My kid’s just finished the classroom part of driver education and it prompted a discussion of crazy things we’ve seen other drivers do.
The craziest thing I saw, many years ago now, was I came up behind a guy driving a Ford Ranger pickup and could see through his rear window that he was doing tricep extensions with a dumbbell in his right hand. I was more surprised as I passed to see he was shaving with an electric razor in his left hand. I don’t really know how he was steering.
Kiddo said they were told personal grooming was the fourth leading cause of accidents.
I remember commenting about people going over the speed limit here on Lemmy, and getting so many downvotes from people who could never explain to me why they thought they deserved to go over the speed limit. Emergencies, with your emergency lights on? By all means! Going over the speed limit because you got up or left late for work? No bueno.
To be fair, most speed limits aren’t very accurate to the design of the street. If you wanted, you could speed up for straightaways and slow down for turns. Obviously though, they aren’t going to put a speed limit sign every 5 feet, so it won’t match the street design everywhere.
Case in point the freeways where I live are limited to 65MPH but you cross the border into either neighboring state and magically 70-75MPH is the safe limit. It makes no sense apart from generating revenue from speeding tickets. Most commuters do 75-80MPH depending on traffic.
The low speed limit also has the side effect of causing those slow, oblivious drivers to immediately crank the wheel over into the left lane the second they merge on the highway and then set their cruise control to 62MPH while they get passed by every car around them causing massive congestion behind them and lots of lane changes.
While I understand both of your points and views, the fact of the matter is that the speed limit is set to whatever it is, whether it be 65 or 70. You are aware of this, and daily commuters are also aware of this. In my eyes, that means it is not a surprise, or shouldn’t be, to anyone except travelers. This also means that you should be prepared for that commute at that speed limit. Unless it is an emergency, just follow the speed limit. It’s as simple as that.
So I don’t obstruct traffic? To improve safety by driving consistently with other vehicles. Yeah, sometimes I speed but most of the time I’m over the speed limit is to go with the flow of traffic.
My bigger annoyance is construction/school zones. I’m not compromising there but it is frustrating to get honked at, or have other drivers try to pass
This is specially egregious since most speed limits are too high