Speed Limits - Yea or Nay?

[Borachio]

But listen, you have this all wrong. I'm not saying a truck will accelerate down hill faster than a golf ball.

I'm saying a truck will accelerate down hill faster than it will on the level.

Is that clear?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

But listen, you have this all wrong. I'm not saying a truck will accelerate down hill faster than a golf ball.

I'm saying a truck will accelerate down hill faster than it will on the level.

Is that clear?

Yes. It will accelerate faster down hill than on the level because of gravity.

But that's not what I've been arguing about for like 4 posts now.

You made it seem like you were saying a truck will accelerate down hill faster than a car because it's more massive and that the extra mass caused it to accelerate faster. Neither of these things are true, but apparently I massively misread you.

I even apologized if I misunderstood you, but you didn't say anything. So I kept whacking at that (unintentional) straw man.

 

[Borachio]

No. Sorry. Really. My mistake. (Don't go off again, Mr Hobbs, pleeeease.)

 

[hobbsyoyo]

No. Sorry. Really. My mistake. (Don't go off again, Mr Hobbs, pleeeease.)

No worries!

 

[Camikaze]

Just a point about heavily controlled road conditions. I have ridden motorbikes in many parts of Asia where road rules are merely a suggestion. And generally I feel much safer than here.

Here I need to worry about people in day dreams simply expecting their adherence and those of others to the rules to get them to their destination safely. Over there, it's like everybody knows that their lives are at stake, in their hands, and they act accordingly. As soon as they get out on the road, they switch on and focus. Young and old alike.

I also note that road rage never presents a problem there. It's almost like everyone knows that if that was added to the mix, it would be chaos.

Having said all that, I doubt the statistics would suggest it is a safer place than the west to drive.

You may have felt it, but your anecdote fails in front of facts. Deaths/injury is much much higher there than in a more controlled environment.

Agreed. But I did kinda suggest that in the last sentence

I think it's more a case of "I thought I was going to die, but I haven't yet!" making it seem not quite as dangerous.

The speeds aren't very high, though.

 

[uppi]

I guess, I'll have to sort out the physics here.

If no other factors are considered, then gravity accelerates all objects at the same rate. Although the force increases with mass, acceleration is force divided by mass, so a change in mass has no effect on acceleration.

However, the situation changes when other forces are relevant, that are not proportional to mass. For example the air resistance of an object is independent of the mass of the object. So a light vehicle and a heavy vehicle with the same shape will experience the same air resistance. For the heavy vehicle this force can be small compared to the gravity force and it accelerates normally. But for the light vehicle, the force of gravity is weaker, so air resistance might actually cancel out gravity so that the vehicle does not accelerate at all.

So a fully loaded truck going downhill will accelerate faster (and to a higher speed) than an empty one, for the same reason an iron ball will fall faster to the ground than a feather (if you are not in a vacuum).

Despite it usually being left out during basic physics in school, air resistance does matter in real world problems.

 

[warpus]

While I see the point of tying the fine to the wealth one has, particularly so the rich can't just "Get away with" things that are clearly wrong but clearly don't deserve jail time, but there's something perverse about a fine for speeding being in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

There's also something perverse about paying pocket change for a fine that to somebody else might mean 3 days worth of work.

 

[GhostWriter16]

There's also something perverse about paying pocket change for a fine that to somebody else might mean 3 days worth of work.

Quite frankly, there's something perverse about the fact that the government uses lawbreaking for a profit. Either a given action has a victim, in which case any fine should go to the victim, or the action does not have a victim and then the government should ignore it.

 

[ZeletDude]

Here on the Highway it is 55 Mph, (I usually go 65-70 Mph, and people still pass me), in town it's 25 Mph (I usually go 30, and I pass everyone ), and here in Idaho the interstate speeds are 75, but nearly everyone goes faster (80+).

I do speed limits are good, but they usually don't stop all that many people, and as Owen stated earlier, California is crazy.. I was in L.A and the speed limit was 65 but my Aunt was driving 90-100

 

[TomYo689]

I go about 10 mph
>bicycle

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Like most people in Spain, I used to drive well over speed limits but with this damn crisis and fuel prices so high i tend to control myself. I see the same behavior in others so generally i would say we are poorer and more responsible drivers now.

 

[Camikaze]

Quite frankly, there's something perverse about the fact that the government uses lawbreaking for a profit. Either a given action has a victim, in which case any fine should go to the victim, or the action does not have a victim and then the government should ignore it.

Say there are two drivers going 20 over the limit. They both lose control, run across a pavement, and crash into a tree. Driver A has not done damage to anyone but himself, but Driver B was unfortunate enough to hit a pedestrian who happened to be walking by at the time. Only one of those crimes has a victim, yet both drivers are equally culpable. Why should Driver B be fined but Driver A not be fined, given they did the exact same thing? Moreover, why should the government completely ignore the equally dangerous and culpable action of Driver A? The fine has no marginal deterrent value if it is only applied in a situation in which Driver B is liable to the pedestrian anyway, or a situation which Driver B surely wants to avoid anyway (i.e. hitting a pedestrian). If it has no marginal deterrent value, it's about corrective rather than retributive justice. And fines are hardly a good mode of corrective justice.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Because person A did not hurt anyone.

Person B hurt another person and that other person should not be left out in the dry because of person B's actions.

Its completely fair if you really sit there and think about it. Its the same ulterior logic that makes manslaughter a crime.

 

[TomYo689]

There's tons of potential accidents in daily life that could hurt someone but no one gets fined for if no one is hurt

 

[warpus]

Quite frankly, there's something perverse about the fact that the government uses lawbreaking for a profit. Either a given action has a victim, in which case any fine should go to the victim, or the action does not have a victim and then the government should ignore it.

You don't think that speeding has victims?

 

[GhostWriter16]

By definition? Name the victim. If you can't, there is therefore no victim.

 

[Tee Kay]

Prevention is better than cure, IMHO

 

[emzie]

I remember driving through South Dakota and Wyoming and not seeing other cars on I-90, other than a bored cops. And they weren't there to make sure I was being safe. At an 80mph (130km/h) speed limit, and driving at ~85-88, I doubt I'd have much worse a chance of living a tire blowout driving 100mph (160km/h).

There are plenty of areas where speed limits aren't needed. And plenty more where they wouldn't be needed if drivers observed passing rules. Stay to the right, 55mph grandma.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Prevention is better than cure, IMHO

Dunno, I like a lot of their early records

 

[Camikaze]

Because person A did not hurt anyone.

Person B hurt another person and that other person should not be left out in the dry because of person B's actions.

Its completely fair if you really sit there and think about it. Its the same ulterior logic that makes manslaughter a crime.

So you think the point of the fine should be corrective justice rather than retributive justice. Person B would be liable for the injured person under tort law (and why they should be is a very similar question), so what's the marginal benefit of the fine? The entire purpose of the fine is to deter speeding, and it would not be deterring it at all if it were acting on result rather than culpability.

Person A and Person B both did the exact same thing. The only difference is in the act of someone else walking by, which neither A nor B could control. The injured person should not be left with the burden of their injury, but that is not a reason in itself for shifting the burden to B rather than A (or shifting the burden to B at all). You're saying that B should bear the burden rather than A because B is at fault. But both A and B are equally culpable, and it's only sheer chance, something beyond the control of A and B, that has meant that B is at fault and A is not.

And not only is there little efficacy in dishing out fines on the basis of chance rather than culpability, there are pragmatic concerns too. Suppose A and B have $1000 between them, and the fine that is remitted to the victim is $200. If A has $100 and B has $900, that's okay for the victim, because they'll get the $200. But what if it were A that had hit the victim and not B? Then the victim would be left with $100, and A and B would still have $900 between them. That's not an effective transfer of the burden from the culpable parties to the victim. If your aim is to compensate the victim through this fine, then it'd make more sense to take $100 from both A and B, who have both been equally culpable, to give the victim the full $200. Yet this is not satisfactory either, for if A only has $50, the victim will end up with $150. A fine is not going to be an effective method of compensation. Which goes back to deterrence being the whole point behind the fine.