1,000 miles per day on E-logs

It means don't post links from other forums on here.

 

On second thought, I should apologize. It is common for government "authorities" to cite "going with the flow" is a good technique. And it's intuitively correct; obviously the fewer vehicles you encounter the better chance of not crashing. It's a myth maybe as old as Solomon, and it's still being repeated ad nauseum by the speed obsessed. The overall most common single-vehicle crash circumstances are; while driving straight on a clear, dry road in daylight conditions the vehicle leaves the roadway for no apparent reason.

But statistically, on our highest-speed roads, it just doesn't work out that that way. Rear-end crashes on limited access highways are, IIRC, the least represented of circumstances. Throw out those that occur in congestion/stop-go traffic and there's fewer. On 2 lane/state highways the rear-end crashes do occur more often, just as Solomon noted; with vehicles slow to a degree to turn when entering/leaving the highway. But brake lights and turn signals were ridiculously small and dim in the '50s when Solomon collected his data.

But, we all struggle to accept what we may have long believed is in fact false, in all parts of life. But especially if/when it confirms what you want to believe. That's just human nature. It's easy to say "I was just keeping up with traffic because that's the safest thing to do, and that's what it says in my state driving manual".

That's fine, only problem is it's wrong. But, your believing it doesn't make you Dunning-Kruger ignorant, and for that I apologize. Sorry.

 

Oh. Dang. Seems like I should have been able to figure that out, easy. Thanks again! smh

 

What a long rambling of a post. What's the point here?

 

Slower speeds do reduce fatalities it's been documented very well. But EVERYONE has to be doing the reduced speed not just part or you create bottlenecks.

 

I guarantee you the faster speeds has 0 to do with safety. It's about money.
Faster driving= more fuel burned = more money for oil companies.
Faster driving = more accidents = more money for insurance companies due to higher rates.
Faster driving = more people speeding through slower areas = more tickets written = more money for the state.

 

Not just many more people, "authorities" who should know better by now continue to perpetuate the myth.

I don't care one whit about the costs in dollars, I care about the people and the devastated lives. A driver at the wheel of the slowest, heaviest, least maneuverable vehicle with the greatest stopping distance on the road can't care one whit about impeding traffic. The only things you can do to ameliorate impeding speeding traffic isn't safe.

Adhering to the speed limit will virtually assure you're the slowest vehicle on the road, by at least several mph, so you don't have to much more than that, but accept that any traffic impeded is causing their own "problem" by exceeding the speed limit.

I should admit I didn't believe it myself, at first, but it's easily verifiable and it works 100% of the time. I still hit the road everyday in my 4-wheeler and do the speed limit in the R lane and it is by far most often almost as if I have the entire highway to my front to myself.

Sure, occasionally a motorist passes, almost takes off my LF fender, then slows, and 30 cars come down ramps 1 vehicle-length apart, but that only substantiates they aren't thinking and I need to be more careful. If "driving" was easy everyone would be good at it.

 

Well, they aren't really racing. The problem seems to be the 85th percentile method of setting speed limits is based on gross stupidity: 85% of motorists choose speeds that "feel" safe, so therefore they are "safe". Someone forgot to consider "feelings" have no basis in physics.

You can't "feel" that your kinetic energy quadruples as your velocity doubles.

Safe operation often if not usually requires doing things that are uncomfortable, because they are contrary to what everyone else is doing. If you drive ~like everyone else, you're doing it wrong.