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From: Adrian C on 17 Jul 2010 18:12
Glaring at my speedometer today I see it's marked 20/40/60/80 with 80mph
displayed at the twelve o'clock position.

After some daydreaming about this amazing revelation (whilst me doing 80
in lane 3 of the motorway and getting hooted out of the way by a police
car on acid blues and twos) I reasoned possibly the reason I'm speeding
at 80mph is that at a glance my speedo display looks symmetrical and
therefore my speed must be correct.

Then waking up (after now noticing the plod and relieved that they were
not chasing me) and slowing nicely down to 70, I see it's a slight
tiresome strain to see the smaller marking midway between 60 & 80 and
strive to keep the needle there.

Why don't they number the silly thing at 70mph and put that one central.
I'm kind of sure I'd then subconsciously actually do 70 if my conscious
mind is tied up with something else?

--
Adrian C

From: Mortimer on 17 Jul 2010 18:42
"Adrian C" <email(a)here.invalid> wrote in message
news:8aeo6vFg4nU1(a)mid.individual.net...
> Glaring at my speedometer today I see it's marked 20/40/60/80 with 80mph
> displayed at the twelve o'clock position.
>
> After some daydreaming about this amazing revelation (whilst me doing 80
> in lane 3 of the motorway and getting hooted out of the way by a police
> car on acid blues and twos) I reasoned possibly the reason I'm speeding at
> 80mph is that at a glance my speedo display looks symmetrical and
> therefore my speed must be correct.

If you had a *really* fast car which had a speedometer that was calibrated
up to 200 mph (!) than the 100 mark would probably be at the 12 o'clock
position. That doesn't mean that this is the correct speed for driving on a
motorway, just because it's the position at which the speedo display is
symmetrical!

I suppose in an ideal world, speedos for British cars would have special
marks at 30, 60 and 70 since these are the most common speed limits, with
other marks at 40 and 50; those for sale in the US would probably have them
at 15, 25, 35 etc as US speed limits often seem to be (n*10)+5.

I've forgotten what my speedo shows, but my present one shows one set of
numbers (maybe even multiples of 20) and my older car showed the other set
(maybe odd multiples of 10).

I've always wondered why speedos are numbered so far beyond the maximum
speed of the car - even the fastest model. If they were numbered only
slightly beyond the car's maximum speed, that may space the divisions out
far enough that there's room for 10, 30 and 50 as well as 20, 40 and 60 etc
on the dial.

From: Brimstone on 18 Jul 2010 03:17

"Mortimer" <me(a)privacy.net> wrote in message
news:OIidnd95-Z9rrN_RnZ2dnUVZ8rmdnZ2d(a)brightview.co.uk...

> I've always wondered why speedos are numbered so far beyond the maximum
> speed of the car - even the fastest model.

To give a prospective purchaser hope, perhaps.



From: bod on 18 Jul 2010 03:31
Brimstone wrote:
>
> "Mortimer" <me(a)privacy.net> wrote in message
> news:OIidnd95-Z9rrN_RnZ2dnUVZ8rmdnZ2d(a)brightview.co.uk...
>
>> I've always wondered why speedos are numbered so far beyond the
>> maximum speed of the car - even the fastest model.
>
> To give a prospective purchaser hope, perhaps.
>
>
>
It's useful for some, especially the car enthusiasts that chip or
convert their cars to go faster.

Bod
From: Scott M on 18 Jul 2010 09:17
Mortimer wrote:

> I've always wondered why speedos are numbered so far beyond the maximum
> speed of the car - even the fastest model.

Conversely in America I've seen one that just went up to 80mph or so
even though it had a 3.8l engine (a Mercury something or other.) Looked
most odd to see the needle so far round the dial at 70-ish.

--
Scott

Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
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