Speed Limits - Yea or Nay?

[Synobun]

How is it that people will accept wearing a seat belt, and drink driving laws, for their own, and others', protection but not a speed limit?

Going fast is cool, man.

 

[holy king]

 

[hobbsyoyo]

How is it that people will accept wearing a seat belt, and drink driving laws, for their own, and others', protection but not a speed limit?

The people who don't accept speed limits don't accept seat belts either in my opinion. Drunk driving is probably where they all draw the line though.

 

[civver_764]

How is it that people will accept wearing a seat belt, and drink driving laws, for their own, and others', protection but not a speed limit?

I don't think drunk driving in and of itself is necessarily a problem.

 

[Borachio]

You don't, eh? It's just that the statistics and public opinion disagree with you.

Drunk driving is of course no problem at all unless you have an accident and injure or kill someone.

Smoking is of course no problem at all unless you get lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease or anything else.

I don't understand your logic, Mr Civver.

Alcohol really ruins a person's judgement.

 

[warpus]

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

Society as a whole is the victim.

 

[Grendeldef]

How is it that people will accept wearing a seat belt, and drink driving laws, for their own, and others', protection but not a speed limit?

An interesting question and I'm not trying to give an absolute answer.

Wearing a seat belt is a binary option while the others are not so obeying the law is somewhat easier besides there're no real drawbacks of wearing seat belt while not wearing one can have some serious negative effects. I'd wear one even if it wasn't mandatory.

Drink driving is something where one voluntarily decides to be a worse driver than usually which is something that shouldn't be encouraged - roads are filled with bad enough drivers already. Whether the legal limit should be 0 or something else is an open matter. I like our current 0.05% which gives one a chance to have a glass of wine or a bear with a meal & still drive home or wherever - probably 0.02% would do equally and the professional drunks will drive regardless of the limit.

Speeding is a another thing. People generally agree that limits are ok but those who drive also tend to agree that limits are too low on some roads. This is were practicality disagrees with the general view, occasionally even the police who's responsibility it is to enforce the law on the road. It would be nice to have speed limits more specifically targeted for each road but it's expensive and harder to implement and enforce and therefore the limits are nearer to the low than high point.

Personally I follow the speed limits much closer the lower they're. It also depends who's in the car with me - with kids I barely broke limits but when I'm alone on the highway on decent weather it's more than likely that I'll be slightly over the limit. The same goes if I'm driving on a road virtually on my own especially in northern parts of the country. The current speed limit on highways is 120 km/h and I've done twice that on a summer night when the road was empty. Clearly a crime but I didn't feel like a menace to society. For me speeding is something in the area of personal convenience while not directly harming anyone else. It's extremely rare that I would even argue that speeding was 'mandatory' due to being late for something.

G

 

[Truronian]

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.

UK figures.

Cost of road traffic accidents in 2011: £15.3 billion

Total of all speeding fines paid in 2011: £41 million

That's not a profit.

 

[Borachio]

Ah yes, but only 18% of all road accidents have speed as a factor, iirc. So, the speed related costs are only a mere £3bn. That's much better. Well, less of a loss, anyway.

Going fast is cool, man.

It is.

But the public highway doesn't make a good race track.

 

[Truronian]

Ah yes, but only 18% of all road accidents have speed as a factor, iirc. So, the speed related costs are only a mere £3bn. That's much better. Well, less of a loss, anyway.

True, but then RTCs are also not the only cost of people speeding. Speeding on motorways negatively impact the environment, provides a disincentive for other drivers to use the roads and can cause traffic jams which cost the economy billions of pounds in lost productivity.

 

[GhostWriter16]

The people who don't accept speed limits don't accept seat belts either in my opinion. Drunk driving is probably where they all draw the line though.

You'd be right.

Drunk driving by definition inhibits your ability to drive, while speeding is sometimes safe.

I can understand the reasoning behind some limits though. I don't ever think you could drive 100 mph in a school zone "Safely." But you can sometimes do so on a highway.

I'm actually even more opposed to seat belt laws than I am speeding laws.

I don't think drunk driving in and of itself is necessarily a problem.

I do, unless the roads are privatized I should be able to drive safely on them.

UK figures.

Cost of road traffic accidents in 2011: £15.3 billion

Total of all speeding fines paid in 2011: £41 million

That's not a profit.

The government is still using speeding fines for revenue.

 

[Borachio]

The government is still using speeding fines for revenue.

But that's a good thing, surely. It means you have to pay less tax.

 

[GhostWriter16]

It might be a good thing were it actually being used to combat danger.

But sometimes its not used for that.

There are plenty of ways to make us pay less tax, and there are PLENTY of things we are spending more than 41 million on that can be reduced.

 

[Borachio]

Really? Now what proportion of Government spending do you think £41 million represents?

 

[GhostWriter16]

In America? I don't know how many dollars are in a Euro but IIRC it was less than 3.

We spend at least 700 billion dollars on national "defense" every year. We could cut at least half of that if we stuck to actually defending and not funding bases around the world.

 

[Borachio]

I don't know how many dollars are in a Euro but IIRC it was less than 3.

 

[Truronian]

The government is still using speeding fines for revenue.

No, they're using speeding fines to distinctiveness speeding which in turn cuts down on RTC costs and negative costs to the economy and environment. The money brought by the fines is just a minor bonus which can offset some of the cost of maintaining public roads.

How would you deal with a company dumping toxic waste in a public park?

 

[holy king]

I don't know how many dollars are in a Euro but IIRC it was less than 3.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

He's right though. It is less than 3.

One Euro = 1.28 dollars. Therefore, there are less than 3 dollars of worth in a Euro.

Unless you're just poking fun at grammar, which isn't cool.

We spend at least 700 billion dollars on national "defense" every year. We could cut at least half of that if we stuck to actually defending and not funding bases around the world.

Did you ever stop to think that part of what makes us so powerful, gives us so many alliances and lets us set the global agenda is those military bases overseas?

They are also quite useful for quick threat response, projection of power and influence and in many cases mandatory due to treaty obligations.

We have to keep the boot on the neck of those crazy Germans man.

 

[Borachio]

Who dat?

GW US Dollar and Euro are about equal.

But what's that got to do with the British Pound?

Unless you're just poking fun at grammar, which isn't cool.

Who me? I wouldn't dare (usually). I make mistakes all the time myself.