Like most people, whatever I’m doing is right and whatever anyone else is doing is wrong. Basic psychology. 
Colorado 5 over. However, a friend of mine told her D that when first got her license and she got a ticket. Also, my D got a ticket for 10 over but, the police were wrong it was 5 over, and the ticket was downgraded but remained. In Seattle I’m having trouble getting up to 20 mph in the suburbs. More like 15. Plenty of parked cars on both sides.
I-75 in Florida is posted at 70 mph and let me say that even if you go 75 there are MANY drivers passing by going 80+.
Yes, smaller roads in midCentral Fl have elderly drivers who are driving below speed limit but I just shake my head when I feel like a snail going 75 on I-75.
Wow, I’m laughing, no one would ever accuse me of being a slow-poke driver if you followed me around for the day. Particularly on the freeway, as I already said, I’m probably waving at you as I speed by in the far left lane.
When I said I often go 5 MPH under the 25 limit, I’m mainly talking about self-contained residential neighborhoods with 6,000 - 8,000 square foot lots, the dense California suburbia I live in. Usually, the conditions are some combination of: kids playing in the street (small back yards), joggers and dog walkers in the street (sidewalks are narrow and plus the joggers prefer the softer asphalt surface to the concrete sidewalk), lots of cars parked on both sides of the street, narrowing the street and obstructing sight lines (we don’t have basements or attics so lots of folks use their garages for storage), and sometimes double-parked delivery trucks or landscaping/pool service trucks.
Now, as for the access roads to and from those individual neighborhoods and shopping centers, I’m typically at the 45-50 MPH speed limit, and maybe sometimes exceed it, I just don’t make it a habit of always doing 5 MPH over the limit. Honestly, there are just too many cars and traffic lights on these roads for anyone to go much faster than that; it’s just not the norm in my area.
For California freeways, it’s usually 10-12 over for me, assuming no rain or fog or “road boulders”. Sometimes 15-20 if it’s a long stretch where I know there are no entrances/exits for a while. I find that almost all roads, even twisty ones like 17 going to/from Santa Cruz and the like, 10 over is manageable.
Locally, it’s “ 9 you’re fine”. I’ll do 10 over on the highways, unless the sl is 75 - then I’ll only go 80 max. Never had a speeding ticket.
However, much of 17 on the side of a mountain, with restricted sight lines around curves (and stopped traffic jams are not that rare on that road due to crashes). So the effective “safe for the conditions” speed limit if you have a decent handling car is determined more by the sight lines than being able to drive your car on the twists and turns. There are also slow trucks on that road (slow climbing the mountain, 35mph truck speed limit going down).
When we drove from PA to Albuqueque, (and back), each state seemed to have its own driving personality. In NM and TX where the speed limit was 75, we did 85. As I recall, we passed local drivers and I wondered why they were driving so slow.
In MO, drivers had a difficult time driving as fast as the posted speed, and we often encountered a driver passing at about 1 MPH faster than the car in the right lane. Annoying. But apparently it’s a common occurrence in MO, because there were billboards along Rt 44 reminding drivers not to poke in the passing lane. Amusing.
In Ohio and WV we encountered construction on Rt 70, and the posted speed limit was 55. I commented on how those states posted a logical speed limit for those conditions. Then we crossed into PA, same construction, and the speed limit was posted at 45. But everyone drove 55-60. Pennsylvanian’s look at the posted speed limit as just a suggestion, and something to exceed. ? So they have to post at a slower speed to control traffic. ?
On the NJ turnpike, you better stay with the flow of traffic if you don’t want to have or cause an accident.
@frazzled1 I’ve had that experience where folks were behind me and thought I was going too slow…when I was actually 5 miles over the speed limit. My first thought always is to slow down even more…but I don’t! I just pull over and let those in the big hurry pass me.
It’s funny, but I usually end up right next to them at the next light if there is one.
My dad was an interstate trucker. He gave us the 5 miles over the speed limit guideline and that’s what I do.
PA drivers did have the annoying habit of stopping at the end of an on-ramp.
We took a long road trip this summer and I agree that different states have different driving personalities. In Texas and Washington, people follow the “pull over and let folks pass” rule on smaller highways. Other states, not so much. In NM I counted 18 vehicles behind an RV pulling a Jeep. Each one had to wait for the car in front to find a safe place to pass, slowly working their way up the queue.
And then there was my experience on a lonely stretch of highway in Utah. We pulled over to switch drivers and I pulled back onto the perfectly straight 4 lane divided highway without another car in sight. Settled into the grove of driving when I noticed I was gaining on a car far in the distance. Hmmm, they are really going slow…are they in trouble? So then I glanced down at my speedometer. 98. A nice body temperature but not a speed I had ever envisioned hitting. Thankfully I had enough room to gradually slow and pass them at 80. And they weren’t state patrol. Fully loaded Volvo SUV is pretty smooth at 98, just so you know.
I have a rule that I NEVER pull over and stop on any major roadway. Too many people are hi and die. I drive DH nuts sometimes, but that’s my rule.
I don’t understand. Are you afraid an impaired driver will follow you to the shoulder and rear end you?
Cars drift all the time and hit parked cars. And tires on 18-wheelers explode and fly off. Recently in Maine, a trooper was killed by a flying tire. 
People are afraid to fly yet they don’t think twice about parking on a road with cars flying by them at 80+ mph. It’s not logical.
Not me. And I’ve never encountered that.
It is common where I live, impaired or not. I live in the DC/Baltimore suburbs and it happens fairly regularly. About 2 weeks ago, I got an alert on my phone that I-95 southbound was closed at 7:30am. I got worried b/c the location was an area that S21’s carpool sometimes takes to high school. A young man was stopped on the shoulder with his disabled vehicle when a van drifted onto the shoulder and killed him. The driver? Arrested for DWI at 7:30am on a Thursday morning.
My kids go to two different private schools that are 30 and 45 minutes away, mostly highway driving. Every.single.day I see at least one accident along the way. And that’s not counting all the cars and tractor trailers I see drifting in/out of their lane. Totally distracted driving/inattentiveness to the road on congested highways. S21 is anxious to get his license so he can drive the 35 miles to his h.s. I’m not necessarily worried about his driving skills but rather the idiots I see on a daily basis.
Last Friday night I was driving on an interstate with 65mph speed limit. It was late, I was coming back from a h.s. football game. I wasn’t in a hurry and the highway was pretty clear, no traffic. I usually go 70-75mph. I was in the right lane, no traffic around. I was chatting with D23. Suddenly I hear a loud noise to my right…a pickup truck was passing me…on the right shoulder (!!!) .and driving on the rumble strips which is the loud noise I heard… WHat the heck? I look down and see I was going 70, not slow, in the right lane. Well, turns out he was racing another car down the highway. After he passed me and freaked the crap out of me, he ran another car in the left lane off the road onto the left shoulder. At that point I called police.
Needless to say, I never ever would stop on the shoulder unless it’s an emergency. Here in the DC/Baltimore suburbs, you would be taking your life in your hands in
Re: @dragonmom #50, #52, @MaineLonghorn #51, #53, @4kids4us #55
Yes, the shoulder of a fast moving freeway is a dangerous place to stop.
However, that is different from driving a slower vehicle on a two lane (one lane each way) road where it is polite to go into a turnout when safe to do so to let vehicles accumulating behind to pass (the scenario in reply #50 with the 18 vehicles stuck behind a slow moving RV). This is only to be done if the road has only one lane in your direction (where passing would require dangerously using the opposite direction lane); if there is more than one lane in your direction, the slower vehicle stays in the curb lane and those wanting to pass use the inside lane.
@ucbalumnus I was responding to #51 and 52. I live on the congested east coast so not typically driving on a deserted Utah freeway as in #50. And yes, if Iwas driving on a one lane in each direction roadway with cars stacking up behind me, I would pull over and let them pass, as you noted. I wasn’t referring to that sort of scenario as it’s not typical on the roads where I love/normally drive.
Same here. I slow down to let people pass me. I NEVER pull over and stop.
Depends how late I am. ?
74 is the normal top speed on highways around here to avoid being pulled over.
I have driven over 100 for a very short burst on wide open and dry highway to test out a few sports cars. Not smart I know but I’ve done it. Never with anyone around or passing anyone.