Monday, October 25, 2010
I Can't Drive 55...
When we (Ayson and I) arrived home from a brief Target & HEB shopping trip, A.J. met our car in the driveway and walked to Ayson's side of the car to get him out of his car seat. Before the door was even fully opened, Ayson exclaimed to A.J., " Mommy got a ticket!" I think I must have the two biggest tattle tale boys around! :) It was about a year and a half ago that Alex, making a beeline for A.J.'s office door, shouted eagerly, "Mommy ran in to a mailbox!" Fortunately on both accounts I called A.J. in advance to give him warning regarding my car-related issues. He was very sweet about the whole thing, meanwhile I'm trying not to let it ruin my day too much. What's the big deal? For one thing, I've never ever had a speeding ticket. I really wasn't even aware that I was going more than five miles over the speed limit. Seriously. I was hoping and praying the officer would show a little mercy and grace on me, or that my squeaky clean traffic record would afford me some lenience, but he wasn't in a very giving mood I guess. At least he was nice! And at least I made my three year old's day - he thought the whole thing was pretty fabulous! Sigh. I see a defensive driving class in my not too distant future!
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2 comments:
Dear Tom and Ray:
It occurred to me the other day that as a car is driven and the tires wear down, each tire's circumference decreases. Since the speedometer measures speed through the revolutions of the drive shaft or something, and then converts that to miles per hour, isn't it based on an assumption that your tires have a certain circumference? And as the tire wears and the circumference decreases, won't the actual speed and the speed displayed on the speedometer eventually be different? My question is, How much does tread wear affect the speedometer reading? Is it significant? And can I use this argument to get out of a speeding ticket? Thanks. -- Todd
TOM: I was wondering where you were going with that question, Todd. Now I've got it.
RAY: We'll do the math for you. Let's say a typical new tire is 25 inches in diameter. And let's say there's half an inch of tread all the way around the outside. Therefore, when the tire goes from new to old, you'd lose an inch of diameter (half an inch on either side). So, in our scenario, a typical bald tire is 24 inches in diameter.
TOM: We know that the circumference of a circle is directly proportional to its diameter. So we can conclude that when you go from 25 to 24 inches in diameter, the change in the speedometer reading is 4 percent.
RAY: So the difference between a brand-new tire and a baldie changes your speedometer reading by less than 3 mph when you're going 65.
TOM: That's probably not enough to change a speeding ticket, Todd. Besides, it goes in the WRONG direction. As your tires shrink in size, the car is actually going slower than the speedometer reads, not faster. So while your speedometer read 80, your ticket only cited you for going 77. But you already knew that.
RAY: But you can try using the argument in traffic court anyway, Todd. Maybe you can flimflam them with the math. Just be careful they don't throw out your speeding ticket only to give you a citation for bald tires!
:) LOL Mom & Dad
Aunt Toby...you are funny! Erika...my new GPS keeps track of my speed and it's actually a few MPH higher than my speedometer...who knew!
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