PSA: Do not go 180mph on I-75 in Monroe County
Apparently some people need reminding about this.
April 29th, 2020 at 12:44 AM ^
[comment removed this was in extremely bad taste -S]
This is incredibly gross even if you are joking
April 29th, 2020 at 10:26 AM ^
What'd he say?
April 29th, 2020 at 10:54 AM ^
[moderated. DUDE WTF if I delete something that's an embarrassment to our site I don't want someone else putting it back up! -S]
April 29th, 2020 at 11:52 AM ^
Good call, Seth. I saw it last night and agree it doesn't belong here.
April 29th, 2020 at 12:14 PM ^
My bad! Sorry about that.
April 29th, 2020 at 12:44 AM ^
There’s a Berlin Township?
It’s in St. Clair County.
April 29th, 2020 at 10:51 AM ^
Nah, it's the northernmost Township along I75 in Monroe County. South Rockwood, Carleton, Flat Rock area.
April 29th, 2020 at 12:54 AM ^
I don’t say this lightly:
That shouldn’t be a citation. That should be an arrest.
At the very least the ticket should be you don’t get to drive anymore.
But, not as excessive as 180mph
April 29th, 2020 at 10:52 AM ^
Apropos of nothing, hat tip to Dodge. That's smokin' for a mass-produced car.
April 29th, 2020 at 12:05 PM ^
Dude was trying to get to his cottage before he was aprehended and jailed for breaking the stay at home order
April 29th, 2020 at 12:55 PM ^
I missed where it mentioned the vehicle, perhaps it's been removed. But after the "this is crazy and incredibly reckless" thought, I did assume this was done on a motorcycle as it's hard for any car to get up to those speeds without a long stretch of smooth and straight road.
forget the car, how about the tires that can run 180 and endure the moonscape on I-75
At that speed, you’d probably glide right over the potholes
Those Hellcats can fly.
April 29th, 2020 at 11:33 AM ^
It's definitely an arrestable offense, but no one was hurt, other than his bank account. Glad you're not an officer, it's called officer discretion. Taking someone to jail for a misdemeanor traffic offense is questionable during this pandemic. If he ran from them, then yes, hit him with the misdemeanor reckless driving and felony fleeing in vehicle.
In my defense, I had just put a Pratt & Whitney R2800 into my 1968 Volkswagen Beetle and wanted to open it up a little.
I take it that's stage 2. Everyone knows stage 1 upgrade is racing stripes!
Absolutely.
Unpopular opinion: Speed limits are trash. I wish there were a method for distributing road rights based on road intelligence. There should be varying levels of what you are allowed to do on the road based on how good of a driver you are (impossible to measure, i know). Good driving does not mean following arbitrary rules. It means getting your head out of your own ass and being aware of every other vehicle you are approaching and every other vehicle entering the roadway and being able to do the hundreds of analytic calculations in your head every second necessary to determine what that new driver is likely to need to do in maneuvering his vehicle when entering the roadway. There is no reason you shouldn't be able to go 120+ on an empty straightaway during daylight in dry conditions -- but it will never change. Need to cater to the worst of us.
Devil's advocate- given open-ended speed limits in America, the number of people who are capable of driving 120mph on the highway is probably less than the number of people who would drive 120mph on the highway.
This is probably a bad idea. What is wrong with just going 70 mph on I-696 and arriving a few minutes later than the dude that is risking a lot more by driving 100+?
^This.
Most drivers on American roads are completely not qualified to drive 100+.
This is one of the easiest countries in which to get a driver's license. We already have too many morons on the road as well; do you really want someone like Walmart Dropout brake checking you at 100+ just because you have a license plate or sticker he disagrees with?
Pull that shit in Germany or Singapore by way of comparison and see what happens.
These days, it's hard to get your speed up there safely - so much traffic. Any hour. A couple of years ago, I was psyched to let loose on the Autobahn. Stretches of it have no speed limit and we were traveling across the country from north to southwest in a decent-sized rental car. Every straight shot in the areas with no limit I tried to air it out, but there was always someone passing ahead - and European drivers do not hog the road like American drivers do. Every once in a while we were passed by a powerful sports car going maybe 150, but I barely hit 100 once.
German roads were fun. The Netherlands, though... felt like slow motion. Speed cameras everywhere. I read that one automated trap on the ring road around Amsterdam tickets 200,000 drivers a year. At that point, who needs taxes?
Agreed about when you hear about the autobahn and then when you actually drive it -- two different things. You cannot speed in Singapore either even though on Orchard Road and by the Marina there are super cars galore.
I guess my point wasn't about the pure speed legend that German roads imply -- the autobahn in reality really isn't a free for all. But rather to get a driver's license in Germany is not a trivial task. It's definitely considered a privilege there rather than a right and licensed drivers are considered "professionals".
Shit that happens on American roads -- left hand lane hogs, people running red lights and flipping YOU off in the process, simply doesn't fly there is my point and thus why 100+ speeds are more dangerous here.
Best stretch of road I have ever driven is the Italian Autostrada between Rome and Naples. Basically straight, flat and 4 lanes wide iirc. I was in my US spec Acura Integra which topped out at around 120mph, but I couldn’t get out of the second lane very often because traffic was absolutely hauling ass. I can’t tell you how many BMW, Merc, Ferrari’s flew by me like I was standing still. Italians are fantastic drivers.
My experience on that road was large black German sedans flying by me. I'd see them in the rear view way off in the distance and the next thing I knew they were in front of me.
I can definitively say as a person who lives in Germany that we have plenty of clowns on the road who don't know what they are doing, but there are a few things generally that make it a LOT better than driving in the US (personal experience from living in California, Michigan, Mississippi, and Virginia):
1. People do not pass on the right
2. People do not sit in the left lane. Get in, pass, and get out, or you'll have a panel van, or audi/bmw/benz wagen up your ass in .03 seconds. (for the love of jesus check your mirrors first)
3. People actually use their blinkers
4. there is a minimum speed to even BE in the left lane (or center if there are three)
5. You actually have to pay real (thousands of dollars) money for training and license, so people actually know the rules.
April 29th, 2020 at 10:02 AM ^
The speed limit on 696 is whatever the car in front of you is doing.
Speed limits are nothing more than a function of the gas crises back in the 70's. The 55MPH limit was put in place as a gas conservation method, not for safety. It's been conflated into safety in the decades since...
Aside from drivers not being ready to maintain 100+, the cars we buy here can't do it safely, either. Not with any consistency, anyway. Sure, on a straight stretch, in good conditions, you can hit those speeds easily with most cars. But that doesn't mean they're handling it well - hit a decent bump, need to swerve fairly quick, or do a quick brake check, and most cars are going to careen out of control quickly.
I've had a T-Bird Turbo Coup up to 105, and it started floating like a butterfly. Despite having room to keep going, I shut it down. I did have some fun in England, though, with an Audi A8. Was able to hit 120 with that, while holding a cup of coffee. That was nice and smooth, and it probably had some engine space left to push further, but that was enough for me.
There is only 1 speed limit.
If we were in a state with better road conditions, I would agree with you, but you are one pothole away from killing yourself and others go that fast on any one of these shitty highways.
Another unpopular opinion: the Venn diagram of people who think they have the road intelligence to drive 120+ MPH and the people who actually have the road intelligence to drive 120+ MPH are two circles that do not overlap as much as they need to in order to do away with speed limits.
You can certainly make a case to raise speed limits, though.
Don't tell me what to do
Damn straight! We're Americans! We know our rights! We know the right to go 100 MPH is enshrined in the Constitution. Somewhere. I'm certain.
April 29th, 2020 at 12:04 PM ^
Absolutely! I'm sure those guys died at Bunker Hill and Valley Forge for my inalienable right to drive like a jackass.
April 29th, 2020 at 12:25 PM ^
You're goddamn right
AMERICA
The fastest I’ve ever clocked it was 130. This was on a old 2 lane road in the middle of the night in Howell Michigan. A buddy who was already wasted loaned us his Camaro for one last beer run. I was sober that night due to DD duties, so a buddy and I headed out. On the way home, we gunned it down this country road. It was terrifying. We hit a slight dip and rise in the road, but at that speed, ended up getting a little air. We pulled the car over right away to check out damage to the car. We just sat there for an hour, drank some of the beer we just purchased and got along with it all. I’ll remember that night forever. Just sitting on the hood of that car, listening to some George Strait, talking about our lives, girlfriends, dreams. I can taste that beer now, smell the humidity in the August night, hear the crickets in the fields surrounding us, see the stars in the sky, feel the warmth of the engine juxtaposed against the night air.
130 matches my top speed but that was on the 15 coming back from Vegas where we left at 3:45AM. Pulled into Riverside a few minutes past 6AM. I would never do that again.
Username checks.
180 is seriously smoking. I know what 120 feels like. Wow.
Agree, I drive a lot, mostly on highways and hit 100 somewhat regularly. I think I hit something like 125 when I was younger and had a sportier car. There is a big difference between even between 100 and 120.
180 must feel like a blur and especially at night when your lights only show the next .5 seconds worth of road.
When I was in my last year at Michigan and living at my mom's in Livingston County, I remember always coming back from A2 in the wee hours after school and work and as soon as I hit Dexter-Pinckney road, right before M-36 and on D-19, Pinckney's finest used to get on my ass so close I couldn't see their headlights. Fuckers pulled me over (my Escort didn't have cruise control) once for doing 3 over. Assholes.
Several years ago a 1970 Chevelle tried to pass me on 96. I learned that my G37 has a rev limiter at 155. And the other guy learned that a modern family sedan is both quicker, and faster, than his admittedly beautiful muscle car.
The look on his face after we both slowed down was priceless.
I had an Audi RS6 (2004) with a 4.2L twin turbo that we topped out at 162 on route 60 north of Pittsburgh (think it's 376 now). We took it from a dead stop on the entrance ramp from State road til it hit the rate limiter before the Tuscawaras exit. She was pulling just over 4K rpm. I swear that car could have easily gone over 200 if it weren't for that limiter.