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Speed limits are one of the many transportation issues that have been researched with findings that the US has ignored and the EU has implemented.
Drivers go at the speed they're comfortable with regardless of any posted speed limits. They dont work. What does work is road design to make it uncomfortable to go faster. Narrower lanes, less vision on intersections, raised crosswalks, among other things.
I have a hard time reconciling that with my observations in Europe:
I've never felt like European drivers were "more safe".
The only differences I can think of that are positive for Europe:
The two differences you listed improve traffic flow and safety massively!
Driver education is often more strict depending on country (I'm thinking Scandinavian countries and Germany), unsurprisingly this makes a big difference.
Traveling faster is a bit of a moot point. If people drive faster and rate of incidents and road toll are lower, surely that proves that travel speed isn't the problem in the US.
But really, the drink driving culture in America is terrifying. The state of Texas has a similar population to Australia (where I'm from), 9,560 people died on the road in Q1 2022 in texas. Australia had just under 2000 FOR THE WHOLE YEAR! Both places have similar speed limits that are considerably slower than Europe, so I don't think it would be honest to try and say the low speed limits cause deaths. My best guess would be that drink driving is enforced at 0.05 in Australia compared to 0.08 in Texas. On top of this, Texas only enforces if officers have a cause for lawful detainment, which is a high threshold to cross compared to random breath tests common where I'm from.
Its the same drivers everywhere. Road design is the difference, and europe has a lot of traffic calming road design.
European here. You Americans sure do love stop signs! And I did a full stop. Every time. People honked and looked at me like I was a criminal weird 😢
Four way stops are even more exciting.
It is fairly easy to obey the road rules. The problem is that if over time the laws aren't enforced then it is easy over time for thos laws to erode, and then suddenly it feels weird to obey them.
It’s actually impossible to obey road rules, by design. Any cop will tell you that, if they follow you for long enough, they will have an excuse to pull you over. Being too close to the lane markers. Marginally over the speed limit. Cracked windshield. Something dangling from your rear view mirror. Phone/GPS mount on windshield or dashboard. Following distance. Weaving inside your lane. They can even tailgate you and bust you for speeding if you speed up. I even know someone who got a ticket for not speeding up with a cop car tailgating him - with no lights on - for blocking an emergency vehicle.
You can obviously make it more likely you will get pulled over. Excessive speed, dangerous driving, or being of an ethnic minority all should be avoided. But honestly, the only thing actually protecting you is the herd around you and the cop not wanting to be bothered.
Yep! I've only ever been pulled over two times in my life. Both times were shortly after moving from a different state, both times were some absolutely bogus claim by the cop, both times let me off "with just a warning" against the crime of Driving With Out Of State Tags. It's absolutely intentional since they expect an out of state person wouldn't be able to contest it in court. Pigs, all of then
Realize that a lot of traffic laws are more or less designed to make everyone a criminal. That leaves it up to the cop to decide who they like to pull over.
Sprinkle in a little racism and bam! This is America.
WTF are you talking about, I e stopped at every stop sign for 30 years. This is all in your head. And complete fiction.
Exactly. Especially this complaint about stop signs. That's not something that a normal motorist would encounter during a normal day of driving. If you ever happen to encounter a stop sign, as rare as they are, and feel that you then can't spend a minute to make a proper stop there then the real problem certainly must be in your mind.
Not sure where you live but in America stop signs are everywhere. You can't go anywhere without hitting multiple.
A ticket for 53 in a 50? Either you were using a GPS speedo instead of the mechanical one in the car or you were actually going faster than you thought.
Here in the UK speedometers are required to read fast and all speed cameras have 5mph dead zone to account for errors in the reading so doing 53mph on the speedo wouldn’t even set off a camera. Obviously idk about the US but it seems a bit stupid not to have a system similar to the UK one.
Yeah that’s weirdly strict. In Florida, going 5mph over the limit means the only thing that cop can do is give you a “warning”. That effectively means it never happens because they aren’t going to waste their time on that (unless maybe you’re black or something like that).
In practice, most people go 10 over and cops don’t do anything about it unless it’s close to the end of the month and they haven’t met their quota yet.
In Germany, it's against the law to not do a full stop at traffic signs. You will fail your driving test doing this and you'll definitely get pulled over when you're seen doing it.
You should obey the basic rules such as speed limits, stopping for red light, etc. Driving faster is associated with higher rate of road fatalities.
The real solution is that our society must abolish the reliance on cars. We should opt for safer modes of transportation that do not make it necessary for us to trust every random person to have the patience and skill for operating a car that can kill people so easily.
One time when I lived in Utah, I literally got pulled over for driving the speed limit. Literally. The cop told me that I needed to go with the flow of traffic instead. He didn't give me a ticket, but it was still an annoying interruption to my day, and I assume it gave him a power boner of some sort.
But another time, living in the same area, I got pulled over by a different cop for going with the flow of traffic, because speeding isn't justified even when everyone else on the road is.
As another comment said, you're fucked if you do and fucked if you don't. Although, I do prefer the alternative of going with the flow of traffic to avoid road rage incidents as you've pointed out.
I think I would have demanded a ticket in your case. I would have really liked to see how that played out in court.
I think you can take that 53 mph to court. Thats way too close to be legit.
In most jurisdictions police can do you for even 1mph over. There are a number of things in their favour, as they'll have multiple pieces of evidence (device readout + police statement minimum) against only you and your word. Some places will also give you a far worse outcome if you lose in court than if you just accept the ticket. At the very least you should talk to a lawyer first about how best to take it to court and the likelihood of winning.
End of the day, with the way car speedo's over-read, for you to be doing 53 mph your needle would've been reading ~56, which is well over.
All I'm getting from this is that, on the day you obeyed all traffic laws, you were the good driver and the others were bad. Things didn't run smoothly because the others didn't obey the traffic laws, not because you obeyed them.
Do it anyway. If a driver crashes into you because you're obeying traffic laws, they're at fault, and their life gets ruined because they're an awful person. If someone blows through a red light, same deal. If traffic gets backed up for several miles because nobody wants to travel at the speed limit, fuck 'em, they should have left earlier. I enjoy the impotent fury that other drivers feel towards me when I'm going 35 in a 35.
It might be "immoral" and "sociopathic" for me to think this, but if someone is gonna get themself killed because they can't stand to come to a complete stop at the stop sign, GOOD, I hope they die. The world is better off without them in it. Of course, never block someone from passing you even if they have to break the law to do it. You never know when someone is bleeding out from a chainsaw wound.
I agree with the spirit of this comment, but AVOID CRASHES. Don't be dead right. A crash can cause you a lifetime of pain, avoid collisions at all costs, even if you have to break some traffic laws to do so.
In principle, sure their behavior causing an accident is their problem.
In reality, if someone crashes into you because you're following the law, it still results in you having to deal with the accident (which could mean you're dead or permanently disabled).
If someone is tailgating me they are in the wrong. I'm still going to do what is necessary to get out of their way ASAP, because the longer they are there the longer they have to potentially kill me with their behavior. It doesn't matter if I'm in the right if I'm dead.
You just had some bad luck. I have passed dozens of police while going 3-5 MPH over the limit and they never took a second look at me. Same thing riding with others. The main thing in driving is try to be a decent person and try not to stand out. If you encounter an unsafe asshole, stay away from them. If you are in the middle a line of cars going 10MPH over the limit, you are probably fine. If you at the front of a line of cars going 10MPH over the speed limit, you are more likely to get pulled over because you stand out as the first speeder.
Standards of driving sound bad where you are
So you don't need to obey the laws because others don't? You're being childish, it isn't that big of a deal.
I will say that ticket you got is bullshit though. That's just a dick cop.
You mean pulling over as in stopping at the side of the road to let people pass because you were abiding by the speed limit? That sounds so wild to me.
I absolutely love driving the speed limit exactly when someone behind me thinks I want a longer trunk, maybe a tiny bit slower if they're persistent.
They're usually able to keep a bigger distance all of a sudden.
That said, the speed is usually at most at 10kmh above the limit so I guess it's not too bad yet. Aside from the occasional idiot that thinks curves with little visibility are superior to straight sections where you can see the next 500 meters for taking people over.
You should protest the ticket in court. Going along with traffic is a valid defense. Get documentation of the behavior mentioned in your post. Doing what you did is more dangerous than going 3 over. The local bureaucracy has a problem there and you can use this issue to shine light on it.
It's not a valid defense. I tried using it once and the judge said, if they all drove off a bridge, would you too?
You will have better luck arguing the 3 mph is within the margin of error of the radar gun, that you were on a hill that was slightly accelerating, you slightly sped up to avoid and accident, etc.
I follow all traffic laws to a tee, just to be the change I want to see in the world. Pedestrian deaths (negligent manslaughter IMO) by cars are at an all time high in my country. As a bonus, I usually end up right next to the asshole speeding and weaving in and out of traffic at the red light
If everyone followed the law, there would be no problem. The problem is that bad and unsafe driving is normalized in our society.
Write to your local member.
Care less about what others do.
Move to a first world nation or state. (Most of the US isn't).
Definitely get a dashcam.
Post dashcam footage on YouTube.
Send a bill to the city to the tyre.
Complain about people's dangerous road behaviour until the behaviour is enforced or speed changed.
You know after thinking about it, its only really been a huge problem on this one road where I live. The speed limit varies between 35,45,50 mph and theres one construction zone that is 25 mph. As a whole traffic goes about 60-70mph throughout. Its a windy valley road that is frequented by bicycles and hikers and people have absolutely been killed there in speed related accidents. I sent a message to the sheriff’s department voicing concerns but I’ve heard complaints from neighbors about it for years and its still a huge problem.
On other roads especially highways its mostly no problem to avoid speeding as long as you stay in the right lane, after all trucks avoid speeding most of the time for efficiency and safety reasons, unless you hit a 50-55mph zone like for construction. Those are nearly always ignored by other drivers. Slowing down to comply with the speed limit is likely to get you rear ended since so many are distracted. If you’re lucky enough not to be rear ended it usually results in getting flipped off, but sometimes road rage incidents can escalate.
I do it when I have to drive. If people get angry that's their problem.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6611240-three-felonies-a-day
It's a feature, not a bug.
Your not expected to obey all laws all the time, its a tool in the toolbox for selective enforcement punishment, taxation.
Ironically, self driving cars will do more to make traffic laws more sensible, since the cars will OBEY every law, no matter how silly... and that will back up traffic until the law is fixed.
I've always thought that if you want to fix bad laws, go to the capital city where the law makers are and obey the law very carefully, such that the cost of obedience is paid by the lawmakers.
I've been driving for about a decade and a half now, including a few years here and there working jobs with a lot of wheel time. Either pizza delivery or cable technician or driving around a box truck.
I have never gotten as much as a speeding ticket. I typically don't speed more than 5~10 mph over the limit. If it's a 35 or 40 in a city area though I will typically stay the speed limit. Sometimes I go a little ham on country roads in the middle of nowhere. I drove through central Florida once at like 4am and I peaked at like 120mph because I hadn't seen another car for at least an hour.
I think it probably depends on your jurisdiction, but nobody really respects the laws. On the interstate near my house, the speed limit is 65 but it might as well be 80. Cops will pass you and people will pass the cops and nobody cares.
I think the speeding laws are just to give the cops a reason to pull you over if they want you - OR a way to get people that are really being crazy. For example if you're going 110 in a 65 you deserve to get pulled over and given a ticket or worse, depending on context.
I think it probably depends on your jurisdiction
This is the real answer. There's a town near me that used to be training grounds for new sheriff's deputies. The accepted rule was to never deviate by even 1mph there. I recently heard that training doesn't happen there anymore, but I'm not willing to risk it unless I'm in the middle of a bunch of other cars that are also going above the limit so I don't stand out.
It's a game unfortunately.
Sometimes you get nailed for something fucking stupid like 53 in a 50. (Maybe that is worth contesting). Sometimes you deserve it (like me doing 40 in a 25 one time). But there's no justice. Loads of people get away with breaking loads of laws all the time before they finally get caught.
So it's a game for us. But actually it's a money maker for the government doing the enforcing.
One thing works well for me: using Google maps to navigate everywhere I go has the benefit of speed trap notifications.
Getting a speeding ticket while going 3 miles over the speed limit sucks so I can see why you’re upset.
I’ve never had a problem just going with the flow of traffic. Sometimes almost everyone is going over the speed limit. I go with that. I’ve lived in Minnesota most of my life. I’m more comfortable than most driving in snow and ice. Sometimes in snowy conditions the flow of traffic seems slower than necessary. Yet, again, I just go with the traffic flow and end up driving a bit slower than I would otherwise. If there’s little to no traffic I just go the speed limit. If someone wants in my lane I let them in whenever possible.
Also be aware that police tend to be a bit more stringent with enforcing traffic rules if you're traveling through a small town. I read an article long ago (so take this with a grain of salt) that the police department of a small town gets a large portion of its funding through speeding tickets, so there's a huge incentive for police in those areas to enforce traffic laws as tightly as possible.
In any case, the highest that I'll do is speed limit + 5 mph when there's not that many other cars around, and if the other cars want to pass by me, no big deal
You're not supposed to obey traffic laws. They're designed to fund local governments and give police arbitrary power.
Many laws are. But basic things like speed limit serve a very good purpose: reducing fatalities caused by cars. Speed limits are proven to do this.
The last ticket I got was from parking within 15 feet of a fire hydrant. There's no sign or marker indicating where 15 feet is, so I had to basically eyeball it and hope that I was far enough from the hydrant. Yeah, that's one that's almost impossible to practically obey.
I think traffic laws in many cases cause more issues than they solve, though I don’t know enough to really say which types of laws are problematic.
I do notice that a lot of drivers which go over the speed limit because it’s too low tend to overdo it, driving too fast instead, for example. On roads where the speed limit is fairly high most people seem to drive at a speed close to it.
I also read a study a few years ago which claimed that removing speed limits actually causes most people to drive slower, but I can’t find it right now.
I can’t believe you got a ticket for speeding 53 in a 50! What state do you live in that police are that eager to give a ticket? Cops will only be that strict where I live in 25mph zones, usually school zones or a place where the highway goes through the middle of town.
They say something around here like: +8, you’re great. +9, you’re mine. And that is actually pretty low for how much I’ve seen people speed here (+15 sometimes, even on 2-lane highways like you’re talking about). I got ticketed for a +13.