Time saved
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A two-minute reality check
Speeding saves less time than you think.
Going faster feels like getting there sooner. The maths says otherwise: every extra km/h buys you less time, and costs you more fuel, more money and more risk.
Over 100 km, going from 110 to 140 km/h saves just 11 min 42 s.
The 100 km lesson
110, 120, 130, 140. Spot the difference.
Driving 100 km at 110 km/h takes 54 min 33 s. Push to 120 and you save 4 min 33 s. At 130 you save just 3 min 51 s more, and at 140 only 3 min 18 s. Each extra 10 km/h buys you less than the last.
Going from 110 to 140 km/h, 27% faster, saves just 11 min 42 s over 100 km.
Time = distance ÷ speed. That curve flattens: the faster you already go, the less each extra km/h gives back.
Feel the curve
Drag along the curve. Watch how little the line drops once you are past normal road speeds.
Your trip
So, how much would you save?
Enter a trip you actually drive. Pick your car, or type in your own fuel use, and compare driving at the limit with driving a bit faster.
Extra fuel
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Extra cost
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You pay per minute saved
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Trip time by speed
For your distance. The gap between the two dots is all the time you save.
Fuel cost by speed
Same trip, same car. Air resistance grows with the square of speed, so the bill keeps climbing.
Every step buys less and costs more
What each extra 10 km/h above the limit gives you on this trip, compared with the step before.
Overtaken, and overtaken again
That truck you passed? You'll pass it again.
You overtake a truck, or someone holding the limit, and feel much faster. Later you stop for a short break. It rolls past you. A while after, you overtake it again. And at the destination, the steady driver is barely behind you.
Distance over time
Flat line = your break. Where the lines cross, someone overtakes.
You
Speedometer vs reality
Holding a high average is much harder than it looks.
The calculator assumes you hold your speed all the way. Real trips include towns, junctions, traffic and roadworks where everyone slows down. Those stretches cap your average, so cruising faster buys even less.
Average speed by cruising speed
Dashed: an empty road with no slow stretches. Solid: real life. The faster you cruise, the less your average moves.
Real trip
Empty road
Your real average when you stick to the limit.
Real time saved on your trip
The part no fuel gauge shows
The same emergency, two different endings.
A child steps onto the road. Both drivers see it at the same moment, react in 1.5 seconds and brake as hard as they can. Here is where each car ends up.
Reaction distance (still at full speed)
Braking distance
Stopping distance
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Impact speed
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Crash energy
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Risk of a fatal crash
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And in real life?
The real saving is even smaller.
You can't hold top speed
Traffic, junctions, roadworks, towns and slower cars ahead. The figures above assume you hold your speed the whole way. Nobody does.
You catch up with the same queue
Most of the time, the car you overtook pulls up behind you at the next red light or traffic jam.
One fine wipes out years of “savings”
A single speeding ticket often costs more than the extra fuel. It also gives back none of the minutes.
You arrive more tired
Speeding means more stress, more concentration and harder braking. Your tyres and brakes wear faster too.
Quick answers
Speeding, in numbers
How much time do you save by driving faster?
Very little. Over 100 km, going from 110 to 120 km/h saves 4 min 33 s, from 120 to 130 km/h 3 min 51 s, and from 130 to 140 km/h only 3 min 18 s. Driving 27% faster, from 110 to 140 km/h, saves 11 min 42 s in total, and less on real roads with traffic and junctions.
Does driving faster use more fuel?
Yes. Air resistance grows with the square of speed, so a typical petrol car uses about 20% more fuel at 140 km/h than at 120 km/h.
How much longer is the stopping distance at higher speed?
On a dry road, with 1.5 s to react and hard braking, a car needs about 129 m to stop from 120 km/h and about 166 m from 140 km/h. Where the slower car has already stopped, the faster one is still doing about 82 km/h.
How much does speed raise the risk of a fatal crash?
According to the Power Model (Nilsson 2004, Elvik 2009), fatal crashes change with roughly the fourth power of speed: driving at 140 km/h instead of 120 km/h raises the risk by about 85%.
Where do the fuel prices come from?
National averages updated every week: the European Commission's Weekly Oil Bulletin for EU countries and official national sources elsewhere, such as the US Energy Information Administration and Statistics Canada.