Indeed. And, "I'm sorry, officer, this is a rental car and I'm just not used to it," works surprisingly well.

I had a Ford Ranger pickup from Budget a few years back that was limited to exactly 100MPH. Even on a steep downhill it always lost power at EXACTLY 100MPH. Just last week though I got a brand new AVIS KIA Rio up to 107MPH on a downhill and I think it would have gone faster but I let off because I felt I was perhaps driving a wee bit to fast.

I'm 0 for 2 trying that......

David

I don't know about that one, but if you rent a Toyota, you could blame unintended acceleration. "Sorry officer, it took off like a bat out of h***, it wouldn't slow down until I shut if off".

Having owned a Ranger going over 90 is just begging for trouble. That being said, Ford has a speed limiter set at 98 so if you hit 100 it would force a throttle down.

I had a Taurus this weekend. Probably should've tried to find the key with the limiter, it cruised at 75 with out trouble, and no wheezing when I needed it to go faster. And I still got 28 mpg!

I'm 0/1 with a similar approach. However, I did get out of a ticket last weekend when I burned out with an SS at 2AM with the top down. As I approached the last corner near my temp apartment, I decided lay on the gas as I started the turn. Little did I know there was an officer just ahead of me that was stopped waiting for a green light. I parallel parked and he backed up to "pull me over." After he (and 2 other of NC's finest) were thoroughly convinced I wasn't drunk (I could touch my nose and walk a line without issue) and I didn't have anything illegal (they searched every cranny of that car), we joked about my boneheaded move and they went on their way.

Yeah, the Ford's I've tested were limited between 107-110.


I've only been going around town so far, but I'm only getting 21 MPG with the Taurus I picked up today.

The Taurus is key-less and only has 1 key on the remote (tomorrow, I'll see if there's another in the trunk). I wonder what the car does if it has a MyKey and you have both in the console.

I'm also 0 for 2 for trying this.

The last officer said, "you dont have to be used to it. There's this great indicator located about 2 feet from your eyes that shows your speed all the time. Just you have to look"

There are jurisdictions, including the entire state of California, which have laws requiring drivers to keep pace with other traffic, and you cannot be ticketed for driving over the speed limit if other traffic was flowing at 15 or 20 miles over posted, and you were matching them. So yes, there is a legal justification for driving over the speed limit.

Also, IIR, Montana removed all speed limits for their very rural highways, briefly a few years back, before the HTSA threatened to withdraw highway funds to Montana if they did not impose a speed limit. So, Montana imposed a speed limit for those highways, but I think that it is still 100 MPH in some places in Montana. Didn't Texas set very high speed limits in some areas a few years back also?

+1, Most of the time I have had 2-3 keys, plus fob, or on the keyless ignitions, have had as many as three fobs!

This is true in many areas of the country, including both the Baltimore Beltway and the Washington, DC beltway.

ROFLMAO!! Hilarious! (Fortunately, as a CC member, I have never had the "pleasure" of renting a Chevy Cobalt!)

I'd like to confirm this with a lawyer or CHP officer before using this as a defense on my next CA speeding ticket , but if so, this is AWESOME. Never heard about this despite growing up in CA, but it makes total sense there!

Close, but not quite:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_l...States#Montana
http://www.us-highways.com/montana/mtspeed.htm
http://www.doj.mt.gov/driving/drivin...sp#speedlimits
http://www.city-data.com/forum/monta...t-montana.html

As for Texas, they have some stretches of rural Interstates set at 80:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_l..._80_mph_limits

Thank you for that information and those links Jackal. Now I know where I remembered the high speeds in Montana from!

"Montana technically had no speed limit whatsoever until June 1999, after the Montana legislature met in regular session and enacted a new law. The law's practical effect was to require numeric speed limits on all roads and disallow any speed limit higher than 75 mph (121 km/h)."

(It was too much to copy and paste, but the above quote refers to a period in 1996 through June 1999 when Montana technically had no speed limit. The additional information is in the same article that the quote came from.)

Well, I wouldn't be sure if it's quite as simple as that. First of all, it may depend on how many other cars there are, where you are in relationship to them (I doubt if it works if you're the car leading the speeders!), road conditions, whether it's a construction zone, and perhaps also whether speeding would the only reason for stopping you.

I hadn't heard the above, but I've heard that in some cases (but hadn't heard what cases) the CHP doesn't stop people for only speeding. But watch out if you're speeding and you have a tail light out, or whatever, I guess!

To anyone who thinks there is any kind of technicality in California where you can talk your way out of a speeding ticket or won't be pulled over by the CHP for speeding due to one reason or another, I hate to disappoint you, but the State of California is broke due to squandering all it's tax money, thus they have lately became far more concerned about "public safety" and currently have the CHP handing out speeding tickets much more aggressively than they have in the past. I believe you will find your, "I was just going with the flow of traffic defence" just about as effective as the "I'm not used to this rental car" defence.

This is from the City of Pasadena's website, but I know there are others, Pasadena was just the first site I found:

"Driving Too Slow

You must not drive so slowly that you are a danger on the road, or interfere with the normal or reasonable flow of traffic. You may be cited for driving too slow just as you can be cited for driving too fast.

There are occasionally drivers attempting to obey the posted speed limit who may actually decrease safety by causing other drivers to make additional lane changes in order to get around slow traffic and/ or tailgate to try to speed up the traffic head. In these cases, the driver moving too slowly may cause harm to other motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists because traffic flowing at uniform speeds results in increased safety and fewer accidents."

There may be city police departments ins CA that have varying policies. But I can assure you you will not find that on CHP's web site and it will not hold up in court. Having completed traffic school a number of times over the years I am practically college educated on the subject.

Here's from the CA DMV drivers manual.

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/hdbk/spee...tm#speedlimits

"California has a "Basic Speed Law." This law means that you may never drive faster than is safe for current conditions. For example, if you are driving 45 mph in a 55 mph speed zone during a dense fog, you could be cited for driving "too fast for conditions." You may never legally drive faster than the posted speed limit, even if you think it is safe."

Actual Vehicle code is here.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/wa...ction=retrieve

Anecdotally, I'm personally seeing WAY more people getting pulled over by CHP lately. California is still a walk in the park compared to some other states with speed traps around every corner but CHP is definitely stepping up enforcement concurrent with the States ongoing budget crisis (which I am sure is just a coincidence)

A friend's cousin is a CHP officer. His exact words were, "We won't pull you over for driving fast. We will pull you over for weaving back and forth to drive faster than traffic."

That was a few years ago, though...