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Bureaucracy is a nightmare. There's national laws, local laws, technical laws, practical laws, petty laws, incompetent laws, minority laws, old laws nobody bothered to get rid of, potential laws for possible situations that might happen at some point in an imaginary future.. and so on.
Basically, it depends on who writes the law and why. All laws are subjective to humans, by humans and against anything that annoys the specific humans in charge at any given point in time.
So you can selectively punish.
Everyone always exceed the speed limit on highways.
Is this some kind of American thing?
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
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 ~~stupid~~ not matched to the designs of the roads.
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??
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.
no idea where you're from, but it's true in many European countries too
When minor things are against the rules which are selectively enforced, it means the authorities get to pick and choose who to punish based on whatever criteria they feel like, which gives them power.
It's so the police always have something they can stop you for.
expected ... traffic speed
You're not supposed to be speeding you know?
I'll never forget my first time driving in Southern California.
I was doing 85mph in a 70mph zone and a prius flew past me.
Where I live, if you're driving the speed limit on the highway, you'd best be in the slow lane...and you'd still have people passing you.
You should be in the slow lane I'd you aren't overtaking anyway right? I presume most places have fairly similar rules but here in Australia it's keep left unless overtaking, always. I guess keep right unless overtaking for US.
Yeah, but we've got like 4 lanes in a single direction sometimes, so there's not just a slow lane and a passing lane.
Bwahahaha!
People exceed the speed limit on highways, but usually not by a lot. If they exceed it by a lot, it is usually enforced, e.g. by speed cameras; but of course some people still sometimes get away with it, no enforcement of any law is perfect.
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…
What is a speed limit on highways?
Confused greetings from Germany.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the US it's technically a target, since you can be ticketed for going too fast or too slow.
You're not expected to break them. For your example, you're not supposed to go over the speed limit. And it is, in fact, extremely easy to do so. Most people are fine with it. And, no, it's not impossible to do so. There is nothing forcing you to go faster for little to no gain and increased risk for you and other.
You expecting to go over tells something about you.
Practically no one actually drives at or below the speed limit in the US, especially on freeways. Whether or not you personally like this doesn't matter -- it's just how it is.
You're welcome to try it, but speeding is so pervasive in our culture that this will single you out and Ruggedly Individualistic Americans will get frothingly butthurt at you over it. Prepare to get tailgated, cut off, bullied out of your lane, stuff thrown at your car, etc.
I haven't driven over the speed limit in a decade in the US and have anecdotally never experienced the behavior you're describing.
It's not just a matter of others getting butthurt. It's actively dangerous to be driving at a different speed from the rest of traffic, regardless of whether you're going faster or slower.
If that's true, then it would be a good idea to have everybody converge on a particular speed. It doesn't seem practical to negotiate that speed amongst a constantly-changing set of drivers, it probably needs to be chosen in advance. That seems like a natural function of government, to choose the consensus speed through a process designed to represent everybody in the community.
To communicate to drivers entering the roadway this consensus speed which everybody must travel at—for safety—the government could, say, post it on signs located along the roadside.
But that's probably just a ridiculous fantasy. How then should all drivers negotiate the consensus speed to ensure safety?
No negotiation is needed. As long as everyone agrees to follow everyone else (i.e. no one tries to overtake and you keep a constant gap with the car in front of you), then everything will naturally fall into place.
I remember a young college aged guy got shot in the head for beeping his horn at someone. Happened a few years sgo.
It sounds like you're proud of your culture of not giving a crap about rules set to improve safety for everyone. On that account, I agree that we'll never see eye to eye about this.
What part of what I wrote expressed that I was "proud" of it?
I'm just telling you how people behave. I don't have any control over anybody but myself. For what it's worth, I'm probably one of the six people in this damn country who doesn't drive like a nut.
You expecting to go over tells something about you.
I don't drive, but every time I’m in my parent’s car, they drive the speed limit, then I see cars flying by on the highway, and I’m like wtf.
I double check the spedometer, it points at just below 60, the sign says speed limit is 60. How is everyone going so fast. They must be speeding.
Not just one or 2 cars. Like almost every car.
Edit: This is in the USA, the Interstate-95 / PA-NJ Turnpike btw.
Textbook case of a cognitive bias. If you're going the speed limit, every car that passes you is speeding. You don't see all the other cars doing the speed limit.