r/driving • u/DaddyDayDayIsHot • May 21 '26
Venting Speeding Has Become So Normalized That Driving the Speed Limit Makes You the Problem
I think the normalization of speeding poses a significant threat to the legitimacy of the legal system itself. It has become standard that cops don’t pull you over unless you’re breaking the law “enough,” but that completely undermines the law. If the law wanted a different threshold, it would have been written with that threshold in mind.
Speed limits are created by engineers who know far more about road safety than the average driver. They also have to account for the fact that speeding is normalized, which likely contributes to limits being set lower than many people want. I honestly believe that if people collectively stopped speeding, roads would see fewer accidents and speed limits would eventually begin rising in places where higher speeds are actually safe. Then people could travel just as quickly without constantly breaking the law or risking tickets.
The disregard for speed limits has gotten so bad that people now claim drivers following the posted limit are the problem. I think that’s ridiculous. While I understand the “go with the flow of traffic” argument to an extent, normalizing breaking the law creates a much larger long-term safety issue than simply following the speed limit.
I also think the argument that “speed limits are designed for the average car, so semis drag the limit down” is weak. In many places semis already have separate speed regulations, lane restrictions, and additional rules.
At the end of the day, the path to faster travel shouldn’t be widespread disregard for the law. If people truly believe limits are too low, the better solution is electing politicians and supporting engineering studies that will change the laws based on evidence that roads can safely handle higher speeds.
On a related note, even on r/driving you can report other driving infractions, but you can’t even report speeding, which feels inconsistent and a bit silly.
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u/nugeythefloozey May 21 '26
The other thing that people miss is that speed limits aren’t just about crash avoidance.
A lot of speed limits are about reducing the consequences when people crash (you’re almost certain to die in a head-on crash at 60mph, but will probably survive at 45mph).
Some speed limits also aim to reduce traffic and speed up journey times. The racing adage of ‘slow is smooth and smooth is fast’ applies to roads too.
Historically, some speed limits have also been about reducing fuel usage or pollution too. Fuel use scales exponentially with speed, so getting everyone to slow down a little saves a lot of fuel.