Sunday, February 07, 2021

Never speed through Fresno California.

I am pretty terrified of road trips right now because I have poor impulse control when it comes to speeding. When whole freeways of cars are doing 80 miles an hour - it doesn't take me too much to get twitchy. 10 over and you are doing 90mph. 

On roads like 1-5, everybody is doing 90 - if you aren't junked up by trucks passing. So, 10 over is 100mph. And I've gotten that ticket.

Those of us who like to speed sort of group up. We aren't racing each other as much as we are racing "with" each other. Taking turns on who is the lead car. Which isn't me anymore. Everybody else is the lead car.

But on that way back from my day trip an Audi and a Taco truck (Toyota Tacoma) were grouped up. I was doing 95 and they were totally walking away from me. I completely lost them.

About ten minutes later Waze lit up alerting about police, so I really slowed my roll. Only to find out that they got Audi guy! I'm pretty sure he got the big ticket. Oooh that's a painful one.

Sadly, I only mostly kept it under 100. So....it's not like I really trust myself to go anywhere out of the Bay Area. No one sane does 100 in the cities. 

But seriously. Never speed though Fresno. They are good at hiding. And you are going to have to hire a lawyer if you are doing over 100. Just sayin.

2 comments:

  1. Capital of Texas RefugeeMonday, February 08, 2021 5:12:00 PM

    It's actually a lot riskier here.

    The national speed limit for limited access highways (or let's just use the shorter British term "motorways", which people tend to do in English) is 120 km/h.

    That's just a little under 75 mph.

    If they catch you doing 25 km/h over that, you get a court summons, a court date, and an instant disqualification from driving on the spot.

    In court they determine whether it's going to stick for three months or more.

    Your 160 km/h "speed limit" would probably be enough to get a year's driving disqualification here or maybe even more.

    You can get one month's disqualification for something as little as being 5 km/h over the speed limit in a residential area.

    Speed cameras are legal and they're all over, plus they change and so do the speed limits.

    Apparently Sheriff Buford T. Justice here thinks it's fun to change the locations and the numbers in a Catch-22 "let's change the number of missions" kind of way.

    So I don't speed in Switzerland.

    If you do get over to Germany, enjoy the Autobahns where there's a sign you've probably never seen before: a black outer circle with thin bars diagonally through the center, usually three thin bars.

    That means "no restrictions", and it really does mean no restrictions as long as it's safe.

    Want to do 280 km/h on the Autobahns?

    You may find someone eventually passing you at over 300 km/h.

    If the borders were more porous than they are right now, I'd have that Caterham by now and be driving it somewhere in Germany just because.

    In defense of this typical Swiss behavior, it is a small mountainous country, and so 160+ km/h makes it all that easier to fuck yourself up if you're not a really great driver.

    There's a guy with a Caterham 485 who took it out on the Sustenpass and made a video out of it for YouTube. If the socialist justice wankers at YouTube haven't taken it down for offending their internalized speed limits, that'll give you an idea of what local conditions can be like.

    But the Swiss also had to do more to get their first driver's licenses than I had to do to get mine, so there's that as well.

    BTW, you'll find this interesting: "In 2011, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms clarified its stance -- it is not legal for anyone who uses any illegal substance to own firearms. This includes marijuana ..."

    Here it's decriminalized for small amounts, and most places won't even bother with the fine that's allowed under Swiss law, just as long as you're not being as big an asshole with reefer as people can be with cigarettes and cigars.

    Losing your target and hunting guns for marijuana is unthinkable here.

    Louche Americans looking to escape the Plantation to enjoy a few personal vices would be better off in the Netherlands though, they tolerate nearly everything.

    But seriously. Never speed though Zurich. They are good at hiding (cameras). And they love handing out fines that start at 100 CHF. :-)

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  2. Yeah. I once wanted to visit Amersterdam, but what's the point now? I can almost make it across the whole US legal. At this point, you have to be a next level tard to get your weapons taken away for weed.

    Next we are going to decriminalize psychedelics. Oregon and I think NJ or Mass just decriminalized. So if I just hang out....

    I think it's cute you call America the plantation when it sounds like the rules where you are, are a bit more restrictive. But you do remind me of a girlfriend who got pregnant later in life and all of a sudden she was trying to convince me ~I~ wanted to be pregnant too so I could share in all of that body destroying crap. Sort of the same but with geography. Said affectionately of course.

    But thanks for the heads up on the speeding rules. I'm not as much racing as cutting time off my trip. On a trip to LA I can shave off a half hour! I'd rather get to my destination quicker than be stuck behind some asshole going slow in the fast lane.

    It sounds like your borders are going to be closed for a while since the SA variant just popped up in Tyrol. We are going to have to keep culling the herd until the herd gets smarter.

    Isn't it Germany that you can get a ticket for using a horn?

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