When I think of "normalization of deviance" I focus more on mundane things like speeding.
I'm a cyclist. People often ask me why cyclists break the law so frequently. The studies I've looked at don't suggest cyclists break the law any more frequently than drivers do, but they do break different laws. (To my knowledge I follow every applicable traffic law.) When I ask the driver I'm speaking with if they speed I frequently get a justification of speeding as if it's perfectly safe because "everyone does it".
In terms of problems people should focus on, cyclists tend to break laws in ways that mostly harm only themselves (e.g., running a red light), while drivers break laws in ways that tend to harm others in addition to themselves (e.g., speeding, failure to yield, etc.). The fact that drivers vastly outnumber cyclists also makes the priorities even more clear.
I commute by bicycle from the burbs to the city, and whenever I break a rule it's almost always to get out of the way to help cars out, or to keep myself safer in some way. Sometimes I'll get ready for a hook turn by using the pedestrian crossing lights and footpath instead of blocking the turning lane for instance. It probably looks like I'm jumping the red because I'm impatient, but I'm just saving everyone some time and making my day a bit safer.
Another example, I tend to pull over the stop line at stop lights, so that cars don't accidentally creep into me. It happens even in designated "cycle boxes", which cars are supposed to stop behind to increase visibility of cyclists.
Sometimes you can get into a situation where you're in more exposure than you originally bargained for as well, when new cars show up or the situation changes, and I'll sometimes abandon the original plan and bail off the road when it's safe. Often breaking some laws when doing so, but I'm going to take responsibility for my own safety when I need to.
What I dislike seeing is cyclists just flying through reds, darting over crosswalks when pedestrians are still crossing, or weaving in out of moving cars so they can feel like an NYC bike messenger for a minute. It's not without consequence to others, you just don't notice that people had to jump out of the way or slow down so they didn't hit you. That makes it bad sportsmanship in my eyes.
> Another example, I tend to pull over the stop line at stop lights, so that cars don't accidentally creep into me. It happens even in designated "cycle boxes", which cars are supposed to stop behind to increase visibility of cyclists.
On top of that, I have encountered lights where if you don't do this, you will hold up traffic indefinitely because the light only changes when something bigger (heavier? more metallic?) than a bike is at the stop line
> cyclists tend to break laws in ways that mostly harm only themselves (e.g., running a red light)
Running a red light could easily harm others - a driver could swerve to avoid you, crashing in the process; if a driver hits you because you ran a light, that could also cause a chain of accidents; and if a driver killed you because you ran a red light, that could seriously harm their wellbeing.
> if a driver killed you because you ran a red light, that could seriously harm their wellbeing
While there are people who would be seriously bothered if they inadvertently contributed to a cyclist's death, I think the number of such people is smaller than the number of people who claim they would be bothered.
One only needs to look at their revealed preferences to show this. Given the choice between waiting a minute or two (estimated 95th percentile; the median is likely around 15 seconds) to safely pass a cyclist, many drivers instead choose to pass a cyclist very closely and dangerously. If they actually would be bothered if they killed a cyclist, why do they do this? My life is not worth a minute of someone's time.
Of course, the bad drivers could claim that they didn't know passing a cyclist closely was dangerous, but in my experience few drivers claim that. I've spoken to many drivers when stopped at stop lights, trying to understand their perspective. Often they imply that I deserve to be passed dangerous because I broke some rules of the road. So they can't claim ignorance.
(The "rules" I broke are not actually rules. For example, I've had people tell me that I was going far below the speed limit when I was going 17-18 mph in a 15 mph zone. I intentionally picked that road because of the low speed limit, yet some people want to drive 40+ mph there and apparently that makes me a jerk who deserves to be run over.)
Why? These drivers often show no remorse for their actions, as I stated. I don't doubt I'd be a victim of a hit-and-run if any of those drivers actually did cause a collision.
I've seen arguments that people are "different" when driving, so perhaps they're a jerk when behind the wheel but a normal person otherwise. I haven't seen any clear evidence for this but it would indicate that the emotional impact would be different.
They show no remorse mostly because you didn't end up hurt.
You should know how bad people are at estimating risk. Combine that with some short-lasting road rage and you can easily find someone that will do dangerous things all the time but be distraught if that ends in death.
> They show no remorse mostly because you didn't end up hurt.
I disagree with the emphasized part of your statement. Drivers seem worried about the emotional consequences of killing someone. But apparently the emotional consequences of nearly being killed don't count? Or at least they haven't been mentioned here. Nearly being killed is not harmless.
> Combine that with some short-lasting road rage and you can easily find someone that will do dangerous things all the time but be distraught if that ends in death.
I can accept that many drivers are road raging and that their behavior otherwise would be different. But I can't accept that's all of them, as that seems inconsistent with my experience in over a decade of cycling.
> I don't doubt I'd be a victim of a hit-and-run if any of those drivers actually did cause a collision.
The only way I can read this is that you believe, of the people that cause a collision with a bicycle (accidentally or otherwise), all (or almost all) of them would just leave you to die on the side of the road.
The low opinion is not of humanity, rather, certain drivers who are particularly dangerous.
I didn't have all drivers who'd be in a collision with a cyclist in mind, just a large fraction of those who deliberately pass cyclists closely. My wording was too strong.
Too late to edit now, but on second thought many drivers who pass me dangerously might not believe that I deserve to be passed dangerously. I've heard many times from these drivers that they "had no choice but to pass me dangerously". But they did have a choice. And they seem entirely aware that what they did was dangerous, which is my point in that paragraph.
As a driver in a country that respects biking (The Netherlands), it's completely normal to, say, spend quite a bit of time driving very slowly behind a cyclist or two because there's oncoming traffic so no way to pass them without having the whole road available.
It's also perfectly normal to be extremely careful at crossroads because some cyclists consider red lights suggestions.
Of course, when cyclists clearly misbehave there'll be grumbling, but I find it interesting that even in those cases, my 'rage' pretty much never crosses the line of respecting cyclists at all costs. It's just part of how we're taught to behave as drivers (and, I suppose, the legal ramifications that generally favor cyclists, afaik).
As computerfriend pointed out, I said mostly. There are many possible ways a cyclist running a red light could go wrong, but I think the majority of them involve harm going primarily if not exclusively to the cyclist.
Not at a pedestrian crossing. I see this all the time in Cambridge. If you run a red light at a pedestrian crossing the most likely thing that could go wrong is that you hit a pedestrian. Hopefully they won't be badly injured, but they might be. Please don't do this.
Your claim was that "cyclists tend to break laws in ways that mostly harm only themselves", and you cited running a red light, although I suspect running a stop-sign is much more commonplace. As I am sure you know, these are considered to be quite dangerous and serious traffic violations when performed by a car, to the extent that most drivers would not even run a red light if stopped at an intersection with no opposing traffic visible. By comparison, it is difficult for cyclists to speed on most roads, but there is no evidence to suggest that they would be any less inclined to do so than drivers were the speed attainable and were it to seem subjectively reasonable. These are "different laws" in the sense that one is a violation of a safety margin designed to allow prompt braking under all circumstances and the other is an unexpected, unpredictable violation of the rules governing patterns of traffic behaviour.
This makes me think that the "difference" you cite is less a matter of which laws the cyclist chooses to break, and rather more due to the vehicle with which the cyclist chooses to break them. Were cyclists likewise equipped with an exterior body and 1-2 tonnes of mass they would be responsible for a wholesale slaughter.
Unlike the selfish car driver, of course, the cyclist at least has the ethical honesty to knowingly commit to breaking specific laws, secure in the knowledge that they will only harm themselves, their loved ones, and the driver of the car that kills them.
> This makes me think that the "difference" you cite is less a matter of which laws the cyclist chooses to break, and rather more due to the vehicle with which the cyclist chooses to break them. Were cyclists likewise equipped with an exterior body and 1-2 tonnes of mass they would be responsible for a wholesale slaughter.
It's the net effect of both. From a consequentialist perspective it does not make much sense to focus so heavily on cyclists running red lights. Drivers speeding is much more dangerous and occurs at a much higher frequency, yet it is much more socially acceptable than cyclists running red lights.
> Drivers speeding is much more dangerous and occurs at a much higher frequency, yet it is much more socially acceptable than cyclists running red lights.
Unless you're on a road which was designed and marked with the expectation of mild speeding, which as far as I understand is most of them. In that case it puts you at the target level of danger, not an increased level of danger.
Everything cyclists do generally only harms themselves, everything cars do generally harm others. Not sure why this is so complicated to you. Cars are killing machines, which kill 40,000 people a year in the US, more than guns.
In all those examples the cyclist is still the one with the highest stakes by far. When a cyclist runs a red light it's vastly more probable that he get killed than that some innocent pedestrian gets killed by a swerving car (and the chances that the driver of a car gets killed are basically 0). While that doesn't absolve them of all responsibility it is morally much more justifiable than for example a car speeding.
They said "mostly" and, while your comment is undoubtedly true, it is a little bit disingenuous to suggest those things as likely when cyclists are the most vulnerable road users.
As a pedestriab I've been nearly hit by a cyclist way more often than nearly hit by a car. Running red lights on a bike in a city is very dangerous to people crossing the street.
I live in an area where cycling is really only done by the poor and certain enviro-progressives and unfortunately it seems like many of these folks don't seem to give a shit about cars -- blowing through four-way stops, occupying the entire lane of a two-lane country road, and just generally being a nuisance. It's illegal to ride on sidewalks here but it really is the best thing some of these people can/should do (at cruising speeds, anyway)
Because the harm done by cyclists is a tiny fraction of that done by drivers. Jerk cyclists very occasionally kill pedestrians, whereas jerk drivers kill pedestrians all the time. So it's disingenuous to equate them.
> People often ask me why cyclists break the law so frequently.
At least where I've ridden in the States, cyclists tend to be treated as something between cars and pedestrians. For example, a driver often squeezes by you on a 2-lane road with oncoming traffic. In these circumstances, it's hardly surprising that cyclists make up their own rules. I regularly break the laws for cars on a bike, because I am more maneuverable, and I'm the one who's toast if either of us makes a mistake.
I know someone who hasn’t driven since a cyclist ran a red light and crashed right into the middle of the passenger side front door (which had to be replaced for >$500 of which the cyclist paid $0). There was also a kid in the back seat who was pretty upset for a long time.
And the cyclist had a pretty bad day too.
Running a red light is dangerous and can have plenty of collateral damage.
My point wasn't that bad things can't happen when cyclists run red lights, and nowhere in my post did I justify running red lights. Again, when a cyclist runs a red light the potential harm is mostly on the cyclist.
You can find plenty of real world examples of cyclists harming others from running stop signs or red lights, e.g., the Chris Bucchere case comes immediately to mind:
The number of these cases where bad cycling caused harm to others is much smaller than the number of cases where bad driving caused harm to others. That's my point.
You are technically correct, but it is the worst kind of correct. Because you are arguing a losing case with a valid point. That most of the time they will mostly only harm themselves does not actually make the law breaking excusable.
Contrast this to speeding. Speed limits by law should be set to the 85th percentile speed, based on the evidence backed notion that drivers will predominantly pick a speed which is safe based on the road conditions, and that it’s most safe when drivers are all proceeding at the same speed.
The vast majority of every day speeding that I witness, and that I participate in, is of the kind where the limit is set illegally low due to political pressure or other factors, and the predominant and safest speed is higher than the limit. This is true, for example, for many highways in MA which have limits of 55 mph.
That’s not to say that I never truly speed, which I shouldn’t do, and is entirely unjustified.
Nowhere am I arguing that cyclists running red lights is acceptable or excusable. My argument is that drivers speeding is often seen as acceptable, but cyclists running red lights is not, and I'm trying to highlight the asymmetry in the effects.
> Contrast this to speeding. Speed limits by law should be set to the 85th percentile speed, based on the evidence backed notion that drivers will predominantly pick a speed which is safe based on the road conditions, and that it’s most safe when drivers are all proceeding at the same speed.
The point is that drivers speeding is responsible for 10k+ deaths a year, and it is largely accepted by society. But cyclists running stop signs or red lights is responsible for a negligible amount, and most people would say this is a much bigger problem than speeding
Equally, I know a cyclist who started running red lights because he was hospitalised by somebody whose defence was "but you're a cyclist and you stopped for the red light, how was I supposed to expect that?"
Not defending bad behaviour here, just observing how it can be incentivised.
I mentioned Chris Bucchere in several other posts.
You and the poster above you also miss the point: Drivers cause much more harm than cyclists in total, yet drivers speeding is deemed much more acceptable than cyclists running red lights.
I don't doubt that cyclists can harm pedestrians or others, and I don't believe that cyclists breaking the law is acceptable. Just that when cyclists break the law the amount of potential damage is much more limited than when drivers do.
I think you ought to compare a driver running a red light vs a cyclist running a red light to make this point. I might even agree with you, but speeding is conceivably even safer than going the speed limit if everyone else around you is doing the same thing no matter what the law says.
Running traffic signals on the other hand is just plain stupid and self-centered no matter what you're piloting at the time.
I can compare drivers running red lights to cyclists running red lights based on my experience. I don't believe there's any hard data on this.
From what I can tell, drivers tend to run red lights either because the light just changed and they couldn't stop in time or because they're distracted. In contrast, cyclists who run red lights tend to wait for traffic to clear. I didn't realize the difference until I tried talking to cyclists who run red lights (not recommended by the way; they tend to be jerks). So in that sense the two are not comparable.
Plus, as bikes tend to weigh less and travel less fast than cars, the potential for harm for a cyclist running a red light is greatly reduced compared against a driver running a red light.
Here are some helmet cam videos that I took that show red light running drivers:
After the first video, I saw that the driver stopped nearby, so I went to speak with them. They admitted they were distracted. I have no idea what happened in the second video. If I were not paying attention in both cases I would not be writing this post now. In contrast, if a cyclist did the same then I'd probably be here.
That's not to say that all cyclists who run red lights look carefully. Here's a helmet cam video that I took which shows a cyclist brazenly running a red light in a way that I think is particularly dangerous:
This last one was probably the most dangerous time someone ran a red light that I've personally seen. I was wearing a high-viz jacket at the time and find it hard to believe they would not see me if they looked. They might have been blinded by the sun.
As for speeding being safer, sure, that's true sometimes, but what's the net effect? Just focusing on the good isn't representative.
I also sometimes see people bring the time saved from speeding into consideration, but in my experience speeding doesn't save much time unless you're on the highway. If you're in a more densely populated area with traffic lights, your speed is more limited by the traffic lights than anything else. I know this as a cyclist because it's not uncommon for me to see the same people at each light during my commute. The effective traffic speed is doable for a cyclist. Speeding won't get you there faster.
> I think it should be a case closed Darwin award if I hit them and kill them if I have the right of way
I'll be sure to stay away from you.
> I used to know a paramedic who would make sure that the ride to the hospital for such a cyclist was super bumpy and unpleasant so as to make that experience memorable in the hopes of encouraging them not to repeat it.
That's sadistic. Most of the time it's not the cyclist's fault.
Running a stop sign or traffic light should not be a death sentence.
Plus, there have been many times when I've been on the receiving end of dangerous "punishment passes" from drivers who believe I'm doing something illegal when I'm not. I've had people pass me aggressively because they think I'm going too slow, when the speed limit is 15 mph and I'm going 17-18 mph. I've have people pass me while yelling to get in the bike lane when there was no bike lane and I was in the sharrow lane on an official city bike route. Etc. Just because you believe someone is breaking the law does not give you the right to kill or otherwise harm them, particularly if you're wrong about the law.
Edit: I believe I misread you about the paramedic. I read it as the paramedic would give rough rides to all cyclists (and most of the time it's not the cyclist's fault that they were in a crash), but you meant they gave rough rides to only cyclists who ran red lights or stop signs. That's still bad and sadistic as far as I'm concerned.
You're right it shouldn't be a death sentence but neither should pointing a gun at your head with only one bullet in it and pulling the trigger.
They're both different versions of the same game to me. I think people who run these traffic signals do not realize how much danger they are in and I don't think such people would particularly choose to play Russian roulette. And yet there they are running red lights and stop signs.
In the split second that my car is in an intersection and and such a person comes barreling through, the best I can do is slam on my brakes and hope for the best. I'm not even going to try to get out of the way because that could only make things worse by hitting another car or pedestrians who had nothing to do with the situation. If I had infinite time to respond I might be able to think this through, but we are talking less than a second of reaction time here. Really? This is worth it to you?
As much as I am in favor of cyclists and I am in favor of bike paths and every other variant thereof I do not get the incentive to save 30 to 60 seconds dodging a traffic signal versus the cost of what happens if it all goes wrong and I don't think I ever will.
Downvote this at will. This thread had me on the verge of deleting my Hacker News account but then I found out you can't do that. So I am posting this final response to say that this is what I think and if someone won't hire me because I think this way I probably don't want to work for them.
As for that paramedic, he didn't start that way. There used to be this particularly obnoxious cyclist in his town that made a habit of flying through intersections and taking his hands off the handlebars and giving the fingers to all the cars he cut in front of. One day he got hit and broke his leg cursing the driver that hit him the whole time. Said paramedic was the one who took him to the hospital knowing exactly who he was and what he had been up to. I still think the guy was a Darwin award in the making and he probably died later on in life if he continued doing crap like this. If that makes me a despicable human being then I am a despicable human being.
Perhaps we've misunderstood each other. The impression I got from your post was that you believe harming or killing cyclists is acceptable if you perceive that they are breaking the law (regardless of whether the cyclist is actually breaking the law; see the examples I gave previously). Many drivers seem to believe that. If that's not what you believe then I apologize for misunderstanding you.
Add on top of that the belief of many drivers that their own law breaking is acceptable, speeding in particular. Speeding is a contributor to roughly 10,000 traffic fatalities per year while running red lights is a contributor in only 700-800. Speeding is clearly a bigger problem, yet cyclists in particular running red lights gets more attention than speeding. (Likely the vast majority of traffic fatalities from running red lights don't involve cyclists at all.) One of the points of my first post in this discussion was that speeding should also be seen as unacceptable, but many of the replies I received focused on how cyclists running red lights is unacceptable and that speeding is fine. In other words, many people missed the point.
Despite what was widely reported in the media, I did not run a single red light (one or multiple). During the preliminary hearing, video evidence proved that the eyewitness who made the claim that I ran "several red lights and stops signs" was lying. Furthermore, the prosecution's expert witness accidentally proved that my light was yellow. The DA subsequently dropped the red light violation from from my charges. All the details here: http://bikelash.net
You can prefer whatever you want but you can’t argue with the video that captured the entire accident. It showed that my light was yellow and that pedestrians started crossing as much as 13.9 seconds before the WALK indicator illuminated.
To reiterate a point I've made several times here: I'm not advocating for running red lights. Quite the contrary. I think all cyclists should stop at stop signs and wait for red lights.
My broader point is that cyclists running red lights gets a lot of attention, but ultimately drivers speeding causes much more harm, yet that is accepted by society at large.
Motorists run red lights differently to cyclists, because you are at the front of the lights you just don't see it. However, watch any lights in the UK and you will be shocked at how many motorists waltz through after the lights have gone red, waaay after the amber light has gone out.
As a cyclist you filter to the front so you just don't see this as often as it happens. Statistically there are more cars on the roads than bicycles so the majority or red light jumping is almost certainly by cars. On a bike it is just a bit more blatant with turns on left (UK) made that motorists would never do if there was a red light stopping them.
Jumping pedestrian crossings - 'pelican crossings' - is another thing. Cyclists get this wrong but there is also a lot of common sense, if people have crossed already, why stop? Plus if the traffic was cyclists and buses then these crossings would not be needed.
And? If there's an asymmetry in the risk, that means you should account for the asymmetry.
Over the years I've noticed some people seem to think that merely categorizing an argument is enough to refute it, but you need to explain why arguments in a particular category are bad.
(Yes, I am aware this post may be perceived as an example of the bad argument I just mentioned, though I did justify it.)
I think matters are complicated in this regard, I have heard that cyclists count as pedestrians (and not as vehicular traffic) in some jurisdictions/countries, so in such cases they can even and should ride on the opposite side of the road from vehicular traffic.
I thought it was safer if cycling on roads, to ride forward on to the one coming traffic, rather than have traffic come up from behind you.
Not true. In the US, running a red light contributes to 700-800 traffic fatalities per year [1]. In contrast, speeding contributes to about 10,000 fatalities per year [2].
You might want to look at something other than fatalities, sure, but this simple analysis suggests that speeding is more than an order of magnitude worse.
Edit: And if we look at the total number of people killed in traffic by cyclists each year, I don't even know where to start, because it seems to occur so infrequently that no one keeps statistics on it. I'd be very surprised if it were more than 5 per year.
That shows that speeding it's a greater source of unsafety, but I wouldn't be surprised if running a red light is less than 7/100ths as common as speeding, in which case that statistic would support running a red light being the more dangerous act.
You are misinterpreting the grandparent: Their claim is comparing an event of running a red light vs speeding once. Your statistics have the incidence of both behaviors already baked in. So with your numbers, you could say that all the speeding your average driver does in a year is riskier than all the red light running they do in a year.
It's precisely the difference in the incidence of the behavior that matters here though. I don't have specific numbers, but I think it's a very safe claim that most drivers speed far more often than they run red lights. Many a commuter will be speeding a large percentage of the time they are not in a traffic jam. On the other hand, I don't see of any people in the US that just run any and all red lights as a matter of course. And why does it happen that way? Because we realize that running a red light in most circumstances is crazy dangerous. People tend to try to avoid extremely dangerous behavior if they can help it, so you will find few fatalities per year, but that's because almost nobody does it. How many Americans die each year to Russian roulette? Probably fewer than either red lights or speeding, although I'd say playing Russian roulette is far more dangerous than either.
Given the numbers you found, running a red light would be just as dangerous as speeding if people ran a red light 13 times less often than they speed (for whichever time definition we choose for a unit of speeding). I suspect that people speed far more often than that, compared to running red lights.
We are in a similar boat regarding people killed in traffic by cyclists. How many cyclist-hours do we see in US roads, vs cars? There's also probably very few people killed in the US by being killed by T-35 tanks running red lights, but that's not because T-35s are safe and we should just use them and then ignore traffic signals. Running someone over with a bicycle while running a red light is still probably far less dangerous than acting the same way in a car, or an old T-35, but we can't tell that just by looking at fatalities alone.
I agree with your basic point; see firethief's comment. My larger point is this: If we want to minimize fatalities then we should focus on what causes the most fatalities. Speeding is a contributor to far more fatalities than cyclists running red lights, yet speeding is socially acceptable and cyclists running red lights is not. Neither should be socially acceptable.
About 3 trillion miles are driven, and about 9 billion miles cycled in the US each year. The fatality rate per mile for cycling about 5x the risk of driving, but hour for hour it is about the same because of the difference in speed.
The original point was that speeding is dangerous to others and normalized by society, but a cyclist running a red light is not dangerous to others, but it is not normalized. Speeding drivers kill 10k people a year. Cyclists running red lights kill less than 1 a year on average.
Running a red light is pretty dangerous in almost any context. Running red lights consistently will 100% yield accidents.
Speeding is normative, it's something that everyone does, every single time they drive.
For speeding up to 20K above limit, you often don't get a ticket. Doing 120 on a 100 km/h road is normative. If it was 'very dangerous' the police could easily enforce a 100 cap.
Running red lights consistently will probably kill you, and if a cop sees you doing it, you will 100% get pulled over.
That's an uncharitable reading of my post. By applicable I meant laws that apply where I am, e.g., I am in Texas right now so I don't follow the laws of another state.
Speeding doesn't cause harm. Having an accident causes harm. And traffic engineers say that speed limits are set in the expectation that the average speed on the highway will be 5 to 10 percent higher than the posted limit, which means that the posted speed limit itself is not supposed to be a hard limit such that exceeding it is "deviance".
As bitdivision points out, mostly you don't if you're going within the range the traffic engineers gave (less than 10 percent over the posted limit).
But what that really means is that enforcement is at the discretion of the police--which in turn means that, for example, many localities have speed traps where they all of a sudden enforce the posted limit strictly in order to increase their revenue. Or police have a quota of a certain number of tickets per month, and if it's towards the end of the month and they're having trouble meeting quota, they pick some locations and decide to strictly enforce the speed limits there until they have enough tickets for the month.
All of this just reinforces my point that the posted speed limit is not set on the basis of preventing accidents, but for other reasons.
Artificial arbitrary limits. There's no question that many jurisdictions decrease speed limits to below what the road sustains, primarily for taxation without representation (speeding tickets).
The road's natural limit is what the road should be. Of course, there's souped up muscle cars and the like that can run 150mph all day.. But those kinds of cars are outliers. I'm talking about the 2 lane road that used to be 45 near our house, that got shoved to 35. Or 55->30->55 within a half mile for bumfucksville... but that cop is sitting right there on the 30.
> The road's natural limit is what the road should be.
I agree with the principle, but I don't think that in practice this principle can be satisfied by having a posted speed limit that you can be ticketed for exceeding. The "natural limit" of a road is not a single number. It depends on many factors, some of which (e.g., weather, driver skill/fatigue) can't even be known when a single number is being determined for a posted limit.
If posted limits were advisory only--in other words, you could not be ticketed simply for exceeding a posted limit, but if you were in an accident, the fact that you were exceeding a posted limit could be considered as a factor in determining fault--that would be different.
Conversely, I do think that we should be ticketed for "hazardous driving" (weaving in and out of cars, cutting people off, and other things that directly lead to wrecks), failure to stop at signs and lights, failure to yield when other cars present.
There also have been many times in which I have driven significantly under the posted limit because the conditions severely prevented it. Driving at the posted limit would also have been hazardous.
Conversely, driving 80 on the interstate while staying in a group of others going 80 +/-3 is not hazardous. Yet, that would get us ticketed in a jurisdiction where I am not a voter. Hence, my complaint of 'taxation without representation'. It also nearly guarantees my agreement of guilt, as they're counting on me not able to make it back for a court date.
(Sigh, gotta love the downvoters. Actual discussion is just 'too' hard.)
> I don't think we should be ticketed for speeding.
I don't either, but current speeding laws allow cops to do so.
> I do think that we should be ticketed for "hazardous driving" (weaving in and out of cars, cutting people off, and other things that directly lead to wrecks), failure to stop at signs and lights, failure to yield when other cars present.*
I don't think we should be ticketed for any of these things, if they do not cause an accident. But if you are in an accident and it is found that you did any of these things, they should be valid factors to consider in assigning responsibility.
> There also have been many times in which I have driven significantly under the posted limit because the conditions severely prevented it.
Yes, I agree. In other words, you, exercising your judgment, have a much better knowledge of what is actually a safe speed than the lawmakers and bureaucrats that determined what went on the posted speed limit sign.
> Allowing people to drive like crazy until they get into an accident is a formula for normalizing very unsafe behavior.
No, it isn't, because if they get in an accident you hold them responsible, and when their insurance company finds out the accident was the result of driving like crazy, they either drastically raise their rates or terminate their policy altogether. Plus it would be perfectly reasonable for the state to revoke their driver's license if they caused an accident due to driving like crazy.
The problem with the system we have today is that (a) we punish people who have not caused harm, and (b) when people do cause harm, we are hesitant to hold them responsible to the extent I described above. Lose your insurance and your license because of one accident? Wow, that seems really harsh. Do they really deserve that? My response is, if they really were driving like crazy, then yes, they do deserve that, because they should have known better. But our current system doesn't seem to like taking that position.
I'm a cyclist. People often ask me why cyclists break the law so frequently. The studies I've looked at don't suggest cyclists break the law any more frequently than drivers do, but they do break different laws. (To my knowledge I follow every applicable traffic law.) When I ask the driver I'm speaking with if they speed I frequently get a justification of speeding as if it's perfectly safe because "everyone does it".
In terms of problems people should focus on, cyclists tend to break laws in ways that mostly harm only themselves (e.g., running a red light), while drivers break laws in ways that tend to harm others in addition to themselves (e.g., speeding, failure to yield, etc.). The fact that drivers vastly outnumber cyclists also makes the priorities even more clear.