Why do people object to highway cameras 2851Where I drive in California, people tailgate primarily because they are speeding, impatient and want to get around other cars. A lot of it is mountain driving where speeders take enormous...
NunYa Bidness
Truck or pbuttenger car tires on DakotaThere are two issues here, both related to whether you use it as a truck or as a car with a really big trunk. The LT (light truck) series tires usually have a...
yes, it is. Of, by, and for the people, remember? If the vast majority of drivers didn't speed (in the US) I might be willing to entertain the notion that you have a valid point. But, the vast majority of people *do* speed which must mean that the law doesn't reflect the will of the people.
Who aren't qualified to make these judgements re: traffic law, which means we need to get our poo together and give that power back to the engineers and traffic safety experts, and I don't mean that raving lunatic Joan Claybrook either. Oddly enough, those very experts generally recommend that the speed limits be set by the 85th percentile method - which also means that our current speed limits are too low.
Yeah, but you aren't a traffic safety expert or transportation engineer either.
They most certainly do NOT. Every single unbiased study of freeway traffic flow has determined that safety is maximized when speed limits are properly set, not artificially low.
They need our input! Write to your state representative now and tell him you want speed limits raised to the 85th percentile on all highways in your state unless there's a valid engineering reason why it shouldn't be so set.
Haven't you realized yet that speed limits are kept low for several reasons?
1) They give the police the authority to pull over motorists that they otherwise wouldn't have, allowing them to check the papers of anyone they want to without having probable cause for a stop other than driving at the same speed everyone else is. Sort of like the Patriot Act for highways.
2) The insurance lobby spins statistics and cooks the books every year to generate statistically and-or methodologically flawed "reports" that "prove" that "speed kills." Their modus operandi is to use the tickets thus generated (that wouldn't otherwise be issued) to raise motorists' insurance rates. Some (*cough*GEICO*cough*) have even gone so far as to *give* radar guns to police so that more tickets and therefore revenue is generated. Don't believe me? Look at all the "studies" out there on the subject. Anything supporting a "speed kills" agenda is either funded by an insurance company or buttociation thereof like the IIHS, or else is so blatantly sophomoric and unscientific that even the least critical reader will promptly stop reading after the abstract. By contrast most of the studies supporting the 85th percentile are generally well conducted, use proper statistical methods, eschew scare-mongering, and are usually either independently funded or funded by some government agency. The police are complicit in this because of 1) and 3) even if they know better.
3) While technically police don't get revenue from speeding tickets, they aren't completely stupid and realize that the more tickets they write, the more revenue their municipality, county, or state receives. Certainly there may be pressure put on cops to go out there and make some revenue, even though quotas are technically illegal.
My character, honor, and integrity tells me to stand up for what is right, not to blindly obey the law. My sense of self-preservation also tells me that I shouldn't be a dumbbutt and drive 55 MPH in a 75 MPH traffic flow.
nate
-- replace "fly" with "com" to reply.
