to the ideal PTO speed and then adjust my ground speed from zero to whatever with the hydrostatic pedals. But – get this – the brakes are on the LEFT! I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that after having them on the right for almost 60 years.
We built our house in 1989 on the farm where I grew up. As I write this I can see from the window the bend in the creek where my Grandpa died when he got too close and rolled his 8N Ford. I was maybe 4 at the time, and vaguely remember not getting to bring Dad and Grandpa their lunch in the field that day. It didn’t occur to me until just now how shortly after that it was that Dad started teaching me how to drive tractors. I’m sure it explains his fixation on safety. Among the things he taught me:
Never hook to anything but the drawbar. Any higher and simple geometry dictates that it can pull the tractor over on top of you.
Always leave it in gear when you’re going downhill. If you’re in a low enough gear with the clutch engaged, it won’t run away. If you try to coast, it might.
Don’t drive it around corners like a car.
If a slope scares you, stay off it.
And never overfill the oil-bath air cleaner on a diesel!
8S, the pollution would be deadly. And think how many people would die because they couldn’t get to medical care in time.
In my neck of the woods the secondary highway is being upgraded from two lanes with a gravel shoulder to four lanes with paved shoulders, sidewalks, bicycle lanes, and a concrete median. For safety’s sake the speed limit has been reduced from eighty kilometres an hour to seventy.
They did a similar thing in my neck of the woods. My wife asked why they lowered the limit since it was now easier to drive a reasonable speed, I told her that’s how they’ll pay for the road.
“My wife asked why they lowered the limit since it was now easier to drive a reasonable speed, I told her that’s how they’ll pay for the road.”
Now there’s an honest answer.
One of the key functions of government is the redistribution of wealth from those being ruled, to those doing the ruling. https://anenemyofthestate.wordpress.com/quotations-from-chairman-zhu/
Hi Simon,
Same stuff in my neck. In addition, they continue to obliterate formerly legal passing zones. On one stretch of road I use regularly, there were four such ten years ago. Today, there is one.
On our county roads, there’s just the dashed center line … and signs that scream “NO PASSING ZONES UNMARKED.”
Oh no, we’re all gonna die!
In my opinion, most posted speed limits are just about right……for when I’m driving a medium sized motorhome!
Especially accurate for curving overpasses, where you transition from one freeway to another. If I try to take those curves at higher than posted speeds in my motorhome, it’s almost always too fast.
This should explain everything. 🙂
Mike, dammit… there goes my effing coffee… 🙂
I had the pleasure of driving a 1940 Oldsmobile last week, those advisory limits on curves were decided with that car in mind. It wasn’t bad mind you, but the tires were starting to howl.
Hi Dr. O-
Yup! Highway speed limits have reverted to what they were circa 1970 while secondary roads have remained the same as they were circa 1970.
I’ve read interviews with traffic engineers who said they designed roads to be safe over 20 miles and hour faster than what is eventually posted.
Over their objections, elected officials lowered the posted limit by 20 miles per hour or more, making driving on them sleep inducing experiences more hazardous to safety.
Related:
Dispelling speed limit myths
Before explaining why interstate speeds are trending upward, let’s first expunge some misconceptions. Here are four commonly held, but inaccurate statements about speed limits:
* Lowering a posted speed limit will slow down traffic.
* Lowering a posted speed limit will increase safety and decrease the number of crashes.
* Raising the posted speed limit increases traffic speed.
* Drivers will always travel at 5 mph over the posted speed limit.
There is no guarantee that a speed limit will have any effect on driving behaviors. The fact is, when driving, most motorists choose a speed in which they personally feel both comfortable and safe.
As cars have evolved to go faster and be safer, so too has the inclination for drivers to increase speeds on open roads and rural interstates.
Simply, a speed limit sign should not dictate speed. It should reflect how drivers are actually behaving on the road.
— Morgan Abbott, PE, is a highway designer who is passionate about safety. Having worked throughout the upper Midwest — in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois — her experience includes performing spot speed studies on county and local roadways as well as reviewing speed study results on state highways.
Hi Bevin,
It’s a fact that the Interstate highway system was designed for average speeds around 75 MPH… back in the mid-late 1950s.
Sixty years later, the speed limits on most highways are lower than the designed-for speed, which assumed 1950s-era cars (bias-ply tires and four wheel drum brakes; primitive suspensions and sloppy steering).
Almost any recent vintage (1990s-up) car is fully capable of safely operating at sustained speeds around 80 or 90 MPH and many cars could operate as safely at 100 as a 1950s-era car at 70.
But decades of dumbed-down driving expectations have created a herd of Clovers whose abilities are far below those of the cars they are driving.
This, in turn, justifies the dumbed-down limits, which creates more Clovers… rinse, repeat.
Dear Eric,
So true.
As your previous articles on “Muscle Cars were Slow” underscored, supposedly sedate current family sedans such as Toyota Camrys are as fast as 60s era Pontiac GTOs. They also have much improved suspension systems and are able to corner at higher lateral g’s.
There is absolutely not reason why AutoBahn speeds could not be instituted on many Interstate highways.
Other than clovers driving in the passing lane at the minimum legal speed of course.
It might be fine with 200 yards between cars, but considering the hordes of tailgaters on highways today, 80 mph is an insane speed. Call me a Clover, but what do you call a highway tailgater five feet from my rear bumper?
Hi Steve,
Tailgaters are a separate issue. Using the reckless/inept actions of one type of driver to punish other drivers who aren’t reckless or inept strikes me as of a piece with punishing gun owners who’ve never mishandled their firearms because some other person did.
And where are the government cops when a seething crybaby tailgater is threatening to kill you and your family? Sitting on his fat ass staring at his radar, that’s where.
Well-said, Roland.
Tailgating – objectively dangerous – is rarely, if ever bothered with by cops. But drive faster than the speed limit and you are fair game.
Steve, why is 80 mph an “insane” speed? It’s the speed limit on many Texas roads. The only insanity I see is the badged goon trying to decide if a particular vehicle doing 84 is worth it or if he might get somebody doing the total, all-out 85 mph. That entire thing is insane and unsafe. If you have a problem with 80 mph please get on the service road since you are essentially blocking traffic. If you’re on a two lane, move onto the shoulder if you’re uncomfortable. It sounds like what you’d call somebody 5 feet from your bumper a driver who’s lost patience with your holding them up. If you’re aware they are there, why not do something to let them by? After all, it is an arbitrary number. Most of my life Texans thought 80 mph was an insane speed, insanely slow and before instant-on radar not many drove that slowly.
We used to take family vacations on the road with 4 or 5 cars of families. Since radar was not often seen or used we headed out at at least 90 mph and that was on bias ply tires.
Man, if you need 200 yds. between cars go somewhere to live where there are no cars. Ever notice we truck drivers fall behind a passing rig within a few feet to not run over a slower rig in our slow lane? You might also notice those headlight flashes so one rig knows he’s cleared the rig he passed and can pull back in. If a rig is steadily even a partial mph faster than mine and traffic is thick i’ll turn my headlights off when the other rigs barely past me. Then he can pull back in and that rig behind him can go on around both of us. It’s not dangerous, quite the opposite. Turn your lights off at night you’re thinking? Why not?
“If a rig is steadily even a partial mph faster than mine and traffic is thick i’ll turn my headlights off when the other rigs barely past me. Then he can pull back in and that rig behind him can go on around both of us. It’s not dangerous, quite the opposite.”
I’m sorry 8S, but that is lunacy. Maybe not so much now that cabovers are a thing of the past, but I would never have intentionally put my Freightliner just a few yards behind another truck at highway speeds. Anything at all goes wrong in front of him and I’m a hamburger patty.
I guess it comes down to “barely”. I don’t ask anyone to come back if they don’t have some decent room in front of them. If I have reason to believe they’re about to pick up more speed than I do that makes a difference.
So, how is that Freightliner? So I’m told, I’m about to get a new daycab. I’m hoping it’s not one of those really short things with half the engine beside me. At first the company said they had some long nose Pete’s and that’s what I’ve been driving. If I get a hand me down and it’s a Pete instead of a Freightliner I can live with it although I wouldn’t care to have one of the new plastic Pete’s either. A friend bought one for fuel economy but he says it’s a piece of plastic junk. He traded in an extended hood job, a 379 and misses it.
Hi Eight,
I think you’ll enjoy this!
http://ericpetersautos.com/2016/09/13/saaaaaaaaaafety/
eric, it’s replete in trucking now. New Volvo’s are the worst. They automatically brake and jakebrake simultaneously when they think you’re fucking up. It’s not bad says one driver I know but he’s not had it kick in heading hard downhill when it’s slick. Let’s the that system make a redo when the trailer decides it wants to pass. Then another friend runs one with only a front end cam that simply tattles on you. He was going 10 mph and a car nearly clipped his front shooting across to his right lane. He naturally slams the brakes, anything to avoid a touch at which point the truck tattles on him for “applying too much brake” and he gets a butt-chewing.
That’s not the worst though, some companies have cams pointing to the front and another pointing at the driver……all the time. It’s being recorded so picking your nose or singing an x-rated DAC song is there for posterity. I’m guessing slipping a piece of tape over it disables something and you get fired or reprimanded or docked x cents a mile. It’s waaaayyy too much. I know people who’ve already quit over that shit.
Around here they’ve taken the low-tech (but nearly as annoying) approach of continuous rumble strips. Why you would want to take a nice smooth road and intentionally make it rough is beyond me, but the cloverish editor of the local newspaper has been whining for decades that we need these never-ending strings of mini-potholes to jolt us back onto the road when we doze off, and now his dream has come true. Put a tire within a yard of the edge and “Rrrrrrrrrrrrrumble!”
“Put a tire within a yard of the edge”
It’s that way here in MD, too, but I don’t mind that too much, although it irritates my wife if I hit it. She’ll accuse me of falling asleep. But on I-70 in Missouri those rumblers are only about 6″ outside the stripe.
Those rumble strips in Tx. are outside the white line. I wish we’d always had them. They’ve saved me countless times. Probably most people don’t drive while asleep but truckers are prone to zoning out and not remembering driving the last 50 miles even though you may have had to stop and go through the gears many times.
I’ve awakened in towns I had no intention of being in. All of a sudden you realize you are not on the most direct route. It’s time to do a walk-around, water the grass, bump the tires and the lights, check the load and drink something cold…..liked iced tea, heavy on the caffeine.
Ugh, now the bad memories from running trucks are coming back. Stop it, Eight – I only want to remember the fun parts 😉
Haha, the Freightliner was a long time ago, Eight. I drove company trucks, and didn’t make a career of it. They had some pretty nice tractors, all with Cats and mostly 13-speed Roadrangers, although some of the trailers were an embarrassment. The old Cat 1693s were sweet-running babes, but by the end of the day my ears would be ringing from the whine of the turbo, and when they idled they clattered like they were going to come apart any second. Of course they’d be anemic by today’s standards.
I can appreciate the dilemma when signaling to a driver who’s overtaking you. You don’t want him to think you’re an a-hole who won’t speak to him (that’s what we used to call communicating by headlight – do you still?), but then again you don’t want to give him permission to butt in front of you too close either. And of course there’s the concern about the guy behind him who probably wants to go still faster. I would usually do so when he was clear by a short distance, and then rely on his good judgement. To me, my lights going off simply meant “You’re clear.” The rest was up to him. Of course the rate at which he’s pulling ahead has a lot to do with it too.
Roland, I left that part off, how fast you think he’s going to be pulling away from you. Mostly when I let somebody in really close it’s because we already have passed or run side by side and you know his truck will run faster than yours in a specific situation. Maybe his will run a lot faster when you hit a downhill but won’t pull harder than yours going up. It all depends for sure.
I don’t know trucks were necessarily any slower back in the day than now. I actually had a ’74 Freightliner(before they made convenionals). It had a very souped up Cummins that would verily haul ass and we commonly carried heavier loads back then since collecting revenue wasn’t the big biz it is today. I used to haul a lot of power poles and they’d always be well overweight. That old Freightliner would pull them 85 up hill and down and no telling how fast if it hadn’t been limited with that 10 speed. My philosophy says the easiest way to fuck up any truck is to limit it to direct as the last gear. There’s 17% difference in the last 8 gears on an 18 speed so why would anyone want anything less? Yep, those fools who never drove a truck and can only see the bottom line of initial purchase price.
Those old Cats sounded like they were coming apart, like there were a thousand monkeys doing speed with hammers in their hands. But damn would they run. To this day the best running and capable of getting the best mileage is a friend with a long nose Pete, a 13 speed and a 3406 B Cat that purrrrsss. Now there are other engines that will outpull it but none that aren’t computerized.
And yes, good drivers still use their headlights but it’s dying off as new ones are driving speed limited trucks and are bored and never learned anything in “truck driving school” other than what they were taught. I guess most of them were never trained at night.
Yeah, speaking of the old engines, when I was barely-DOT-legal 21, I took a road test in a brand-new Pete with a V-12 Detroit and an empty trailer. It was quite unpleasant. I was used to lazy-revving four-strokes, and the Jimmy wound up and down so fast that I didn’t have nearly as much time to do my gears. I must have done OK, since I overheard the guy tell somebody afterward, “This is the best one I’ve seen.”
I got assigned a new FL with a 3406 shortly after I started driving. It was good, but it sure didn’t whistle as sweet as the 1693s.
A thousand monkeys with hammers. I like that. 🙂
I cut my teeth on Detroits. I’d run an old V-12 in a heartbeat. They always revved higher and shifted faster. At night down on the coast those Detroit 2 cycles would scream. The great thing about them was their fast shifts. I’ve run a lot of Cat’s like I would a Detroit and they ran hard.
Hi 8S,
I’ve always admired beautiful tractor trailers esp. Peterbilt and Freightliners.
Years ago I saw a rig up in Monterey, Va. that I never saw before or since an don’t recall the name, but it looked like the Rolls Royce of tractor trailers. Is there or was there such an animal?
I know a lot of people loved the old Detroits, and the value of the freight they hauled in their day would put many countries’ GDP to shame. I never drove them enough to get used to their idiosyncrasies.
I always said a Detroit will talk to you, but a Cat will sing. 🙂
A Detroit would run the scale with a vibrato and wire itself into you. An older fellow I knew with a Mack had an 8V-71 and a 13 speed and that old Mack would haul ass.
I liked how you could easily change injectors and turn the RPM up on one in just a few minutes. I had a 6-71 that I turned up to 2600 which made it sound like a race car coming at you. It had 65mm marine injectors and would “haul the mail” so to speak.
Another friend had a 12V 71 and it blew everything off the road. But what I really liked about them was their ability to stand up to anything and live.
The guy with the Mack once told me after I’d complained about not running as fast as I wanted “Son, if you’re going to run a Detroit, first thing in the morning put your thumb right here(on the door jamb)and slam the door. Then you’ll be in the proper frame of mind to make that sumbitch run like a scalded dog”. Hell, turn it up and he was right.
My ex-BIL worked for a company that fraced wells with liquid nitrogen, one hell of a lot better way to make sure you got clean oil and didn’t sand it in.
Back in those days you could run out in west Tx. in places no law ever showed up and 100 mph was nothing for 4 wheelers. I worked but Tuboscope on a 5 man crew and we had a Suburban we drove to the rigs. It rarely got below 110 and it never had a hiccup.
One day the BIL was out there in no-man’s land flying low in his car when one of their trucks passed him loaded with nitrogen. It was these two Mexican guys who worked together and were typical of patch hands, head up ass. Next time that truck was in the shop(new Freightliner COE with 8V 71 and 13 speed Fuller)he got to wondering what the governor was set on. He floored it and it stopped at 3600 RPM. They were running it like that day in day out. He turned it back down and told them to leave it alone. This is a 2100 rpm engine. But truth be known, everybody knew turning one up a few hundred rpm not only kept them in their power range better but they lasted longer.
I still hear pulling units running them and they sound the same. Detroit still cranks out those 2 cycles for uses like that and people keep using them. I’m sure they won’t pass emissions for hiway use but I’d have no problem using one. A 12 V 71 would be the nads and nobody at the truck stops would know what it was. I’ve delivered lots of power plants and mud pumps with two of them tied together, each running the same direction, something you can’t do with any other engine I’m aware of. Just change ends with the crank and cam and run that thing backward to the other one. They stayed in marine use for a long time. Wouldn’t be surprised to hear one in a boat today.
Interesting. I didn’t know the two-strokes were still being made at all. As I said, I’ve been away from trucking for a long time. Somebody told me Cat no longer makes anything for road tractors. True? What’s out there then besides Cummins and four-stroke Detroits?
My little Deere 4320 was one of the last models made without that big old exhaust filter thingy. It’s amazing they can cram all that crap under the hood of those little tractors. At least they’re not required to use the horse pee yet on the small ones.
These Heros writing tickets: Always reminds me of one of their ticket-writing brethren…their good buddy and “compliance officer” Dennis Rader in Kansas. Dennis wrote lots of tickets.
You may remember Dennis by his nom de plume: BTK
Whenever you see a Hero writing a “ticket”, think Dennis Rader.
A lie slides off a cops tongue more easily than the truth I noticed long ago. “speeding” is nearly always given for the reason to stop someone a cop just wanted to check out. I notice some days the “K-nine Patrol” is cruising a particular stretch of road. I’ll see a huge amount of stops and searches.
A lie slides off a cops tongue more easily than the truth I noticed long ago.
But of course; after all, “police” is an anagram of “cop lie.”
Astute observation. One I won’t for get.
Or you can make it merely Po LICE (lice of the poor).
Revenue and probable cause. How many DUI cases, drug busts, asset forfeitures and the rest start as “do you know how fast you were going?”
If there was truly an interest in making roads safer, they would do what actually works and get rid of most traffic regulation altogether.
Of course, then some of our best and brightest would have to find honest work…
Not when insurance companies are giving out radar guns like candy to ensure the ecosystem continues. I invoke the anarcho-syndicalist peasant from Holy Grail as an answer to your entreaties.
“It has been reveled that GEICO insurance company has paid the radar companies $2 mil for police radar guns for police depts. It was in their information to the GEICO’s shareholder’s financial statements. Allstate Insurance was next for the amount contributed. Progressive Insurance was third in contributions .”
AAA is also anti-driver and pro-police through revenue enhancement.
Hi Libertyx,
Yes. AAA is the enemy, if you care about liberty. I recommend the National Motorists Association. They represent the interests of people who value liberty as expressed via mobility.
It sickens me that NMA is barely gimping along while AAA is a multi-million dollar business.
Like MADD.
Can we guess which one gets kickbacks from police unions and gov’t officials?
Yes, AAA is almost as leftist as AARP. And the GE in GEICO originally stood for ‘gunvermin employees’
My understanding of how things work on the Autobahns is that while you can travel at any speed you wish (in fewer and fewer designated areas), you are expected to keep to the right and tailgating is verboten, to the point that you WILL get ticketed for either.
One thing I’ve noticed lately, CDOT is upgrading signage along I70. Not just putting up more message boards and cameras, but also speed limit signs with variable displays. Some of them have bright yellow numbers, but others have the normal black-on-white numbers displayed using huge LCD panels. My guess is the plan is to control speed limits dynamically from their operations center in Golden. You’d better be paying attention in “bad” weather and construction zones, because there’s a good chance they could change the speed and you won’t notice it. And for sure forget about relying on the speed display that some GPS units show.