I switched cars with a family member today. I usually drive a sedan that’s lower to the ground, and today I’m driving my mom’s SUV. I’ve noticed that I am consistently going way over the speed limit in the SUV because it doesn’t feel like I’m driving as fast at this speed as it does when I’m driving my sedan. Why is that? I’m guessing something to do with optics in the eye?
In: Physics
Relativity, I suppose. The farther you are from a “point of reference”, the harder to gauge how fast you are moving. ex. when you are in a plane at 30,000 feet, looking down at the ground, or at the clouds, you don’t really get a sense of travelling 1,000+ km/h because there’s no reference point.
Your eyes/brain cannot sense speed. They can only sense changes in angle, or the speed of one thing compared to another. This is why planes up high appear to be moving slowly.
When you are in a truck or high vehicle, you sense the change in angle of objects on the road (lines, dots, potholes) and when you are in a low car that angle changes much more quickly.
You can feel the tyres in a sports car, you can feel the RPM of the engine much more easily.
I’ve driven low sports cars and you can feel every movement – makes it much easier to feel how fast you are going
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