DailyDirt: Making A Road Trip Across The US...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The Cannonball Run plot of racing across the US has inspired some drivers to set illegal records -- though the concept was started in 1933 by Edwin "Cannonball" Baker who drove from NYC to LA in 53 hours (and popularized in the 70s as a protest against highway speed limits). We've previously mentioned Alex Roy making the trip in about 32 hours, but more recently, Ed Bolian and a couple other drivers/passengers did it in just 28 hours and 50 minutes. If you've always wanted to drive across country in some insane way, check out some of the records that other people have set.

• Carl Reese rode a motorcycle across the US from LA to NYC in just under 39 hours straight. Sure, people in cars have done it faster, but not without a backup driver. Reese didn't do it totally alone, though. He had help from safety teams and people looking out for cops (because breaking the speed limit is a requirement for any "real" Cannonball Run record). [url]
• Delphi sent an autonomous car across the US, making the nearly 3,400 mile journey from SF to NYC in 9 days. The car did 99% of the driving, actually -- with human drivers needed to get on/off the highways and transition to city driving. Robots could obviously make the drive in less time, but no one trusts autonomous cars to break the legal speed limits on public roads just yet. [url]
• Carl Reese likes long trips across the country, apparently. He also drove a Tesla from LA to NYC in under 59 hours. That includes charging time, and maybe next time Reese will take it easy and let Autopilot do all of the driving. This probably won't be the last time an electric vehicle sets a record for a cross country trip since batteries and charging stations are improving all the time, and the next EV might not be a Tesla, either. [url]

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Filed Under: alex roy, autonomous cars, cannonball run, carl reese, driving, ed bolian, edwin cannonball baker, electric vehicles, speeding
Companies: delphi, tesla

DailyDirt: Dangerous Driving

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

America's car culture has influenced a wide range of our daily lives -- from creating suburban sprawl to making cars a status symbol that many aspire to own. However, gas-guzzling vehicles don't quite have the same appeal as they used to, and autonomous vehicles may eventually suck all the fun out of driving on public roads. Before robots take over personal transportation, here are just a few examples of drivers pushing the limits of safety and driving crazy on regular city streets.

• Alex Roy drove (dangerously!) across the US (approx 2,795 miles) in under 32 hours and 7 minutes, beating the Cannonball Run record set in 1983. The new record time to beat is 31 hours and 4 minutes -- which might be beatable if EV batteries get a lot better (and no re-fueling is necessary). [url]
• The short film (just 8 minutes and 38 seconds long) C'etait un rendez-vous was made in 1976, but not everything about that film was as it appeared. The audio wasn't from the car being driven (Mercedes-Benz vs Ferrari engine noises), so some people think the whole thing was faked. [url]
• The famous car chase scene from Bullitt on the streets of San Francisco took weeks to film. Steve McQueen did some of the stunt driving, but not any of the really dangerous parts. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: bullitt, cannonball run, car chase, cars, driving, film, rendezvous, speeding, steve mcqueen