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.
