Posted on 03/02/2006 7:29:00 PM PST by Turbopilot
They knew it was dangerous.
"We could have really been hurt," said one of the Atlanta college students after their experiment.
It won't win an Oscar, but 'A Meditation on the Speed Limit,' a short film that was the brainchild of college student Andy Medlin, is quite a hit.
Some strange scenes, including a car passing in the emergency lane, were the product of Georgia State students simply following the speed limit.
"I was pretty sure that I was doing something stupid," said another.
That may be true. But, young and brash, they had a plan.
They wanted to go the speed limit on I-285.
In four cars, on all four lanes, the students from Georgia State University and other local colleges paced the entire midmorning flow of Perimeter traffic behind them at 55 mph for half an hour. They call it "an act of civil obedience."
"I get a lot of tickets," said Andy Medlin, 20, the Georgia State student who came up with the idea. "The best way to expose the flaws in the system is by following it."
Thankfully, they survived unharmed, though much maligned. The eight students captured it all on video for a student film competition, and the five-minute piece has fired up the country this week on blogs, talk radio, and national news broadcasts.
"NPR was the first biter," said Jordan Streiff, 21, the group's experienced filmmaker and an Asian Studies major at Georgia State. "Initially, we were going to be on ABC's cable network and Web site, but overnight the traffic to the video spiked so they put it on World News Tonight."
The film, "A Meditation on the Speed Limit," was intended as a drama, but won best comedy for Georgia last month at the Campus MovieFest, a traveling movie competition. It will compete against other states' winners for a national title later this spring, said David Roemer, one of the film festival's founders.
In the meantime, driven by blog attention to the video that Streiff posted on Google, a national discussion has bloomed about what is legal and what is right. One of the filmmakers, Georgia State student Amanda Hunter, was interviewed about it on Neal Boortz's radio show on WSB.
"It's just so overwhelming," Hunter said Thursday, after leaving a midterm exam on Sufism and Islamic mysticism. "Jordan's calling me today like, 'Do you have time for CBS?' I called him back and he said, 'Don't worry about that now, just take your test.'"
David Spear, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said if the students weren't blocking emergency vehicles and were going the speed limit, "they didn't do a thing wrong." Spear added that the speed limit was lowered to 55 because it saves lives. "In Atlanta, the actual effect of it is we expect the people going 75 to move over so the people going 95 can have the right of way," he said.
There was little doubt what the students' companions on the road thought that sunny Friday in January. The video shows drivers' steadily mounting hostility to the blockade. Cars honk. They drive onto the shoulder to speed around the students. Obscene gestures are made. The money shot, however, was captured beautifully by Hunter, who stood with her camera on the Church Street bridge over I-285 to watch the approaching traffic.
What she saw was ... nothing. An empty highway, with one or two stray cars. And then, like the hordes on the horizon, over the rise come the students backed by a phalanx of cars, cars, cars. The film plays it for all it's worth, bouncing the image back and forth to the funky beat of the Guru Fish song "Plush."
"It was so fantastic," said Hunter. "I just started jumping up and down and going crazy. There's beeping horns and craziness."
Then it passed, Hunter said, and a woman driving on the bridge stopped and asked, "What was the point of all that?"
Hunter explained the project. It was to make people think, she said.
The woman amicably rolled her eyes, Hunter recalled. "It was kind of like, 'Oh, you kids and your statements.'"
I made the mistake of driving home to NC from Tennessee via ATL. Never, ever again! To think I thought driving through the mountains of NC in the middle of the night with tractor trailors on my rear and no way of escaping them was bad.
Why is everyone in such a hurry all the time?
"I Can't Drive 55", vintage Sammie Hagar.
What she saw was ... nothing. An empty highway, with one or two stray cars. And then, like the hordes on the horizon, over the rise come the students backed by a phalanx of cars, cars, cars. The film plays it for all it's worth, bouncing the image back and forth to the funky beat of the Guru Fish song "Plush."
"It was so fantastic," said Hunter. "I just started jumping up and down and going crazy. There's beeping horns and craziness."
Then it passed, Hunter said, and a woman driving on the bridge stopped and asked, "What was the point of all that?"
Hunter explained the project. It was to make people think, she said.
The woman amicably rolled her eyes, Hunter recalled. "It was kind of like, 'Oh, you kids and your statements.'"
LMAO... I can see why this won best comedy.
God told you what the speed limit should be??
Well, I guess that doesn't make any less sense than the way they're set now. Personally, I heard Vishnu ordained exactly 6.45 rods per second to be the holy velocity.
The state DOT disagrees with those who think these folks did something illegal. The people who passed on the berm were, however.
Part of the problem here is yet another fruit and reflection of our marvelous "individual rights" oriented society with everyone's petty rights taking precedent over any common good.
There's no practical driving methodology or system as there is in Germany where you move to the right if you aren't passing. It's one big freakin' free-for-all here. It's a real blast too when you have policeman wannabes intentionally sitting in the middle lane of the Capital Beltway doing 55 during rush hour.
There's far too great an overemphasis on speed too. It's fine to be swerving in and out of both lanes to one side with a drink in one hand, cell phone in the other, and an open laptop and some office papers as long as you're not speeding. But heaven help you if you're paying full attention doing 69 in a 55! Then it's "shame on you!"
Of course the DOT agrees, but they kind of have to. It's not as though a DOT spokesman could say, "It's bloody insane to think you can go exactly 55 on 285, and the law that says you have to is meant strictly to let us increase revenue and give us an excuse for pulling over anyone we think is suspicious."
Trucks can't be in the left lane in the central Texas area on I-35.
Yes, sorry, I should have specified passenger vehicles. I've driven on many freeways that prohibit trucks from the left lanes of roads with more than two lanes; in fact, I believe trucks are prohibited from the left half of the lanes on 285.
The DOT could argue that their behavior was unsafe because, had an emergency vehicle needed to get somewhere at faster than 55mph, their actions would likely have prevented it from doing so (the emergency vehicle could have gotten stuck in traffic far enough back that the obstructors would have been unable to see it and yield).
Of course, another issue that needs to be considered is that if a certain number of cars per minute are entering a road, stopping distance will be proportional to speed minus a constant. Thus, under some traffic conditons, 60mph may be safer than 55mph.
How about 62, so that Canadians on the way to Florida can just think "100 km/hr"?
I think it is the closest thing we have to a "stay right" law.
You don't have to worry though. Republicans in the past have been there and ready to protect you from yourself. I'm sure they will be there in the future....
60 is fine.....for a minimum speed limit.
Restrict all vehicles over six wheels (that means you punks pulling trailers, too) to the right one or two lanes and make the left or leftward lanes car only and if you get hit in the rear, it's your fault for not going fast enough.
Ayn Rand beats the crap out of Chomsky, for sure.
Since when? I've repainted the doors on my car several times after having them blown off by an 18-wheeler on I-35 in the San Antonio area. /humor
Your quote took my by surprise; I am in the middle of Atlas Shrugged right now. (Thanks to the recommendation of Freepers....I read Fountainhead last year.)
Now, whenever I hear news on the radio, Ayn Rand's words come to mind, as if they were a prophesy. It is very strange.
I've just begun section III, which is, thankfully, more optimistic. I am so glad that our society has not (yet?) succombed to her awful vision in Part II.
Great story about the filming of the speed limit. I only go a few miles over the speed limit, but my husband still says I drive way too fast. He's such a pokey guy.
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