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.'"
You said -- "Even better would be a law requiring you to keep right except to pass, but I don't think anyplace in the U.S. has such a law on multilane roads."
It's posted in certain places (on certain highways) in Texas and I think Oklahoma. So, if it says so on an official highway sign (which it does), then you're going to get a ticket if a trooper is around and he doesn't have anything better to do.
Regards,
Star Traveler
For years I have had one of those daytime nightmares (daymares?) of bored college kids going out on a busy Interstate (say I-70 in Ohio) on the Friday of a holiday weekend, filling all available lanes and going 55 or even much slower just to see how much havoc would result.
Haven't watched the film but I plan to. My only concern is that the 'punk kid' angle and/or the speed limit Nannies may get more play than the obvious conclusion that speed limits as posted/enforced are a joke.
Fascinating quote - may have to pick up that copy of Rand at long last.
An angry, frustrated driver at 55 is more dangerous than a happy, relaxed driver at 75.
I live in West by God Virginia so we don't have too many problems but I have heard of the practice you describe used regularly by cops in Southern California in an attempt to create buffer zones in order to prevent gridlock. I have no idea if it works but there you go.
On any major freeway in California, that stunt would have definitely gotten you a ticket for impeding traffic.
Why would Canadians visit the American South and leave their beloved socialized medicine behind? /sarcasm
I don't agree with Larry King on too many things (like most Freepers) but he once suggested that every American obey the law to the last letter and punctuation mark just for one day - the resulting hole in the flow of funds to government(s) would be shocking.
I concur.
I believe you to be mistaken.
Absolutely.
I'm not getting up earlier. Too many hours of my day are already accounted for. I get a minimum amount of sleep as is. If you must drive slower, then stay off the Interstate. Otherwise, you're creating a problem, because the vast majority of the people who drive on the Interstate agree with my philosophy. If you doubt it, go drive in the left lane at 55 and see what happens.
So you could theoretically be pulled over for speeding if you're moving with traffic and for impeding traffic if you go the speed limit? Is there a legal way to drive?
I live near the I10 in SoCal..in the Inland Empire...posted speed limit is 70. Most cars are doing 80-90 with big rigs doing 65-70. It's getting wild out here.
i drove a cab a few yers ago and was picking up a lady at a grocery store and saw two people get into a fistfight over the express lane cause a guy had 14 items in a 12 items or less line :-)
I'm pretty sure a jury would disagree with that. The law certainly would.
You see 75 do once you hit states like Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and most of the interior west.
Oh good grief. If you're having to brake or take evasive maneuvers, you're blind. It would be different if they were cutting people off, or slamming on their brakes. But if they are driving at a constant speed on the highway and you have to "take evasive maneuvers", you have your own personal problems.
That is true, and I am glad my home state of New York has a law against it (one of the few laws for which we deserve credit).
How does moving to the right after passing a slow moving car clog up the Road? Donut munchers? You must be from NJ?
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