Speeding around southern Utah
 

I'm using mapquest to get an idea of the drive times between locations in southern Utah and am wondering how it will work out in real life.

The route is, roughly: Kanab - Monument Valley - Moab - Torrey - Bryce - Zion. It will be the 3rd week of September.

For Kanab to Monument Valley the speed comes out to be about 60 mph average.
Monument Valley (actually Bluff) to Green River to Torrey about 55 mph.

Torrey to Cannonville on hwy 12 will take as long as it takes. After that the speed would be about 45 mph.

We will be riding a Mustang, with some giddyup I hope, so am thinking we can do better than the mapquest speeds. But I don't know about traffic. Not much trucking, I guess, but there would be mobile homes and trailers that could slow us down.

How fast can I go on those highways IRL?

You can go the speed limit.

Every so often the driver has to take a pulloff to see the scenery instead of driving/watching for oncoming traffic.
Unless you are on a 4 lane divided highway do not go more than 3 mph over the posted speed limit.
Do not pass a gas station when the gas gauge reads less than half a tank. There are places in this area where gas stations are more than 100 miles apart.

Then the question would be what are the speed limits? I will google that. But knowing the speed limit(s) for the 400 miles from Kanab to Green River via Bluff doesn't really tell me the average speed that can be expected if there are lots of slow vehicles on the route.

If you leave early in the day - you can usually make good time on these roads - before the caravan of campers get out and about. :)

From Kanab to Monument Valley - going the North way - past Bryce and along Hiway 12 - and over - it took us the better part of a day. You slow down a bit going/getting up in altitude by Boulder, etc - but it's a beautiful view/vista.

We stopped a few times - coffee at Kiva - a half hour or so north of Escalante - and took pictures elsewhere - but not long stops or doing any hiking - although we did have a nice lunch overlooking a finger of Lake Powell - and did spend an hour visiting National Bridges Monument on the way to Mexican Hat - and then it was on to Monument Valley.

Actually - we actually kept driving on to the Navajo National Monument to spend the night - camped out - about 30 miles beyond/west of Kayenta, which is outside/south of Monument Valley.

From there - over to the Grand Canyon/South Rim - is about two and a half hours.

And depending on the car - and how the gas guage reads - you can let it go a little below half - but not much more. Good advice to keep your eye on the needle and fill up early - rather than possibly running out of gas way out in the middle of jackrabbit country.

Thanks, tomfuller. I want to minimize my driving time so that we can take the time to pull over to see the view. That is good advice about refueling at half a tank and I will follow it.

Why the 3 mph over the limt advice?

utah.com has this
Speed Limits: On most highways the speed limit is 55 miles per hour, particularly in urban areas. Speed limits increase to 65 or 75 on Interstate highways, and 65 miles per hour on most state highways.

55 "on most highways" and 65 "on most state highways".

If you drive 3 mph over the speed limit you can stop for 2.5 to 3 minutes every hour and still be on schedule.
Save a little gas by not going the 6 mph over that you are usually allowed by the Trooper with a radar gun. You don't want to be changing a flat tire at the edge of the road when the temp is over 100 degrees.
Take a small cooler with bottled water or sports drink to stay hydrated.

Well, you should go ahead and go 10-15 mph over. This will give you plenty of time as you fly through everywhere.

You won't run into that much traffic. But you might run into a deer. Be sure and really hammer down when going over Hogsback section on HWY 12. Then the scariness will be shortened by a few minutes.

You might as well do Hogsback and Hole in the Rock Road. That pony should handle well on those.


Seriously, you can probably average 50mph.

I think google maps is a bit more accurate than Mapquest.

Impossible to predict the amount of traffic and how many slow vehicles you will run into. For every camper that dawdles around, there's probably one that gets up early to get to their next destination. Overall, I don't see much of an issue as you should find enough places to safely pass anyone that's slowing you down.

You're probably better off figuring out the gas mileage and fuel range for your vehicle than stopping and filling up every time it gets to half a tank. That's just a bit excessive IMO. If you can go 300 miles on a tank, it doesn't matter if there are no gas stations or one every mile, either way you can still go 300 miles on a tank.

At 250 miles, the stretch from Kanab to Bluff is the longest drive you'll face. And you should be able to do that on less than one tank of gas. 75 miles before Bluff if Kayenta so if you're getting worried, stop there. I would think a Mustang could make it 175 miles without running dry. Other than that, just fill up first thing in the morning or last thing at night and you should be good to get to your next destination without a stop.

We alway either take a hard shelled cooler when we start out from home/SD - or buy an inexpensive sytrofoam cooler when on the road. It not only makes a great traveling mini-fridge - but also gives you extra water should you wind up in some type of a situation along the way.

If it's noisy - just put a towel or some clothing over it - and it usually is quiet - as well as giving it another layer of insulation so the ice doesn't melt as fast.

In addition - also take some other/extra bottles of water - and some extra food - again, in the outside chance you might get stranded along the way for a few hours, night, whatever.

One word of warning: there's almost always a sheriff's patrol car sitting on the hill as you first enter Escalante from the east, by the high school. It's a speed trap, and I can't say I blame them for putting one there. I suppose people would blow into town at highway speeds frequently if they didn't. And that would be pretty dangerous.

What I do blame the Utah cops for is pulling me over while I was driving eastbound on UT-12 approaching Escalante, well outside of town. I was on a rare perfectly straight and level part of the road, driving a rented SUV with out-of-state plates, doing about 72 in what I think was a 60 MPH zone. I was passed by a pickup truck that had Utah plates and looked like it was being driven by locals. The truck was going at least 90 MPH, which actually, in my opinion, was a safe speed on that particular stretch of road. The cop pulled me over, and let the local boys go.

Hawksbill, 90 MPH on HWY 12 Safe Speed LOL.

Another question: at what point(s) will I have the best opportunity to get all four wheels off the ground?

Spirobulldog, it's true, there's one part of UT-12, west of Escalante, that's perfectly straight and level. That's the only part where I felt I could significantly exceed the speed limit safely. So, of course, that's the only part where I've ever encountered a law enforcement officer. With the exception of the one who's always camped out at the east edge of Escalante.

Mrwunrfl, you will have many opportunities to get all four wheels off the ground. Your route will take you on many roads that cling to the sides of steep mountains, and have no guard rails. Just maintain that 90 MPH speed, and you'll be airborne in no time, although this will force you to deviate from your planned itinerary.

I think you should travel at whatever spped your heart desires. My son is a deputy sheriff who patrols Hwy 12 from Hwy 89 to west of Esclante. I'm sure he'd be happy to make your acquaintence.He might even ask you for an autograph.

Dead Horse Point State Park, near Canyonlands would be your best bet. The ending scene for Thelma and Louise was filmed there - they had no problems getting all 4 wheels off the ground.

Sounds like he already has hawksbill's autograph.

Deadhorse would definately be the spot for a little air time.

Well, either he or one of his colleagues has my autograph. And my money, too. Based on that one experience anyway, the public safety officers in Southern Utah aren't really interested in public safety, but rather in reducing tourism. Message received.

Dead Horse Point would be a great choice for airborne driving. There are few other places where you'd be able to get your wheels quite that far off the ground.

So, one incident involving one cop in one location turns into "public safety officers in Southern Utah aren't really interested in public safety, but rather in reducing tourism."??

Perhaps the cop just thought the locals know the roads well enough and aren't in danger of doing something stupid, whereas the average tourist might not know when to slow down and brake for the curves, etc.

I thought it was pretty well established knowledge that you are more likely to be stopped for speeding outside of your home state. I keep that in mind every time I travel outside Minnesota.

One of the things about living in a country where each of the 50 states still makes its own laws in certain areas -- to say nothing of counties and towns -- is that you have to accept their judgement even when you think they are wrong. I just assume that any town I drive through with out of state plates is going to be looking on me as a source of revenue, and I slow way down to about 5 MPH below the speed limit.

Of course, there was the time in Indiana when my father got a ticket for driving too slowly -- he was looking at crops and didn't notice the traffic backed up behind him!

I think we should stop encouraging him.

He might takes this seriously.

Another Mustang rental car fantasy.

Wait till he finds out it isn't the big Mustang.

Rental car? I thoought it must be a Saleen!

Hey, Texas has a couple of 85MPH roads. I wonder how far you could push it there and not get a ticket.

I hope no one will object if I turn serious for a moment.

I was a cop for a very long time and, as stated before, my son is currently. In my entire career, no one, police or politician, ever pressured me to write tickets for revenue and I know it is the same for my son. In my case, the jurisdiction I worked for did not recieve any ticket revenue - it all went to the court system and then to the state general fund. I just asked my son and he does not even know where ticket revenue goes in his state.

In my case, I will bet that for every out-of-state car I ticketed, I ticketed 50 or 100 local vehicles. In my son's case, he works in a world-class vacation destination and so he proably stops about the same proportion of out-of-state and local vehicles.

Now, may I tell you the real reason most police write tickets? It is because we know that stringent enforcement dramatically reduces injury and death. When we are stopped behind your car with our emergency lights operating, we are not only imparting a traffic safety message to you but also to however many cars pass while we are there.

When you respond to gruesome fatal and injury accidents on a regular basis, you will do anything in your power to reduce that carnage. Police know that traffic enforcement is the most effecdtive thing we can do. Now that I'm retired, passing on safety messages like this is the only thing I can do.

Thank you. You are right, and I am wrong, at least as far as many states are concerned. Some localities in some states do keep the revenue, but clearly traffic enforcement saves lives, the more enforcement, the more lives.

Dwooddon, thank you for posting that. I am a great supporter of law enforcement officers in general. I firmly believe that the great majority of LEOs in my country take on their often extremely demanding job because they are dedicated to helping people, and to preserving public safety. I too see the victims of high-speed traffic accidents in my job, and I know how quickly lives can be ruined out on the roads.

In my 25+ year driving career, during which I have driven at least 250,000 miles, I have been pulled over for moving violations three times. The first time, I had just driven 100 miles or so, late on a weekend night, dodging drunk drivers, only to get pulled over for failing to come to an absolutely complete stop at a stop sign. The ticketing officer was apologetic, and admitted to me that I hadn't really done anything wrong, but that it was the end of the month, and he had a quota to meet. I thanked him for at least being honest with me.

The other two times were for speeding on highways.The latest time, in Utah, the man decided to pull me over rather than another driver who was driving much faster. I'm guessing that he did it because the other guy was a local, or maybe a friend of his. But maybe it was just that, because I was going much slower, I was easier for him to catch up with. Whatever the reason, his purpose clearly was not to maximize public safety. That was one man, one time.

Driving more slowly is something I had not thought about. If I did that then I would be able to look around and enjoy the scenery while driving, enjoy a cold beverage, and have lunch without making a stop.

OTOH, I could probably do all that while driving fast: http://tinyurl.com/c9cwlah

Making a pledge to fuel up at half a tank was useful. It won't happen but it has got me leaning away from waiting until I am on E, which is usual practice. This 1000+ miles loop from Las Vegas in one week (speeding around southern Utah) is more driving than I usually do in two months.

Checking on the range of the car was a good idea. Range is about 300 miles city and 400 miles highway driving. A bit over 15 gallon tank.

Las Vegas to Kanab is 200 miles, so no stop, as there will be at least 5 gallons and 100 miles left.

Kanab to MV to Bluff is 250 miles. Fill up in the morning in Kanab, top off after stopping in Page. Fill up in the morning in Bluff. Only 173 miles to Green River, plus the parks, so say 200 miles. No pit stop necessary on that leg. Fill up in the morning in Green River and each day after that (or night before). The remaining days are all less than 200 miles. No more gas stops until just before returning the car at McCarran.

The other overnights are Torrey and Kodachrome Basin and a relaxing! two nights in Mt Carmel. And one night in Vegas to start it off. No, I won't leave all of our gas money at the blackjack table (though it is all downhill at some point after Torrey, isn't it?)