Dems' latest oil answer: Speed limits

It's a libertarian argument, replete with the requisite libertarian hyperbole. The philosophy would be so much more palatable if its adherents didn't claim that the sky was falling every 5 minutes.

 

Thank you for the pointed direction.

I have a problem with their basic premise, though. I see no reason that an individual would decide to drive on local lanes as opposed to a highway. Local roads have even lower speed limits. The risk of getting caught would be astronomically worse than being on the highway.

Using this as their basic premise is facetious. If a driver’s goal is to get from point A to point B as fast as possible, they will always use the highways.

 

The privilege isn’t arbitrarily given out. It is bestowed upon those that have demonstrated that they will take the privilege seriously.

Just because you are 25 doesn’t mean you legally have the right to drive.

 

This. Figures.

 

Pastor may be on to something here. Google is even figuring the walking time for directions from point A to point B. So I figure he'll be the first to walk his commuting distance, whatever that is. 20 miles?

 

The California Highway Patrol sure thinks so. Only speeding ticket I ever got was in the middle of the Mojave Desert. 70 in what I was told was a 55 (never saw a sign), clocked from behind a billboard as I was going downhill. Ten miles earlier, on the other side of a small town, the speed limit was 65 on the same road.

The only thing a national speed limit does is enable Roscoe P. Coltrane.

 

Pastor,

There are drivers who would rather go 70 on some state highway than 55 on the interstate. I know - I'm related to some of them. Before the change to 65, I can remember family members discussing which back roads were the best ("Don't take 12. Fall Creek is a speed trap.") It didn't matter that it was safer and probably faster to go 55 on the interstate. They wanted to go 70 and feel free of the "oppressive" 55 and knew which state highways were lightly patrolled enough that they might pull that off. The old setup also madated that states enforce the 55, so we had the state highway patrols over allocated to interstates and under allocated to the state highways.

I don't remember the last time anyone in my family discussed it. The new speed limits have meant that they could drive 70 without fear of getting a ticket and that the rate of traffic would also be going 70.

A return to the old system would be highly unpopular and would do almost nothing to curb our use of oil.

 

The only people who like 55 mph are people who predominantly use mass transit and therefore, live in congested areas where if everyone did drive, to go 55 would be considered fast because traffic seldom if ever gets to be that fast. But go to the open roads states and you'd get a "piss on you" response.

 

Congratulations! You just disproved your point of view by trying to explain it. You illustrated perfectly why driving is a privilege (granted to those who have illustrated ability and responsibility, taken away later if events and actions prove that the privilege is not merited) rather than a right.

:

There's nothing arbitrary about it. A system has been devised to figure out who has earned the privilege.

 

Plus, when he's dressed up like The Stig he's usually got a white crash helmet on his head and some book-on-CD playing.

 

Interesting article in a recent Atlantic about North American's approach to safety, including the overuse of stop signs, traffic signals and speed limits. Worth reading.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/traffic/2

Speed limits in the U.S. are perhaps a more severe safety hazard than stop signs. In many places, they change too frequently—sometimes every few hundred yards—once again training drivers to look for signs, not at the road. What’s more, many speed limits in the U.S. are set in arbitrary and irrational ways. An eight-lane interstate can have a limit of 50 to 70 mph or more. What makes the difference? A necessarily imperfect guess at probable traffic conditions. The road may sometimes be busy—so the limit is set low. But sometimes the road is not busy, and the safe speed is then much higher than the limit.

A particularly vexing aspect of the U.S. policy is that speed limits seem to be enforced more when speeding is safe. As a colleague once pointed out, “An empty highway on a sunny day? You’re dead meat!” A more systematic effort to train drivers to ignore road conditions can hardly be imagined. By training drivers to drive according to the signs rather than their judgment in great conditions, the American system also subtly encourages them to rely on the signs rather than judgment in poor conditions, when merely following the signs would be dangerous.



The busiest highway in North America is the 401 which runs from Windsor right through to the Quebec/Ontario border. Speedlimit is 100 kph (60 mph) but if you're doing the speed limit, you'd better be driving on the shoulder of the road. At least 80% of the drivers are going an average speed of 120 kph (about 70 mph). If you're doing the posted speed limit, you're a safety hazard.