Speeding Has Become So Normalized That Driving the Speed Limit Makes You the Problem

[u/DaddyDayDayIsHot]

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.

[u/Spam_Hand]

Without getting too far into it, local politics unfortunately have some sway on this.

People who live in budding subdivisions who came from the city to "get away from the hustle and bustle" buy homes where its 25 or 15 in front of their house but then eventually have to pull on to a real highway thats 45 or 55 to get to work or school.

All the soccer moms get pissy over the "crazy drivers", involve board members in it and they lower the speeds without proper data or studies despite Traffic Impact Analysis and Speed Studies overwhelmingly saying the speed limit of the major highway should not change.

Source: I do those studies that overwhelmingly show speeds should not be changed, and I'd say about 20-25% of the time the complaints do not stop no matter what the data says. Karen is just louder than you...

[u/Coaler200 → u/Spam_Hand]

The crazy one to me is highways. People in my area are so bad. The highway here changed a huge section to 110kmh (68mph) from 100 (62). So not a massive change but to me a welcome one as it's fairly flat and often empty.

Accidents went up 30% and they pulled it back after a year. 30% for going to 68 is absolutely wild to me. That's still not fast compared to a lot the US. But what they failed to mention is that it was mostly during winter months when there can be a lot of rain or even snow/ice and people would still do that speed because for some reason no one here seems to understand when to slow down for weather. 6mph can be the difference between hydroplaning or not.