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Why has society decided that speeding is still socially acceptable?
- Thread starter FriskyCanuck
- Start date
I'm from SA. They buy licenses here, when passing the tests isn't working out as well as they had hoped. This is also why I'm astounded at the idea of baseline speed limits being universally sound. I'd expect a more thorough reasoning than 'rule of thumb'. But I see what you're saying. My idea of a utopia would be road accessibility dependent on a type of license. This, like everything else on the planet, could obviously be circumvented, but I like to dream.
Meh? I travel at 70-80 on highways/freeways, don't tailgate, and only drive so when there's nothing really ahead of me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. GA's highways are between 55-65 mph. Shit's aggravating.
On of the most dangerous things I've encountered on the road is some soccer mom who decided to break check me while I was changing lanes in heavy traffic. Because trying to cause an accident because you're uncomfortable is sound logic. I'm OK with speed demons to a point, but fuck her and fuck people who do that.
I've also almost been run off the road by some dickwad who couldn't be assed to check if a car was next to his before merging. And he kept merging even as I laid on the horn.
I've also seen someone cross four lanes of traffic and cut off a truck because they were about to miss their exit.
I watched someone outrun a cop in high traffic and that guy was an asshole. Tailgating and nearly clipping me and other cars while doing 90 to get away from the police. He got away.
In summary, I don't mind people who speed, because there's like a thousand other drivers intentionally trying to fuck with other drivers and going out of their way to create dangerous situations on the road. I'm sure we've all dealt with slow-asses who suddenly pick up the pace when you're trying to get around them, and dumbasses who close the gap when you put on your indicator, and HOV blockers driving the same speed as regular traffic despite the line of cars behind them. "Slower traffic keep right," my ass.
On of the most dangerous things I've encountered on the road is some soccer mom who decided to break check me while I was changing lanes in heavy traffic. Because trying to cause an accident because you're uncomfortable is sound logic. I'm OK with speed demons to a point, but fuck her and fuck people who do that.
I've also almost been run off the road by some dickwad who couldn't be assed to check if a car was next to his before merging. And he kept merging even as I laid on the horn.
I've also seen someone cross four lanes of traffic and cut off a truck because they were about to miss their exit.
I watched someone outrun a cop in high traffic and that guy was an asshole. Tailgating and nearly clipping me and other cars while doing 90 to get away from the police. He got away.
In summary, I don't mind people who speed, because there's like a thousand other drivers intentionally trying to fuck with other drivers and going out of their way to create dangerous situations on the road. I'm sure we've all dealt with slow-asses who suddenly pick up the pace when you're trying to get around them, and dumbasses who close the gap when you put on your indicator, and HOV blockers driving the same speed as regular traffic despite the line of cars behind them. "Slower traffic keep right," my ass.
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Sometimes it's ok to speed and sometimes it's not. Machines can't make those calls so people resist automated radar tickets and so on.
The same way it's ok to run a red light sometimes or make a right turn at 5 mph without coming to a complete stop first sometimes.
And sometimes it's not ok at all and it's dangerous. It depends on visibility, traffic density and other relevant factors.
With that said, this will all become moot as self-driving cars remove the (very) dubious time-saving benefits of speeding.
The same way it's ok to run a red light sometimes or make a right turn at 5 mph without coming to a complete stop first sometimes.
And sometimes it's not ok at all and it's dangerous. It depends on visibility, traffic density and other relevant factors.
With that said, this will all become moot as self-driving cars remove the (very) dubious time-saving benefits of speeding.
But speeding is a serious offense, much more than not wearing your seatbelt.
This is a wise post here but sadly will go ignored. I always like that people somehow equate driving faster to being a "better driver".
Try telling Americans they need to spend upwards of $2000 just for the legal privilege of driving.
I'm 200% sure the majority of people dont speed to try and save time. They speed to get to their destination as soon as possible, there is a difference. I know going 80 is going to save me a few minutes at most, depending on where I'm going, but that's a few minutes I don't have to be on the highway with other scumbag drivers. I speed constantly, but I never tailgate, and I always use my turn signals, and never erratically switch lanes, but I see crap like that daily, and I do a ton of driving throughout the day. I feel actions like that should warrant heavy fines and ticketing over people going over bullshit speed limits.
Oh and I live in MD too, I do 80 on 270/495/95 ect no problem and I've only been pulled over once, for going 62 on 270 at like 1pm coming off of 495. I almost laughed in the guys face. traffic cops are scum of the earth, don't know how they sleep at night.
Oh and I live in MD too, I do 80 on 270/495/95 ect no problem and I've only been pulled over once, for going 62 on 270 at like 1pm coming off of 495. I almost laughed in the guys face. traffic cops are scum of the earth, don't know how they sleep at night.
I'm sure driverless cars will make this problem redundant in the future, anyway.
In the future, vehicles will have their speed limited by software and the driverless mode will be the default setup - only being overridden in specific circumstances with good reason.
In the future, vehicles will have their speed limited by software and the driverless mode will be the default setup - only being overridden in specific circumstances with good reason.
Yeah it would be devastating to do that and would only serve to prevent even more poor people from getting jobs. Having a car in the US is synonymous with independence. Putting a $2000 entrance fee to driving would halt most younger people's chances to get a job when getting a car itself is already an incredibly high hurdle for some.
Because most speed limits are too low so everyone empathizes with "speeders", which is a group that also includes the dangerous maniacs.
It feels like speeding laws are a way to bring in cash rather than actually protect people.
It feels like speeding laws are a way to bring in cash rather than actually protect people.
People that go slow in the fast lane and ignore the 12 cars behind them while refusing to switch lanes are way worse than someone going 20km over. I hate that shit.
The high fees aren't what's keeping Germans safe, what's keeping them safe is that people over there know how to drive. We need higher speed limits and better education for drivers. Also, force everyone to learn manual transmission to get a license. Driving should be a privilege not a right.
Yep. They cause road rage and force passing on the right. They need to get off the road immediately.
Where do you think that $2000 is going to? It's not to take the written test, it's for the mandatory driver's education.
Those people are idiotic. They think getting in front of someone is gonna somehow get them to their destination faster. I love pulling up at a red light next to the driver who was riding my butt trying to make me go faster.
Also people who think it's ok to ride on the shoulder to pass someone. That's against the law. Leave earlier if you can't stand to wait for someone to turn left. Most insane thing I've expierenced was myself getting cut off, when I was turning right, by some dude driving on the shoulder because he needed to pass all the traffic to get to where he was going.
Also people who think it's ok to ride on the shoulder to pass someone. That's against the law. Leave earlier if you can't stand to wait for someone to turn left. Most insane thing I've expierenced was myself getting cut off, when I was turning right, by some dude driving on the shoulder because he needed to pass all the traffic to get to where he was going.
You don't need to take an entire class to not drive like a fool. They just need to make the driver handbooks more thorough and make the tests tougher. The way it is now, any idiot could pass with barely any effort.
Tell me about it I live over in borward and every so often i drive over to fort myers the speed limits are nonsense. One minute I'm going 55 than 45 than 35 right back to 55 why? Nothing on these streets are changing.
Vancouver flirted with the idea of photo radar. The police bought a unit and stuck it on that safe section of roadway referenced in the video, where literally everyone ignores the bullshit law because it's bullshit in that location. The police didn't care about traffic safety, they just wanted a way to automate several thousand speeding tickets per-hour. (The photo radar unit will pay for itself in no time!) There was an uproar and the police were forced to do away with photo radar.
As others have said, the problem isn't speeding, but people who don't know how to drive and who deliberately drive unsafely. Driving slow in lanes to the left the primary example of the former, and weaving through traffic in rush hour to get two cars ahead an example of the latter.
If speed limits were more reasonable for modern standards and technology then most "speeding" wouldn't be labeled as such.
Yup. I will drive well over the limit on an open freeway but I still think the guy going 60 in a residential neighborhood is a dangerous moron.
And really it's a lack of awareness and experience that are the most dangerous faults of drivers on the road. A ton of drivers don't seem to understand consequences of actions or how traffic fits together. I'll take a fleet of speeders over the guy who thinks he's entitled to swerve across three lanes of traffic to make the left turn he didn't realize was 100 yards away. You missed it, dude. Go around the block.
exactly, the road to my job is a 65 but everyone drives around 80. At the end of the day bad drivers will always cause accidents regardless of speeds, to me lethal car accidents aren't an symptom of what youre saying OP rather extremely low standards in driving test/ poor teaching.
Damn, did it really take over 500,000 posts on ERA before we had our first speeding thread? You guys need to, uh, speed more when posting. I mean we had our first tipping thread like over a week ago now!
I live in a state where speed limits enforcement is pretty relaxed. On the interstate everyone is driving 10 MPH faster than the speed limit, and the dangerous thing is that driving on the speed limit in that case is actually dangerous. I know that because I usually get tailgated by a bunch of angry drivers, and it's disgusting to be frank how much regard to the law these people put.
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Tailgating and fast lane transitioning is worse. All that excessive braking causes those speed bumps to break traffic flow and cause jams.
In all fairness, they have a reason, how else are police departments supposed to fund their efforts to keep people from breaking the speed limit?
Note: This is all related to Swedish conditions, and written by a person who has some insight into the inner workings of the transport administration here. Might be that things in the U.S. work very differently!
The fact of the matter is that—all other circumstances being equal—the faster people drive the more likely accidents are to happen (your reaction speed is the same but you travel a longer distance before you react), and the more severe said accidents will be when they occur. I know everyone wants to believe that they are great drivers (the vast, vast majority who claim this are not), but even if that were true, a great driver is still subject to the laws of physics and will experience a longer distance before reacting, as their speed increases.
I don't know about the U.S., but in Sweden, the speed limits are set by the transport administration, which has access to huge amounts of statistics not readily available to the public, and they are trained to analyse said data in ways that your average driver is not, and they make decisions about speed limits (et cetera) based on that. I know that everyone loves to complain about the speed limits and how they're too low ("because nothing ever happened to me, and I'm a great driver") but they are set in place by people who have statistics showing them that if the speed limit on this road is 70 km/h instead of 90 km/h, the result is 10% less accidents with a lethal outcome. But I realise that's not something that enters most people's minds when they are rushing to work.
P.s. If we're talking about traffic risks then one thing that aggravates, astounds, and frightens me to no end, is when people pass me just as we approach the crest of a hill with 0 visibility to the other side, and they would have perhaps 1 second to react if a meeting vehicle would show up (which they have on multiple occasions in the past). That, even moreso than speeding, smacks of a complete and utter lack of thought and/or risk analysis.
The fact of the matter is that—all other circumstances being equal—the faster people drive the more likely accidents are to happen (your reaction speed is the same but you travel a longer distance before you react), and the more severe said accidents will be when they occur. I know everyone wants to believe that they are great drivers (the vast, vast majority who claim this are not), but even if that were true, a great driver is still subject to the laws of physics and will experience a longer distance before reacting, as their speed increases.
I don't know about the U.S., but in Sweden, the speed limits are set by the transport administration, which has access to huge amounts of statistics not readily available to the public, and they are trained to analyse said data in ways that your average driver is not, and they make decisions about speed limits (et cetera) based on that. I know that everyone loves to complain about the speed limits and how they're too low ("because nothing ever happened to me, and I'm a great driver") but they are set in place by people who have statistics showing them that if the speed limit on this road is 70 km/h instead of 90 km/h, the result is 10% less accidents with a lethal outcome. But I realise that's not something that enters most people's minds when they are rushing to work.
P.s. If we're talking about traffic risks then one thing that aggravates, astounds, and frightens me to no end, is when people pass me just as we approach the crest of a hill with 0 visibility to the other side, and they would have perhaps 1 second to react if a meeting vehicle would show up (which they have on multiple occasions in the past). That, even moreso than speeding, smacks of a complete and utter lack of thought and/or risk analysis.
In America, it seems to be common knowledge that speed limits were set in the 1950's, based on the terrible braking and handling capabilities of antiquated vehicles.
By at least the 1970's (longer than many current police officers have been alive), it became a meme that governments had no money to pay the police (or at least, no money they wished to part with), so they tied payment of the police to "performance indicators", particularly the kind of performance that puts money into the government's pockets (like speeding tickets). Police officers have a "quota" on the number of tickets they need to hand out, so when any particular officer finds themselves underperforming, they stop serving and protecting and go hide in the bushes in an area where the speed limits are known to be the most woefully out of touch with reality, and start preying on ordinary, average citizens who are not driving recklessly and are driving appropriate to the conditions. You can drive safer than 99% of your peers in an area that doesn't have a problem with collisions and still get a ticket if you get caught in a speed trap. The government is motivated to not create thoughtful and scientific speed limits, because that would cut off a reliable source of income.
And because people get used to ignoring the unrealistic speed limit, they also ignore it in places where the speed limit makes sense, resulting in crashes and fatalities.
In the video I posted earlier in the thread, they reference an a old local highway through the mountains which was commonly regarded as a deathtrap. People died there with shocking frequency. When we were chosen to host the Olympics, our government rebuilt the highway to make it drastically safer. And the speed limit remained exactly the same before and after the rebuild. The speed limit should've been lowered as the government realized that the highway was dangerous, or raised when it became safe, but the government did neither, because the speed limit is unfortunately not based in science like yours apparently is.
German here, who earned his License while in the US on a year abroad (Arkansas).
I did a ton of driving in both countries. Highway/Autobahn and inner city.
And IMO the speeding/bad driving issues in Germany are much much worse than in the US.
Of course it sucks to only do 90 mph on an empty Interstate at night. But driving is just so much more relaxed, safe and hassle free in the US.
Despite the higher number of distracted drivers (Americans sure love to eat and text while driving).
BUT in Germany people drive so aggressively and fast (even in bad conditions), that it's just fucking stressfull.
The 2000$ driver's license is a joke, even the dumbest people pass it. Then they go out and buy a Golf GTI or BMW 3er and think it's a god given right to do 200 km/h on the Autobahn, even if it says "120 km/h". In general German drivers are pretty anti-social compared to the US or Holland.
IMO "Speeding" is a national disease in Germany. Which is made worse by the "We are the best car people in the world" and "We have the Autobahn" mentality.
It's not just 22 yr old douchebags with gold chains either. Family fathers in VW Sharan minivans will also do 120 in an 80 construction zone like it's nothing.
The Car lobby is blocking any initiates to limit the death tolls. Police is looking the other way (Im over 30 and have never been pulled over on the Autobahn)
In the UK the speed limit on motorways is 70mph. However you often see people exceeding that due to a grey area in the law. In theory the 70mph should be the max limit with conditions permitting. However most motorways in the UK have three lanes. One lane on the far left is considered the slow lane by most, because most don't want to overtake. The middle lane and far right lane are meant to be used for overtaking. However as the law also states that when people overtake they should speed up ahead of the other person, you often have to do do 70 and over to overtake. Now the problem with that is that if the vehicle you want to overtake is forcing you to go over 70, then you really shouldn't be overtaking them. However as long as there aren't cameras watching on every stretch of a motorway people are still going to do it.
It's the inconsistency that's the cause. People who get caught are often people who have been doing it for a while, because they know there is little chance of getting caught.
It's the inconsistency that's the cause. People who get caught are often people who have been doing it for a while, because they know there is little chance of getting caught.
I mean, I think speeding is absolutely fine but in no way is it impossible to prevent.
Have you not heard of average speed cameras? There's a road in Scotland (the A9) that was renowned for being dangerous so they put in average speed cameras for the whole stretch of the road (100+ miles, I think) and it's now the calmest road I've ever driven on. No need for any police to monitor the road. The cameras just calculate Speed = Distance/Time for your entire journey and ticket you as soon as your speed goes too far over the limit (think you get a leeway of about 3-4 MPH).
Cars kill lots of people. We, as a society, have determined that the number of people injured or killed are worth the convenience it adds to our lives. Speeding is just a part of it.
This. Plus traffic deaths are seen as "shrug, shit happens", don't get a ton of media coverage.