by Patrick Sills

Created on: August 04, 2008   Last Updated: November 16, 2011

The answer to the question of why people can't drive the speed limit when they are in a hurry should be obvious. If a person is in a hurry to arrive at a specific destination, then he or she failed to depart early enough. Thus, they are running late. In turn, there are are many reasons one could be behind schedule. If you are running late (thus, are in a hurry), and everybody else is driving way under the speed limit, this is simply an application of Murphy's Law in effect.

When running late, the object is to get to wherever you're going in as short a time as possible to minimize just how late you'll end up being. Abiding by posted speed limits will oftentimes hinder this effort. As many as half of set speed limits are 10-15 mph too slow in the first place. Case in point: Interstate highways were built for safe, high-speed driving, yet many states limit your speed to 65 mph. This is certainly better than the snail's pace of 55 mph that Americans had to endure from 1974-1986, but there is no reason drivers shoudln't be able to go 75-80 on these types of roads.

There is an adreneline rush of sorts that one will experience while hurried as well. Getting stuck behind some geriatric in a Buick Lesabre who has been retired since the Berlin Wall fell or a semi that will take 20 minutes to get up to speed doesn't help this situation. Blood pressure becomes elevated, and as for these these sorts of people? Well, they are in the way!

A considerable amount of time can be cut off of a cross-country road trip by simply driving 10 miles per hour faster. For example, a 650-mile journey will require 10 hours of driving time at 65 mph. At 75, this is reduced to 8 hours and 40 minutes. Back in the day, right after Congress lowered the national speed limit to 55 mph, biased Driver's Education textbooks tried to claim that no time is saved by driving faster. Unless the rules of mathematics are completely disregarded, this is blatantly false.

Conversely, speed limits in residential areas are generally reasonable. Children and pets can run out into streets at any given time. Drivers must constantly be on the lookout for such events, and cars have a much better chance of stopping from 25-30 mph than they would if they were going 50.

To summarize, the most sensible approach to take is the avoidance of running late to begin with. Make sure that alarm clock is working properly. If a long trip is in the plans, leave earlier. While some delays are out of our control, our overall stress can be reduced by the simple utilization of time management.

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