Cell Phone Driver

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Originally posted by SlugBuddy
[br]I think ronin and glacier missed the whole point of this post. The initial post was about driver's vs. riders rights and slug etiquette. I was simply making a point as to the fact that as a rider, if I don't like the way someone drives, etc., then I have the CHOICE to not ride with them and that a rider shouldn't tell the driver what to do while in their car.

As for the point that it only gets you there a very slight amount faster, you didn't take into consideration that if you don't pass Springfield by the time HOV opens, then you sit in a traffic back-up, this in turn makes your trip a whole lot longer than your equation states. It also doesn't account for the people who need to pick up children at their day care that get charged for every minute that their children are late being picked up. I expect the driver to at least travel the speed limit (which is 65 mph on almost the entire HOV) and if they do not, then I reserve the right to not ride with them again.

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Okay, now that I've been properly educated on the speed limit issue, I can certainly see why one might be irritated at a driver running below the speed limit. Maybe that same driver is similarly unenlightened.

Of course, not being able to tell a driver how fast they can drive, or how to drive, should be a fairly familiar routine. After all, how often do you get away with telling a spouse (regardless of gender) how to drive? [:D]

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Originally posted by ronin718
I guess I need to drive that stretch of road. When did they convert I395 to 65MPH? I thought the limit dropped to 55 around Newington. Has Virginia thrown away the Federal guidelines regarding speed limits in metropolitan areas? If they can raise the limit on I395 to 65, why don't they do it on the Beltway? People generally do 70 MPH as it is.

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What federal guidelines? The old National Maximum Speed Limit was repealed effective December 8, 1995. Since then states may impose whatever speed limits they like, and most states outside of the northeastern US have done precisely that (the majority of states impose 70 or 75 mph on most of their Interstates).

In Virginia, the law set by the General Assembly is that Interstate highways can be posted at 65 mph, as can highways constructed pursuant to the public-private toll road law (the Greenway and the Pocahontas Parkway are the only two such roads), as well as the limited-access portion of VA-37 (a freeway bypass around Winchester). Other roads are limited to 55 mph. These are only maximums, of course, and a lower limit can be imposed where the Commonewealth decides that a lower limit will get it more ticket reve.....uhhh, gee, I guess actually they claim they do that for "safety." The 60 mph speed limit on I-95 near Potomac Mills Mall is officially there "to assist drivers in shifting from the higher rural speed limit to the 55 mph urban limit." What a load of nonsense. But anyway, to answer your question, the Beltway COULD legally be posted at 65, but they've simply refused to do it. Can't really understand it myself, but then, I think 75 to 80 is about right for much of that road.

But in any event, the express lanes have been posted at 65 for several years now except in Springfield, where the construction requires a lower limit. The local lanes are still at 55 from just south of Route 123 all the way to the 14th Street Bridge.

Mrs. B... You'll find these discussions wander from time to time as folks pick up on issues within the comments. But you're right, this was about cell phones.