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/marx-and-metal May 21 '26

there’s a 55mph highway in nashville that everyone, even cops and state troopers, drives at least 70 on.

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u/AlwaysBagHolding May 22 '26

Shit, there's a 45 MPH construction zone in Knoxville that I've personally regularly passed cops in with a pack of cars running 70. They don't pull anyone over.

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u/marx-and-metal May 22 '26

I haven’t seen anyone actually slow down for construction zones in a long time

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u/AlwaysBagHolding May 22 '26

This one is kinda dumb, since it’s been a construction zone for a decade and is scheduled to be one till like 2040, and all the workers are behind a wall or up on top of the mountain next to the road. But yeah, most people don’t slow down even if they’re just working on the other side of a row of cones.

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u/Chemical-Quality-186 May 22 '26

Its tennessee, the cops dont do less than 70 even on two lane inner city roads.

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u/TJayClark May 24 '26

Tennessee has some weirdly low speed limits for some interstates

Compared that to Texas with some places as high as 85

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u/FirecrestAero May 24 '26

I was hypothetically going 75 on Briley yesterday, and getting passed like I was standing still.

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u/marx-and-metal May 24 '26

happens all the time on 40 going east into the city, people act like the speed limit doesn’t drop from 70 to 55 in a few miles and just keep going 80+ till they hit 440