I took a small trip yesterday to the beach with my Powered Paraglider hanging off the back on a cargo carrier (may have added some drag. At a cruise control set and GPS confirmed speed of 54.9 MPH I consumed 27.4 MPG over about 35 miles of freeway driving (into a 12 mph headwind). Overall the 170 mile trip returned 26.3 MPG which included about 15 miles of in town driving and about a mile of crawling around on soft sand at the beach. Really good don't you agree, for a 4 wheel drive 4,400 lb. approx. SUV? On the way home I cut the MPH to about 52 and got better mileage than the way down but the computer was averaging in some of the in town and all of the beach driving so I didn't get good average at this speed.

So, if you don't like the price of gas, slow down a bit and relax while you enjoy the savings, and watch the speed daemons rush by. (Don't forget to stay in the right lane, we MB drivers are considerate and law abiding, remember)

 

Yeah, that is good.

No offense, but I'd rather spend more on gas and get there quicker. It used to drive me crazy having to drive 55 mph on the Interstates and major highways on road trips. I grew up with 70 mph speed limits in Interstates.

We don't do that 55 mph thing in Georgia. When you leave Atlanta city limits on an Interstate, the speed limit is 65 mph and shortly thereafter it becomes 70 MPH.

 

Try coming from Europe and having to adjust to the speed limit here ;-)...

Luckily californians like to speed ;-)

 

I thought Californians were stuck in one big traffic jam?

I was talking to a friend the other day about the Autobahn and lack of a speed limit. An interesting question came up, which neither of us could answer. The question was whether the absence of a speed limit is because there is a multitude of supercars using the road for extremely high-speed driving, or because there is a multitude of cars that can't go fast enough to be dangerous?

 

True, you need to know when and where to drive in CA. You don't want to go near highways during rush hour, that's for sure!

I don't really know the true history behind the autobahn. I do remember that even in other countries speed limits didn't matter all that much years ago. I remember doing 160mph with a friend in Belgium. I guess maybe traffic wasn't that busy yet?

There are some people that like to test their fast cars in Germany. Although I don't think that's the reason why there is no speed limit. And on the other hand, you don't need a big engine anymore to drive fast. Most sporty 4-cylinders easily do 120 mph.

So, personally, I think the main reason is that people weren't all that concerned about safety before; now it's a bigger factor with more and more cars on the road. Interestingly enough, Germany has one of the safest highway systems in Europe. Guess speed isn't the only factor... ;-)

 

I'm from England and I remember regularly exceeding 100 mph; even my father used to hit 120 on a regular basis. You can't do that any more because there are speed cameras everywhere. Even Italy is frowning on speeding since some spectacular high speed wrecks a few years back. When I was there in 03 I was passed by very few people. Of course I slowed down a bit after the cop I tried to run off the road, pulled me over and read me the Italian riot act. Hey, how was I to know he was a cop; he was in his own car and had been blocking me for miles. :-)

As for Autobahn safety; there is a lot of discipline in German drivers which is absent in other places, because they have a REAl driving exam, and not some application from the back of a serial box. Interestingly driving in the south of France is a pleasure because of extreme lane discipline on the freeways. They almost dive back into the slow lane after passing. Of course, the unlimited speed limit is a great incentive to get out of the way.

 

I remember when it was a new concept to use the left lane on a multi-lane highway for passing and then get back to the right. I think this manuever came from Europe. Many drivers here still don't get it. It's going to get worse before it gets better. All the baby-boomers are beginning to retire, get old and feeble minded. But, that should be the last of the "old-style" American drivers.

 

I see plenty of young people hogging the fast lane like they owned it, passing nobody. The only way it will get better is if police start giving tickets for it. Then all the speeders would be in the, now mostly clear, fast lane, and they can write even more tickets. A win win situation, for them, at least.

 

Yeah. That's all we need. More laws.

Police presence and issuing tickets just works temporarily. As soon as a cop turns off the road, everyone goes back to whatever they were doing before the cop appeared. I've never noticed any change on GA-400 from issuing tickets. The traffic still goes 80 mph after probably thousands of speeding tickets have been issued. They still drive aggressively.

 

People do on the roads (and not only) what the law enforcement allows them to do.
I blame the Highway Patrol for the mess we have on the roads. They never reprimand the traffic blockers, but they are always after the drivers, that makes the best of the worst and manage to drive slightly faster changing the lane often to avoid all those boneheads on fast lanes.
They are some limits on Autobahns. In some areas it is 200 kph, but they also have some laws about "safe speed for the conditions".
If you cost the accident and they prove you drove too fast for the conditions and situation, you are in big trouble.
Than what most important is the NATURAL SELECTION.
Those, that tried to drive slow on fast lane there, don't drive anymore. German drives are having much higher skills, than those in US. I witnessed, when in 15 seconds when the green light was on, over 10 cars could pass the intersection on each lane. In US it is usually one 250 HP Cadillac.
Coming to fuel savings. For my long commute at the time, I didn't want to beat my Mercedes cars, that even with better economy are still GAS guzzlers. I bought VW tdi, that average 32 MPG at NINETY MPH.