Man Breaks Down How Little Time Speeding Actually Saves And It's Pretty Surprising

A YouTuber has laid out just how little time you’re actually saving when you go over the speed limit and the results might be a lot less exciting than you expect.

Let’s be real. Whether you’ve been driving for years or just got your license, chances are you’ve pushed past the speed limit at least once or twice. Most of us have.

And while it might feel harmless especially if you've never been pulled over for it—a video shared by the YouTube channel STEMbite way back in 2013 explains why speeding, even if it’s just by a few miles per hour, really isn’t worth the risks you’re taking.

In one segment of the video, the YouTuber points out that even though you’re increasing the risk of getting pulled over or being in an accident, the actual time you’re saving by speeding is pretty minimal.

While casually driving and filming the video, he said: "When I am driving down the road, especially down the highway, I tend to want to go a little bit faster than what the speed limit says."

"If the speed limit is 25, I like to go 30 because I figure, what cop is going to pull me over for going 5 miles over the speed limit."

You might want to slow it down there, chief Getty Stock Image

"But the more I learnt about math, the more I realized that speeding really doesn't make sense. The difference between going 70 and 75 makes such a small difference in the time you actually arrive then it really doesn't justify the risk."

That’s when he starts breaking down the numbers behind it all. And honestly, once you hear it explained like this, it starts to click.

The core issue, according to him, is that most people tend to focus on how fast they're going in terms of miles per hour. But they don’t stop to think about how little time they're actually gaining by going faster.

So to clear things up, he crunches the numbers to show what going just 5 mph faster really does for your travel time. And the takeaway? It barely makes a dent.

He continued: "We can see that the difference between going 40mph and 60 mph means you save 30 whole seconds."

"But going up to 80 mph only saves you 15 seconds. In fact, the difference between 70 and 75mph only saves you 3 seconds over an entire minute."

"For most of our driving, and we are only driving 10 or 15 minutes, the gain we get from speeding is so small that it really doesn't justify the risk."

"The relationship between the speed you go and the time it takes you to get somewhere is what we call an inverse relationship, it is just another way to show that the faster you go, the less that speeding helps you."