  Recent surveys seem to support bulk peculiar velocities well in excess of
those anticipated by the standard cosmological model. In view of these results,
we consider here some of the theoretical implications of large-scale drift
motions. We find that observers with small, but finite, peculiar velocities
have generally different expansion rates than the smooth Hubble flow. In
particular, it is possible for observers with larger than the average volume
expansion at their location, to experience apparently accelerated expansion
when the universe is actually decelerating. Analogous results have been
reported in studies of inhomogeneous (nonlinear) cosmologies and within the
context of the Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi models. Here, they are obtained within the
linear regime of a perturbed, dust-dominated Friedmann-Robertson-Walker
cosmology.
