
Originally Posted by
Chops
Personnaly, I would credit the toll with with a major speed decline.
I do a few miles up and down the Hume, and I think our truckies here will agree, people just dont seem to be going as fast as they did,, it even seems noticable in the last twelve months.
I've had my Defer now 2 years, but when I had the V8's, I'd set cruise 10-15klms higher than the speed limit, and it was nothing to have a heap of cars either doing similar, or trying to keep with you,, (I'm guessing they figured I'd get caught first, so they'd be safe,,).
These days, even in the Defer, rarely am I passed by other vehicles,,, and I'm sitting on the speed limit
,,
It just seems as if no one wants to go fast anymore. Wether its because of the cost of fines or they're becomming responsible,, who knows. But they're slower now, thats for sure.
When I was picked up the other week with the broken turbo hose, talking to the tow truck driver, he said that with all the safety gear in cars now a days, there are much fewer "compound" type injuries as compared with 20 years ago. So, in old times, people had massive skin breaking type injuries, whereas today, theres very few. This is due to all the airbags in vehicles now. This seems to do the job in low speed accidents, but in high speed,, the body just cant withstand the forces at work.
I agree with John about newer cars and going faster than one should because you do feel safer.
I came out of a Toy75 ute which at the time handled ok, and then went into the D1. The D1 handled so much better, and this made you feel safer and inadvertantly drive faster. The unfortunate thing about going faster, is that they dont really make "you, the driver" any better a driver. The corner just arrives quicker 
I also spend a bit of time on the Hume, it's quite amazing the difference in driver behavior before and after the Federal Hwy joins. I'd agree with the statement that they are driving slower but not that they are any safer. All that happens now is the idiots with the blue and white plates sit side by side at 107 Km/h and scowl at anyone who dares to come up behind them in the fast lane.
The speed traveled seems to vary with the time of day as well with the slower drivers being on the roads at the times that you would expect those for who a trip to Sydney is a major undertaking. We went to Woolongong on the weekend and the traffic was much better behaved and flowed more smoothly on the return journey on Saturday afternoon than it did on the way up on Saturday morning.
Regards,
Tote
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