PaulScott said:
I'm going to encourage you to reconsider your reticence to drive slower. It is perfectly legal in CA to drive 55.
AZ speed limit laws can be found here:http://www.nationaldriverschool.com/Traffic_School-Laws_Arizona.htm
The minimum speed on AZ freeways is regulated as: I. A person shall not drive a motor vehicle at a speed which is less than that which is reasonable and prudent under the existing circumstances. §28-701(E)
II. A person shall not drive a motor vehicle at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic. §28-704(A)
III. A person, driving at less than the normal speed of traffic, shall drive in the right-hand lane then available for traffic or as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway. §28-721(B)
So, driving 55 in the right hand lane is perfectly legal and very safe. I drive 57 because I happen to like prime numbers and it's a speed that gets me where I need to go in plenty of time. It's also very safe.
Thanks Paul, good to get your input.
If I still lived near the 5 and 405, I'd gladly hunker down at a safe distance behind a truck in the right lane at 55 or so.
In my fallible estimation on the 19, specfically near the exits by where I live , it is distinctly not entirely safe to drive 55 (the letter of the law is nice to have, but there is also the additional matter of what is safe, and judging the local/prevailing conditions). Often if I encounter someone doing that speed around here, it is a car with Mexican plates that may be reflecting any of a number of reasons for this, or a vehicle which is not quite able to travel the prevailing speed, such as going up a hill. As indicated, when I am doing 65 or 70 around here, as often as not, I am being passed.
All that said, I'll give 60-65 a try in some cases and in other cases will try an alternate route or in other cases where I do not anticipate range issues, I may maintain my usual 68-72 mph for an exit or two.
I'll try 55 to check my assumptions per your note, but have found it sufficiently unnerving to run across other drivers doing this speed that I suspect my practices will stand on this. It is hard to judge a 15 mph closing speed, especially taking into account that some drivers do sometimes do 80+ (meaning the delta is not 15 but 25+) and while we may want the law to ticket speeders, and they do (although they never seem to ticket those who follow too closely, which is also a violation of the law and something of a dream of mine that we'd start to see this part of the law enforced more consistently), this is a different discussion than figuring out the here-and-now of coexisting without overly tempting an accident.
