I now understand the appeal of pickup trucks 3064

A road near my house is torn up (road destruction) and a miles-long stretch of it is potholed gravel now. I've followed 4X4 pickups through the potholed gravel section at anywhere from 2MPH (YES, 2MPH, not a typo) up to a maximum of about 20MPH. Meanwhile, if the road is empty, I drive my sporty suspension, low ground clearance mid-sized sedan through the same section at 50MPH. I know where the worst potholes are, and gravel is actually a lot smoother if you KEEP MOVING. (because the bumps average out so you don't feel every damn rock) This road is posted 55MPH, and there are no construction signs lowering that. (so 50MPH is LEGAL, if you want to go that fast) The other day, I came up behind a 4WD pickup, and it was again just crawling along at about 20MPH, bouncing roughly over every damned bump. I pbutted him like he was sitting still. He was pretty peeed that has manly-man truck couldn't hang with a family sedan in the rough stuff. But he obviously didn't know how to drive on gravel.

It's a mental block, I believe. People drive really slow on gravel and they have a REALLY ROUGH ride, specifically because they are driving so slow. So they naturally buttume that if they speed up, the ride will be even ROUGHER. To a point, that is true. But if you get your vehicle moving fast enough, it kind of skips across the tops of all the bumps, so that the ride is relatively smooth. Yes, this works for 4WD pickups, also. It's just that many drivers don't seem to know this. Either that, or they'd rather have a long, bumpy ride than a short, smoother one. :) -Dave