[xyzzyz]

10-20mph won’t make much of a difference for a commute, but when you’re driving on roads with loads of RVs, it means that you’re probably doing bigger distances, and with those, 10-20 mph will absolutely make a difference.

For example, when you’re driving more than 6 hours in a day, which is not uncommon for Americans, especially ones living west of Mississippi, extra 10 mph of average speed means you’re getting to your destination 1+ hour faster, which most definitely is a significant difference.

[VBprogrammer]

Averaging 10-20mph faster is very difficult on anything but the least congested roads. We often set the cruise control to 75-80mph but find that the average for a journey is closer to 58-60mph (not including stops).

It's a heck of a lot easier to make up half an hour by making quicker stops than it is to make it up on the road IMHO.

[siftrics]

You have no idea what you're talking about. Most major roads west of the Mississippi and outside of Southern California are not congested at all. They only get congested around major cities, but a 6-hour trip means you have to be away from a major city for the majority of the trip.

[VBprogrammer]

"You have no idea what you're talking about" as an opening line doesn't exactly encourage polite discourse. Fucknugget.

[siftrics]

Parent Poster: "For example, when you’re driving more than 6 hours in a day, which is not uncommon for Americans, especially ones living west of Mississippi, extra 10 mph of average speed means you’re getting to your destination 1+ hour faster, which most definitely is a significant difference."

You: "Averaging 10-20mph faster is very difficult on anything but the least congested roads."

Either you're blatantly ignoring what the parent said ("west of the Mississippi"), which does not exactly amount to polite discourse, or you're commenting authoritatively on a set of roads which you clearly know nothing about.

[VBprogrammer]

I didn't say anything about those roads. The parent poster gave that as an example. They didn't place a magic hex upon the thread preventing anyone who hasn't specifically driven on those roads from commenting.

I'd be surprised though if those roads didn't have roadworks, slower vehicles overtaking one another, accidents, bends, reduced speed sections etc. Certainly the roads I've driven in 10 or so other countries had these things in common.

[iudqnolq]

Do you mean it's not uncommon for Americans to drive all day to go camping on memorial day weekend or something, or do you mean we're driving 3 hour each way commutes? Because very very few Americans have that kind of commute: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

[wolrah]

> Do you mean it's not uncommon for Americans to drive all day to go camping on memorial day weekend or something

This, for sure.

Those of us who live in the midwest are often hours of boring highway driving aware from anything, so a long weekend trip does require getting where we're going as quickly as reasonably possible.

Being stuck behind some nitwit who insists on pacing the semi truck next to them at 60 MPH rather than doing the 80+ everyone else on the highway wants to go is incredibly annoying.

[mint2]

80+ sounds too high. 80 is good. Stopping distance is not linear with speed, damage in a crash is not linear with speed (hello deer), gas usage is not linear with speed. No one who drives over 80 has grounds to complain about gas price, especially in large suvs or pickups.

[wolrah]

> 80+ sounds too high. 80 is good.

Absolutely not. The legal limit should mean it is objectively unsafe to go faster in clear conditions no matter what you're driving. It is not supposed to be the speed you expect most traffic to go. If the average speed of traffic on a road is 85 MPH and people aren't constantly screwing that up, the limit (if there is one at all) should be meaningfully higher than that.

And of course if people are regularly screwing up at whatever the natural speed of the road may be, the correct answer is ALWAYS to change the road and reduce the speed people feel comfortable driving at. Lowering the limit below the natural speed doesn't actually reduce the speed of traffic unless there's active enforcement forcing people to comply. Redesigning the road makes people actually want to go the desired speed. A fast road is a fast road, no matter what number someone puts on a sign next to it.

> Stopping distance is not linear with speed, damage in a crash is not linear with speed (hello deer), gas usage is not linear with speed.

That's why I'm talking specifically about long, flat, straight stretches of road with effectively infinite visibility during the daytime. These are common in the American midwest, there are plenty of stretches where you can literally see the road disappear off over the horizon in a perfectly straight line. The same sorts of situations where the Germans go to unlimited, and it works just fine for them.

> No one who drives over 80 has grounds to complain about gas price, especially in large suvs or pickups.

No argument here. My car gets better MPG at 100 MPH than a lot of SUVs get at 65 MPH so I could not possibly care less, but you also won't ever hear me whining about gas prices.

[Gordonjcp]

> when you’re driving more than 6 hours in a day, which is not uncommon for Americans

Most Americans do less than 5000 miles per year. You totter to the shops and back over distances that people in other countries would just walk.

You can spot American tourists in Scotland, because they can't cope with everything being 200 miles apart when they drive at a maximum of 15mph.

[TylerE]

Huh?

The FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) states that the average person drives around 13,500 miles per year.

[Gordonjcp]

That's an average across the entire population.

Most people barely drive further than the end of their street.