Since I'm the fool that started all the "basic rule" stuff just let me add
a few additional little gems. Since my Dakota's a 4x4 I try to hold
cruising speed to 75 where it's legal (or nearly legal), but have been
known to run it up to 80 or 85 in Montana with no problems. Some
newspaper idiot wrote an article in the Seattle Times about driving an
Explorer at some high rate of knots from Ritzville, WA, to Missoula, MT,
then going from Missoula to Helena by way of Butte on I-90 and I-15 at
around 100 mph.
I like to drive fast, but a 4x4 truck ain't a roadburner and neither is an
Explorer. In most of Montana, away from the bigger towns where the
traffic is light and in a vehicle with the tires, brakes and handling
capability I doubt that you'd have trouble with a basic rule ticket at 85
or 90 mph if you were driving like you knew what you were doing. On the
ohter hand, blasting through traffic at that rate would probably gain you
a very interesting ticket. The speed isn't the problem, it's the speed
differential. The guy driving at 50 mph in a 70 mph zone with the rest of
the traffic trying to go 70-75 mph is a hazard and should be ticketed for
obstructing traffic IMHO, assuming the conditions allow 70-75 mph.
I wrote a very nice letter to the nice newspaper reporter pointing out
that he was: 1) a lier, 2) couldn't have driven an Explorer that fast up
Lookout or 4th of July passes, and 3) his fuel mileage figures were highly
suspect. Naturally, my tone was only slightly sarcastic and I was
extremely polite about the whole thing. He never responded. Maybe I hurt
his feelings. Maybe I'm a bad person.
Larry Elliott, '92, 3.9, 4x4, 5 sp'd, LE
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