Huh? Do you have calibration data on any and every speedometer ever produced?
I was basing on what the specs of top end was, which is why I stated I was guessing. I was somewhere around 120 to 125 on the speedometer. It is a little tough to know accurately by looking what the needle was at on a standard type bike at that speed.. It was about all she had though.
I have no evidence, but it's "only" 180 km/h. That's when my car hits RPM limiter in fourth gear. It will go faster with the new 5-speed box.
Tho because of this reply don't grow a image of me being a stupid boy racer or something. Usually I respect the speed limit better than my mom. It's the rare short stints and overtaking moments when I go "too" fast.
2 mile runways may not be long enough. Corvette Z06 on 3 mile runway, runs out of room and has to slow at around 190 mph. 190 to 198 mph (the Z06's top speed) would probably take another mile.
I found myself accidentally doing 105mph, years ago going down a big hill (down which you could see a good mile in front of you, don't worry ) in my mum's Orion. It really was *accidental*, I felt like I was only doing 70 or so until I looked at the speedo.
EDIT: Speaking of going fast on a bicycle, when I was about 14, by mate's bike got stolen. It showed up back in his garden about a week later, still with it's electronic speedometer, which had recorded a top speed of *85mph* sometime since it disappeared.
For one thing, most traffic on the autobahn is running around 200 kph or 124 mph, so less speed differential. The lanes are wider. There are also rules, the "slower" cars need to stay on the right, and getting rear-ended in the left lane will often be considered the slower drivers fault (unless the speed differntial was so high that the slower driver couldn't see the approaching car in time). There a courtesy rule about using turn signals when the slower cars do go into the left lane when passing slower still cars as a warning to any fast approaching cars. Short of a track, the autobahn is probably the safest place to go 300+ kph (186+ mph).
In Germany, you could also pay to run a few laps at the Norsdschleife, which has a couple of very high speed sections.
I live in California, although the speed limit is 70mph, there are a few highways, like the 5, in the isolated areas between San Franciso and Los Angeles where traffic speeds range from 80mph to 90mph, with occasional cars going 100mph.
Due to aerodynamics, many cars start getting "loose" from lift at speeds between 155 mph to 185 mph, depending on the car. A few are safe at 200 mph (if souped up), but this is a very small percentage of cars. Motorcycles don't suffer from this issue and bikes with modifed engines but stock body work have gone 235 mph without issues. Example of souped up RX7 at Bonneville, lifts the rear end, starts spinning then goes airborne (driver was ok).
Road rallying is about driving down rural roads fast. They're relatively safe, obviously the roads are by nature slow with a target speed of only 30mph being very difficult to keep up with (assuming you get lost). That's not to say that crashes aren't a common occurrence, just that the typical off in a road rally amounts to little more than panel damage and a tow out of a ditch. The speeds on well chosen properly rural roads are sufficiently low that when it all goes wrong you can normally loose most of the speed before you run out of the black stuff. Well chosen routes will be such that triple figures are not possible and running at night has several advantages, firstly there is almost no traffic or pedestrians about, secondly oncoming vehicles can be seen from a much further distance and thirdly when you can't see a lot on a road you don't know your never going to drive as fast.
Far more dangerous is the thrash down a somewhat wider, faster road you know very well in the middle of the day.
You have amazing roads in Nevada and Death Valley that are just straight until the horizon with absolutely nothing along them, truly mind blowing and I think one can really drive as fast as they like down such roads without endangering anybody but themselves.
No car should suffer from high speed aerodynamic instability unless they have either had huge design flaws (late 90s GT1 cars and current prototypes) or are operating well outside their design limits without any proper care and consideration being made to the effect (that RX7, the AC Cobra, lots of tuned American stuff...). A standard production car in good condition should remain safe and stable to its designed maximum speed with a significant safety margin.
You only quoted half of the statement. I did state that you wouldn't have a clue as to what road it was. So, what you are saying is that driving at an extreme rate of speed with other traffic also driving at high rates of speed is much safer than drivng at extreme rates of speed with absolutely no traffic? It would be much safer to drive down a local road near me at 200 mph with 0 traffic than it would be to drive down the autobahn at 100 mph + with other traffic at 100 mph +.
I can't get his exif data on the laptop I'm using, nor usually from attached images but do search for what shutterspeed is with a camera. Just because trees are captured frozen in the frame without movement, it doesn't mean that the camera was sitting in the car stationary.
"most traffic is running around 200kph"
The Autobahn is actually a great place to show societies two-class-system:
There are people that run 200+kph, and there are people who have to pay for fuel themselves.
From my observation and personal experience most people drive somewhere between 100 and 160kph.
"the lanes are wider"
thats actually the only correct fact
"slower cars need to stay on right"
...if the right lanes is free, but even then the faster drivers have to go there too
"and getting rear-ended in the left lane will often be considered the slower drivers fault"
BULLSHIT
it will only be slower drivers fault if he pulled out right in front of the faster guy
"There a courtesy rule about using turn signals"
definitely not a courtesy rule but rather law
This is why many high powered sedans are speed limited to 250kph (155 mph), even though they have enough power to go much faster. The Corvette Z06 is speed limited to 330 kph (205 mph), just in case someone soups up the engine. The first year Audi TT is an example of a car with a design flaw that caused the rear end to lift and the car to spin at high speeds in turns, with a few incidents on the autobahn (the next year model added a rear spoiler and adjusted the suspension for understeer).
The fastest I went on a motorcycle was about 90 mph (145 km/h) about 45% more than the limit with my father on his BMW 650GS bike. I think my father went 100 mph (160 km/h) in a 1999 Pontiac Montana van, it has been a very long time since.. I forget exactly...
I was just going by what I heard from a couple of ex co-workers who immigrated to the USA from Germany. Perhaps the co-workers were from an urban area where there was a higher percentage of faster cars?
The co-workers stated it was illegal to pass on the right on the Autobahn.
Yes, but in the USA it's almost always the faster drivers fault, even if the slower driver pulled out right in front of the faster driver because there isn't supposed to be that kind of speed differential on the highways here in the USA.
I meant using a turn signal to indicate that a car is slower. If I remember correctly, using the left turn signal while in the left turn lane as a warning that it was a slower car. I've seen this in a few videos of the autobahn and the co-workers stated it was a courtesy and common practice, but not a law.
Although a driver may not know the road, knowing that the road is designed to be safe at 300kph (186 mph) is information enough. If going 300 kph while in gaps between traffic, and slowing to 200 kph as the car gets close to traffic, it's safer because the drivers in the other cars are expecting to see cars traveling at 200 kph.
As far as sparse traffic goes, having a fast car well in front of me lets me know I can safely follow at the same speed as long as I maintain the relatively large distance so I can slow as soon as I see the other car slow, assuming that I'm not following a Porche while driving a truck that can't corner well.
but its also illegal to drive on the left when the right lane is free
ie you have to weave left and right when theres lorries in the right lane with enough distance between them to drive on the right
doesnt happen
the only thing good drivers usually do is indicate left to show drivers entering the autobahn that theyll stay left