Sure, there’s the math, but there’s also the human nature part of it. If you’re sitting in the right lane doing the speed limit, watching dozens of cars consistently zip past, it feels like you’re “falling behind” all of that traffic. I wonder how that will be received by the riding public.
For the opposite experience, take a taxi in a low- or maybe middle-income country.
There's a good chance the driver will zoom past everything else, weaving between lanes accordingly, and you'll wish you were one of the slow vehicles. Although I'd be less concerned if the seatbelts worked.
When I'm traveling substantially below traffic speed I'm also decently concerned about becoming the scene of the accident. Sure it won't be me paying for the accident but I'd just rather not risk it.
This is often repeated, yet despite the studies on speed differentials being dangerous I am still skeptical of the more specific claim that driving the speed limit specifically when others are speeding increases your risk of getting in an accident.
It's likely often repeated because if you try driving 55 in a 55mph zone where people are driving between 62-70, it'sterrifying, it feels like you're stopped. Whether the stat is true or not remains to be seen, but intuitively, it makes a lot of sense. Sure, your risk of rear ending someone at that point is probably negligible, but the odds of being rear ended? Hard to say
When I’m driving the speed limit and everyone is going much faster I feel fine… they all just flow around me… if they weren’t able to flow, they wouldn’t be flying past.
In the UK the speed limit for goods vehicles is 10 mph below the limit for cars on motorways so there are plenty of vehicles driving below the limit.
The real risk is the opposite, cars bunched together at the same speed. This is where pileups occur, somebody at the front does something stupid and the people at the back end up colliding.
