Right.
How to pay for roads 4374John F. Carr In essence, motorists decided that it was inconvenient for them to obey their own laws, and so the...
Consult the law, not a dictionary. If you are interested in the answer to "since when", see Short form: unposted speed limits ceased to be absolute limits in 1906 and posted speed limits ceased to be absolute limits in 1948.
(If the speed limits around here really were limits, I have an alternate legal justification but we don't need to go down that route.
I pay careful attention to speed limit signs, since motor vehicle law and policy is a personal interest of mine. I just don't mistake them for something they are not. Neither do the state police -- they admit that the signs aren't meant to be taken seriously.
But the law does not grant permission to drive through a red light without stopping even when doing so is safe, while it does grant permission to exceed the speed limit when doing so is safe.
But there is a better reason that this argument doesn't really shed any light on the issue. In the urban areas where most bicyclists, especially the law-ignoring kind, are found the flow of traffic is well under the speed that the law says is evidence of unsafe driving (over 30 MPH for at least 1-8 mile; there is not even a suggested limit on instantaneous speed). Meanwhile, 90% of bike riders ignore intersection traffic controls. That 90% figure is a real count, by the local newspaper, not just a guess.
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