Geek and Gadgets Set Cross-US Speed Record

Brikus writes "And you thought your car had gadgets. In this story from Wired magazine, we hear about Alex Roy and his quest to break the record time for a cross-USA road trip. One of the biggest roadblocks to breaking the record: highway patrol officers, about 31,000 along the way. So Roy decked out his E39 BMW M5 with a thermal camera, radar/laser detectors, GPS devices, police scanners, and other high-tech gadgets and toys."

Comments

cry babies....

[Anonymous Coward]

"why doesn't my nanny state do more to stop these people?" boo-hoo... you're all a bunch of pussies...

Re:Wow, so many people bitching

[fotoguzzi]

I think slashdot has become slashaol.

me2, me2!

Re:Alternate headline

[arivanov]

Well... He did it in the US.

The current "cool of the day" amidst this form of sociopaths is to do "rallies" in Eastern Europe where your speed limit is expressed in Euros per hour. So unless you kill someone (which happens on casual basis) all you need is to answer correctly the question "how many euros per hour have you been driving mate" and place those folded in your driving license.

Re:Wow, so many people bitching

[rs79]

"you can be attentive as hell, and still get yourself and/or other killed. That is a FACT

Sounds more like an UNPROVED ASSERTION to me.

The only poeple to die in one of these high speed thingies is a couple who ran a stop sign.

Other than that, they've proven to be safer than the average major highway on a holiday weekend with people doing the speed limit.

wow.

[mungtor]

It's amazing how many many people are just coming off like bitter, jealous assholes this morning.

Isn't this /.? Every day we get to read the hysteria about the "police state" and "big brother is watching", but for now it has been totally sublimated so that you can all hope this guy gets arrested for driving fast. Instead of giving up his dream, this guy did something about it and you all hate him for it.

Anybody worried about the danger and wishing he was arrested, congratulations. You have just lived up to the ideal of "giving up freedom for security". Make sure to write your congress-critter and tell them that you support the Patriot Act too. Miserable fucks.

Re:wow.

[theantipop]

I hope the asshole in TFA runs you over someday. How would you feel when irony hit you at 120mph?

Re:wow.

[tomstdenis]

Wow, defensive much? Maybe you're just rationalizing your poor driving skills?

In my case what happened was I was merging right onto a road (with the little pedestrian triangle island thingy). There was a pedestrian crossing so I stopped before the lines, then after I stopped on the other side [like you're supposed to] to wait for the cars going straight to pass by. The guy behind me thought I was just gonna "gun it" [his words] to get in front of the car that was coming. Sadly, that's not how the law works, you yield right of way to flow through traffic. In either case, he should have been going slow enough to stop in a hurry. Most likely, he too was looking down the on coming lane and didn't see that I had stopped. In short, he was too impatient and not paying attention.

Despite what you said, I actually commit to my mistakes. For example, if I get in the wrong lane, say I get in a turning lane by accident. I don't weave around to get out, I just take the turn like a man, then find a place to pull a u-turn and get back to the right direction. Similarly, if I'm too close to stop at a yellow, I don't slam on the breaks, I just keep up the pace and go through the yellow, etc.

You can drive at the appropriate speed and not be an unsafe unaware driver. In fact, most people probably speed not because they're aware of the speed they're doing but because they just put their foot to the pedal and find whatever speed "feels right." I mean honestly, probably less than 1% of cars in the city use cruise control. Which is why their speed is rolling up and down all over the place. I on the other hand, have no problem using cruise control on about 95% of my trip into work (in city driving, over about 12km). Not only do I save on gas, but my speed is predictable which in turn makes me a safe driver not only through my actions, but because any aware driver around me would be able to predict my speed and actions as well.

Again, this isn't about "can he pull it off". What if someone merged lanes inappropriately in front of him? Sure they'd be at fault, but at 140mph the accident will be a lot more fatal than it would at 65mph [or 55 whatever the limit may be].

Believe it or not, actually I don't give a shit if you believe it or not, speed limits aren't to impose the mans will on the little guy. They're actually there for a reason. Until you can admit that speed limits serve a purpose, you shouldn't be driving on the road.

That said, I too agree that in certain areas it's likely that a higher limit will be statistically indistinguishable in terms of safety as a lower limit. However, unless you change the limit or the law, that's not how to act. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, and in many cases it actually doesn't matter. Speeding in the city, for example, usually does not get you any further ahead than people who do the limit [I know, I catch up to them all the time on my trips to/from work]. So why bother wasting the fuel and wear on the car accelerating to stupid speeds just to slam on the brakes at the next red.

And on longer trips it rarely matters anyways. For example, to my brothers place is 494km. At the posted limits, it would take about 5h29m to get there. At 10 over [100kph] it would take 4h56m, and at 15 over it would all ttake 4h42m. Yet in reality, when I did the trip last at 105kph on cruise [where I could] it actually took about 5h20m anyways. Basically, at best, doing 10-15 over "makes up" for all the stop/go that happens around the cities where there are intersections. In reality, on that trip, you'd have to try and pull off like 120kph [30 over] to really make a dent in the ETA. At that speed, you're going way too fast [most sections are unlit, curvy, and through hills], and will get pulled over. So it's best to do the limit, or 10 over, and just take it easy.

This guy was doing way more than a mere 18mph over the limit, when you start hitting 70mph over the limit that's just excessive, insane, and very dangerous [despite what he might have said]. Sure the car could take it, but the roads can't.

Tom