Average speed limit in the city is what, 50 km/h, so double that for a chase in the traffic, we are at 100 km/h which is 90 meters per combat round. Suzuki Mirage gets -3 dice pool for it's speed interval of 30. Honda Spirit will face a -4 with its 20 speed interval.
100 km/h stunt getting -4 to dice pool with unmodified Honda Spirit seems reasonable to me. Especially for someone who's life are vehicles and driving, Riggers.
You make some good points, and I want to address some of those later on, but I wanted to tackle this one first. My issue with the dice pool modifiers for Riggers is that they can far exceed those of any other archetype, and are mathematically more likely to apply.
For example, firing from cover IV is a -2 dice pool penalty, same as Fatigued (per level). The Blinded and Deafened penalties are -3 per level (max -6), Frightened is -4, as are melee attacks from Prone. The defender in a Grapple suffers a -4 dice pool penalty for being restrained, noise can potentially go incredibly high but at some point your device will just disconnect from the matrix so the actual penalty is capped at (DR+Noise Reduction)-1.
Meanwhile, riggers can hit penalties as high as -16(!), with maximum penalty across the 50 vehicles in the core book is largely distributed into the following:
| Max Penalty | Count |
| <3 | 2 |
| 3-4 | 8 |
| 4-6 | 15 |
| 6-8 | 11 |
| >8 | 14 |
The maximum penalty is obviously just one part of the picture; while most archetypes will frequently deal with an Attack Rating penalty, dice pool penalties are less common and far less impactful. In addition, dice pool penalties are a double whammy for riggers because Handling tests are unopposed; if you are rolling opposed tests chances are both participants are affected, but when rolling for Handling you have to hit a fixed threshold that can go as high as 7(!). To put this into perspective, SR6 defines thresholds as follows:
| Threshold | Description |
| 1 | Simple task, only slightly more difcult than walking and talking. |
| 2 | More complex, but still in the range of normal experience. |
| 3 | Normal starting point for Simple tests. |
| 4 | More difcult, impressive enough to accomplish. |
| 5 | Tricky, the sort of thing only accomplished by those who have worked on their skills. |
| 6 | Elite-level accomplishment, something that few in the world could pull off with any degree of regularity. |
| 7 | Standing out among the elite, demonstrating very rare ability. |
The challenge here is that the rules are inconsistent where thresholds are concerned. Piloting a Dodge Scoot offroad [Handling 7] is apparently something only the elite of the elite should attempt, while a Mirage [Handling 2] on road is "in the range of normal experience". Spotting a neon sign is threshold 1, while finding a needle in a haystack is threshold 4 (the base (or higher) Handling for 15 of the 50 vehicles in the core book). Healing someone with 1 point of Essence in their body is a threshold 4 test with net hits going towards actual healing, while healing someone with 6 points of essence is an automatic success (5-6 = 1 guaranteed net hit, any hits rolled at to net hits).
So, all of that being said, I think your comments about the Mirage and the Honda Civic (err, I mean, Spirit) are fair. -3 and -4 at 100kmh seems... less problematic than -16. But, the issue is that the system does not scale well. The "easy" solution I've suggested (drop all handling thresholds and/or increase all speed intervals) is just that: "easy". It is by no means a balanced suggestion, it's just a way to implement a change to a system I think mathematically does not scale well when compared to the rest of the core ruleset.
The more obvious answer to this challenge is to sit down and review each and every vehicle, and examine if it needs to be modified or not. But quite honestly, I think that is WAY outside the scope of someone like us, and should be left to actual game designers.
I think all of your points about real world examples are fine, if you approach Shadowrun from a realism perspective. I think the challenge is that the setting itself clearly does not; a firearms expert can shoot a target from 500+ meters away (I think we can all agree that this would represent a difficult, but not impossible, shot for someone with even just a little training), and the only dice pool penalty they will take is... Actually, there is no dice pool penalty for range, the only thing that affects your attack is a reduction in Attack Rating.
As an extreme example, the Barret Model 122 already comes with a smartgun and bipod, and if you add a scope with vision magnification to it, then go prone and use the Take Aim action when lining up your shot, you are actually getting a substantial AR AND dice pool
bonus. To put it into numbers:
Attack Rating: bipod 3, smartgun 2, vision magnification 2 (M/F/E only), prone 2
Dice Pool: smartgun 1, take aim 1+ (no maximum listed)
This results in an AR of 23 at ranges of 500+ meters and a bonus instead of a penalty to their dice pool, and even if the target had an AV of 27 they wouldn't get Edge because of the imaging scope rules.
That's just one example; the book has several highly conditional effects that could be used by a clever GM to affect only certain members of the party, but if the rigger is with the team chances are they are affected by the same conditional effects
in addition to those imposed by speed intervals.
So, once again, my issue with the rigger rules isn't that they are unrealistic; they aren't, not necessarily.
Pulling a hairpin turn in an armored van at 160kmh on the highway SHOULD be difficult, I don't think anyone is arguing that it should not.
But, and I cannot stress this strongly enough, the core rules in SR6 apply an undue amount of mathematical penalties and improbabilities of success on riggers through dice pool penalties and high thresholds when compared to every other archetype in the core ruleset.
The design goal of SR6 was to "streamline" and "make the rules move faster while still giving players lots of choices and tactics". I cannot with a clear conscience say that the rigger rules accomplished this.
