Man Drives From New York City to Los Angeles in 31 Hours

Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 10.19.07 | 10:51 AM ET

The man in question is Alexander Roy, and, to be precise, he did it in 31 hours and four minutes. How many laws did he violate? Can’t be precise about that, but since he claims to have made the coast-to-coast trip in October 2006, enough time has lapsed that he can’t be penalized for reckless, over-the-speed-limit driving, the New York Times reports. Another benefit of keeping his achievement a secret for a year: He can now use the news to promote his new memoir, The Driver.

Roy claims he made record time, beating the 32 hours and seven minutes set in 1983. Of course, it’s an unofficial record. David Shaftel writes in the Times: “Because of the dubious legality and the absence of a sanctioning body, transcontinental and endurance-driving records are hard to quantify.”

Still, the trip was well documented. Besides the book and the bloggers at Jalopnik who acted as third-party witnesses to Roy’s departure and finish, 2,794 miles piled up on the odometer. Roy’s pace: 90.1 mph. Roy also traveled with a co-driver, David Maher, and a support team in a Cesna to help look out for speed traps and other obstacles. No word in the Times about whether he had a medical crew trailing, too. Doing 90.1 mph cross country on no sleep is, after all, rather dangerous.

I’ve driven across the country three times, each effort taking at least a week. I much prefer that pace, or slower. When I want fast, I just watch this.

But safety and other obstacles don’t seem to factor in for these transcontinental speed demons. The sub-30 hour trip calls.

“If people want to try it,” Brock Yates, an automotive journalist and Cannonball Run organizer, told the Times, “the roads are open.”

Photo by TheFriendlyFiend, via Flickr (Creative Commons)