[seamus]

Originally Posted by badhonda

The problem ofcourse is that you weren't a cop yourself so that when you opened your wallet and flashed your badge it all would have became a laughing matter. No ticket, no school, just be on your merry way. Oh I'm sorry all cops are honest decent law abinding citizens who never speed themselfs.
Just give me the autobahn in Germany back in sixty's. No speed limit, but yes you would get ticketed for reckless driving.

There's still large portions of the autobahn with no speed limit. 130km recommended but tell that to the Audis.

[allred]

Originally Posted by seamus

There's still large portions of the autobahn with no speed limit. 130km recommended but tell that to the Audis.

I grew up in the UK and back then there were no speed limits on open roads (there were speed limits for residential areas).....of course the average vehicles of that era couldn't go much faster than 70mph anyway, just your "exotics" like Jags, Astons, etc. Even bikes like the pre-unit Triumphs, BSA's and Nortons were near their max when they tried to "do the ton" (100mph), and it was rare bikes like the Vincent Black Shadow that could exceed 120mph. And of course there was a lot less traffic then. The 70mph speed limit was introduced in the UK in 1967, but it was not a popular law, and there was not much enforcement by the police. The police had to follow you for 1/3 of a mile at the excessive speed in order to ticket you, so all you had to do was slow down when you saw a cop in order not to get a ticket, (Radar guns were few and far between and used primarily to catch people exceeding the 30mph limits in residential areas) and fines were minor for offenders who were ticketed. Vehicles got faster, production motorcycles became capable of 120mph + and even ordinary cars could easily do 100mph. As a teenagers on motorcycles we never had to bother much about getting a speeding ticket, we just went as fast as we wanted. A 50 mph limit was introduced during the gas crisis in 73 in the UK, but was lifted in 1974. A 55mph speed limit was introduced in the US during the same crisis, and it stayed for over 30 years!!!!!!! Needless to say when I came to the US I got several tickets in quick succession. Nowadays vehicles are capable of much higher speeds, are build to be much safer and handle much better than anything made in the 50s or 60s, and yet there is almost paranoidal concentration on speeding prosecutions. I'm not sure if this is because it is a great revenue source, or if it is just one of the many "government control of the people" things that are so previlant today. With the capability of todays vehicles and the improvements in todays roads, some of the speed limits seem ridiculous. I guess we have to have some sort of limits, maybe there would be mayem on the roads if we didn't, I'm not sure. I don't think many people want to fly around at 140mph, or even 120mph, maybe not even 100mph most of the time.........90mph sounds like a good speed limit on freeways to me. And they should allow us a 10% leeway on that too!!!