Speed Limits (rant/curiosity)

[Rise To The Top]

You can loose control of your car sooo easily by accelerating too fast, which is why normal and SAFE drivers accelerate slower than you.

 

[Kilane]

I can't speak to whether you're a safe or unsafe driver and while I tend to agree with you there's several reasons why speed limits exist.

In the 70's it was to conserve gas in an energy crisis... thereafter they realized there were MUCH less fatalities due to driving. I'm not a rocket scientist, but what I can say is that if the rate of accidents DOESN'T change in the range of speed, at least the lethality will. IE inniating a collision of any sort at 55mph vs 85mph, there's a larger chance of you walking away at the slower speed. Moral of the story, it's unsafe to drive fast because you're more likely to die, not because you're more likely to get into an accident. (At least I think I can draw that conclusion)

 

[Redo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek /img/forum/go_quote.gif Okay so maybe it's just me... but i've noticed I can drive 15-20mph over the posted speed limit and still drive safely. What's up with that? I think it's perfectly acceptable to drive ~85mph on the freeway when there isn't much traffic. On most county roads and arterials, ~55mph is just fine many times due to wide roads and lack of congestion. I guess I just don't understand the whole Speed Limit thing.. driving fast isn't unsafe... driving UNSAFELY is unsafe /EDIT: Oh, forgot to mention... accelerration is another huge peeve of mine. I have a 1985 Nissan Sentra with 223,000 miles on it (4cylinder of course). Without putting undue strain upon my car, I accelerate from a dead stop faster than ~75% of the cars out there when (for example) pulling away from a stop sign. If I pulled out from a stop as fast as I think is fitting, i would be hitting the people in front of me - almost every time. Are people afraid of accelerating or something? I just don't understand it. If you're going somewhere, might as well get there faster. Plus driving fast is fun If you don't like driving fast, get off the road and buy a bicycle. The worst is when I see a car with 4x the power of mine made by BMW or Jaguar and they are accelerating away from stop signs like a grandma and consistently driving 5-10mph under the speed limit. It happens more often that you think.

Your tires wear far faster at 85mph than 55mph, your brakes wear much faster, your mileage drops substantially, and your emergency maneuvering is basically worthless at those speeds.

Those "annoying" drivers that always seem to be going the speed limit, they are the smart drivers.

 

[vcoheda]

there is little relation between speed limits and safety. speeding tickets are not there to promote safety - although i suspect they do that somewhat - but to make money for the town, city, state. based on pure observation, i would guess that more than 75% of drivers break the speed limit each and every time they drive; and this is probably a conservative figure.

 

[JSTpt1022]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chesebert /img/forum/go_quote.gif speed limit is the law. period. even 1mph over the limit is breaking the law. So yes you are knowingly breaking the law; but whether the state/city/municipality decides to enforce that or not is another matter. Just remember this, driving is a privilege and not a right.

The government does not tell me what is right and wrong. I will drive at the speed I deem appropriate. If the police are truly there to protect and serve (a phrase many seem to have forgotten) then they will pull over the reckless drivers. I drive because I have to and because I sometimes enjoy it, not because anyone told me I could.

Edit: I really have to partially agree about the stop light thing. I recently moved to Long Island where there are apparently more stoplights than people. There is an amazing discrepancy inherent in the way people drive around here. First, they are the most unsafe drivers I have ever seen; weaving in and out of traffic on heavily congested roads, cutting people off constantly for no apparent reason only to slow to a near crawl 3 seconds later, turning whichever direction desired from the center lane, running nearly every red light. It really freaked me out the first couple of weeks. But then, after the light finally turns green again, we all take about 30 seconds to start moving?! Is it just me or is this behavior a little inconsistent? My theory is, and I'm sure many will disagree, that every car within sight of the light should start rolling the instant it turns green. Not quickly of course, just keep pace with the person in front of you. If everyone does this, we all make the light and we all shave 5 minutes off our daily commute.

 

[Redo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vcoheda /img/forum/go_quote.gif there is little relation between speed limits and safety.

That's debatable. There's lots of articles saying there isn't much of a safety difference with increased speed limits, and lots of articles saying that raising the speed limit increases accidents. Whatever the case is, it isn't safer to increase the speed limit.

Also, regardless of the speed limit, speeding over the speed limit is when things become exponentially more dangerous against the speeder.

 

[Redo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSTpt1022 /img/forum/go_quote.gif The government does not tell me what is right and wrong. I will drive at the speed I deem appropriate. If the police are truly there to protect and serve (a phrase many seem to have forgotten) then they will pull over the reckless drivers. I drive because I have to and because I sometimes enjoy it, not because anyone told me I could.

This is why driving on public roadways is a privilege and not a right.

 

[oicdn]

As proven in Eurpoe several times over, speed limits are STUPID.

IMO, speeding tickets are only for city revenue. They serve no real purpose, as VERY FEW of the people who get speeding tickets ever slow down/learn thier lesson.

A cop is in more danger from pulling over somebody speeding than almost any other activity, and most of your crap that happens to offers happen from routine speeding ticket stops.

IMO, police should be more concerned with drivers driving WRECKLESSLY, putting more focus on DUI checkpoints, and people running redlights if they're concerned about traffic violations, as those are what people should really be worried about. **** speed traps, put those man hours into DUI checkpoints and cops sitting at redlights. But that's just me....

 

[will75]

I'll bet most parents appreciate speed limits when driving with their children in the car. I do.

 

[vcoheda]

speeding does not cause accidents. careless and reckless driving do. of course for every situation, there is a point where the speed itself is the source of the carless or reckless driving.

speeding = tickets = money.

 

[error401]

I'm with the OP on this. It's aggressive driving, not speed that causes accidents. I don't know about where you're from, but around here running reds as they change has become a major problem in the past few years. It's not uncommon to see 3 or even 4 cars run through a red to turn left and it's rare that at least one car doesn't go through (they then of course slow down to 5km/h under the limit - What?). Almost every day I see people recklessly cross the double-solid to pass the yahoo doing 55km/h in the 60km/h zone where everyone does 80. I've been forced into the oncoming lane by a moron flying up the right lane where it merges into single lane and assuming that someone was going to make space for him.

Of course, I've never once seen anyone exhibiting this kind of reckless, aggressive behaviour get pulled over. Nooo. All the cops are sitting picking off people cresting bridges or coming down hills in the city or behind overpasses on the freeway. They should really focus on dangerous driving in general and not just speed alone.

I don't know what it is about merge lanes, but the one I take every day never gets above 70km/h merging with 100km/h traffic, and it's a long straight lead up to a lengthy merging section. Where did people learn to drive? This is clearly unsafe, and for some reason it even happens with those same people that do 80km/h in the 60 zone to get to the freeway.

Most speed limits are artificially low. They're the lowest common denominator - bad weather, heavy traffic, unstable vehicle, lengthened reaction times are all factored in. Under normal circumstances with an attentive driver I don't think safety is compromised by reasonable speeding, especially on the freeway. As long as visibility is good, you can usually see at least a kilometre ahead on the average freeway. The roads are smooth and well engineered. Why is a low limit necessary? Because drivers are irresponsible, unattentive idiots. I think it should be harder to get a license and penalties for aggressive dangerous driving should be more severe. Force people to drive safely, and speed doesn't really matter.

 

[oicdn]

^^ Exactly, you can have wreckless driving going 20mph that can be just as bad as somebody on the highway weaving in and out of cars at 100MPH. Don't believe me? Just come here to Florida at your outside shopping malls (not strip mall, but a full on outdoors shopping center mall), you'll see how stupid people drive...people don't stop, don't watch where they're going, don't pay attention to stop signs, crosswalks, or traffic lights...or people just walking in general. It's a madhouse.

 

[JSTpt1022]

Wow error that sounds exactly like what I was talking about down here on the Island.

 

[ingwe]

Lots of morons around Atlanta who never learned how to use a turn signal...

 

[Jasper994]

Hey man! Nice to see you online again!

As far as speeding goes, unless things have changed in Washington since I left, people are pretty cautious of their speed and acceleration because cops up there will write you a ticket for (in some areas) as low as 2 mph over the limit. If you consider the margin of error from in accurate speedometers, and varying tire inflation it's not shocking that people have learned to drive 5 under. In a state like California where cops don't tend to ticket people for 10 over it's pretty standard to see people driving that fast or faster. As far as acceleration goes, I know people who have gotten tickets up there for display of speed...

Cops up there (at least the last time I was there) seem to spend most of their time looking for ways to write tickets. It's always been bad (maybe the crime rate up there isn't high enough?), but it got a lot worse after they passed the initiative to lower vehicle license taxes to a flat rate (~$60 if I recall correctly). The state lost a lot of revenue when that went through and the cops up there quickly found ways to keep their jobs.