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.
True, but traffic not following “the algorithm” is more dangerous than moderate speeding.
People do enforce the law. Just occasionally, but that’s enough to scare 90% into submission
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.
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.
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
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.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.
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)
It’s so the police always have something they can stop you for.
just magically “enforce” it with no unintended consequences, please
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.
Guess what, all three extra lanes are still passing lanes. This misunderstanding is the biggest cause of traffic.
Tell that to like 99% of drivers on the Interstate-95 around the PA-NJ Turnpike section (USA btw).
Traffic speed? If you know where all the speed cameras are, you could dodge them and hope there are no other police checking you.
That’s the whole fucking point. Speed traps are only there to decrease the number of people killed, and we still have idiots complaining about it.
Speed traps don’t stop or prevent crime/accidents, they generate money. In fact, one could argue a police speed traps causes accidents when a group of cars in the front suddenly slam on their brakes.
a group of cars in the front suddenly slam on their brakes.
A group of speeding cars in the front suddenly slam on their brakes.
You are the problem. That’s why I would enjoy if all those fucking morons had their license removed for life and they had to take the bus. I have to avoid accidents every fucking day because of them and I don’t see why I have to suffer for that.
Oh, about that: China also randomly flies drones that patrols the highways. Of couse, that’s getting into the Authoritarian territory, and people in Democracies don’t like it, but it is an option.
IMHO it’s not authoritarian. Your speed in public space should be public. I struggle every day with fucking idiots in BMW or VW who almost hit my car because they can’t drive properly. I wouldn’t mind seeing them in jail if it meant some kind of control on my own speed.
Ehh, for a bit Virginia tried enforcing them with aircraft.
It stopped because it was expensive, not because it was too authoritarian.
Manned Aircraft is much more expensive than drones, especially fuel cost. You can get like a DJI drone for like around $2000 (there are cheaper ones, but then you have to fly closer, since the cameras sucks on the cheaper ones) with good enough cameras to see the license plates by flying just hovering outside of the edge of the highway (so that, if it fails for some reason, it falls outside of the highway and doesn’t affect the traffic), and angle it towards the highway, and you’ll see all the license plates clearly, and with the help of the distance markers on the side of the road, determine their speed. As long as they don’t crash the drones, they are gonna last a long time, and if batteries are worn out, they can just get new ones. It’s not exactly “cheap”, but the government has a lot of budget. Getting like 20 of these can cover a lot of area. You don’t have to catch every one, just enough to make people think again before trying to speed. And randomly change the locations of patrol so there is no way to predict where they are being watched.
Also, they can get like some expensive ones, some cheap ones, mix and match. The cheaper ones will have trouble getting a clear license plate if it also have to keep a safe distance, but the people don’t know which drones are the expensive ones, get like 20 DJI Mavics, 40 DJI Mini 2 SE, mix them up. Think of like having real cameras mixed in with fake cameras.
I know it looks expensive, but just look at the police budget and it’s barely a dent. Cut out all of those “riot suppression” (aka: protest suppression) stuff from the budget and you got a lot of budget to work with.
As for manpower, redirect those writing tickets in the city, and teach them how to fly these drones. Parking violations have basically zero harm, fuck that shit, speeding has more potential to cause harm than parking violations.
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.
Which shines some light on how the black population (at least here in the US) gets charged with disproportionately more crimes.
It’s very effective in keeping slavery via our private prison system running
I don’t think everyone always breaks the speed limit, but probably they do at some point during every journey. They knew this went they introduced the 20mph speed limit but they introduced it anyway because they thought it would reduce the average speed by a few mph.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Because you don’t see the cars going the same speed as you. If everyone on the interstate was going 60 you would only ever see the 10 cars near you. But 10 people going 70 could pass 100 cars. Each of those drivers would see 10 cars going 60 and 10 cars going 70. Despite the fact that less than 10% of the cars were speeding.
For what it’s worth, the I-95 corridor from about Richmond to Boston, particularly the DC-Balitmore-Philly-NYC part, is probably one of the worst stretches of highway in the country for generalized insanity and phenomenally poor driving skills on display from everyone involved. It is easily my most hated patch of asphalt in the universe.
A small but measurable improvement would be made to the world instantly if every person in DC and Baltimore had their licenses revoked. Although if experience is any judge, that still wouldn’t prevent any of them from still all being on 95, three inches from the car in front and raging over “only” being able to do 80 in a 55.
