When Is Speeding Worth It?

You’re late – for work, picking up the kids, your wedding (may as well call it quits now!), whatever.

Sure, you could have got out of bed earlier. But that’s not how men solve their problems, is it? Or else we wouldn’t have invented V8 engines.

Now, I won’t endorse actual speeding, but it does bring up an interesting theoretical question: how fast did you have to go to make up for lost time? To find out, you’ll need to know two things: your general distance to the finish line – I mean, your destination – and how many minutes you need to make up along the way.

Then harness the classic linear relationship between speed, time and total distance to determine the right kilometres per hour. So the closer you are to your destination, the faster you’ll have to go to make up time. And let’s assume you’ll do this in a place without a lot of traffic lights: try society’s main drag strip, the freeway.

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Even then, it might be better to pump the brakes. Unless you’re willing to be truly reckless and clock 40km/h above the speed limit, most short trips aren’t going to be worth the effort (or the risk). Here’s why: on a 40k trip when you’d normally do 105km/h, you’d have to drive an average of 137km/h to make up just five minutes.

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But for longer trips, even a slight amount of pedal to metal pays off. Let’s say you live in Sydney and want to take the family to Perth. Exceeding a cruising speed of 105km/h by just 8km/h can save more than two-and-a-half hours over those 3936km.

When you’re closer to home, though, remember that making up for lost time becomes increasingly difficult and dangerous. If you fall behind by 10 minutes, your need for speed ramps up: now you’ll have to clock 187km/h to make that meeting. Hope you drive a Bugatti.