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Comment by dwighttk | Hacker News Reader

>And of course, nobody ever says "you're going 80, the speed limit is 55! slow down!"

incorrect

Yeah. Totally incorrect: I say it all the time when I am driving my kids around -- or when idiot teenagers rip through my neighborhood where my kids are playing at 35-45 mph (1).. before kids? - Maybe not.

(1) - It's official: I am now a crotchety old man.

I'm not sure if you're crotchety. I had a grandma frantically signal me to slow down when she was out walking with her grandchildren. I was doing 12 mph in a 25mph zone. The road is sketchy in spots, but this stretch is perfectly straight and fairly wide and I gave them about 15 feet of clearance by essentially driving as far as I could on the opposite side of the road. She's definitely crotchety.

That said, I think people are terrible at judging speeds. I keep my car in a low gear on the hills around here for control. As a result the revs are sometimes on the higher end and my car is generally pretty loud and looks fast. So people assume I'm going some great speed when I'm actually going relatively slow.

Pedestrians generally judge speed by noise.

Agreed. I say this to people I am riding with all the time that are speeding.

Same here, but his point is still somewhat correct, while not specifically accurate.

Even when I was a kid, my parents would be speeding and yelling at other cars that were speeding much faster than them. Perhaps those exact words weren't used, but they were definitely complaining about people driving too fast.

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