What constitutes speeding?

[7racer]

I dunno...this video kinda shows that sometimes speeding is safe and necessary!!!...even with the dreaded night time dangers (and of course there are overhead city lights which help which doesn't seem to be taken into account in the Maine's driver handbook)

95mph!

:tongue:

95 MPH Race to Hospital and Last-Second Birth Captured on Dad's Go-Pro

 

[7racer]

Even a police officer admitted that speeding limits are set arbitrarily and designed for revenue generation.

He even stated that "the old adage of speed kills just isn't realistic"

Michigan State Police Lieutenant Denies 'Speed Kills' Myth

 

[Lloyd]

Article in Today's paper regarding Speeding in Finland,,,,, OUCH

:scared:

 

[Skotty]

Speeding is driving over the posted speed limit.

Most people speed on a regular basis. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Try driving the speed limit sometime and watch the river of cars and trucks pass you constantly. Then try driving just a few over for awhile. You pass a couple of cars maybe, but by and large most other cars are still passing you. I'm not saying what is right, just that most people do drive over the limit.

One of the big reasons for this I think is that newer cars are able to drive faster more safely and more quietly than older cars. People naturally want to drive faster than in the past because it feels and actually is safer than it would be in a car of older design.

What I find most annoying are the speeders that slow down to UNDER the limit when they see a cop car. That is so incredibly annoying. Please stop doing that.

 

[brianman]

What I find most annoying are the speeders that slow down to UNDER the limit when they see a cop car. That is so incredibly annoying. Please stop doing that.

And unsafe. Drama with speed changes relative to traffic behind you.

 

[green1]

Article in Today's paper regarding Speeding in Finland,,,,, OUCH

:scared:

I'm actually a big fan of this. Fines are meant to be a deterrent, what better way to make sure the deterrent effect works regardless of how rich you are than to base the fines on your net worth.

A fine to a single parent working minimum wage would be devastating, why should it be less painful for someone with money? If someone sees the fine as just "the cost of driving" and can just throw money at it, they aren't very likely to change their behaviour.

All that said, I think in general speed limits should be raised significantly from where many of them are today (many were set decades ago when cars were much less safe and the roads in much worse shape.) but if you want to deter an activity, the punishment must be enough for that specific person to feel it is not worth the risk, sliding scale fines tied to net worth are brilliant.

 

[brianman]

(A) I'm actually a big fan of this. Fines are meant to be a deterrent, what better way to make sure the deterrent effect works regardless of how rich you are than to base the fines on your net worth.

A fine to a single parent working minimum wage would be devastating, why should it be less painful for someone with money? If someone sees the fine as just "the cost of driving" and can just throw money at it, they aren't very likely to change their behaviour.

(B) All that said, I think in general speed limits should be raised significantly from where many of them are today (many were set decades ago when cars were much less safe and the roads in much worse shape.) but if you want to deter an activity, the punishment must be enough for that specific person to feel it is not worth the risk, sliding scale fines tied to net worth are brilliant.

(A) One could make the argument that newer cars can generally drive faster more safely. One could also make the argument that generally richer people buy newer cars. Thus one could make the argument that all speed limits should be calibrated to the crappiest welfare car made. I don't think you'd want that. Imagine how much worse traffic would become.

(B) Your 3rd paragraph suggests a "benefit" to the rich by giving them room to legally drive faster with their expensive new cars.


I haven't fully formed my thinking on this topic; your post just confused me somewhat so I figured it might be interesting to comment.

 

[yobigd20]

I'm actually a big fan of this. Fines are meant to be a deterrent, what better way to make sure the deterrent effect works regardless of how rich you are than to base the fines on your net worth.

A fine to a single parent working minimum wage would be devastating, why should it be less painful for someone with money? If someone sees the fine as just "the cost of driving" and can just throw money at it, they aren't very likely to change their behaviour.

All that said, I think in general speed limits should be raised significantly from where many of them are today (many were set decades ago when cars were much less safe and the roads in much worse shape.) but if you want to deter an activity, the punishment must be enough for that specific person to feel it is not worth the risk, sliding scale fines tied to net worth are brilliant.

No way. How is that fair? I would leave that country too. Some people work really hard to make more money. Fining them based on their income is absurd and unfair.

 

[green1]

If you go to jail, your jail sentence has the same effect on you regardless of your wealth, if you get a fine instead, it has a very different effect based on wealth.

What are fines for? if they are to raise revenue for the state then the current setup works well and is fair to all. It should also be abolished and incorporated in to the tax system instead.
If the fines are to drive a particular behaviour, explain to me how a billionaire will have their behaviour changed by a fine that is only a couple of hundred dollars?

Tell me what the purpose of a fine is, and we can discuss from there how to make it serve it's purpose.

 

[detlefo]

Last week I drove to Bend, Oregon for some spring skiing. The stretch from the Mt Shasta Supercharger to Bend is 222 miles up Hwy 97. In Oregon, this road has a 55 mph limit. No one goes this slow, most 70 mph or more. I, on the other hand, driving a Model S into a North wind calculated that I could reach Bend on a full charge if I averaged 60 mph. This is a very good road, mostly straight with long sight lines. Limit should be 65, probably safe up to 70 mph. You cannot imagine the looks of hate and gestures I received for plugging along at 60 mph while driving a fast car. I could only imagine the reaction if I had actually stayed at the 55 mph speed limit. The wind had decreased.

By the way, I made it with 55 miles range remaining.

 

[green1]

Last week I drove to Bend, Oregon for some spring skiing. The stretch from the Mt Shasta Supercharger to Bend is 222 miles up Hwy 97. In Oregon, this road has a 55 mph limit. No one goes this slow, most 70 mph or more. I, on the other hand, driving a Model S into a North wind calculated that I could reach Bend on a full charge if I averaged 60 mph. This is a very good road, mostly straight with long sight lines. Limit should be 65, probably safe up to 70 mph. You cannot imagine the looks of hate and gestures I received for plugging along at 60 mph while driving a fast car. I could only imagine the reaction if I had actually stayed at the 55 mph speed limit. The wind had decreased.

By the way, I made it with 55 miles range remaining.

And this is the second part of my argument, speed limits pretty much world wide need a revamp to bring them up to date with cars built since the 1960s and roads designed since then as well.

 

[brianman]

And this is the second part of my argument, speed limits pretty much world wide need a revamp to bring them up to date with cars built since the 1960s and roads designed since then as well.

Let's run with this a bit. Cars built before the 1960s should have a different speed limit or should drive unsafely?

 

[green1]

Let's run with this a bit. Cars built before the 1960s should have a different speed limit or should drive unsafely?

Should we lower all speed limits to the safe speed of the first horseless cariage? Or realise that the vast majority of the cars on the road today were built much more recently and the speed limits that haven't changed in decades are ripe for reevaluation?

 

[brianman]

And this is the second part of my argument, speed limits pretty much world wide need a revamp to bring them up to date with cars built since the 1960s and roads designed since then as well.

Let's run with this a bit. Cars built before the 1960s should have a different speed limit or should drive unsafely?

Should we lower all speed limits to the safe speed of the first horseless cariage? Or realise that the vast majority of the cars on the road today were built much more recently and the speed limits that haven't changed in decades are ripe for reevaluation?

As I understood it, your argument included [1] the legal limit should be appropriate for car capabilities and [2] that cars from the 1960s and newer are more capable than older cars. As such, shouldn't there be different speed limits for older (< 1960s) vs. newer (> 1960s) cars? Or are you suggesting that older cars be decommissioned as an entire class?

 

[FlasherZ]

As I understood it, your argument included [1] the legal limit should be appropriate for car capabilities and [2] that cars from the 1960s and newer are more capable than older cars. As such, shouldn't there be different speed limits for older (< 1960s) vs. newer (> 1960s) cars? Or are you suggesting that older cars be decommissioned as an entire class?

Remember that older chassis can be configured with newer gear, too.

I don't know that I would WANT to drive my 1965 car at 65 mph or more. With bias-ply, it's like driving a dining room table on 1" legs with casters.

 

[green1]

No, my argument was to make the speed limits for the majority of vehicles, and that we don't need to be at the absolute lowest common denominator. If we did that we'd have to make the nation wide speed limit about 10mph just in case.
Where do you draw the line?
When the speed limits were set, the average car was probably built in the 50s and 60s, now the average car is built in the 90s and 00s, why should we still have the same speed limits as we had back then?

 

[brianman]

No, my argument was to make the speed limits for the majority of vehicles, and that we don't need to be at the absolute lowest common denominator.

Ok, so perhaps I misunderstood. If you have an "older" vehicle for which the (newer proposed) legal speed limit is "unreasonably high" (for your vehicle) should you be ticketed for "driving unsafely" when driving near that speed limit?

 

[dsm363]

If you car can't safely maintain the posted speed limit you shouldn't drive it. That's for the driver to decide.

 

[green1]

Ignore my proposal for a minute. How would you handle a Ford Model T driving on the highway today?

I'm not proposing any change to how you handle old vehicles that aren't capable of handling highway speeds.

I'm proposing that when 99% of vehicles on the road are built to handle higher speeds, the 1% shouldn't hold the rest of the world back. If that were the case we'd be limited to 10mph, obviously saner heads prevailed and they upped the speed limits past there, I'm just saying it's time to do that (upping the limits) again because, just as cars in the 60s could handle higher speeds than those at the turn of the century, cars today can handle higher speeds than those from the 60s.

It's called progress, and it's time we made some.

 

[ecarfan]

...I'm just saying it's time to do that (upping the limits) again because, just as cars in the 60s could handle higher speeds than those at the turn of the century, cars today can handle higher speeds than those from the 60s.

Yes, but drivers have not improved (human reaction times and cognitive processing abilities remain the same) and driver attention spans are arguably worse because there are now so many more in-car distractions. Anyone who thinks they can successfully multi-task while driving a car fast is deluding themselves.
All of that argues against raising the speed limits. A very small percentage of cars now have some limited automatic accident avoidance capabilities but it will be decades before there are enough advanced cars on the road for those new systems to make driving at higher speeds safer for most people.

For those reasons I do not think speed limits should be raised at this point in time.