What is Velocitization you ask?

Have you ever noticed the trend of speed increase of a car on the highway? When we enter the highway, maybe something like 60kmph feels decent and after around an hour, 100kmph starts feeling slow? We sometimes attribute this to lack of traffic on the road or the good quality of roads. But what actually is happening is from inside us.

After driving long distances, our body gets accustomed to the high speeds making the high speeds feel slow. We start feeling comfortable with the speed leading to us gradually increasing the speeds without realizing it. Velocitization is the phenomenon of getting accustomed to high speeds after long hours of driving.

Now, why is being conscious of this phenomenon important? Two reasons:

1. While on the highway, we might cross the speed limit that is specified for the road. The speed limit is decided for a road based on many factors including infrastructure on the road, the presence of medians, crossings on the road, pedestrian presence etc. Crossing this limit might prove to be dangerous not only for us but for others present on the road as well.

2. When we exit the highway and enter town/city roads, our body is still accustomed to the high speed which may lead us to drive at dangerously higher speeds than required. With higher traffic and pedestrian presence on these roads, this may prove dangerous.

So what to do? There are ample signs of the speed limit specified for a section of the highway. We need to be aware of that and of our speed. Speed needs to be consciously reduced based on the speed specification for the road.

We need to be extra cautious when exiting the highway to a town/city. Driving at the speed limit in the city might feel very slow after exiting the highway. But if we give it time, it will normalize.

Share your thoughts?