Example: Traffic Speed. Everyone always exceed the speed limit on highways. Why do we still have the limit? Like, either enforce it, or remove it. This stuff doesn’t make sense at all.
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.
But doing 55 in a 65 isn’t unreasonable, and 95 is pretty fast and at that speed handling can become difficult on cheap or poorly maintained cars.
There are also conditions where 30 is what you’ll do on a highway if its a blizzard and you’re stuck behind a plow truck.
You are referring to the basic speed law…
Drive as fast as the road conditions allow or some shit.
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.
The point is that his wife should not be a potential killer.
55 in a 50? Killer?
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?
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Okay buddy, simmer down.
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.
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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.
I live in the south of France. I see cops cars using speed radars once a year. Once a fucking year. They do NOT enforce anything. If they did, half the population would be unemployed.
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
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
So you can selectively punish.
People do enforce the law. Just occasionally, but that’s enough to scare 90% into submission
It’s so the police always have something they can stop you for.
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.
What is a speed limit on highways?
Confused greetings from Germany.
I know it is old, but… : 😁
https://www.topspeed.com/cars/car-news/animal-caught-speeding-on-a-german-highway/
Speed limits are somewhat enforced in Germany. Just because you can floor it at times does not mean you can go 100 in a 50.
They are enforced, of course, but there are large sections of highway with no speed limit.
Freie Fahrt für freie Bürger
- ADAC 1974
On the highways here, the original speed limit of 55 was to save our nation’s resources, not just “55 to stay alive” but also it was an efficient speed to maintain and still pretty fast.
Inside the city it works much better to make drivers feel unsafe going fast. Narrower lanes, speed bumps, roundabouts, etc.
In answer to your actual question - some laws are just old and haven’t been unwound yet and others are used as pretext for profiling, police (or, more properly whoever is running them) like to be able to stop people for no reason but that can be seen as illegitimate, so they keep laws that everyone breaks, jaywalking, etc to have an excuse.
I don’t think there is any one law everybody breaks really but also no person who has lived perfectly law abiding life.
Reminds me of Three Felonies a Day
Everyone always exceed the speed limit on highways.
Is this some kind of American thing?
no idea where you’re from, but it’s true in many European countries too
Canada too. Sometimes it seems like the speed “limit” is actually the minimum most people are expected to go (if possible) on Ontario’s highways, especially the busiest ones. Enforcement is almost entirely done manually and barely exists, if it’s being done at all.
A lot of roads and highways are very over-engineered here with wide & forgiving lanes, with broad shoulders at the side. The actual speeds that can be accommodated in the design are far greater than the posted limit.
the hell
North American driving culture sucks. For the past 70 years cars have dominated at the expense of all other modes of travel. They’re deeply embedded into our culture, infrastructure, planning processes, transportation engineering, and daily lives. They have become synonymous with freedom of movement for a lot of people who can’t imagine any different way to get around. Speed limits and enforcement in their minds are seen as an infringement on their rights. It will be a long and uncertain process to enact change, ripe for disruption and setbacks, but the status quo isn’t working, we’ve hit the limits of cars’ ability to scale, and with the internet showing how things are in the rest of the world, some people are waking up to what’s possible when you aren’t dependent on cars to get around safely and reliably.
To expand on what Grappling said, I’ll give you an example. A few years ago the city repaved a decrepit section of road into a smooth and wide open road that is wide enough for 4 lanes but made into 2 wide ones with massive shoulders. There are no pedestrians on this road and you can comfortably go 80-100km/h. The speed limit they set? 50. While it’s not every road, it is definitely a lot of roads that get treated like this. It results in getting very comfortable with breaking the speed limits because the speed limits are
stupidnot matched to the designs of the roads.That is a stupid speed limit tbh
In Canada, the speed limits are kind of designed for bad conditions. Because somehow, in the cities, many people are too stupid or stubborn to go below the speed limit in the snow.
So in clear conditions, the speed limit should be higher than it is.
Also, at least around where I live, the roads are designed to support higher speeds than the speed limits indicate. So we have roads designed for 50km/h, but the speed limit is 30km/h. 50km/h feels nore comfortable to drive.
Why don’t we just redesign the roads to make them less comfortable to speed in? Well, how else are we going to issue tickets where officers can choose who gets fined, and sometimes even get to search a car out of the deal??
Not sure if it’s an “American” thing…
This is the Interstate-95 on the PA-NJ Turnpike section, a two-hour long drive by car (at 60 Miles Per Hour speed, that is)
True, but traffic not following “the algorithm” is more dangerous than moderate speeding.
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 :/
Certainly cheaper than paying for a police cruiser and all their equipment and wages. Its also less likely for the camera to be racist, be bribed, or shoot someone.
Cars are so common and speeding ignored for long we’d probably need at least double the amount of cops to enfroce traffic if we got rid of red light and speeding cameras.
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.
mm yea true
Everyone always exceed the speed limit on highways
You’re projecting yourself
Nah, I don’t even have a license to drive.
Every time I’m in my parent’s car, they drive the speed limit, then I see cars flying by. I’m like wtf.
I double check the spedometer, it points at just below 60, the sign says 60. How is everyone going so fast. They must be speeding.
Edit: And it’s not just one or two cars, its almost every car on the highway.
This is in the USA, the Interstate-95 / PA-NJ Turnpike btw.
Lol,
everyone
Proceeds to disprove.
Apparently it’s not everyone that speeds.
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
Yep. In Switzerland not having your ID on you is an arrest-able offence. Of course, the police never check the ID of anyone white or who blends in.
But if you look brown / disabled, then they will check you…
