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Comment by salgernon | Hacker News Reader

Because people expect that style of driving. This race thing would be fine if it was all on closed roads, but what happens when he blows by me 16 year old daughter, doing 95 in a 25 when she lacks the experience to deal with his behavior?

95 is great as long as we all agree that that is what the road should be driven at. But you don't get to unilaterally decide the speed limit.

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A controlled access highway (e.g. interstate), even with a 55 mph speed limit and most traffic at 60-70mph, is probably far safer at 165mph than a 25mph city street with intersections is at 75mph. Cars you can see are relatively easy to predict (particularly when you're going 3x faster than them); pedestrians, other vehicles emerging from hidden alleys, etc. are a lot harder. It's still irresponsible, but tech, training, and such can mitigate risk at absurd speeds on an interstate, but not so much downtown.

(I used to do 140-160mph in UAE, Kuwait, etc. pretty frequently, on roads which were 60-70mph speed limits, but would never exceed the speed limit in cities. Then I discovered camels.)

The more immediate problem is 16 year olds going at such speeds. Driving fast on the German highway requires a good driver and a good car. I am not a good driver and have a tiny car, so I go slow (130-160 km/h).

If someone blows by you at 95 you just drive your line and don't react, that's what my driving instructor taught me anyway.

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