[vgeek]

Traffic enforcement is just a state/municipality funded jobs program. On the interstate they seem to solely target speeders, while ignoring the packs of cars following <1s behind each other-- which should be easy enough to spot while stationary in the median. They also seem to selectively enforce, when they should probably be taking into consideration that a 3.5 ton lifted pickup truck with mud terrain tires going 10 over and tailgating is much more dangerous than a Toyota Camry going 10 over by itself, but you never see the pickups pulled over. In most cases, they're not making the highway safer by giving someone a ticket for going 80 in a 70 when the roads are sparsely populated. If they were actually there to promote safety, limits would be set at the 85th percentile[1] and then enforcement would be on actually dangerous driving behaviors such as tailgating, aggressive lane changes and excessively different speed vs flow of traffic.

There are places in the US with "hidden" speed cameras on interstates-- I think Sioux City, IA has them. They're marked on Google Maps & locals know to slow down near the signs that hide them, then immediately speed back up. Strangely enough, traffic doesn't accordion as much such as when an unexpected braking event happens otherwise.

[1]https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/7/24/understanding-...