Post by ironhold on Dec 21, 2012 16:34:20 GMT
This one's confirmed in the fact that I've noted it myself; it's a matter of figuring out why.
For those who don't know, I presently deliver newspapers for a local press. This almost always means I'm out driving at night, with "driving during daylight hours" being rare exceptions due to the papers being either exceedingly early or exceedingly late.
Back when I was assigned to doing household deliveries, I often had my mother ride along with me to speed it all up (not only would she help me roll the papers, she could throw to the houses on the passenger's side). We would generally be the only ones out on the road at any given point in time aside from the odd police officer or courier from another paper. On any given night we would frequently see more stray animals than people.
Whenever we ran the route at night, mom would frequently get upset because she'd think I was speeding even though I was going the speed limit. But during the day, I could run the same stretch of road at the same speed and she wouldn't say anything.
I no longer work a regular route; instead, I help prep the newspapers that will be mailed out and then drop off individual bundles to select customers. I'm by myself now, but I still do most of my work at night. And yes, on occasion I'll stop to check my speedometer because it feels like I'm going at a fairly good clip; most of the time, I'm actually either at or just below the speed limit. In fact, just this morning I confirmed that I was doing only 25 in a 30 zone despite thinking I might have been going a little over.
So the question is - what could potentially account for the misperception of how fast I'm going?
I suspect that it's due to the night removing most of the usual reference points: I can't go off of the traffic because there usually isn't any, and I can't go off of the landmarks because the darkness helps to hide everything.
Thoughts?
Thanks.
For those who don't know, I presently deliver newspapers for a local press. This almost always means I'm out driving at night, with "driving during daylight hours" being rare exceptions due to the papers being either exceedingly early or exceedingly late.
Back when I was assigned to doing household deliveries, I often had my mother ride along with me to speed it all up (not only would she help me roll the papers, she could throw to the houses on the passenger's side). We would generally be the only ones out on the road at any given point in time aside from the odd police officer or courier from another paper. On any given night we would frequently see more stray animals than people.
Whenever we ran the route at night, mom would frequently get upset because she'd think I was speeding even though I was going the speed limit. But during the day, I could run the same stretch of road at the same speed and she wouldn't say anything.
I no longer work a regular route; instead, I help prep the newspapers that will be mailed out and then drop off individual bundles to select customers. I'm by myself now, but I still do most of my work at night. And yes, on occasion I'll stop to check my speedometer because it feels like I'm going at a fairly good clip; most of the time, I'm actually either at or just below the speed limit. In fact, just this morning I confirmed that I was doing only 25 in a 30 zone despite thinking I might have been going a little over.
So the question is - what could potentially account for the misperception of how fast I'm going?
I suspect that it's due to the night removing most of the usual reference points: I can't go off of the traffic because there usually isn't any, and I can't go off of the landmarks because the darkness helps to hide everything.
Thoughts?
Thanks.
