There are speed limits in all areas of the U.S. Why? To ensure safety. The motive is definitely good, but how do we know the numbers add up and are actually optimal? The majority of people go above the speed limit, whether it is by 2 miles or 20. Do traffic engineers take into considerations the real limit that is set by the herd of drivers? Road conditions are important, but not the only thing to think about. The condition of the pavement will dictate how fast you can go without losing control on a turn. Windy roads aren’t as easy to maneuver at faster speeds. Traffic, congestion, and district suggest all sorts of things to consider. Is it okay if a dense pedestrian area has a maximum speed of 75mph, or to restrict a rural area to 45mph? Speed limits are somewhat subjective or susceptible to political ideals. It is a fact that having an accident at a higher speed increases risk of injury. It would be ridiculous to limit speed on this one fact though. We should just ban all forms of transportation that are faster than walking if we really want to rid the world of driving casualties. Risk is always inevitable. Avoiding risk may ironically make it accelerate (such as crawling a snail’s pace on the highway). Because subjective rules are put in place on the masses, I find no reason to confirm or deny the effectiveness of driving speeds. I was reading some comments about how to beat a speeding ticket and could not believe the amount of fallacious reasoning on both sides of the issue. The moral issues of breaking the law are one thing, and analyzing the purpose of the law is another. In the end, I don’t care terribly too much. There are may other things to concern ourselves with.
4 comments
Jan says:
May 1, 2007
I’m guessing that you are too young to remember when the speed limits in the US were dropped during the Carter administration to 55 mph and traffic fatalities dropped accordingly. -jw
Ray says:
May 2, 2007
I don’t know to much about speed limiting but I think it is not authorized on a presidential level but more on a state or even county level. Like I said I don’t know for sure.
Ray says:
May 2, 2007
It is decided on a state level.
liquid parallax says:
May 2, 2007
@Jan: I am too young to remember, but not too uninformed. I am aware of the regulation to reduce gas consumption. However, correlation does not necessitate cause. Factors not considered are consistent driving speeds among all traffic, decreasing speed variance. I would agree that fatalities would drop, but it seemed to effect mainly denser areas for a limited time.
Info about 65mph regulations: http://sense.bc.ca/disc/disc-09.htm
@Ray: You’re right. In the 90’s, Montana didn’t have a speed limit on rural highways.