You’re older. You just want something big and comfortable to drive down to brunch. Let’s say you live in Palm Springs. What should you drive? Why, an old Cadillac of course. That’s what these two ladies are using to head off for a day of being fabulous as hell.
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Not just any old Cadillac either!
Dottie and Peggy retired in 2008, moved from Palm Desert to Palm Springs and haven’t been able to find a parking spot yet.
Awesome photo, and also right in front of an Apple shop…parade skillz 11/10.
I talked with a friend yesterday about a minor minor thing I wonder anyone else here has any opinion on: Average speeds. Over the last couple of years, in everyday driving, I end up between 55-65 kph (35-40 mph). He considered that quite a lot, while I think the opposite. We live in a rural setting, so I am always stunned how just a bit of village or city driving pulls down those numbers…
I remember the good old days of the Irish rural speed limit being 60mph/100kph. When speed limits were converted to metric, they dropped to 80kph and the people who used to do 10mph under the limit now do 10kph under, and still brake for corners like an obstacle has appeared on the road. The problem is of course, any road that’s not a “main” route is automatically “rural” regardless of the standard of road, from a cattle track with grass growing in the middle to a modern two lane blacktop with no variation for the entire stretch to account for junctions etc. It leads to the 70kph everywhere people, who drive too slow on safe roads, but then plough through villages like a wrecking ball of Padre Pio stickered Nissan Micra.
I think speed limits on rural roads are counterproductive, and really people are dumbed down to the fact that you constantantly need to vary speed and use a lot of anticipation and never develop the required skills. Back in the day the ability to “make progress” safely was seen as the mark of a competant driver, but now it’s just a finger wagging “speed is baaad, mmmkaaaaay” even though you know full well that the stretch of road you’re on can be safely traversed at 140kmh in ropey Peugeot 205 GTi… ahem… allegedly….
Ha!, yes, I understand what you are talking about…we live very close to a major road that also has “black road standard” in winter, meaning people should expect it to be cleared of snow and ice free. Lots of crashes – all the time – despite the respective agency taking a bunch of measures. This winter, the new thing is: “We will salt less”, trying to nudge people into driving more carefully.
On the opposite site of the fjord, a much more difficult road. Lots of corners, bad vision, generally low speed. But not one speed sign in sight. People adjust, they have to adapt to the way the road is build. I think though that this is lost on more modern roads, despite those people who insist on driving 70/80/90 kph no matter the conditions, you will need a guideline of sorts. Modern road design demands create pretty good roads, that can tolerate way higher speeds than most people would be comfortable with.
Aye, a guideline, but the problem is the emphasis on speed and enforcement. It creates this culture of, if I’m under the general speed limit (while having a weird dual standard when it comes to town/village limits), I’m safe, so even if the peaks of speed I got are higher, a lot of these folks are at more innapropriate speeds more of the time, when it actually matters.
Pointing the finger at speeding often takes focus from inherently bad road design too, like changing radius corners of a particularly Irish problem – too many one off rural houses allowed to have entrances with direct entrance access to the road.
That last issue is hard to work with, I guess? Might even be a protected cultural heritage thing?
How do you reach the “cruise control crowd”? Around here, speed limits are reduced from 80 to 60 kph when you get to a village. A lot of people will drive their 65-70-ish kph straight through that, too, as you say. If neither logic nor law catch on – enforcement included, as the police sits at the exact same spots all the time – I am quite baffled as to how to fix that.
Nah, a lot of these houses are relatively recent one off generic bungalows, it’s just bad planning law that has more down to who your Dad played GAA with than actual planning in the true sense, too much sprawl for such a tiny population.
Just made my first trip to Ireland a month ago- I loved the rural roads! The same 80kph roads there would be 35mph, maybe 40 at best here in the US. They may be slower than they used to be, but they’re still a lot quicker than they are here.
I guess that’s true, don’t know how good we have it in some ways, always gobsmacked at how low US speed limits can be for a mild curve in the road, and certainly the further west you go, the more likely you are to find more isolated stretches of windy rally stage worthy tarmac with eh.. relaxed enforcement. The only downside being uneven cambers/poor surfacing on some roads.
I guess some of my mild frustration stems from the way there used to be a little more “headroom” in streching the cars legs and overtaking slow people. The populations increased a fair bit over the last 10-15 years too without suitable planning, so more unneccesary sprawl of housing before you get to truly clear roads, made more noticeable by the fact that I used to live in a much more rural location, where I could be out for a decent hoon on empty roads in 5 minutes of driving, but living in Dublin means things are a bit more crowded and even the nearby rural routes can be busy with cyclists and people slowing down to point at cows and stuff so you can forget Sunday mornings and stick to late night “touge runs”, which is has always been the best time anyway. The “catholic guilt motoring” brigade are in bed, the lycra warriors are off the road, probably arguing about cadence and gearsets on forums or something. *eurobeat intensifies*.
The compensation for being less rural is being near our only real road course for track days.
Still – yeah, I guess it’s still much easier to find some roads for an impromptu hoon here than a lot of places.
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