I just looked at my electronic EZPass statement from last month. For those of you not from the East Coast, EZPass is the transponder thing you stick in your window to allow electronic toll collection (aka FastTrak for you Californians).

I was amused at this entry:

08/20/08 NJTP 1 08/20 08:28 9 08/20 09:38
(some personal info fields deleted).

I had a trip I was doing for work last month, and decided since the day was so nice, to take the trip from home to New Jersey in the Mini Cooper (with the top down of course).

What does this entry mean? It means I entered the NJTP (New Jersey Turnpike) at exit 1 at 8:28am and exited at exit 9 at 9:38am. That’s 83 miles in 70 minutes. And I made a 5 minute pit stop at one of the rest areas to purge coffee.

I think that works out to an average speed of 76.6mph (factoring in the pit stop).

Even more impressive, I made the same trip 1 minute faster (but in reality, 4 minutes slower due to lack of pit stop) in the middle of afternoon traffic.

Fun! Glad the NJ State Troopers don’t look so carefully at this info...