August 30, 2011 • 28 mins
At one point or another, most people have driven over the speed limit. But how much time does speeding really save? How likely are you to get pulled over? Why are speed limits set at their current levels? Join Scott and Ben to learn more about speeding.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how stuff works dot com. Everybody, welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott Bendam and the auto editor
here at how stuff works dot com. I'm Ben Bullet,
and I have to say, Scott, that was a heck
(00:21):
of it. Head turn did it was like when you
see a news anchor go from camera to camera. Yeah.
I kind of snapped my neck there a little bit
when I did that. Look good. You should do that,
appreciate I was sneaking up on the mic, is what
I was doing us. And then you sped toward it. Yeah,
that's right. Yeah, it was working. That's right. Sped towards
(00:41):
it is a good way to put it. Because we're
gonna talk about speeding today. You tease me an awful
lot about lead foot, but quite honestly, I mean I
drive kind of quick, but um, I think my wife
drives faster. Really Yeah, I think we've talked about this
a few times. You know, she'll kind of vegged me
on to pass somebody, and you know, kind of what
are you doing is this isn't a Sunday drive type
(01:02):
you know, talk coming from the passenger seat sometimes, Um,
and honestly, I think I think she's faster than me.
I think I may push it a little bit, but
not a lot. Um, certain cases, you know, you pick
your times. Yeah, when you feel it safe and you
feel that you know you're in control, you feel that
way anyways. And um, but I think overall, I'm I'm
(01:23):
generally a middle of the road, you know, just just
barely over the speed limit type person. And most people
are that way, Uh, Scott, you and I have joked
before about how in Atlanta you can tell if someone
is elder You can tell if someone is elderly or
a driving student because they're the only people doing the
speed limit, or someone passing through town, yeah, or someone
(01:45):
passing through to the way to Florida on their way
to Florida, which sometimes, uh can be very interesting if
you you know, a lot of travelers have that suspicion
that law enforcement waits for unfamiliar plates. Um. You know,
I'm not gonna say anything one way or the other
about that, but we are going to talk about speeding. Scott.
I do, I do mess with you a little bit
(02:07):
about this, but I know you're not actually speed demon. Um.
There's a complete difference between enjoying speed as a factor
and driving and speeding all of the time. So what
I was hoping we could do is talk a little
bit about what speeding is, delatorious effects of it, and also, um,
(02:27):
I've got something I think you probably have to my friends,
and a little bit of a calculation about how much
time speeding does or does not save you. Yeah. In fact,
you know, that's kind of the crux of my whole
um this podcast today here is that you know, I
don't know what angler you're coming at this from, but
I think mine is more like, um, is it worth
(02:48):
the time that you spend speeding? Is it isn't worth it?
And and you'll find out as as we talk about
it just how much it is or isn't worth it
in certain situations. And you know what, honestly, one more time,
just this before we go onto this and I'll like
you picking up here, but you know we've all seen
the character that you know is darting in and out
of traffic, and you know you can see him for
miles behind you, and miles the one that gets right
(03:12):
on your tail makes you know, bad decisions. That's not
what we're talking about here. We're talking about someone who's
you know, just generally a little bit faster than everybody
else on the road. Um. You know, we're not talking
about reckless driving here, although that does have a place
in this because once you get past a certain limit,
you're you're out of control. Yeah, once you get past
(03:32):
a certain speed, it's given the context of what you're doing,
then just by going that speed, you are a reckless driver. Yeah,
so there's a difference here. This is not this is
not something targeted at those that you know, we we
all can spot, you know, a mile away or two
miles away. Um, this is this is more like, UM,
I don't know, is it is it really worth everything
that you're at the time? Is it worth you know,
(03:55):
the potential cost that it may cost you? Is it
Is it worth it? Really? And you're you've got some
stats I think for us to write that we're gonna
read later. Yes, sir, I can I can do one
right now for talking about costs. Okay, speeding is uh involved?
I guess the way to describe it is that it
is a factor in approximately one third of all fatal
(04:17):
crashes in the United States. And this translates to a
little bit under U nine DRED deaths every month a month,
So it's about thirty of car crashes or vehicle crashes
UM in two thousand nine. And uh, that means that
about a little over ten thousand five people died from
(04:40):
this a month. Now, you know, statistics can be a
little bit weird. Yeah, this is um let's see, I
think this is from National Highway Traffty Traffic and Safety Administration.
There's lots of factors are going into this. But I mean,
I guess that number that you're reading is where speed was.
It was a factor in rack it was some but
(05:01):
one or more drivers if it was more than one vehicle,
were above the limit, the hosted limit. And you know
that's a really good point because that's exactly what it means.
It means was somehow involved, not necessarily even the cause,
but perhaps an aggravating factor or an exacerbating factory. Uh.
(05:21):
Here's the here's another thing that is kind of scary. Um.
The n h T s A also estimates that the
cost of these speed related crashes uh tops forty billion
dollars a year. Wow, that's amazing. That's got to be
insurance costs and all of it. Yeah, court fees, all
kinds of things, right, the road repairs and the billion
(05:43):
nasty ones. Yeah, that's huge. But um so with these now,
these of course are the terrible facts, but there are facts. Um.
This doesn't mean that you will automatically. Of course, if
you would automatically getting a car wreck every time you
were speeding, I would not have made it to work today. Yeah.
(06:05):
I don't think just about anybody on the road today
has ever not uh, you know, found themselves speeding at
some point, whether it's even one mile per hour over
the limit. Um, it just happens. I mean it does.
If you're in you're going twenty you know, six seven
miles per hour, it happens. So yeah, it can affect
(06:26):
a crash in several ways. Uh, because of course it
increases the distance you travel when you notice that you
need to make an emergency stop. Um. An extreme example
of this is one of my favorite old statistics from
an earlier episode we did, I believe it was. Is
it Formula one drivers who go thirty seven feet in
(06:48):
the time it takes him to blink? I think, yeah,
Indie card, that's right, that's correct. Um. And so then
it increases the distance you need just to decelerate, and
then it also increases the crash impact by the square
of the speed. So if you increase your speed from
forty to sixty miles per hour UM, the energy that
(07:11):
needs to the energy involved increases by a So you're
talking about like crumble zones and and materials that are
meant to break away. Um. They do so, but they
don't do so quite as effective as you know it
would if you were still remaining under the speed limit.
That's different. And you know, if you're if you're traveling
(07:32):
thirty and thirty five and something happens, that's a little
different than if you're going seventy five in the highway
and that bumper you know, or that that front end
of your vehicle was was designed to crumble up to
you're in trouble. Yeah, most of most of those kind
of accidents, the more serious ones, of course, happened in
places where the speed limit is fifty five and up. Uh.
(07:55):
And who are our speeders? Well, this is no surprise
of there's plenty. Guess. Yes, I'm gonna guess. No, I'm
gonna guess. I was gonna say eight team, but I'm
gonna say sixteen too. You're you're spot arm with that
starting It's like, okay, yeah, I'm starting age sixteen, so
new young driver's foot to the floor and more often
(08:19):
mail younger than thirty. So I think I'm gonna give you.
I'm gonna give that to you. Let's make sure our
producer gives like a correct answer that ding ding ding? Right?
All right? So you under under thirty? UM, typically male,
but not exclusively. Um. That that seems to fit for me.
I think I think I can understand that. Yeah. A
study in California found that uh, drivers sixteen to nineteen
(08:45):
years old had three times the rate of speeding violation
as people who are thirty and older. And just so,
it sounds like inexperienced combined with speed is not a
good combination. No, And a lot of people will say, uh,
You'll hear people who like Scott and myself live in
a urbanized area say that the problem, Well, the problem
(09:08):
isn't realist speed and everybody's speeding. The problem is the
variation speed. Fantastic, ben good, good work. Well, I mean,
but that is a legitimate argument, silly voice aside. True,
that's true. It is a legitimate or argument. And we've
talked about that before should they raise the limit or
that the age. Should they you know, maybe make people
(09:29):
have a more stringent driver's ed course where you know
there's a lot more time behind the wheel. Um, you know,
there's just there's a lot of a lot of little
finer points to consider here. Also, you know how many
people are in the vehicle because you know, a lot
of times this is getting back to some of the
same points that we made about young drivers earlier. That
you know that it's there's a lot more that tends
(09:51):
to happen in a vehicle with you know, more than
you know, one or more I'm sorry, two or more passengers. Um,
maybe it is one or more past ers, I guess.
And um, you know that after a certain time and
whether or not there's speed involved, whether or not there's
alcohol involved, of course, but yeah, there's there's all kinds
(10:11):
of factors that go into these stats. And you know
that that that's where it kind of gets a little
bit tricky. You gotta look at look at all the
numbers and and try to figure out exactly what they're
telling you because there's so many, so many areas that overlap.
I have a question for you, and this is entirely
your opinion before we go into our our grand answer. Um,
do you think that some types of vehicles should have
(10:35):
different speed limits on the same roads? Whoa multi speed
limit driving? Um? We we see this a little bit,
I think with Semi's right. Yes, So is this what
you're talking about? Are you talking about something like, yes,
oh you are, you're talking well what about oh man,
this is tough ben versus large trucks. It's just opinion. Okay, No,
(10:58):
Now I think they should all have the same speed limit.
You know what, I agree, because it is although I
see the arguments about the idea of multi uh speed
limit roads, Um, there's not a lot of definitive research,
and by not a lot, I mean none about this
kind of idea, and it seems to me that would
(11:20):
promote more confusion than it would anything else. I think
it's a bad idea to have several different groups of
vehicles going different speeds on the road and the same
road speed variation. Again, you see this in racing when
you find that they have different racing groups out on
the course. At the same time you find that the
slower drivers who have to give way to the faster
drivers sometimes may get confused and not see that the
(11:42):
faster driver behind them that causes an accident. It doesn't
happen all the time, but there's a level of courtesy
that's that's extended on the racetrack that I don't see
that really happening on highways. I don't see people pulling
over and allowing the faster vehicle to go by. No,
not not not in this part of the world. But uh.
One thing I would be I guess supportive of, or
(12:03):
at least more open minded too, is the idea of
having dedicated freight lanes or dedicated commercial truck lanes, um
just like an HROV lane or something that that would
possibly address some of the same problems people are trying
to address with the idea of multi speed limit roads.
(12:24):
Great idea, but I still think it would be abused.
I think that somebody would find a way around it.
They're people would use them and then sneak back into
the passenger lanes. I just know what would happen. But
still that's not a bad idea, you know, and not
a bad idea rather and that um, you know, they're
able to um somehow get the larger, slower vehicles off
to the side. They try that in some places where
(12:45):
they say, you know, they're not allowed in the left
lane maybe to pass um, you know, on a three
lane road. Um. And and it does seem to work.
It seems like, okay, well you can always count on
that left lane to be free of large semis um.
I don't know. It's it's tough to figure out if
that would really work or that would fly, you know,
because they're not gonna build another lane in every city
(13:05):
for this type that happened, and then that kind of
does how do you look at that? Does that take
away lane from standard traffic or is that adding more
freedom because they're all in one lane. I don't know.
We need a civil engineer that's going to take it. Yeah.
Quite a study, Yeah, it's quite a study. Have you
ever seen some of the some of the government folks
(13:27):
out there with the clicker measuring traffic? Yes? I have. Yeah,
are the strips that you run over on the road
with counters. You know what, thank you guys for doing
such hard work. If one of you is listening to
our show, we really appreciate it, because without those folks,
I would still be stuck in traffic. Yeah, because that's
part of why the system is the way it is.
I know some people say it's a mess, but it's
(13:49):
also getting better. Yeah, it's definitely getting better because volume
is increasing so much. Yeah, you know what else is
a mess? Not having them? Yes, I agree, yeah, yeah,
because you know, if it was still the way it
was in let's say nineteen seventy h you talked about trouble,
because we've really come a long way since then. Yeah,
Mr Benjamin, Yeah, we have to we have we have
(14:11):
to do it at some point in this podcast. We
have to confirm that most people do speed at least occasionally. Yeah, sure, okay,
and that uh I growing up, I was always told,
you know, my my family members would swear on a
stack of Bibles to you that you could go up
to ten over and it was ten over eleven, that
(14:34):
there was some sort of cushion. Well, then there's a
little bit of truth to that, and that, um, you know,
you can you can push it just a little bit,
but you're wise to keep it, you know, pretty darn
close to the speed limit. And you know, there's an
article that I read recently. It's called speeding a quick
way to get more than you bargain for. So there
you go. That's the warning right there in the title.
But um, you know, later in in this article, um,
(14:56):
after the person goes through a couple of scenarios about
speeding in the time, you say, etcetera. Um, he breaks
down speeding into what he calls zones zone one, two, three,
and four. And there's zone one, which is what he says,
you're probably safe. You're you're probably safe when you're going
about zero two, uh four miles per hour over the
speed limit. Okay, so you just a little bit over
(15:19):
the speed limit, you're probably okay. But if you're going
between let's say six and ten miles per hour over
the limit, you better start watching yourself because the police
are watching for that. They can that's a visible difference
between you and the rest of traffic. You're you're kind
of standing out at that point, so if they're stationary
on the side of the road, they can see you
gain it, correct. Yeah, And even if they're in in
(15:40):
the traffic, they'll be able to see you advancing quicker
than everybody else. So cops are watching you at this point. Okay,
that's between six and ten, which isn't really that much.
I mean, that's that's not a whole lot over the
speed limit. Really. UM. There's then get into what he
calls zone three, which is pretty small. It's ten to
fourteen miles per hour over the limit. But at this
point you're gonna get pulled over. That's a ten to
(16:02):
fourteen if someone sees you, if someone sees you, and
if you're not you know, adhering to the flow of
traffic rule and all that. I'm we're talking about your
ten to fourteen over everybody else in the road and
over the limit. Um. And then there's you know the
zone above that that goes about twenty over and of
course you're you're way beyond at that point. You're sticking
out like a sore thumb at that point, and you know,
(16:24):
of course they're gonna nab you for going that school.
So there's all these different um, you know, risk zones,
I guess. And uh, you know, in addition to that,
if you want to talk about risks, UM, and we
talked about UM accidents, there's risk to your your own
personal well being, you know, your your risk of life,
I guess. Really, Um, there's the there's the fuel costs
(16:45):
that we've talked about many many times. You've got increased
fuel consumption. And you know, we talked about how every
five miles per hour over is UM something like in
fuel yes, economy bump. So UM, I'd rather the opposite way.
It's it's inefficient. It's inefficient, that's correct. UM. And the
other thing is that, Uh, there's also the chance of
(17:06):
a ticket. So you know, you may get costs that
are associated with that ticket, not just the ticket itself,
which is you know, hundred bucks whatever that would be. Um,
you're gonna because tickets are expensive. Now, UM, you're also
gonna be paying court costs. You're gonna be paying UM
any other fees are associated with it, sometimes even a
driving course that they select for you to attend. And
(17:27):
that that's not even counting the factors we can't measure,
such as the cost of someone having to take that
time off of work. Oh correct, Yeah, because you may
have loss of work and you may have to pay
for a babysitter for your kids for that day. You
may have to UM. Again, there may be additional court
fees or lawyer fees whatever it happens to be. UM.
And there's also UM, you know, the insurance bump. You know,
(17:49):
if you if you get you know, I think more
than two tickets, maybe your your insurance goes up typically um.
And also then there's this kind of like, um, this
is an intangible one, but this is more like you
feel nervous when you drive. There's a there's a tension
when you drive because if you have tickets already, you
don't want to speed anymore, you know, because you feel
like the next time maybe the one that pushes you
(18:10):
beyond the insurance rate, uh you wanted to be. And
there's the loss of time. You know, you have to
go to court and you know all that. So that's
what you mentioned. Also, that's a monetary thing. So let's
talk then about the benefits it's worth it now. I'm
sure you're about to tell me since we've both made
the same calculations. I suspect I'm sure that you and
(18:31):
I both know that this is the rest of this
podcast is gonna be waxing on about how much time
we save. What a benefit it is to speed right,
Oh gosh, it's huge. I'm so glad. Sorry to tell you, Ben,
Sorry to tell you know what. Definitely you're not you're
not really saving as much time as you think you
are balderdesh. No, no, no, this is true. This is
(18:54):
absolute truth, and and it's really, you know, relatively easy
to kind of figure this out. But there are three
different scenarios that were laid out in that article that
I mentioned earlier, and there's there's one that absolutely I'll
give you all three real quick. Um short distance, low
speed limit trips. You're talking about in town, very short
distance makes absolutely no sense to speed at all. What. Yeah,
(19:16):
there's no point in zipping around the corner to the
drugstore and then trying to zip right back here to
the office. Just take it easy. You'll get there approximately
the same You're talking about a matter of a couple
of seconds at the most, very most, and that's without
any other type of stops involved. And we're talking about like, um,
you know, traffic stop stop signs, just traffic in the
parking lots or whatever. Um, you're not really good. You're
(19:40):
not gonna gain much of anything speeding over short distances.
There's just no gain to it at all. Okay, what
if I'm on the interstate, If you're on the interstate,
So let's say you're talking about like medium distance. Let's
you're gonna drive home from work. Um, so medium distance.
You're on the interstate, so it's a high speed. Um,
you're gonna save again, very very little time. So let's
(20:01):
say that you're on the highway and you're going, um,
you know, sixty five speeding sixty five versus fifty five. Okay,
so I'm ten over your ten over. The only if
this is for ten miles, Ben, ten miles, let's say
that that's average. Right, Let's just say you're traveling home
from work ten miles one minute, forty one seconds. That's
all you're saving. Well, now, maybe I'm not the best
(20:22):
example because, as we know, my time is very valuable.
I see, so you're counting that is a several hundred
dollars in value, right, yeah, okay, assuming I don't get
into next No. No, The thing is that you know,
one minute and forty one side, and that's a ten
mile ride at at sixty five versus fifty five. And
when you factor in fuel costs. And here's the other thing, Ben,
(20:43):
you know as well as I do, that you can't
drive ten miles on the freeway without being held up
by other traffic, by you know, without passing a single
construction zone, without having to pause in the off ramp
as you exit the highway. Um, you know there's a
possibility that you know, when you get out into the
northern part of town, you know there's gonna be a
stoplight because you know the road reduces in size. Um,
(21:04):
you know, there's just all kinds of factors that that
may slow you down. Road conditions. What if it rains,
It may rain, and that's gonna slowly down as well.
So you know this this one minute and forty one
seconds that you're saving. Honestly, if you look around from
let's say that if there is a way to do it,
if there is a car exiting the freeway when when
you were to get or to get on the highway
rather and you know you knew that it was going
(21:25):
to the same exit as you You travel with this
car every day, you see it every day. You know
you know the person is your neighbor. Um, you speed,
he doesn't. And by the time you get to the
off ramp, there's a good chance that that neighbor is
going to be somewhere near by your vehicle as your exiting.
It just it just works out that way. It just
you get held up in other ways that he might
not so is that minute and forty one seconds worth
(21:48):
the possibility of joining, uh, the more than two million
people injured each year and donating your car to one
of the five point five million car accidents for your organs,
your right because I gave it Chill did night, because honestly,
you know the statistics when you get above a certain uh,
(22:08):
you know, speed on the highway, deaths go way way up.
And there's one final, um example here, which is the
long distance high speed limit. Now this one, then this
is interesting, this is different, and this is this is
one that you know, we talked about how the police
are watching you after a certain point. Um, this is
when you're talking about going you know, the example given
(22:30):
here was a hundred and eighty miles, so it's a
long trip, right, this is a long distance trip high
speed limit. You're on the highway, so we're talking about,
you know, seventy speed limit. But let's say you're driving
at eight, Um, you're going to gain time, you're gonna
get You're gonna actually save nineteen point to nine minutes, okay,
which sounds which sounds great, But then you've got to
(22:51):
remember that it's not really accurate because you know, you're
not gonna go a hundred eighty miles without being held
up by one of the things we just mentioned, you know,
traffic construction exactly. That's a huge one because he could
pull over for speeding. It could take fifteen or twenty minutes,
and there's your time gone right there. Plus it costs
a lot more. Um. There's just there's so many little
(23:12):
factors here to look at. But I went ahead and
didn't you know there are speeding calculators online. Did you
know this? So I went ahead and put in my
miles driven and my average speed in traffic and the
average speed that I normally have, um versus how much
time I would save on the way home. And this
is all the way home, so it's not exactly accurate,
(23:32):
but it's about fifteen miles. That's about how far I
live from here. Um, let's say that the the average
speed of traffic. Let's just say it's sixty five and
I'm going eighty because I'm in the fast lane. Okay,
and that's pretty common for here in Atlanta at rush hour.
It definitely happened, but it does stop them go. That's
another thing that we're not factoring in here, Alright, so
let's say I'm I'm going eighty versus sixty five. The
(23:54):
time that I save over the entire trip is only
about two and a half minutes. But again your time
is also about that's right. Then, But you know what, honestly,
you know, I'll speed along and then and then I'll
come to a stop up ahead because you know, the
left lane is stopped, and the people on the the
you know, the passenger side of me here the slow lanes.
I'll see cars that you know, we're entering the freeway
(24:15):
when I got on. So it gained me nothing. It's
sorts a net gain of zero tortoise in the hair
example exactly it really is. And then you know, maybe
buy some creative lane selection. I can get ahead a
little bit more, but it's not really gonna gain me anything.
I'm not gonna get home early enough to watch, you know,
another program on television, or read another chapter in a book,
or or mow the lawn or something like that. It's
(24:36):
we're talking about a very very small gain in in time,
So believe it or not, I mean, I know it's
tempting to really, you know, put the throttle down when
you're out there on the highway. But honestly, it's it's
just not worth it. If you're speeding because you are
driving a high performance vehicle and you want to have
some fun with it, that's totally different. If you were
(24:57):
speeding because you think you're going to save time. Uh,
the odds are you're incorrect, and even if you are,
the odds are that things will not go according to plan.
My bring another personal example into here then, but my wife,
if you're not ten minutes early to something, you're late.
So we are always early two things, and we're always
you know, well prepared and getting places ahead of time. Okay,
(25:21):
it drives her especially crazy if someone walks in late
or even on time. On time to her is late.
So yeah, it's I mean, no events, you know, it's
just frustrating. But there's a very strict time schedule that
she follows, and I think if more people had even
not maybe so so strict is that but more, um,
you know, just a little bit more preparation on on
(25:42):
the early side of that, you know that, yeah, leave
a little bit early, just prepare yourself a little bit early,
and planned to get there a few minutes early. That
it just makes things so much easier for you. Um,
it really does, it honestly does. That's my personal soapbox.
You know that, just just prepare. Yeah, boy scout motto again,
be prepaired no listeners. Of course, we we hope that
(26:04):
you have enjoyed this episode we have. I think I
don't know, Scott. I think we've been pretty honest about
people's tendency to speed. Yeah. Sure, and you don't figure
it out for yourself. Going to go one of these
online speed calculators very easy to find, it very easy,
and you input very little information. It's just real, real,
basic information, and you'll find that the numbers are very
very small and it's not worth it. I mean, everybody
(26:27):
speeds just a little bit, but don't it's not really
worth it to speed a lot and often Yeah, eventually
these statistics will catch up with you. But also, why
don't you look at the other side of the equation,
the nice slow sunday cruise, as I think you said,
your wife turned it the windows down, the radio on. Yeah,
(26:47):
that's me sometimes on the weekends when I have my
mind's drifting and uh, I got the whole family in
the card. I'm just just taking a drive. So we're
not condoning speeding. Um, but we do think it's worth
your time to check out your habits you're driving habits
on a on a handy calculator online and see how
much time you're actually saving. The answer might surprise you. Yeah,
(27:08):
I think it'll be a lot less than you think.
And while you're on the internet, Oh, buddy, right into
right to us on Facebook, give us a shout on Twitter. Um,
you may have heard we tweet. That's right, we're gonna
like that one time I said we twit and I
think I'm embarrassed, like as it. Yeah, I think that's
the people who use it through twits. No, I know
(27:30):
that's us too, though I could say that, yeah, we're
tweeter is like a sound system. But also, let us
know what you thought about this episode. Tell us about
your experiences with speeding, especially if you have a great
story about it, and why not suggest the topic for
an upcoming episode Right to us at car stuff at
how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out
(27:53):
our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
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Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how stuff works dot com. Everybody, welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott Bendam and the auto editor
here at how stuff works dot com. I'm Ben Bullet,
and I have to say, Scott, that was a heck
(00:21):
of it. Head turn did it was like when you
see a news anchor go from camera to camera. Yeah.
I kind of snapped my neck there a little bit
when I did that. Look good. You should do that,
appreciate I was sneaking up on the mic, is what
I was doing us. And then you sped toward it. Yeah,
that's right. Yeah, it was working. That's right. Sped towards
(00:41):
it is a good way to put it. Because we're
gonna talk about speeding today. You tease me an awful
lot about lead foot, but quite honestly, I mean I
drive kind of quick, but um, I think my wife
drives faster. Really Yeah, I think we've talked about this
a few times. You know, she'll kind of vegged me
on to pass somebody, and you know, kind of what
are you doing is this isn't a Sunday drive type
(01:02):
you know, talk coming from the passenger seat sometimes, Um,
and honestly, I think I think she's faster than me.
I think I may push it a little bit, but
not a lot. Um, certain cases, you know, you pick
your times. Yeah, when you feel it safe and you
feel that you know you're in control, you feel that
way anyways. And um, but I think overall, I'm I'm
(01:23):
generally a middle of the road, you know, just just
barely over the speed limit type person. And most people
are that way, Uh, Scott, you and I have joked
before about how in Atlanta you can tell if someone
is elder You can tell if someone is elderly or
a driving student because they're the only people doing the
speed limit, or someone passing through town, yeah, or someone
(01:45):
passing through to the way to Florida on their way
to Florida, which sometimes, uh can be very interesting if
you you know, a lot of travelers have that suspicion
that law enforcement waits for unfamiliar plates. Um. You know,
I'm not gonna say anything one way or the other
about that, but we are going to talk about speeding. Scott.
I do, I do mess with you a little bit
(02:07):
about this, but I know you're not actually speed demon. Um.
There's a complete difference between enjoying speed as a factor
and driving and speeding all of the time. So what
I was hoping we could do is talk a little
bit about what speeding is, delatorious effects of it, and also, um,
(02:27):
I've got something I think you probably have to my friends,
and a little bit of a calculation about how much
time speeding does or does not save you. Yeah. In fact,
you know, that's kind of the crux of my whole
um this podcast today here is that you know, I
don't know what angler you're coming at this from, but
I think mine is more like, um, is it worth
(02:48):
the time that you spend speeding? Is it isn't worth it?
And and you'll find out as as we talk about
it just how much it is or isn't worth it
in certain situations. And you know what, honestly, one more time,
just this before we go onto this and I'll like
you picking up here, but you know we've all seen
the character that you know is darting in and out
of traffic, and you know you can see him for
miles behind you, and miles the one that gets right
(03:12):
on your tail makes you know, bad decisions. That's not
what we're talking about here. We're talking about someone who's
you know, just generally a little bit faster than everybody
else on the road. Um. You know, we're not talking
about reckless driving here, although that does have a place
in this because once you get past a certain limit,
you're you're out of control. Yeah, once you get past
(03:32):
a certain speed, it's given the context of what you're doing,
then just by going that speed, you are a reckless driver. Yeah,
so there's a difference here. This is not this is
not something targeted at those that you know, we we
all can spot, you know, a mile away or two
miles away. Um, this is this is more like, UM,
I don't know, is it is it really worth everything
that you're at the time? Is it worth you know,
(03:55):
the potential cost that it may cost you? Is it
Is it worth it? Really? And you're you've got some
stats I think for us to write that we're gonna
read later. Yes, sir, I can I can do one
right now for talking about costs. Okay, speeding is uh involved?
I guess the way to describe it is that it
is a factor in approximately one third of all fatal
(04:17):
crashes in the United States. And this translates to a
little bit under U nine DRED deaths every month a month,
So it's about thirty of car crashes or vehicle crashes
UM in two thousand nine. And uh, that means that
about a little over ten thousand five people died from
(04:40):
this a month. Now, you know, statistics can be a
little bit weird. Yeah, this is um let's see, I
think this is from National Highway Traffty Traffic and Safety Administration.
There's lots of factors are going into this. But I mean,
I guess that number that you're reading is where speed was.
It was a factor in rack it was some but
(05:01):
one or more drivers if it was more than one vehicle,
were above the limit, the hosted limit. And you know
that's a really good point because that's exactly what it means.
It means was somehow involved, not necessarily even the cause,
but perhaps an aggravating factor or an exacerbating factory. Uh.
(05:21):
Here's the here's another thing that is kind of scary. Um.
The n h T s A also estimates that the
cost of these speed related crashes uh tops forty billion
dollars a year. Wow, that's amazing. That's got to be
insurance costs and all of it. Yeah, court fees, all
kinds of things, right, the road repairs and the billion
(05:43):
nasty ones. Yeah, that's huge. But um so with these now,
these of course are the terrible facts, but there are facts. Um.
This doesn't mean that you will automatically. Of course, if
you would automatically getting a car wreck every time you
were speeding, I would not have made it to work today. Yeah.
(06:05):
I don't think just about anybody on the road today
has ever not uh, you know, found themselves speeding at
some point, whether it's even one mile per hour over
the limit. Um, it just happens. I mean it does.
If you're in you're going twenty you know, six seven
miles per hour, it happens. So yeah, it can affect
(06:26):
a crash in several ways. Uh, because of course it
increases the distance you travel when you notice that you
need to make an emergency stop. Um. An extreme example
of this is one of my favorite old statistics from
an earlier episode we did, I believe it was. Is
it Formula one drivers who go thirty seven feet in
(06:48):
the time it takes him to blink? I think, yeah,
Indie card, that's right, that's correct. Um. And so then
it increases the distance you need just to decelerate, and
then it also increases the crash impact by the square
of the speed. So if you increase your speed from
forty to sixty miles per hour UM, the energy that
(07:11):
needs to the energy involved increases by a So you're
talking about like crumble zones and and materials that are
meant to break away. Um. They do so, but they
don't do so quite as effective as you know it
would if you were still remaining under the speed limit.
That's different. And you know, if you're if you're traveling
(07:32):
thirty and thirty five and something happens, that's a little
different than if you're going seventy five in the highway
and that bumper you know, or that that front end
of your vehicle was was designed to crumble up to
you're in trouble. Yeah, most of most of those kind
of accidents, the more serious ones, of course, happened in
places where the speed limit is fifty five and up. Uh.
(07:55):
And who are our speeders? Well, this is no surprise
of there's plenty. Guess. Yes, I'm gonna guess. No, I'm
gonna guess. I was gonna say eight team, but I'm
gonna say sixteen too. You're you're spot arm with that
starting It's like, okay, yeah, I'm starting age sixteen, so
new young driver's foot to the floor and more often
(08:19):
mail younger than thirty. So I think I'm gonna give you.
I'm gonna give that to you. Let's make sure our
producer gives like a correct answer that ding ding ding? Right?
All right? So you under under thirty? UM, typically male,
but not exclusively. Um. That that seems to fit for me.
I think I think I can understand that. Yeah. A
study in California found that uh, drivers sixteen to nineteen
(08:45):
years old had three times the rate of speeding violation
as people who are thirty and older. And just so,
it sounds like inexperienced combined with speed is not a
good combination. No, And a lot of people will say, uh,
You'll hear people who like Scott and myself live in
a urbanized area say that the problem, Well, the problem
(09:08):
isn't realist speed and everybody's speeding. The problem is the
variation speed. Fantastic, ben good, good work. Well, I mean,
but that is a legitimate argument, silly voice aside. True,
that's true. It is a legitimate or argument. And we've
talked about that before should they raise the limit or
that the age. Should they you know, maybe make people
(09:29):
have a more stringent driver's ed course where you know
there's a lot more time behind the wheel. Um, you know,
there's just there's a lot of a lot of little
finer points to consider here. Also, you know how many
people are in the vehicle because you know, a lot
of times this is getting back to some of the
same points that we made about young drivers earlier. That
you know that it's there's a lot more that tends
(09:51):
to happen in a vehicle with you know, more than
you know, one or more I'm sorry, two or more passengers. Um,
maybe it is one or more past ers, I guess.
And um, you know that after a certain time and
whether or not there's speed involved, whether or not there's
alcohol involved, of course, but yeah, there's there's all kinds
(10:11):
of factors that go into these stats. And you know
that that that's where it kind of gets a little
bit tricky. You gotta look at look at all the
numbers and and try to figure out exactly what they're
telling you because there's so many, so many areas that overlap.
I have a question for you, and this is entirely
your opinion before we go into our our grand answer. Um,
do you think that some types of vehicles should have
(10:35):
different speed limits on the same roads? Whoa multi speed
limit driving? Um? We we see this a little bit,
I think with Semi's right. Yes, So is this what
you're talking about? Are you talking about something like, yes,
oh you are, you're talking well what about oh man,
this is tough ben versus large trucks. It's just opinion. Okay, No,
(10:58):
Now I think they should all have the same speed limit.
You know what, I agree, because it is although I
see the arguments about the idea of multi uh speed
limit roads, Um, there's not a lot of definitive research,
and by not a lot, I mean none about this
kind of idea, and it seems to me that would
(11:20):
promote more confusion than it would anything else. I think
it's a bad idea to have several different groups of
vehicles going different speeds on the road and the same
road speed variation. Again, you see this in racing when
you find that they have different racing groups out on
the course. At the same time you find that the
slower drivers who have to give way to the faster
drivers sometimes may get confused and not see that the
(11:42):
faster driver behind them that causes an accident. It doesn't
happen all the time, but there's a level of courtesy
that's that's extended on the racetrack that I don't see
that really happening on highways. I don't see people pulling
over and allowing the faster vehicle to go by. No,
not not not in this part of the world. But uh.
One thing I would be I guess supportive of, or
(12:03):
at least more open minded too, is the idea of
having dedicated freight lanes or dedicated commercial truck lanes, um
just like an HROV lane or something that that would
possibly address some of the same problems people are trying
to address with the idea of multi speed limit roads.
(12:24):
Great idea, but I still think it would be abused.
I think that somebody would find a way around it.
They're people would use them and then sneak back into
the passenger lanes. I just know what would happen. But
still that's not a bad idea, you know, and not
a bad idea rather and that um, you know, they're
able to um somehow get the larger, slower vehicles off
to the side. They try that in some places where
(12:45):
they say, you know, they're not allowed in the left
lane maybe to pass um, you know, on a three
lane road. Um. And and it does seem to work.
It seems like, okay, well you can always count on
that left lane to be free of large semis um.
I don't know. It's it's tough to figure out if
that would really work or that would fly, you know,
because they're not gonna build another lane in every city
(13:05):
for this type that happened, and then that kind of
does how do you look at that? Does that take
away lane from standard traffic or is that adding more
freedom because they're all in one lane. I don't know.
We need a civil engineer that's going to take it. Yeah.
Quite a study, Yeah, it's quite a study. Have you
ever seen some of the some of the government folks
(13:27):
out there with the clicker measuring traffic? Yes? I have. Yeah,
are the strips that you run over on the road
with counters. You know what, thank you guys for doing
such hard work. If one of you is listening to
our show, we really appreciate it, because without those folks,
I would still be stuck in traffic. Yeah, because that's
part of why the system is the way it is.
I know some people say it's a mess, but it's
(13:49):
also getting better. Yeah, it's definitely getting better because volume
is increasing so much. Yeah, you know what else is
a mess? Not having them? Yes, I agree, yeah, yeah,
because you know, if it was still the way it
was in let's say nineteen seventy h you talked about trouble,
because we've really come a long way since then. Yeah,
Mr Benjamin, Yeah, we have to we have we have
(14:11):
to do it at some point in this podcast. We
have to confirm that most people do speed at least occasionally. Yeah, sure, okay,
and that uh I growing up, I was always told,
you know, my my family members would swear on a
stack of Bibles to you that you could go up
to ten over and it was ten over eleven, that
(14:34):
there was some sort of cushion. Well, then there's a
little bit of truth to that, and that, um, you know,
you can you can push it just a little bit,
but you're wise to keep it, you know, pretty darn
close to the speed limit. And you know, there's an
article that I read recently. It's called speeding a quick
way to get more than you bargain for. So there
you go. That's the warning right there in the title.
But um, you know, later in in this article, um,
(14:56):
after the person goes through a couple of scenarios about
speeding in the time, you say, etcetera. Um, he breaks
down speeding into what he calls zones zone one, two, three,
and four. And there's zone one, which is what he says,
you're probably safe. You're you're probably safe when you're going
about zero two, uh four miles per hour over the
speed limit. Okay, so you just a little bit over
(15:19):
the speed limit, you're probably okay. But if you're going
between let's say six and ten miles per hour over
the limit, you better start watching yourself because the police
are watching for that. They can that's a visible difference
between you and the rest of traffic. You're you're kind
of standing out at that point, so if they're stationary
on the side of the road, they can see you
gain it, correct. Yeah, And even if they're in in
(15:40):
the traffic, they'll be able to see you advancing quicker
than everybody else. So cops are watching you at this point. Okay,
that's between six and ten, which isn't really that much.
I mean, that's that's not a whole lot over the
speed limit. Really. UM. There's then get into what he
calls zone three, which is pretty small. It's ten to
fourteen miles per hour over the limit. But at this
point you're gonna get pulled over. That's a ten to
(16:02):
fourteen if someone sees you, if someone sees you, and
if you're not you know, adhering to the flow of
traffic rule and all that. I'm we're talking about your
ten to fourteen over everybody else in the road and
over the limit. Um. And then there's you know the
zone above that that goes about twenty over and of
course you're you're way beyond at that point. You're sticking
out like a sore thumb at that point, and you know,
(16:24):
of course they're gonna nab you for going that school.
So there's all these different um, you know, risk zones,
I guess. And uh, you know, in addition to that,
if you want to talk about risks, UM, and we
talked about UM accidents, there's risk to your your own
personal well being, you know, your your risk of life,
I guess. Really, Um, there's the there's the fuel costs
(16:45):
that we've talked about many many times. You've got increased
fuel consumption. And you know, we talked about how every
five miles per hour over is UM something like in
fuel yes, economy bump. So UM, I'd rather the opposite way.
It's it's inefficient. It's inefficient, that's correct. UM. And the
other thing is that, Uh, there's also the chance of
(17:06):
a ticket. So you know, you may get costs that
are associated with that ticket, not just the ticket itself,
which is you know, hundred bucks whatever that would be. Um,
you're gonna because tickets are expensive. Now, UM, you're also
gonna be paying court costs. You're gonna be paying UM
any other fees are associated with it, sometimes even a
driving course that they select for you to attend. And
(17:27):
that that's not even counting the factors we can't measure,
such as the cost of someone having to take that
time off of work. Oh correct, Yeah, because you may
have loss of work and you may have to pay
for a babysitter for your kids for that day. You
may have to UM. Again, there may be additional court
fees or lawyer fees whatever it happens to be. UM.
And there's also UM, you know, the insurance bump. You know,
(17:49):
if you if you get you know, I think more
than two tickets, maybe your your insurance goes up typically um.
And also then there's this kind of like, um, this
is an intangible one, but this is more like you
feel nervous when you drive. There's a there's a tension
when you drive because if you have tickets already, you
don't want to speed anymore, you know, because you feel
like the next time maybe the one that pushes you
(18:10):
beyond the insurance rate, uh you wanted to be. And
there's the loss of time. You know, you have to
go to court and you know all that. So that's
what you mentioned. Also, that's a monetary thing. So let's
talk then about the benefits it's worth it now. I'm
sure you're about to tell me since we've both made
the same calculations. I suspect I'm sure that you and
(18:31):
I both know that this is the rest of this
podcast is gonna be waxing on about how much time
we save. What a benefit it is to speed right,
Oh gosh, it's huge. I'm so glad. Sorry to tell you, Ben,
Sorry to tell you know what. Definitely you're not you're
not really saving as much time as you think you
are balderdesh. No, no, no, this is true. This is
(18:54):
absolute truth, and and it's really, you know, relatively easy
to kind of figure this out. But there are three
different scenarios that were laid out in that article that
I mentioned earlier, and there's there's one that absolutely I'll
give you all three real quick. Um short distance, low
speed limit trips. You're talking about in town, very short
distance makes absolutely no sense to speed at all. What. Yeah,
(19:16):
there's no point in zipping around the corner to the
drugstore and then trying to zip right back here to
the office. Just take it easy. You'll get there approximately
the same You're talking about a matter of a couple
of seconds at the most, very most, and that's without
any other type of stops involved. And we're talking about like, um,
you know, traffic stop stop signs, just traffic in the
parking lots or whatever. Um, you're not really good. You're
(19:40):
not gonna gain much of anything speeding over short distances.
There's just no gain to it at all. Okay, what
if I'm on the interstate, If you're on the interstate,
So let's say you're talking about like medium distance. Let's
you're gonna drive home from work. Um, so medium distance.
You're on the interstate, so it's a high speed. Um,
you're gonna save again, very very little time. So let's
(20:01):
say that you're on the highway and you're going, um,
you know, sixty five speeding sixty five versus fifty five. Okay,
so I'm ten over your ten over. The only if
this is for ten miles, Ben, ten miles, let's say
that that's average. Right, Let's just say you're traveling home
from work ten miles one minute, forty one seconds. That's
all you're saving. Well, now, maybe I'm not the best
(20:22):
example because, as we know, my time is very valuable.
I see, so you're counting that is a several hundred
dollars in value, right, yeah, okay, assuming I don't get
into next No. No, The thing is that you know,
one minute and forty one side, and that's a ten
mile ride at at sixty five versus fifty five. And
when you factor in fuel costs. And here's the other thing, Ben,
(20:43):
you know as well as I do, that you can't
drive ten miles on the freeway without being held up
by other traffic, by you know, without passing a single
construction zone, without having to pause in the off ramp
as you exit the highway. Um, you know there's a
possibility that you know, when you get out into the
northern part of town, you know there's gonna be a
stoplight because you know the road reduces in size. Um,
(21:04):
you know, there's just all kinds of factors that that
may slow you down. Road conditions. What if it rains,
It may rain, and that's gonna slowly down as well.
So you know this this one minute and forty one
seconds that you're saving. Honestly, if you look around from
let's say that if there is a way to do it,
if there is a car exiting the freeway when when
you were to get or to get on the highway
rather and you know you knew that it was going
(21:25):
to the same exit as you You travel with this
car every day, you see it every day. You know
you know the person is your neighbor. Um, you speed,
he doesn't. And by the time you get to the
off ramp, there's a good chance that that neighbor is
going to be somewhere near by your vehicle as your exiting.
It just it just works out that way. It just
you get held up in other ways that he might
not so is that minute and forty one seconds worth
(21:48):
the possibility of joining, uh, the more than two million
people injured each year and donating your car to one
of the five point five million car accidents for your organs,
your right because I gave it Chill did night, because honestly,
you know the statistics when you get above a certain uh,
(22:08):
you know, speed on the highway, deaths go way way up.
And there's one final, um example here, which is the
long distance high speed limit. Now this one, then this
is interesting, this is different, and this is this is
one that you know, we talked about how the police
are watching you after a certain point. Um, this is
when you're talking about going you know, the example given
(22:30):
here was a hundred and eighty miles, so it's a
long trip, right, this is a long distance trip high
speed limit. You're on the highway, so we're talking about,
you know, seventy speed limit. But let's say you're driving
at eight, Um, you're going to gain time, you're gonna
get You're gonna actually save nineteen point to nine minutes, okay,
which sounds which sounds great, But then you've got to
(22:51):
remember that it's not really accurate because you know, you're
not gonna go a hundred eighty miles without being held
up by one of the things we just mentioned, you know,
traffic construction exactly. That's a huge one because he could
pull over for speeding. It could take fifteen or twenty minutes,
and there's your time gone right there. Plus it costs
a lot more. Um. There's just there's so many little
(23:12):
factors here to look at. But I went ahead and
didn't you know there are speeding calculators online. Did you
know this? So I went ahead and put in my
miles driven and my average speed in traffic and the
average speed that I normally have, um versus how much
time I would save on the way home. And this
is all the way home, so it's not exactly accurate,
(23:32):
but it's about fifteen miles. That's about how far I
live from here. Um, let's say that the the average
speed of traffic. Let's just say it's sixty five and
I'm going eighty because I'm in the fast lane. Okay,
and that's pretty common for here in Atlanta at rush hour.
It definitely happened, but it does stop them go. That's
another thing that we're not factoring in here, Alright, so
let's say I'm I'm going eighty versus sixty five. The
(23:54):
time that I save over the entire trip is only
about two and a half minutes. But again your time
is also about that's right. Then, But you know what, honestly,
you know, I'll speed along and then and then I'll
come to a stop up ahead because you know, the
left lane is stopped, and the people on the the
you know, the passenger side of me here the slow lanes.
I'll see cars that you know, we're entering the freeway
(24:15):
when I got on. So it gained me nothing. It's
sorts a net gain of zero tortoise in the hair
example exactly it really is. And then you know, maybe
buy some creative lane selection. I can get ahead a
little bit more, but it's not really gonna gain me anything.
I'm not gonna get home early enough to watch, you know,
another program on television, or read another chapter in a book,
or or mow the lawn or something like that. It's
(24:36):
we're talking about a very very small gain in in time,
So believe it or not, I mean, I know it's
tempting to really, you know, put the throttle down when
you're out there on the highway. But honestly, it's it's
just not worth it. If you're speeding because you are
driving a high performance vehicle and you want to have
some fun with it, that's totally different. If you were
(24:57):
speeding because you think you're going to save time. Uh,
the odds are you're incorrect, and even if you are,
the odds are that things will not go according to plan.
My bring another personal example into here then, but my wife,
if you're not ten minutes early to something, you're late.
So we are always early two things, and we're always
you know, well prepared and getting places ahead of time. Okay,
(25:21):
it drives her especially crazy if someone walks in late
or even on time. On time to her is late.
So yeah, it's I mean, no events, you know, it's
just frustrating. But there's a very strict time schedule that
she follows, and I think if more people had even
not maybe so so strict is that but more, um,
you know, just a little bit more preparation on on
(25:42):
the early side of that, you know that, yeah, leave
a little bit early, just prepare yourself a little bit early,
and planned to get there a few minutes early. That
it just makes things so much easier for you. Um,
it really does, it honestly does. That's my personal soapbox.
You know that, just just prepare. Yeah, boy scout motto again,
be prepaired no listeners. Of course, we we hope that
(26:04):
you have enjoyed this episode we have. I think I
don't know, Scott. I think we've been pretty honest about
people's tendency to speed. Yeah. Sure, and you don't figure
it out for yourself. Going to go one of these
online speed calculators very easy to find, it very easy,
and you input very little information. It's just real, real,
basic information, and you'll find that the numbers are very
very small and it's not worth it. I mean, everybody
(26:27):
speeds just a little bit, but don't it's not really
worth it to speed a lot and often Yeah, eventually
these statistics will catch up with you. But also, why
don't you look at the other side of the equation,
the nice slow sunday cruise, as I think you said,
your wife turned it the windows down, the radio on. Yeah,
(26:47):
that's me sometimes on the weekends when I have my
mind's drifting and uh, I got the whole family in
the card. I'm just just taking a drive. So we're
not condoning speeding. Um, but we do think it's worth
your time to check out your habits you're driving habits
on a on a handy calculator online and see how
much time you're actually saving. The answer might surprise you. Yeah,
(27:08):
I think it'll be a lot less than you think.
And while you're on the internet, Oh, buddy, right into
right to us on Facebook, give us a shout on Twitter. Um,
you may have heard we tweet. That's right, we're gonna
like that one time I said we twit and I
think I'm embarrassed, like as it. Yeah, I think that's
the people who use it through twits. No, I know
(27:30):
that's us too, though I could say that, yeah, we're
tweeter is like a sound system. But also, let us
know what you thought about this episode. Tell us about
your experiences with speeding, especially if you have a great
story about it, and why not suggest the topic for
an upcoming episode Right to us at car stuff at
how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out
(27:53):
our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
perplexing pus abilities of tomorrow. The house Stuff Works iPhone
app has a ride. Download it today on iTunes, M
CarStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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