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From: marauder@fluke.UUCP (Bill Landsborough)
Newsgroups: net.cycle,net.auto.tech
Subject: The story about the 85 mph speedometers
Message-ID: <3007@vax4.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Jan-86 16:03:52 EST
Article-I.D.: vax4.3007
Posted: Thu Jan  9 16:03:52 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jan-86 07:34:07 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
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Xref: watmath net.cycle:1457 net.auto.tech:573

Back in the late seventies, Joan Clayworth of the National Highway and
Transportation Safety Department felt that too many young people were
riding their motorcycles very fast just so they could tell their
friends that they went "120 mph!!"  So she was the initiator of the
law which required all motorcycles and probably as a result, most
automobiles, to have 85 mph speedometers.

Well everything was going along as planned for several years until
1982 a man traveling at a high rate of speed (over 85) went into a
turn and went too wide and crashed off of the outside of the turn.  He
subsequently sued and won the suit agains the NHTSD for removing his
ability to properly judge his approach speed to the turn and therefore
cause him to crash.

That is why most motorcycles and high performance autos now have real
speedometers.

Bill Landsborough