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I'll one up this.
In Australia we occasionally have signs: "40 (kh/h) when children as present"
Okay but doesn't that defeat the purpose? If I see the cunts then I'm not gonna hit them, no matter how fast I'm going.
The problem arises when i don't see the little shits.
If you want people to go 120, you set it at 110 because you're always going to give 10% for inattention/speedo malfunction/radar inaccuracy.
Speed cameras do shit all about someone speeding now instead of 2 weeks from now when you mail the vehicle a fine and the driver never sees a demerit. Especially if they have lots of money.
Or I guess we could just stroke ourselves over how we go the speed limit all the time, really truly.
It's socially convention
Would be too quick
Oh boy, you're in luck!
Oh buddy, you'll love this!
If your raise the speed limit 10-15 people will go 10-15 mph above that
You had me in the first half, NGL
More state-sponsored surveillance is never the answer.
I always drive at the speed limit, even if it gets me honked at. People are just impatient these days
Why does everyone drive 10-15 miles above the speed limit?
This isn't really unique to the US. In my country people also consider it their right to drive above the speed limit and hate the police for telling them they can't do it...
Why don't we raise the speed limit if that's how fast everyone wants to go?
Because then everyone would drive above that new limit instead. It's a psychology thing. It's not that everyone would rather go speed y than speed x, being above the speed limit is the very point to it. Otherwise you'd see different behaviors with different speed limits, but at least here, every speed limit sees the same behavior of people not respecting it by the same amount.
Why don't we raise the speed limit if that's how fast everyone wants to go?
Because then everyone would drive above that new limit instead.
I'm not so sure about that. If the speed limit in my neighborhood was 80mph I don't think I'd be going that fast much less above it. If the nearby interstate reduced the speed limit to 25mph I don't think I'd naturally be driving it at 35-40mph as you state.
In my experience, it's more a thing that I think many people disregard the speed limit for the most part and have a certain speed they feel is natural and comfortable for them to drive on a given road in a given situation.
Going through the neighborhood? Some people think 15mph, some think 25mph, some think 30mph. See some kids playing on the side of the road? Most people generally would slow down a bit. Roads are tight and narrow? Well now I have to be a bit more careful in this area so I need to slow down even further.
In my experience the psychology trick has everything to do with the road, what's around it, the condition it's in, etc, and less to do with the sign itself.
Well, I think both of you have a point. The problem with "most people would slow down" is that this means dead children because of those who don't.
Speed limits to have a role to play, however much better than a sign is indeed to create roads that naturally make people drive slower. Countless streets in Europe have been redesigned according to that principle, the most systematically in the Netherlands. Why? Because it works and it saves lives.
The US requires roads to built in a way that the "natural speed" would be insanely high, even in purely residential areas.
Why does everyone drive 10-15 miles above the speed limit?
We don't. Some of yall do. And then you ride my ass when i don't.
Why don’t we raise the speed limit if that’s how fast everyone wants to go?
They do. Speed limits are determined by how fast people go on the roads.
Why is traffic enforcement given to very expensive and ineffective police instead of cheaper and more automated traffic cameras?
Because cameras can't beat people with batons for no reason. Also some areas do have camera enforcement.
Why do we refuse to ever use ANY traffic calming measures? Yes, than you flashing digital sign for telling me I’m going 10 miles above the limit on this incredibly wide and straight and flat road with high curbs and perfect visibility.
Your mad it's telling you you're speeding? Then go slower.
Stop resisting!
I'm going 10 miles above the limit on this incredibly wide and straight and flat road with high curbs and perfect visibility
This is the reason why people speed. If you want people to drive more slowly, you have to design the road/street in a way that discourages higher speeds. Do this, and you won’t need any invasive speed cameras or pay traffic cops to enforce.
On highways I suspect no one gives a shit. If it feels natural to drive 10 mph above the speed limit, it’s probably safe. But raising the speed limit would probably lead some people to speeding even more, with fewer options for punishing them (in my country at least, the fine is dependent on how much above the limit you were going).
Wow, such wrong info and opinon here. I swear, Lemmy might be worse than Facebook to find out real info.
https://schwartzcohenlaw.com/how-often-do-radar-guns-need-to-be-calibrated/
Meaning that there's little assurance that your speedometer and a radar gun will agree exactly. They might be up to 5-7 mph off. So if someone is going up to 10mph above the limit, it's legally not guaranteed that a radar gun reading their speed accurately will result in a fine.
Also, 10-15 over is about how far you can go that if you see a cop far off, you can slow down in time.
On top of this, fines are usually proportional to speed above the limit. So the fine itself is usually not worth the time or hassle to a cop if it's just over the limit. They prefer easy, slam dunk cases, like someone doing 35 in a 15, or 65 in a 45.
In the US, speed limits are based on road engineering, sort of guessed tolerances for the shittiest cars on the road, and (way back when) fuel economy. So it's a patchwork of things unevenly applied over decades. Not all these standards change in every state regularly. Not every state is in a rush to check if 1970s standards for car tolerances for grade on a curve are still helpful. Often not until someone has a reason to lobby state government to change them.
Until only very recently, a human had to weild the radar gun. Physically and legally. Most States didn't allow automated tickets until they saw how easily fines could be collected with them. Those systems are expensive to buy and very unpopular, so not every local government wants to be the people that put up surveillance state infrastructure - and made taxpayers pay for the thing that now gives them tickets.
Those are both expensive as well, and the if you did that, people would get less tickets. Which means lower local government budgets.
You're really looking at this from a backwards perspective. People want to do whatever they want. Then one rule shows up. Then another. Then another. Each one is imperfect, and so each rule and method gets expensive to implement, but also makes people feel hemmed in a little more. And each rule pisses people off because they have habits that work into the gaps of the old system.
Because people want to get places faster, and everyone knows law enforcement can't reliably say if you were going 30mph or 40mph without a radar. So everyone collectively agrees that up to 10mph over the limit is fine since you probably won't get pulled over unless you go more than that.
If you raise the limit from 30 to 40, people will just end up driving 50.
- Why is traffic enforcement given to very expensive and ineffective police instead of cheaper and more automated traffic cameras?
Fuck. Off. With. Your. Surveillance. State. Bullshit.
We had a driver for a trip near London. The driver was driving quickly, but then slowed before getting to a speed-averaging camera checkpoint, saying how they weren't going to catch him speeding.
I thought about it, I did. But I can't justify that logic. If you can't cross that line until a certain time (or else get a citation), then you're not speeding unless you break that rule. If you speed up and then slow down to average-out your speed, you're just driving bad, not saving time.
Anyways, I was just amused that they had a system that seemed more foolproof, and yet it wasn't accomplishing its intended goal for this one driver. That was just one person, I know.
Because the average American believes speed limits aren't meant for the especially skilled drivers like themselves.
If the speed limit is raised, then people will drive 10-15 MPH over the new limit. Natch.
Traffic enforcement cameras have been routinely abused by the government and so have to be regularly taken away from them like the naughty children they are.
People will assure you that civil planning has done their job and everything is already working like a well-oiled machine. I don't know why people keep saying this when it's obviously not true. It's astounding.
Traffic enforcement cameras have been routinely abused by the government…
People focus on the nasty abuse like stalking etc. but in my experience traffic cameras (specifically stop sign cameras) are abusive in another way: the fines are low, the crime is classed as civil, and no points are added to the drivers license. Which means if a citation is issued, people just pay it because contesting a false positive case is impossible because you have to schedule a court date, take a day off work to go to court, and pay the court fees even if the judgement is in your favor (which are higher than the actual fine). This only gets worse as more of these cameras switch to AI flagging with “human review,” which we know translates to “no one fucking watched the video, they just isssued the fine.”
Even before AI was in the mix, local governments were pulling crap like shortening yellow light timers to less than their own laws require for safety. And fine citizens (or habitual yellow-light runners) did the leg work to catch this crap. We've always had to be on our guard. That isn't a new phenomena.
Mostly politics and grafting. There is a piece of highway in Florida where there is a nonsensical low speed limit. The stretch is "owned" by a little village with a police force nearly as big as the population in total, and the police is basically generating a good income by speed trapping on the highway 24/7.
Is this Waldo on US 301?
Rings a bell, could be.
I don't speed.
I mean I do, but only if I'm not paying attention. I naturally want to go fast. If there were no cars on the road, I'd be going as fast as I want. During the pandemic, when no one else was on the road and cops weren't pulling people over, I was getting to work in 30 minutes. Normally it takes no less than 45, and usually more like an hour and a half.
However, I don't speed because there are other cars on the road.
I'll drive at the speed limit if I can. I used to drive about 5 mph above the speed limit, but the last time I was doing that, I stopped for a school bus dropping off kids, and the guy behind me didn't even stop looking at his phone (I assume). And it occurred to me that he was going 5mph faster than he would have been because I let him.
So now I try (again, fighting my nature) to never go above the speed limit. I also never drive closer than 4 seconds to the car in front of me. I also very slowly decrease my speed down to 10 mph below the speed limit if someone is tailgating me.
Prior to the pandemic, people would be annoyed, and they'd aggressively pass me when it was safe to do so. Since the pandemic people just cross the double yellow line into oncoming traffic to pass.
They've made it much harder than it used to be to get your license in PA, but it's still too easy to get and keep your driver's license. Every driver should have to repeat a driving test every five years.
My wife has health problems, and voluntarily stopped driving about 15 years ago when she noticed she was developing muscle weakness. The only time she's driven a car since was an early Sunday morning when I took her to the empty high school parking lot and had her drive our civic around so she could just see what it felt like.
My dad drove him and my mom to church on the day he died. He had been having increasing number of car accidents, but no one could stop him from driving. My wife and I refused to ride in a car with him driving. I think the last accident he had was with a light pole in a parking lot because "the sun was in his eyes."
If his heart had given out on the highway on the way instead of in church, my siblings and I would have had to bury both parents.
It's not your place to police other drivers and their behavior. Nor is it mine. Slowing down if someone is tailgating pisses everyone off, and going under the speed limit can be just as dangerous as going over. It's a really easy way to cause a crash.
Drive predictably. If that means going the exact speed limit, fine. But far too often I am on the road with people who think going 25mph in a 45mph on a two lane road is safer.
Yeah, you're wrong. If someone is tailgating me, I'm going to reduce my speed to minimize the impact.
I've been hit. I've been hit by people who were tailgating me. When that's happened it didn't matter what I did. If I speed up, they speed up. If I slow down, they stay right there. I've literally turned on my hazard lights and had people continue to tailgate.
It's not about policing other drivers. It's about minimizing the damage they will eventually cause.
The short answer to all your questions is that America specializes in stupid in all kinds of ways. This is one of them.
Cops want it that way.
In the USA, you can follow the average driver on a 10 minute drive and they'll technically commit at least 1 infraction. My FIL got a $90 ticket last month for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign.
The rules of the road are so anally technical so that cops have a valid reason to pull you over whenever they desire. That's it.
Not stopping at a stop sign is far from "anally technical."
You’re coming to a 4 way stop. No one is around. You slow to approx 3 mph, then move through as no one is around. That’s pretty fucking anal
