NA Highway speed limits NA

Biggest thing with high speeds on public roads is the discrepancy between your speed and the other cars, if you're coming up behind someone at those speeds you can't expect them to see you coming and not pull out in front or change lanes on you.
 
I had a 1994 Chevy Caprice up to 160 (an officer calling for help, I was closest and about 25 miles away), at night. It was scary, the reflectors looked like machine gun tracers.

I had our Jaguar XF to 145, and it was nice and stable, and would have gone much more without the damned limiter.
 
PilotAlan said:
I had a 1994 Chevy Caprice up to 160 (an officer calling for help, I was closest and about 25 miles away), at night. It was scary, the reflectors looked like machine gun tracers.
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Yeah but you had flashing red and blue lights reflecting back off of them from your roof! ;) ;) ;)

My buddy who's a North Carolina State Trooper sent the best video of high-speed shenanigans so far this year.

He was in a similar situation to yours, daylight though... Two lane country road, just flying along at over 100 MPH, and in a split second the entire windshield is shattered in his on-board camera.

He startled a duck. It picked the direction of the road to fly to.

The audio was the best part. First and most important, you could tell another unit had arrived to help his buddy from the chatter so that was good.

Just after that he said...

"Raleigh, XXX is no longer responding."

"Roger, what's your status?"

"Raleigh, I'm fine but I need a tow truck and a change of underwear. I hit a duck."

The long pause from dispatch HAD to have been because everyone was laughing so hard they couldn't key up.
 
PilotAlan said:
I had a 1994 Chevy Caprice up to 160 (an officer calling for help, I was closest and about 25 miles away), at night. It was scary, the reflectors looked like machine gun tracers.

I had our Jaguar XF to 145, and it was nice and stable, and would have gone much more without the damned limiter.
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Old boss of mine had the departments last Caprice, old sucker that still had holes in the roof from the gumball machine lights. Said it was significanlty faster than the Fords but was burning so much oil in it's old age that it would be useless in a long chase.

Looking like my fiance's first job will include a lot of sitting along the interstate in a 2010 Charger, she's kind of looking forward to it:D
 
Skylane81E said:
if you're coming up behind someone at those speeds you can't expect them to see you coming and not pull out in front or change lanes on you.
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And that's the biggest difference between driving in the USA and driving in Germany.
 
MSPAviator said:
And that's the biggest difference between driving in the USA and driving in Germany.
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Skylane81E said:
yep, keep right just doesn't happen
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Doesn't happen that well in Germany either. The reality is there are very few stretches of the Autobahn where the traffic will let you run at over 160kph/100mph. You may be able to stand into it and get it up to 240 kph, but it will only be a few seconds before you are standing on the brakes. People do pull out in front of you because they are passing the 110kph truck at 130kph. Just because they "Fahr Rechts" does not mean they don't pop out left and when you have 110kph on them, the accidents get brutal and large. I got stuck in a traffic jam last time I was there. The cause was a big Mercedes sedan had driven into the back of a truck so hard he caused the truck to crash. Once you get near a city forget it. Traffic is everywhere as bad as here. You could raise the speed limit on the 405 or any of the metro bypass/beltways to 130mph and it wouldn't effect the actual speed one bit.

The only difference between the Autobahn and the Interstate really is who gets the blame for some accidents.
 
I've topped 150 in the Vette (came up on traffic and had to back it down) and the CBR would do exactly what Bike World said - 157mph. Brand new asphalt, a straight stretch of Interstate and no traffic. Got it there, and no matter how low I got on the seat and tank that was it. It wouldn't do any more. Almost got blown off the bike when I sat up to slow down. I got back down to the speed limit, and when I came around the next curve there were two State Troopers in the median. Not sure what they would have done - if anything - were I to have blown past them at that speed.
 
Henning said:
Doesn't happen that well in Germany either.

You could raise the speed limit on the 405 or any of the metro bypass/beltways to 130mph and it wouldn't effect the actual speed one bit.
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That's because Germany is so densely populated... You could raise the speed limit to 130mph on I80 in the middle of Nebraska and I bet it would affect the actual speed a little bit. :yesnod:
 
The CBR is rev-limited to 183 mph, don't even know if it would do that and I doubt I'll find out either. But it will happily blow through every speed limit in the CONUS in first gear. Do it in second and you can ride the bike again.
 
MSPAviator said:
That's because Germany is so densely populated... You could raise the speed limit to 130mph on I80 in the middle of Nebraska and I bet it would affect the actual speed a little bit. :yesnod:
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Nope, too many trucks. I have photos of the back of a bunch of them on the way back from OSH to pick up the airplane in North Platte. :wink2:
 
denverpilot said:
Nope, too many trucks. I have photos of the back of a bunch of them on the way back from OSH to pick up the airplane in North Platte. :wink2:
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I dunno about that, because that's where I took my speedometer photo... :D

You might not be able to do 130mph straight through, but you could easily go that fast or faster in-between packs of slower moving traffic.
 
MSPAviator said:
That's because Germany is so densely populated... You could raise the speed limit to 130mph on I80 in the middle of Nebraska and I bet it would affect the actual speed a little bit. :yesnod:
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People would end up going about 75 to 80mph because above that with most any vehicle on the road, your fuel consumption curve goes up dramatically. BTW, that's also the typical speed of the Autobahn in the "Gray Slash" zones. With a plane, induced drag decreases while form drag increases with speed. In a car BOTH form drag and induced drag increase with speed and many of the European cars don't have the power to go faster. Even with "Drive Right", one slow car still slows all traffic a bit.
 
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