JUburton wrote:All it takes is 80 in a 55 which is not ridiculous at all on most 55 roads. It's clearly situation specific but these assholes sit at the border and get people going 80 in a 70 to 80 in a 55 in an instant and hit them with misdemeanors.

I disagree. I think that 80 in a 55 is fairly ridiculous. 70 in a 55 is not too bad. 80 in a 65 is not too bad. Big difference, though, between those and 80 in a 55.

My rule of thumb is 10 mph over the speed limit is generally OK. Depends on the road and traffic.

if you're going 10 over on the NJ turnpike you're gonna get run over.

Bucky wrote:if you're going 10 over on the NJ turnpike you're gonna get run over.

the NJ turnpike doesn't have an on ramp every 1m. it has an on ramp ever 20 miles or whatever. the traffic isn't' moving from lane to lane like it is in congested areas so people get merge on and off of the highway.

55 on i95(and all of the other numerical 95's) makes sense for that reason. when you get out of the midwest and south where there are large stretches of just road and no exits then its way more safe to go at a higher rate of speed.

Virginia may have insane laws, but I fail to see how this reprobate's incident is a good example of that. 105 in a 55 is just too damn fast and dangerous. So easy to kill someone at that point.

Bucky wrote:if you're going 10 over on the NJ turnpike you're gonna get run over.

I cruise between 70-75 on the NJ Turnpike and it puts me cleanly within the flow of traffic (no I don't do it in the left lane).

But I'm with Slowhand. It's silly to turn this into a debate about VA traffic laws or normal driving patterns. You can debate about what speed crosses the threshold into insane and dangerous, but 105 is absolutely in that range.

JUburton wrote:All it takes is 80 in a 55 which is not ridiculous at all on most 55 roads. It's clearly situation specific but these asshat sit at the border and get people going 80 in a 70 to 80 in a 55 in an instant and hit them with misdemeanors.

The Beltway is one of the rare cases in Virginia of a highway that crosses a border and drops down to 55mph. Most highways in VA are 65 or 70 now. There's been regular discussion about amending the Reckless Code section to adjust for the 70mph speed zones, which are a recent creation in VA.

And I agree that 80 in a 70 being Reckless is ridiculous, but that's a strawman. The case that we're talking about here is nearly double the speed limit. The other case that got linked isn't much better. And that clown can't defend it by calling it a rural road with no one on it. For example, in my young and dumber college days, my friend and I used to race home from our summer job. We were easily doing 70 in a 35 on a hilly 2-lane backroad that rarely had traffic... until the day that I crested a hill to find a Domino's pizza guy at a near dead stop at the bottom of the hill about to make a turn. I stood on the brakes, yanked it into the left lane, and manuevered around him just as another car crested a hill coming at me. I snuck back into the right lane just in time.

I don't know how I made it out of that, but I'm pretty sure that in a parallel universe, my doppleganger died that day. So I don't ever want to hear about "there's no one around." There's ALWAYS someone around in population centers. You may just have been lucky enough to miss them by 30 seconds or a minute, but one day you won't.

Werth is lucky as hell.

Put it this way, there are long stretches of I-95 between DC and Richmond that have a speed limit of 70. I usually put my cruise control at 73-75 on those stretches and I'm going a little above average (I pass more cars than cars pass me). A plurality cars that pass me have out of state plates. That's the chilling effect of VA's speed laws.

105 in a 55 is dangerous. I dunno about jail, especially if it's one's first offense, but I'm good with someone losing their license for a while over that.

80 in a 55 might be crazy in some places/roads, but on others it puts you moving with the flow of traffic. On the Garden State Parkway south of Newark/north of the Turnpike, it's a 5-6 lane road where the left couple of lanes are full of people doing 75+. There are stretches of 95 in PA once you get north of the city and immediate suburbs where it has seemed like more people are doing 80+ than 60-65 in my experience.

jerseyhoya wrote:There are stretches of 95 in PA once you get north of the city and immediate suburbs where it has seemed like more people are doing 80+ than 60-65 in my experience.

How do you define "immediate suburbs"? In my experience, the norm in Bucks County, between Woodhaven and Bristol is more like 70-75. There are occasional racers, and some dawdlers, but not a lot of 80+. And north of Bristol (from there to the Route 1 superhighway) there's like as not going to be a PA State Police cruiser sitting in the median. Then of course at rush hour, nobody is speeding north of the Newtown exit; it's routinely at a crawl from there to Scudders Falls (the Delaware River, and NJ state line, for those that don't know the road).

I was on the stretch from US1 to Newtown this morning; one guy blew by going 80+, but only one.

In my experience, the highest speeds on I-95 north of center city are in the four-lane stretches between...oh, Allegheny or so, and Woodhaven (when not constrained by construction, the way they are now). That's where I've seen the most real fliers, weaving in and out. But well in the city. That's unless you're defining Northeast Philly as "suburbs," in which case we're more or less in agreement!

logos wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:There are stretches of 95 in PA once you get north of the city and immediate suburbs where it has seemed like more people are doing 80+ than 60-65 in my experience.

How do you define "immediate suburbs"? In my experience, the norm in Bucks County, between Woodhaven and Bristol is more like 70-75. There are occasional racers, and some dawdlers, but not a lot of 80+. And north of Bristol (from there to the Route 1 superhighway) there's like as not going to be a PA State Police cruiser sitting in the median. Then of course at rush hour, nobody is speeding north of the Newtown exit; it's routinely at a crawl from there to Scudders Falls (the Delaware River, and NJ state line, for those that don't know the road).

I was on the stretch from US1 to Newtown this morning; one guy blew by going 80+, but only one.

In my experience, the highest speeds on I-95 north of center city are in the four-lane stretches between...oh, Allegheny or so, and Woodhaven (when not constrained by construction, the way they are now). That's where I've seen the most real fliers, weaving in and out. But well in the city. That's unless you're defining Northeast Philly as "suburbs," in which case we're more or less in agreement!

I don't really drive on 95 much, and when I do it's generally not at a commuting hour. My anecdotal experiences may not be the most accurate. I was thinking north of Woodhaven.

has to spend 5 days in jail

Betting this will be one of those Lindsey Lohan "going to jail" things where he gets processed and released within 12 hours due to "over crowding". book it.

Read the jalopnick piece on the writer who went to jail for speeding. Sounds like they take this shit seriously down there, and it seems they tend to "lose" the release paperwork and people wind up getting stuck in there longer than they should.

cartersDad26 wrote:Betting this will be one of those Lindsey Lohan "going to jail" things where he gets processed and released within 12 hours due to "over crowding". book it.

No.

momadance wrote:

cartersDad26 wrote:Betting this will be one of those Lindsey Lohan "going to jail" things where he gets processed and released within 12 hours due to "over crowding". book it.

No.

Werth will serve his sentence on weekends, so he can continue to rehab his shoulder surgery.

Not sure whether or not that means he will spend any nights in jail.


USA Today

If it's like serving weekends for regular folk it's Friday and Saturday nights

swishnicholson wrote:

momadance wrote:

cartersDad26 wrote:Betting this will be one of those Lindsey Lohan "going to jail" things where he gets processed and released within 12 hours due to "over crowding". book it.

No.

Werth will serve his sentence on weekends, so he can continue to rehab his shoulder surgery.

Not sure whether or not that means he will spend any nights in jail.


USA Today

The typical setup is that you report by 7 or 8 pm on Friday night and get released by 5 or 6pm on Sunday. That's pretty standard for misdemeanor convictions in VA with less than 30 days to serve.

wanna watch the 1pm game on sunday!?

nah man, gotta go to jail for the next 3 weekends.

Driving 90 in a modern car, on a typical highway and fair weather in the left lane is not particularly dangerous.

The Autobahn and its normal amount of accidents and deaths for a road that size says hello, which is even more impressive given its proximity to Eastern European countries who may have the most agressive drivers in the world.

Phred wrote:

JUburton wrote:All it takes is 80 in a 55 which is not ridiculous at all on most 55 roads. It's clearly situation specific but these asshat sit at the border and get people going 80 in a 70 to 80 in a 55 in an instant and hit them with misdemeanors.

I disagree. I think that 80 in a 55 is fairly ridiculous. 70 in a 55 is not too bad. 80 in a 65 is not too bad. Big difference, though, between those and 80 in a 55.

My rule of thumb is 10 mph over the speed limit is generally OK. Depends on the road and traffic.

Its common to see people doing 75 in a 35 on any of the local delaware river bridges