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(Warning – contains maths!)<\/p>\n(Warning – contains maths!)<\/p>\n
It seems ingrained in our human mentality. If you go faster, you get there more quickly, right? After all, we\u2019ve all seen this in childhood. When you walked to school, let\u2019s say it usually took you 15 minutes. I am possibly showing my age here with the assumption that you walked 15 minutes to school \u2013 although a 15-minute walk is pretty reasonable and there\u2019s no reason why kids these days (that\u2019s really showing my age) can\u2019t do it as well. Anyway, back to the topic. When you were a kid walking to school, if you realized that you\u2019d forgotten your homework and had to double back for it, you pretty soon found out that if you jogged or ran, you\u2019d still make it to the school gate before the bell rang.<\/p>\n
When we grew up and got cars, we applied the same logic. If we overslept the alarm or had some sort of household emergency before setting off to work, we believe that if we step on the accelerator a little bit harder, we\u2019ll make up for lost time. Or will we?<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll leave aside the issue that speeding is illegal and that you will get pinged for it if you get caught. Yes, that means you, even if you\u2019re going only a teeny weeny 10 km\/h over the legal limit. Let\u2019s do the maths instead.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say your commute takes about 30 minutes and you usually drive at 50 km\/h, which is the signed speed limit on the road you take. This means that, at least on paper, you\u2019re covering about 25 km. The equation is Distance (in km) \u00f7 Your Speed (in km\/h) = Travel Time (in hours). What happens if we plug your sneaky wee attempt at speeding into this equation, with the assumption that you\u2019re going to try driving to work at 60 km\/h to make up the time spent cleaning up after the cat had vomited in the middle of the living room? We\u2019ve got 25 \u00f7 60 = 0.416667. To turn 0.416667 hours into the equivalent in minutes, multiply it by 60 and you get (drum roll; the smart cookies reading this will have already clicked) 25 minutes. So what you\u2019ve saved \u2013 in theory \u2013 by speeding 10 km\/h faster is 5 minutes. Which isn\u2019t much.<\/p>\n
Of course, your average travel speed probably never was your target speed, whether that was 50 km\/h or 60 km\/h. We all know that in peak travel hours, you have to slow down at intersections, wait at Give Way signs, wait at pedestrian crossings for the kids who are walking to school and wait at traffic lights. This means that the amount of your journey spent actually going faster will only be a few minutes out of your commute, so you won\u2019t actually be saving 5 minutes at all. You\u2019ll be saving more like 1 or 2 minutes and you will end up being late for work \u2013 and you\u2019ll probably try blaming it on the traffic rather than that cat.<\/p>\n
However, while you\u2019ve been pressing down the accelerator in that attempt to get to work on time, you\u2019ve been revving your engine that little bit harder, and you\u2019ve probably had to brake harder. That extra bit of accelerator means more fuel consumption \u2013 or more drain on the battery, so those of you with EVs can wipe that smug smile off your faces because this applies across the board. That extra stress on the brake also means more wear and tear, so in the long run, although you may have saved a couple of minutes on your commute, you\u2019ll have put a bit more on your fuel bill and\/or your maintenance bill. You have to ask yourself if it\u2019s really worth it.<\/p>\n
So why did travelling faster work so well when you were a kid running to school instead of walking after forgetting your homework? And is there ever a time when going faster will actually get you there quicker.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with that first question. When you were a kid walking to school, you probably went there more or less non-stop, with maybe the odd pause if you had to cross the road. Walking speed varies by age and sex, but let\u2019s say that you could walk at about 3 km\/h. A child\u2019s maximum running speed at the age of 2 is about 9 km\/h but you were older than that if you were walking to school and you probably weren\u2019t running at your maximum, so we\u2019ll say that your running to school speed was about 6 km\/h. This is double your walking speed (a 100% increase), whereas increasing your driving speed from 50 km\/h to 60 km\/h is a 20% increase.<\/p>\n
Lastly, is there ever a time when going faster helps you make up lost time? The answer is probably yes, but only if (a) you\u2019re covering a long distance so small changes add up and (b) your route is free-flowing without need to stop or slow down for significant portions of the time. Think rural roads and well-designed motorways. Even then, your gain in time won\u2019t be all that much. Perhaps, on a rural road, you might be able to shave 5 minutes off what would have been a 20-min trip by travelling at an average speed of 100 km\/h rather than the average of 80 km\/h. Longer trips will get more savings in time but this may be off-set by increased fuel consumption \u2013 and it\u2019s up to you if you think this is worth it! http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/oformit-kredit-online.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Warning – contains maths!) It seems ingrained in our human mentality. If you go faster, you get there more quickly, right? After all, we\u2019ve all seen this in childhood. When you walked to school, let\u2019s say it usually took you 15 minutes. I am possibly showing my age here with the assumption that you walked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9975"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14813,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9975\/revisions\/14813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}