IMO there are other bad habits people have that cause wrecks other than speeding. One of them would be poor judgement of distance and closure rate. On a particular stretch of road that I drive everyday I can guarantee that if someone pulls to the stop sign and I am a certain distance or further away that they will pull out in front of me and before they are straight, I'll be less than 2 seconds behind them.
I tend to agree with the second video where they discuss people disregarding speed limits. On my way to work the speed limit goes like this across the 7 mile or so length: 35, 40, 45, 35. The speed that people actually drive is 40,40,40,50. They drive FASTEST through the residential area and 5 miles below the speed limit through the commercial area that has no hidden drives and very little traffic coming from a drive onto the road.
On 85 through Greenville the speed limit is 60 and let me tell you…that'll get you run down in any lane in some cases. It's not uncommon for all 3 lanes of travel to go 80 MPH.
My thoughts on what goes through people's mind is this:
1. If you can't pass me, I could give a rip how fast I'm going b/c you can't do anything about it
2. If you can pass me, I'm going to do my darndest to stay ahead of you because I don't want you in front of me
One particular area this holds true is on 385 headed south. They recently added a 3rd lane just before the speed limit goes from 55 to 65. Before the 3rd lane you would be hard pressed to do 65 b/c some slow poke was clogging things up and you couldn't get around them so they didn't care. Now that we have the 3rd lane, people are doing 80 mph before you get out of the 55. I mean, seriously…we could barely manage the speed limit before but now we are willing to go 25 MPH over the speed limit?
I actually have less tolerance for inconsiderate drivers than I do people driving THE speed limit. Pulling out in front, ignoring traffic light signals, thinking it's okay to merge over 2 or 3 lanes to turn left or right b/c you didn't prepare or think it's everyone else's problem you don't know where you are going…all much more offensive than driving the speed limit or for that matter going faster than the speed limit when it's safe…doing 10 over and cutting through traffic isn't safe BTW.
I would be perfectly happy having to pay $1000 to get a license with required drivers training 6 months prior to even being able to apply. Is it extreme? Yes. But let's not forget that driving is a privilege rather than the right that so many people have come to expect.
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