Speed limits reflect the 85th not hardly 4295

If you're talking about the driver *behind* you, then perhaps that's true to a certain extent. But that's simply an indicator of a speed-driven-road bully MFFY driver in the vast majority of cases, since this tailgating behavior often isn't limited to just the #1 lane.

However, if you're talking about *you* not being able to keep a two second following distance, it's all a matter of patience and speed control, I guess. It might be a bit harder in a manual transmission, where downshifting might be an inconvenience as speed decreases, but in an automatic transmisson it's effortless.

For me, it's generally easy enough that I even maintain a three second following distance in most non-bumper to bumper traffic. I can easily maintain a three second following distance in any lane, just by letting off the accelerator pedal as necessary to increase the following distance if someone gets in front of me and gives less than a two second following distance. If I need to slow down a bit more without braking, I just hit the overdrive-off button and drop instantly down to third gear. If I am cut off suddenly, of course, then I do have to use the brakes, but that's a given, since the driver cutting me off is creating a dangerous situation from the start by cutting me off. And if traffic slows down more than just a couple of mph, again, braking is a necessity.

Also, when I am tailgated, that often increases to a five or six second following distance from the car in front of me to allow for more gradual and delayed braking to compensate for the tailgater. If I'm not in the #1 lane, then they often end up pbutting, only to tailgate the next driver in a series of cars in the leftmost lane regardless of the obvious fact that those cars are *actually pbutting slower traffic*.

Finally, my observations over the last couple of weeks is that the majority of traffic is around 75mph during my commutes outside of the morning and evening "rush hour", except for the speeders in the left lane doing 90+ in a rather reckless manner. So, while a speed limit of 75mph might reflect the true 85th percentile, I personally think it's a good idea to leave it at 65mph so that the upper bound speed violations don't start to exceed 100mph. As it is, it appears that most of the CHP is even ignoring violators travelling at 80mph; however, it would be a serious error to post the speed limit at 80mph because then the upper bound speed violations would be even higher (120mph, for example).

But, the 85th percentile speed--whatever it may be for a given stretch of road--still becomes moot for the persistent speeder. They'll still want to go faster. So essentially, it is clear that any posted speed limit might still be considered underposted, because the persistent speeder simply must drive as fast as their vehicle will allow at all times. By extension, all traffic that the persistent speeder encounters--regardless of how slow or fast it may be travelling--will always be in the persistent speeder's way.

Others, of course, may vary.