THE NEED FOR SPEED . . .

OK, I tried that.

But who dropped the hefty pudding? Why? Is it vanilla (and will my fedora be recoverable - I paid a lot for it)? What would that feel like if I was naked and it happened in slo mo?

Whew. Thanks. I trusted him but he invited the trust, saying, when he arrived at my door, "I am not related to the Krupp family in any way and I don't know how to yodel. Here, my mom sent you schnitzel".

Them boys from Wurtemberg is Catlicks, too . . . they're worser.

Catlickin' just sounds - WRONG.

Them Catlicks is wrong, just as wrong as wrong can be. I still think Thomas is a nice guy, though.

We call them "Gelbfuessler" - yellow footsies translated, I guess.
Thomas is nice though, that's correct!

The little doggies love Thomas. He once sent us a thank you card after a visit, so i held it out for the little dogs to smell--they got very excited, because it smelled of a good friend!

He probably laced the card with liver sausage.

Yes. Though he may have merely stuck it in a bag with his mother's schnitzel for a day or two.

I can't even comprehend driving at 90mph in a car. The fastest speed I've ever done is roughly 164mph on my Honda CBR 600. I only did it once. On a straight and empty 3 lane freeway in the middle of a clear sunny afternoon. That was on a machine that was designed from the ground up to go fast. I never did it again.
Family sedans are NOT designed to handle high speeds. I've got news for people. If you're going 90 in a standard road car, and something goes wrong, you're probably going to die. As for going with the "traffic flow", if you kill someone when going 25mph+ in excess of the speed limit, do you think the judge will care how fast the vehicle in front of you was going?

Yes, to me that was one of the most incredible bit of self-centered whining in this thread. The speed limit is the speed limit, no matter what one sees as one's personal convenience. Endangering others to suit that convenience when they are obeying the law and you are not, and then whining about it is just incredible to me.

It appears that some of the little old ladies in the choir disapprove of what has been said here.

I'm a not all so little but old lady, or if not lady, woman. Fastest I've ever gone was 105 mph, empty stretch of road, long ago. I scared myself but it was a faster car for the time, quite new, had good driver pal with me, and I wanted to try it.

In some parts of California, if you are not keeping up with traffic, you are actually dangerous to others. On some parts of highway 5, you'll be an aggressive putz for staying at or under the limit, depending on the location and conditions. Most of the time I avoided the 5 since I like the beauty/serenity of highway 101 and liked the towns along the way.
5, of course, is faster.

I once had my paintings taken up to Sacramento in a state van, long story, and the driver went circa 110.

However, most ca drivers are on the sane side and keep the overage speed within 5 - 10 mph, which, much of the time there is room for built into the speed limit equation . Thing is, road speeds are set for reasons, which once I climbed out of my youth, I managed to perceive. There are places in redwood forest roads, curving zingers (actually nice if some clod is not on your heel) that have speeds like 15 mph or 25 mph and they are very serious.

On my last but not best long trip, still beautiful, this time more sad, from the very north of California to central New Mexico, I was, when in city climes, within 5 mph (ok, 8) of the limit. On the other hand, in open space I often went between eighty and ninety. I remember doing ninety to get to Albuquerque before dark (my damn eyes at night), but the road was right for that, and of course I slowed down as the road got to have cars on it. I made it, as you can see.
So I'm not anti speed, exactly. I like serenity of sorts, and what that is re driving can vary. Once I went with some of my colleagues to keep one of the resident's company while he ran an all night place for patients. That sounds chancy but wasn't - just long talks while no patients showed up. The thing was, he drove us (the other person a male doc too) in his flamingly speeding porsche on the LA freeway system. I'd never want to do that again, but not unglad I experienced it.

One of the human things I've noticed when driving roads that are not very populated is that some people want to pass you so they get to be first, and then slow down to the same speed as yours for the next bunch of miles, first being psychologically the very bestest place.


One more thing - many years ago in the gas crisis, California's main speed limit went down to 55, not 65. I didn't mind it, and it did save gas.

Boy, there's a lot of things I'd say that about!

As an avid skier through much of my life, I've commonly driven or been passenger in some of the worst possible conditions including with cliffs on one side. If safety is the issue, and that surely is the issue, then one drives according to conditions, including the vehicle's capabilities or lack of them and according to one's skills and experience. I don't abide by posted limits other than as a general metric of what the highways people deem proper for that stretch of roadway (I tend to think they get it mostly right) and of course one is a bit daft to ignore such as "Warning: sharp curve ahead, slow to 15mph" Tickets can be expensive these days so that's a consideration. I've driven a lot; city, highway, small mountain passes, etc and I've always had the cheapest insurance rate, as an adult, because of my driving record.

But when I'm driving, I attend to that activity. I don't listen to podcasts or answer the phone. If I'm anxious, I slow down. If I'm about to have a fist-fight with a female passenger, I pull over.

This is a ridiculous argument. If you are going with the traffic flow, and the car ahead of you is going with the traffic flow, then you won't crash into it.

Again, let me try to state this as clearly and simply as possible... The difference in speed between cars is far more of a determining factor for accidents than the actual speed.

If everyone else is going 75 mph on the road, the safest thing for you to do (if your goal is to avoid accidents) is to go 75 mph with them. The speed limit has nothing to do with this scientific fact.

If you are the only car going 55 mph on a road where everyone else is going 75 mph, you are the one who is "self-centered" and endangering others.

Not to put to fine a point on it, that's horseshit--if the "traffic flow" is driving at a rate higher than that ordained by the traffic engineers, the consequences can be terrible for a lot of people. I was driving south through Columbus, Ohio on an intracity expressway when it began to rain. I pulled over to the right and slowed down, in order to take the first exit that offered--because there arw always idiots like you who seem to think they're invulnerable, and at the point that it starts to rain, highways are particularly untrustworthy. I'm glad i did. Some goofy bitch was driving as fast as should could, weaving in and out of traffic, in very much sub-optimal road conditions. She clipped the right rear bumper of a car she had weaved around, and in an instant, she was airborne. Fortunately, i had an exit i could take right away. Without even considering the easily thousands of dollars of damage caused by this loony tunes driving the "flow of traffic," i would have been stuck in a lane of traffic which wasn't going anywhere--and that's without knowing if there were any injuries involved.

You obviously never worked in a hospital emergency room if you think that actual speed does not matter. I did, for several years. Why do you think the highway death toll dropped when the speed limit was reduced to 55 miles per hour? Just inexplicable coincidence? Go talk to some long-service highway patrolmen about that.

You and your idiotic conceits--you're not talking about "scientific facts," you're just making a special plea for your personal convenience.

Hey, tell me again about driving 396 miles in a little over five hours--and with two stops for food and fuel, and for the toll booths. That one really cracks me up.

I might have a new sig line..

Hey, I might be old, but I am not little....