My top 10 enforcement & countermeasure pet peeves

[kpatz]

I can be killed while traveling 0 MPH, such as when I'm stopped at a red light and a crane drops a grand piano on my head.

Nahh... that doesn't kill. I've seen that happen in countless cartoons and the character always crawls out from underneath the piano, boulder or anvil slightly flatter and more beat up than before, but by the next scene they're fine!

[MEM-TEK]

On the other hand, apparently the act of drinking nitro glycerine and then swallowing a firecracker will use up all of your nine lives.

[gpracer1]

Nice thread!

On the speed kills thingy......Leos will almost always argue this, because its what they have been taught and what they "enforce" daily.

Its not speed that causes an accident.....Its not paying attention, not having the right car or motorcyle for the speed traveled (driving a semi through the twisties at 90 mph, but can be done in my vette or bike) <that could be argued speed as a factor, but its more on the person who decided to drive that unfit vehicle at that speed. Driving too fast for road conditions is another one. If its dark, get better lights and you can go faster. Its not always speeds fault.

Its peoples lack of experience with closing distances, braking at higher speeds, the effects of inertia, tire traction, aerodynamics, vehicle specific handling, etc. that causes the "speed" accidents. (it doesnt help if you are asleep or drunk, but thats not the root cause).

Yes speed will make an accident worse, but only if an accident happens in the first place.
If we actually had a mandatory real driving school to get your license that taught some of the things I mentioned, we would have more people who understand the physics of driving at any speed and a lot less carnage on the road.

Imagine all the drivers of IRL, Nascar, F1 , MotoGP, CART, etc. all lived in the same big town with their regular cars and no speed limit........Im sure there would be few speed accidents as long as the uneducated less experienced regular drivers did not live there.

[swarga]

If you're doing the PSL while everyone around you is doing 15 over, who's being the dangerous driver?

Sorry, but the old, "but everyone else is doing it" argument just doesn't really work on any logical level.

While your statement is correct, that's not the argument kpatz is making.

What he is saying is that anyone who is driving at a speed which is significantly different than the flow of traffic is a source of danger, much more so that the act of exceeding some arbitrary numbers painted on a sign.

Example: Suppose I'm in a driveway which leads out onto a road with a 65 MPH speed limit. If I pull out directly in front of 65 MPH traffic at 5 MPH, am I causing a significant traffic hazard? You bet your sweet bippy I am, and yet I'm not speeding. The hazard comes from the 60 MPH speed differential between my 5 MPH speed and the rest of the cars which are going 65 MPH.

Speed differential is dangerous at any speed; the bigger the difference, the greater the danger.

And claiming the speed limits are too low is a dishonest cop-out.

Under-posted speed limits are a documented fact. To claim otherwise is a dishonest cop-out.

If they raised the speed limit by 20 mph today, most of the speeders here would still drive at 10 to 15 over PSL.

That statement is ridiculous and trivial to refute. If I make the speed limit 200 MPH, you most definitely will not see most people driving at 215 MPH.

More generally, if a speed limit is set scientifically according to established engineering principles like the 85th percentile rule, then 85% of drivers will automatically be in compliance. The 85th percentile speed doesn't magically change just because you changed the numbers on the sign. To claim otherwise is simply ignorant.

[MEM-TEK]

Regardless of the posted speed limit, the vast majority of drivers will drive at the speed which they feel is safe and comfortable for the given road conditions. And that is a statement straight from a government study.

[partsfreak]

Regardless of the posted speed limit, the vast majority of drivers will drive at the speed which they feel is safe and comfortable for the given road conditions. And that is a statement straight from a government study.

AMEN to that, I have always done that and always will. To me posted speed limits are merely a suggestion and a minimum for people who cant handle their equipment.
Another thing is that the speed limits have not increased with the capabilities of todays vehicles. The technologies have evolved such that the cars handle so much better than 30 years ago and are capable of traveling safer at higher speeds.

[Stealth Stalker]

Regardless of the posted speed limit, the vast majority of drivers will drive at the speed which they feel is safe and comfortable for the given road conditions.

Sure. But much of what they feel safe with is based upon the PSL. A great many drivers simply feel that -- no matter what the PSL is -- they are safe doing 10 to 15 mph over it. That is part of the reason why PSLs stay low, because they know that the flow of traffic is going to consistently exceed it by an average of 6 to 10 mph.

When I got my driver licence, the PSL was still commonly 70 to 75 mph on the highway, and people were still passing me. You cannot overestimate human nature. We'd be pushing 100 mph speed limits before a great many people felt like it was "fast enough" that they didn't need to exceed it anymore.

[MEM-TEK]

Sure. But much of what they feel safe with is based upon the PSL. A great many drivers simply feel that -- no matter what the PSL is -- they are safe doing 10 to 15 mph over it. That is part of the reason why PSLs stay low, because they know that the flow of traffic is going to consistently exceed it by an average of 6 to 10 mph.

When I got my driver licence, the PSL was still commonly 70 to 75 mph on the highway, and people were still passing me. You cannot overestimate human nature. We'd be pushing 100 mph speed limits before a great many people felt like it was "fast enough" that they didn't need to exceed it anymore.

Hmm...the speed limit still commonly is anywhere from 65 to 75 mph on most highways. What has changed? Nothing. The vast majority of the federal interstate highway system, as originally built, was designed for speeds of up to 80 mph.

Our federal government, along with numerous state governments, state that posted speed limits reflect the "90th percentile rule" which says that the posted speed limit for a given road is the average speed of 90 percent of drivers on that road based on traffic studies. And yet this has been proven to be false well over 50% of the time. Now ask yourself why the 90% rule isn't realistically applied to over 50% of your road systems. There is only one answer. And that answer involves the word "revenue."

[swarga]

Regardless of the posted speed limit, the vast majority of drivers will drive at the speed which they feel is safe and comfortable for the given road conditions.

Sure. But much of what they feel safe with is based upon the PSL.

Sure, thanks to saturation police patrols, lots of people are too scared to drive as fast as they really feel comfortable for fear of getting a ticket. But if you remove that fear factor, the 85th percentile speed doesn't change even if you change the speed limit. And if you were to raise the speed limit above the 85th percentile level, you'd discover that most drivers will level off at the 85th percentile speed or below; speeds will not increase infinitely as you claim.

[supercowpowers]

Regardless of the posted speed limit, the vast majority of drivers will drive at the speed which they feel is safe and comfortable for the given road conditions.

Sure. But much of what they feel safe with is based upon the PSL. A great many drivers simply feel that -- no matter what the PSL is -- they are safe doing 10 to 15 mph over it. That is part of the reason why PSLs stay low, because they know that the flow of traffic is going to consistently exceed it by an average of 6 to 10 mph.

Chicken, meet egg...

They feel that way because they routinely exceed the limit by 15 MPH, so how can they know when a limit is posted that's actually serious?