55 MPH
Posted April 17th, 2006 @ 05:24pm by Erik J. Barzeski
If there's one thing that infuriates me on the way home from golf, it's the fact that, from PSU/Behrend to 79, the speed limit on I-90 is 55 MPH. Never mind that it's 2½ miles less going east (it ends at Parade Street, not the PSU/Behrend exit), but simply the fact that 55 MPH is completely meaningless.
Peach street is a busy exit. Fine. Put the 55 MPH speed limit in place from one exit before (State Street) to one exit after (I-79). Don't chop 10 MPH off for an extra 6 miles just for the heck of it.
Very few people actually obey the damn speed limit, cops don't enforce it, but because it's speeding I follow the speed limit. The differential between the 10% or so of cars going 55 MPH (really 59, but you know what I mean) and those going 69 or even 75, 80 MPH is too great and leads to a lot more problems than raising the speed limit to 65 would bring.
Donate Life
Posted 18 Apr 2006 at 12:39pm #
In my experience, when a car's speedo registers 59mph, it's actually traveling at 56-57mph. This is true for my 2003 Jetta as well as my 1999 Taurus.
Use a GPS receiver to see how far off your speedo is. Now, whenever I travel, I pay attention to the speed registered by my Garmin GPS V, which has an accuracy of .05 m/s (.11 mph).
Posted 18 Apr 2006 at 1:50pm #
I've noticed the GPS differential as well, perhaps linkable to the fact that you can put different sized tires on the wheels of your vehicle, or perhaps to a nudge tossed in at design stage, that people are going to coast along about speed limit plus 5 anyway.
I'm curious as to the reasoning for Eriks daily commute 55 zone-- is there construction? Phantom Construction? An upcoming bottleneck
I do sometimes wish for some preemptive speed zoning. I do a daily commute through a section that is five or six lanes of constantly gathering traffic, which then suddenly becomes two lanes. If some speed enforcement was being done a few miles down the road during the five laneness, there would not be a jam at the bottleneck. As it is, many speed in hopes to get their place in line, or just because they are not familiar with the upcoming slowing to a halt.
Posted 18 Apr 2006 at 2:12pm #
I work from home. This is a commute to a golf course. The only reasonable explanation is that Peach Street is often busy. As I said, I could see having a 55 MPH zone around Peach Street. But three exits away is far too extreme.
Posted 18 Apr 2006 at 2:37pm #
When it comes to speed limits, I really pity anyone not living in Germany. I don't think that not having speed limits in certain areas leads to more/more serious accidents. For me, it's just annoying to go at 75 mph when you could equally well go at 125 mph. You could of course go even faster if you car allows it; but travelling gets a bit uncomfortable over ~125 mph and I think it's not exactly reasonable too. Limiting speed on interchanges isn't wrong, but 55 mph is really low. Just go ahead and travel at 65 mph.
Posted 18 Apr 2006 at 4:16pm #
That section of erie bugs me to. I go throught there to ski and it just bugs the crap out of me. I feel like I have to obey since I'm out of state or the cops will bust me.
You're right though I've never come across someone pulled over on that stretch.