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somedudevt t1_j44cu8t wrote

I often wonder if slow drivers on their death beds regret the thousands of hours they wasted of their lives driving slow. I know for me the destination is more important than the journey. I do 10-12 over at all times, and get very impatient with people who go under the speed limit. Slow drivers are more dangerous than people who speed, and cause significantly more accidents.

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BudsKind802 t1_j44qv4h wrote

I'd much rather leave the house 5 minutes early and drive 70 than leave late and speed to try to make up time (hint: driving 80 doesn't get you there much faster than the guy behind doing 70).

The faster you go, the more gas you use, so joke's on your wallet.

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somedudevt t1_j45q3d1 wrote

I think that’s a myth to an extent. Every vehicle has an optimal speed based on aerodynamics, transmission gearing and some other factors. For instance at 65 my truck gets 17mpg on the interstate in VT, at 75 it gets 19 and at 77 it gets 21. I don’t know why, I think it has to do with carrying speed on the small ups and downs we have, so the cruise control doesn’t downshift as much on little hills, but it’s a thing in some vehicles. It also generally rides smoother at 77 than 70, my tires have a small imbalance as the are all terrains and it’s impercievable at 60, but becomes a tiny vibration at 65-73 and then goes away.

And to your point about speed and time it’s dependent on commute. If you are driving 3 miles to work the person doing 60 gets there in 3 minutes and the person doing 45 gets there in 4. That is a small difference working out over a year to 8 hours of extra time in the car for the slower driver, and over a 40 year career 13 days lost. If you extend that commute to 25 miles which is fairly typical in VT it’s 17 minutes a day 71 hours a year 118 days in the 40 year career. That’s 1/3 of a year in a finite life span being wasted just driving slower than is needed. That’s .4% of one’s life they waste.

When you add in all the other non-work driving we all do, that person who commutes 50 miles a day round trip probably drives 350 miles a week. It’s 100hrs a year, if you do that for 55 years which puts age say 20-75 typical driving years, it’s 230 days lost just sitting in the car on the way to the destination. And it grows the more you drive.

I just did out the math, and since age 20 I have driven 410,000~ miles in 15 years. While speeds are not constant I do 10-12 over pretty much all the time, so while this isn’t perfect math it’s close as benefit of that is greater at slow speed in town than at highway speed and a lot of the driving is in towns. If I had gone 15mph slower on those miles I would have at age 35 spent 93 more days in my car than I have.

If you can’t figure out what you would do with 93 days of free time returned to you just by pressing the gas pedal a little more then idk what to say. But it’s not “small” amounts of time when you look at it for a lifetime. With the amount I drive it will be an entire year of my life avoided in the car.

Additionally I think if you were to ask those that know me they would say I am punctual to a fault, very anal about being on time, I just in my time of driving have really nailed down the time it takes to do things in different conditions. Sometimes I get somewhere early, but that’s just more time at the destination (fun if it’s something I want to do, and I can finish sooner if it’s something unfun like work), but I’m never late.

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Arthur-Morgans-Beard t1_j46fwop wrote

Maybe you're just a selfish fucking asshole.

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somedudevt t1_j46sahl wrote

I mean maybe. Time is finite for us humans. I prefer to not spend extra time in my vehicle. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect drivers to go the speed of prevailing traffic and to get out of the way if they can’t.

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Arthur-Morgans-Beard t1_j46v2en wrote

Really deep man.

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somedudevt t1_j46w4qr wrote

It’s not deep, it’s factual and a logic based reason why I don’t drive 10mph under the speed limit. It just give me more time doing what I enjoy. I’d rather not waste an extra 1% of my life in a car. as it is with my current average miles a day, I will spend 3 years of my life in a car just getting to the place I’m going. That’s 4% of all the time I’m on this earth based on average male life expectancy. I’d rather it not be 5%. I don’t know what I will accomplish in that 1% of my life, but I know it will be more enjoyable than sitting in the car.

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Arthur-Morgans-Beard t1_j46wv2j wrote

Except for the fact that you share the planet with other people. People like you ride my ass every single day on my way home while I'm doing 5 over. Your lights blind me, and you put everyone at risk, and then you act like I'm the problem? Glad your time is more valuable than everyone else's but five extra minutes isn't going to affect your night in the slightest. I know you got that Gilmore Girls episode on DVR, it can wait.

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somedudevt t1_j4menu0 wrote

I don’t tailgate. I know my passing places well, and use them effectively. If your going UNDER the speed limit, I may ride your ass to get the point across, but otherwise I keep a minimum 4 seconds of following space, which is the rule I was taught in drivers Ed as a kid. If people are tailgating you every day I have a hard time believing you are going 5 over, but if you are, just pull over and let them go by, or speed up. I get out of the way of people who want to go faster than me. I blinker and pull onto the shoulder. Let them go by. No need for me to hold someone up, and pulling over into the shoulder to make it safe for them to pass doesn’t take me any time, effort, or cause me a safety concern (unless it’s a snowstorm)

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Arthur-Morgans-Beard t1_j4mg7f9 wrote

I don't know which is worse, the fact that you thought about this three days later, or the fact that you think this bullshit helped your cause.

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sound_of_apocalypto t1_j489hej wrote

Maybe you shouldn’t think so much. :)

Maybe on their deathbed people who drove too fast will realize they didn’t gain much and will instead wish they’d slowed down and enjoyed the journey.

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