Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for September 30, 2015

My Maserati does 185I lost my license now I don’t drive

Beep beep,Beep beep,His car went beep beep beep.

Another mistery is how Pig still alive driving like that.

This little piggy went to market. VRRRRROOOOMMM!

Just because a speedometer goes up to a certain speed doesn’t mean you should try for that speed. My motorcycle read something like 110 to 130 MPH on the top end, never was interested to try that. And after trying to pass some jerk who decided to speed up as I was passing them never would have tried to redline the thing. My rear tire is almost even with his front bumper, two lane road and I’m in the passing lane with a car behind me also trying to pass this guy and a car coming around the bend ahead. This guy had been doing about 35 in a 55 zone when I started passing. So I gunned it. Ended up around 80 MPH and the bike felt like it wanted to consider shaking apart. 65-68 MPH was the max for me from then on.

It is an enigma, Pig. Maybe it is an advertising subliminal ploy, as though we all secretly wanted to speed at least that fast. I’ve never been over 50 mph on the way to the grocery (on a 40 mph limit road), though allegedly my car (the manufacturer claims) is capable of about 120 mph….

they say if you don’t use it you lose it….in this case however, i think if pig USES it he loses it..eternally..

Had the 883 up to 105 mph once…….both brain cells kicked in and said you know if a rabbit jumps in front of you or a deer you will be road-jerky ! So I shut it down…………….alas,speed kills………look at Paul Walker…..(RIP)

If I recall correctly, the speedometer on my old ‘63 VW hippie van went to a very optimistic 90 mph. On the level with no wind I chickened out at about 78 mph, but I could easily pass people with it @ 70 mph going up hills on the Interstate. Of course, I’d put a race-modified ‘71 engine in the thing, but people couldn’t see that…

I remember hearing that people like seeing the needle roughly vertical when travelling at highway speeds. So manufacturers put 70 at the 12 o’clock position and then mark the dial from there. No way that our Kia Soul is going to see 140 without going downhill and a stiff tailwind.

My stock Accord EXL V6 can actually do 155mph so the 160 speedo isn’t actually false. It isn’t very safe at that speed though. Aerodynamics are poor and the steering is twitchy.

Go on and write me up for one twenty fivePost my face, wanted dead or aliveTake my license, all that jiveI can’t drive fifty five.

I don’t know how many times people have to be reminded that speed doesn’t kill….yada, yada, yada

I heard over a hundred.

Friends, I was an EMT with a rescue squad for years. I am here to tell you speed kills, maims and cripples.Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

“Wound it up to a hundred and tenMy speedometer said that I hit top endMy foot was glued like lead to the floorThat’s all there is and there ain’t no moreThe boys all thought that I’d lost my senseAnd telephone poles looked like a picket fenceThey said ‘Slow down, I see spotsThe lines on the road just look like dots’”

Are there any roads that allow drivers to go 160mph? If not why design the vehicles to go that fast?

I’ve got a Honda Fit with a speedometer that goes up to 160 too. Or is it 140? Can’t remember… Anyway, the only way that car would ever reach close to that speed would be if I drove it off a cliff… Terminal velocity is what, 125??

There are driving clubs where you can take your road car out onto a race track. My Honda SI could hit 140 on Daytona’s highbanks…

And Pig asks the important questions in life.

My Toyota loves 83mph, just cruises, but rarely allow it to have its way. Have had it over 100 once just to see what that was like. Many foreign cars have “limitors” put in them to prevent topping them out, especially in the US.

world’s greatest mysteries…..can they explain why a gearhead with a souped up honda civic will peel out of the parking lot, reved up their engine at 530 am every morning, but go the speed limit on the street? or, can they explain why a woman will need 50 pairs of black shoes? or, how some people at work will not do any work all day, but always complains of they are stressed, hurried, and tired?

There was an actual law passed in 1979 prohibiting speedometers from having readings over 85 mph. It was repealed 2 years later.

I have a Honda Civic, 2008. Nice car but the digital clock always has stayed 20 minutes fast . I stopped resetting it years ago because when ever I did, it would work itself up to 20 minutes fast over a couple of days. Weird.

70 Barracuda…. only car that ever earned me a 100 mph ticket. Only cost $50, but in the early 70s that was real money.

Careful, Pig, or you won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve.

“and he sideswiped 19 neat parked cars, clipped off 13 telephone poles,hit 2 houses, bruised 8 trees, and blue crossed 7 people. it was then he lost his head, not to mention an arm or two before he stopped.” harry chapin 30,000 pounds of bananas

Well, they often call me Speedo but my real name is Mr. Earl.But I never wore a speedo.

Out in the mojave desert in california, i once took an infiniti QX4 up to 105, then the governor kicked in. I’ve since learned that there’s way to disable the governor, but I’ve wisely decided that I like myself with all my inside bits staying inside.

The reason the speedo goes up to 160? Same reason it goes to 85 in a Pinto…

You think?

xxx

Boy, Stephan, the way to get lots of comments is to get the guys talking about speed and their vehicles. I could put in a bit about our Ford Fairlane’s takeoff powers, but won’t.What I was going to say was, I don’t want to beat a dead horse (don’t particularly like that expression, anyway), but yesterday saw a briefish article about Stephan Sunday program in the Sunday Tampa Bay Times ( formerly St. PIetersburg Times):

http://www.tampabay.com/things-to-do/events/stephan-pastis-will-talk-pearls-before-swine-at-palladium-in-st-petersburg/2246742

“Speed kills”. Not exactly. Like jumping off a building, the problem is the sudden stop. Or as the guy said as he passed the fifth floor, “So far, so good.”

My first car was an Impala 73, had been my grandpa´s car and my grandma sold it to my dad in 1985. It was like driving a boat but it sure could run. In a long stretch it could get to the 200 km/h mark and then more.

1956 Studebaker Hawk, 160 mph speedometer, 289c.i. Bored to 306 c.i., I-271 just opened east of Cleveland, 11 PM, turned 126 mph, 3 suburb’s police cars finally caught up when I pulled over, officers asked to see under hood, cost me 3 cartons of cigarettes and a fifth of liquor to get the ticket fixed, good days!

lol

Whose clever idea is it to allow cars to go at 150+ miles per hour anyway? When are you ever allowed to go that fast?