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This sounds like a distinctly cultural problem where the word 'limit' clearly doesn't mean very much to the population in question.
It's a limit, not a target, and certainly not a floor as some USAsians seem to treat it.
Here in Australia you can be fined for exceeding the limit by less than 10km/h. Yes, even if you are 1km/h over, and whilst this would probably get thrown out in court you'd still have to take time off to attend court.
How do you expect constant enforcement? I'll go over the speed limit on the motorway when it's quiet and the lane is empty. Police generally don't care if you're doing 75 or 80 in a 70, as long as you're not driving like an ass. The most important thing is keeping pace with traffic.
How do you expect constant enforcement?
China did it.
They put cameras all over the highways, just mail them the fines and use the video recording as evidence.
I mean, you don't even need China's authoritarianism to acheive this, traffic cameras already exist in many democratic countries, just add more along the highway.
Not sure how cost effective this would be :/
In China, they made up the costs from the fines they received... so its actually quite profitable, because people just can't resist the urge to speed.
I think the bigger problem isn't the costs, it's that there might be backlash and protests in a democracy.
I'm too German to understand what's here.
You seem to be assuming that people would keep driving as they currently do if we removed speed limits entirely. I'd be willing to bet that this is not the case. Most drivers have a number in mind on how much they're willing to exceed the speed limit. For me that is 5 - 10kph, so if the limit is 60kph, then you're not going to catch me going 80. Without speed limits I probably would.
So why do we have such laws? Because they work. Not perfectly but to some extent.
Counter question: do you think everyone is sensible?
They exist just in case they need to crack down on you.
I always think of dog leash laws this way. In many places they aren’t enforced and the majority of dog owners let their dogs off leash. However, if the owner loses control of their dog and it gets into trouble, like biting someone or another dog, then the law can always say, you’re liable because your dog was supposed to be on leash.
I think the same goes for speeding and other laws. It basically puts liability on the lawbreaker if they take a certain risk. If nothing bad happens, fine. But, if something does, then it’s your fault.
This has the unintended consequence of people not knowing about the law if it goes unenforced for a long time.
Not knowing the law isn't an excuse before the law in most circumstances.
Which makes this an issue since no one will go read the whole list of laws
Because it can be enforced selectively, and if everyone is guilty of something, anyone in particular can be harassed under the cover of a legal justification.
Yep. And in some places, one can see the enforcement is against minoritites and other scape goats at a disproportionate level. This also has the "bonus" of being able to make one group look like they break the law much more often and are dangerous
Aside from selective enforcement, some laws (like traffic laws) are there for your protection AND to establish liability if something goes wrong.
If the government sets the limit at 30 and everyone goes 50, when an incident occurs, nobody can sue the city for bad roads because everyone was going faster than the intended speed.
Also establishes expectations. Every on the highway knows what the expected speed is. Going 30 in a 65 is way more dangerous than doing 75 when conditions allow.
Anecdotally, I’ve almost never get pulled over in traffic, but the one time I was pulled over, I was doing 76 in a 65 at 5 AM with no other cars on the road and otherwise driving completely fine.
I guess he was bored. Or an asshole. Or both.
Edit: Fixed my paradox
In general speed limits are enforced IMO, just within a certain level. IE yes everyone exceeds the speed limit... but typically by set amounts. IE I know myself I generally go 9 over the speed limit. I expect to get a ticket if I go 11-20 over the speed limit.
That being said, yeah the social construct is probably intentionally encouraged by cops, so that say when they are pulling over random minorities for an excuse to search the car, they have an automatic excuse for why they pulled them over.
Tools in the toolbox. You'll often hear about police saying they need more tools in the toolbox. What it means is they want to be able to enforce laws against somebody they don't like selectively.
If you enforce the speed limit religiously, especially around State capitals, the speed limits would rapidly change.
https://archive.org/details/threefeloniesday0000silv
If this topic interests you, I recommend reading three felonies a day, by Harvey silverglate
Take jaywalking for example. Most people aren't going to be bothered by some woman crossing the street when no cars are around.
Is it worth a cops time who's within eyeshot to do anything about it? Waste of resources, she's not endangering anyone.
Same situation but cars are all over, some swerving to avoid or slam on their breaks because she blindly runs out. She gets hit or cars pile into each other.
Cops in eyeshot. Well the drivers certainly are not the ultimate cause of this accident.
That's my guess anyways.
Do you think traffic speeds aren't enforced? Just because they can't do it effectively because they don't have the resources or man power doesn't mean they don't try.
Ummm... nah
Cop car just goes speeding along with everyone else on the highway. Speeding is de facto legal.
It's only de facto legal until something goes wrong. If a crash occurred and someone was speeding that'd be considered a contributing factor to the crash.
Even if speeding itself wasn't illegal, there would need to be a definition of what reckless driving is, and speed in comparison to the road is a good measure of that, because it's directly proportional to the lack of control of the vehicle.
its more of a suggestion of what speed you should go, and as long as everyone is going the same, its no problem
for example:
speed limit is 55, but it's open road, everyone goes 65
or on the highway, left lane is always going 90+, even though the speed limit is 70
as long as everyone is doing the same and behaving themselves, no one has a problem with anyone
that's my opinion on the matter at least
Well, tell that to my local traffic authorities. My wife basically has a subscription with them, we get home a monthly invoice for 30€ because she was driving 55-60 km/h in a 50 zone... Complete with a picture of her face and the car's license plate :)
Maybe she should stop speeding?
Or learn where the cameras are?
The point was that at some places speed limits ARE enforced.
If it only was that easy. I don't know if 5km/h over the limit is "speeding", she just doesn't pay attention, and we've been having this discussion for years... I am trying to convince/teach her how to use the speed limiter, but she always forgets to enable that. And the cameras are not static around here. There are a couple static ones, but the vast majority are mobile. They look like small black boxes on wheels, like a power distribution point. Until you see the flash light :)
Should she be driving if she's that bad at it?
I got caught once by a speed camera doing 65 in a 50 zone. The camera was in an unmarked van parked on the motorway lay-by (conveniently just after some temporary road works). A few days later the postman delivers a fine in the mail, so I ignored it as it wasn't sent by recorded delivery (so no proof of receipt). Now, by law in the UK, the police have 21 days to inform you of the offence and three weeks later I get another letter from the cops informing me that I have an unpaid fine. So I write to them and tell them that I never received it and that I have no recollection of being on that road. They then send me photographic evidence of my car being caught at 65 mph in a 50 zone and that I am obliged, by law, to declare who was driving. I write back and inform them that it was so long ago I have no memory of who might have been the designated driver, let alone even being on that road, and that because more than 21 days have passed they have failed to inform me of the offence. They write back with some nonsense about having proof that the letter was sent, but I argue that this isn't proof of receipt and that I'd be guessing if I declared who I think might have been driving that day. Result being that I never heard from them again.
On top of what others said there's also just virtue signaling, like banning pornography or gambling.
All laws exist because someone is expected to break them. They're created when someone does something unexpected. They're (sometimes) removed when nobody is expected to break them anymore.
Like how racism doesn't exist anymore, so we can get rid of DEI!
If only that were the claim.