[eganist]

Virginia as a whole has some pretty absurdly pro police laws, at least re: driving.

The lesser of either 20 over the speed limit or any speed over ~80~ 85 miles an hour (thanks jmisavage) in Virginia is a misdemeanor, and at least one auto journalist has been jailed in Virginia. https://jalopnik.com/never-speed-in-virginia-lessons-from-my...

It's also the only state to prohibit radar detectors.

[woodruffw]

I am someone who's extraordinarily sympathetic to journalists. But I don't think there's really any excuse for going 93 miles an hour on a country road marked for 55, as this author did.

Should he have been sent to jail for it? I don't think so. But it's remarkable how acceptable that behavior seems to be.

[warning26]

Eh, I don't think speed limits really should exist in any context. If you want people to go slow, design the roads for slower driving, don't just impose arbitrary limits.

[worik]

> Eh, I don't think speed limits really should exist in any context. If you want people to go slow, design the roads for slower driving, don't just impose arbitrary limits.

In the realm of ego orientated commenting, this one really stands out.

I do not want to put my life in your unregulated hands. I want you regulated to hell and back when you operate a tonne of steel at thirty metres per second heading in my general direction.

Actually: Can you, especially you warning26, catch a bus?

[1123581321]

Narrow roads to improve safety are a proposed (and increasingly adopted) regulation. They’re not privatized roads.

[neither_color]

Are you familiar with the autobahn?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn

Parts of highway with unrestricted speed are not only possible, they're not particularly dangerous either.

[kevin_thibedeau]

It's a limited access highway, not an ordinary road with at grade intersections and inadequate sight lines.

[et-al]

Except in Germany cars need to undergo an roadworthiness inspection every 24 months and the driving test is much more strict there. If you have a pulse, you can get a license in America.

[neither_color]

American cars get safety(and emissions) inspections too and the second part is just not true. I think there's more to it than just casually dismissing americans as too "unregulated" and dumb to handle high speed roads. In the case of Germany's autobahn, after the reunification, road accidents initially increased in former East Germany so it's not like Germans are inherently superior drivers.

[rndgermandude]

I am familiar, and have been on the Autobahn many times.

From the speeding journalist's article:

>These roads weren’t anywhere near schools or towns, and have lots of curves and very little traffic.

This is hardly like the Autobahn (except for the schools and towns bit). The parts of the Autobahn with speed restrictions are exactly the parts that are most dangerous, meaning parts with curves, or hilly parts (as you cannot see what's going on on the other site of a hill). The unrestricted parts are basically straight lines. And the Autobahn very much only goes in one direction only (with the other direction physically barricaded off), so oncoming traffic is practically not an issue - except for the rather rare cases of "ghost drivers". You have no pedestrians or cyclists and no wildlife crossings (thanks to barricades); only vehicles which can do at least 60 km/h (~37 mph) are allowed. Trucks and other large vehicles, as well as vehicles with trailers do have speed limits. The Autobahn has a lot fewer crashes and fatalities than rural motorways in Germany, because of that.

As the poster you're responding remarked: "I want you regulated to hell and back when you operate a tonne of steel at thirty metres per second heading in my general direction." That's just not a thing on Autobahn.

The person who was responded to initially also advocated to design "slow roads" instead of having regulations. That's basically the opposite of the Autobahn, which was designed for fast travel. My guess would be that if you designed roads to be slow, a lot of people just wouldn't go slow, but cause crashes. We see that already on roads which just happen to be relatively "slow" without being specifically designed to be that.

Aside from that, German drivers got to have a lot more certified training by law (compared to the US), pass a lot more strict and comprehensive theoretical and practical exam (compare to the US) before getting a license, and cars have to be inspected every two years for road-suitability (including working safety features).

I wouldn't want some reckless driver coming at me on a curvey, rural road at 93 miles per hour, some 35 mph over the limit. Because that's literally what is is: reckless and dangerous, with disregard for anybody else who might be on the road. Jail time, however, seems too harsh, as there was no victim (this time). If I did the same on a German road as the journalist did on that Virginia road, I'd have to pay 600 EUR, have my license suspended for 2 months, and get 2 points in the register. Which I find rather fair and justified.

[throwaway0a5e]

>In the realm of ego orientated commenting, this one really stands out.

>I do not want to put my life in your unregulated hands.

It takes an impressive amount of cognitive dissonance to insult him and then drivel about "putting your life in unregulated hands" when the regulation in question is speed limits, a type of regulation to which compliance is low to the point of it almost being comical. If the regulation were something like standards of cleanliness for canned food or something else that's pretty much always adhered to you might have a point but it's not and you don't.

It's not the regulation that's keeping your naive self safe. Your life is pretty much already in unregulated hands because pretty much nobody is minding the regulation. It's that most people are reasonable and drive reasonably that keeps you as safe as you are. People are driving the speeds they drive because those speeds are reasonable to them. They are not whizzing by you at triple digit speeds because those speeds to not feel reasonable to them. It has nearly nothing to do with the number on the sign.

[idiotsecant]

The whole subject of this thread is someone going 93 in a 55. I guarantee 93 is not some kind of everyman median speed on that road. This is actually a pretty good example where someone was doing something unsafe and big bad spooky regulation stopped them.

[hedora]

Context matters. A while back, a 4 lane (in one direction) piece of I-80 in Oakland had an inexplicable speed limit of 45. People routinely went 80-85mph in the left lane, and the cops didn't seem to care.

Edit: To be clear, the 45mph sign was not obvious at all. Most cars assumed it it was a 55 or 65 zone, and went at about 70. I drove the road two dozen times before noticing the speed limit dropped so far down. Going 45 on that stretch would have been dangerous.

Anyway, I can imagine a road that should be 75 in some other state being posted at 55, and also for going 15 mph over to be common in that state.

[woodruffw]

Speed limits are a blunt instrument, because "slow" isn't the real goal: the goal is to get people to drive safely, and one way they currently don't do that is by driving at reckless speeds (regardless of what the limit happens to be.)

[1123581321]

You don’t know which speeds are actually reckless. Using speed limits to inform your opinion is circular. It depends on the design and condition of the road, the quality and features of the car, and traffic, weather and environmental conditions.

[woodruffw]

I didn’t say that I did know. It’s a general point, one that I can make by pointing to any particular example of reckless driving (of which there are many, including ones I have been personally subjected to.)

[1123581321]

Yes, you did. You said you didn’t think there was any excuse for going 93 in a 55.

[stefan_]

Well we have the stats and at 30mph already a pedestrian has a low chance of survival. So there is a perfectly good case to be made that just exceeding 20mph is reckless. Maybe we just limit cars there, then at least we are not "circularly informed", whatever that means.

[1123581321]

It means to use posted speed limits to decide what is a safe speed, rather than to evaluate the actual risk or at least have some model for what makes a number unsafe other than what the sign says. Your method, picking a number based on pedestrian survival rate, wouldn’t be that.

[charcircuit]

Pedestrians don't walk on country roads.

[nh2]

Pessimise roads because people cannot stick to basic rules? That's silly. Instead, take away their ability to drive if they can't do it responsibly.

If an ambulance has to go that way, you'd want that to be able to drive fast.

Also, people can drive poorly on any type of road.

[8note]

I'm fine with the ambulance driving safely, rather than causing more emergencies from driving too fast.

If you care about the time to get to an emergency room, get hospitals closer to people?

People can drive poorly on any road, but they'll do it more if the road guides them to misbehave.

[jonhohle]

At least in Arizona where the top end is 75MPH, speed limits on highways seem reasonable for the environment. There are plenty of opportunities to go careening off the side of a mountain or into oncoming traffic because a ¼ mile earlier nothing would suggest that the natural momentum from the grade of the mountain road was excessive for the upcoming switchback.

So they could set up some arbitrary obstacles to slow people down prior to the natural contour of the terrain, or, you know, throw up a sign which indicates a safe speed for the upcoming section of highway.

[shadowgovt]

You play pick your speed limit in the wrong place in Chesterfield county, you'll discover that those speed limits are where they are because the roads haven't been updated since they originally had asphalt laid down.

It was a very specific road near where I grew up. Nice and flat. Looked like you could do any speed you wanted. People routinely did 55. Posted was 30.

Near one end of the road was a tree slowly pushing a tree root underneath the road. This followed into a sharp curve bordered by a second, ancient tree.

The neighborhood lost about one person every 6 months who got complacent driving that road faster than speed limit and then got decapitated when they hit that tree root, their car went airborne, rotated 90°, and the top half of the passenger space intersected the ancient tree down the road.

DOTs get no budget to reshape a bad road and do the best they can to try and keep us from killing ourselves out there.

[salawat]

If DOT has no budget, that sure sounds like those people are good decapitating somebody every 6 months.

Funny thing about governments by, for, and of the people.

[shadowgovt]

Honestly... Yes. That's how it appeared to work.

The group that petitioned most consistently not to reshape the road were the people who lived in that neighborhood. They didn't want their main thoroughfare shut down and they didn't want people driving that road faster.

Eventually, two volunteer firefighters died when a fire truck flipped doing lights-and-sirens down that road. Then the county stepped in, declared eminent domain on the tree, and cut it down to remove the root and reshape the road.

Democracies don't always vote in everyone's best interest. Or plenty of Americans are comfortable with one vehicular death every six months. Many possible explanations.

[devoutsalsa]

Speed limits exist because stupid people exist. When I was young, I was stupid. I thought it’d be cool to count how many streets I’d on which I’d driven at least 100kph. Soon after that I got into an accident because I was going too fast and couldn’t slow down in time.

[salawat]

Speed limits exist entirely because of World War era gas and rubber rationing, and were never repealsed due to their LE revenue producing nature.

[root_axis]

Virginia has a lot of deer, especially on interstate roads flanked by forest - 90mph is a death wish when one of these deer pop into your path.

[chrismcb]

So we should make roads more dangerous instead of using speed limits? That seems backwards.

[jmisavage]

You're out of date as of 2020. Reckless driving is 20 mph over the speed limit or over 85 mph now. It's a class 1 misdemeanor.

Most of Virginia has 65 mph as the stated speed limit which usually drops to 55 mph around cities. There are stretches of I-95 and I-81 were the speed limit is 70 mph.

But anyone who drives here knows that the speed limit is generally considered the slowest you should go on the road. Speeding around here is common. And for anyone who lives in Richmond people run red lights all the time even in front of cops. We're all just practicing for the next Mad Max movie.

[Bedon292]

Huh, didn't know that upped that. Guess I missed that with everything else happening in the world.

Speeding is the normal, definitely. And funny that I have seen traffic flowing faster during rush hour, when everyone is going well over. And then mid day you have someone from out of state passing through slowing everyone else down.

[systematical]

Richmond police force is understaffed (many have left to Chesterfield and Henrico) and the city has serious crime problems in many neighborhoods.

[xwdv]

I regularly drive at speeds in excess of 100mph when highways are empty and waze shows no police. What would be the fate of a person caught at those speeds in Virginia?

[CodeAndCuffs]

Reckless driving in VA is a class 1 misdemeanor. Punishable by confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both.[1]

That said, many things are a class 1 misdemeanor. Usually reckless driving is a fine similar to that of speeding. I've seen judges with stances like "1 day in jail for every mph over X" where X is usually 90,95, or 100. I think the most I've ever heard of was like 3-5 days for 100mph+, and even that was served on weekends.

Well, I heard of one guy who was given 3 months for 76 in a 55 by a very old substitute judge, much to the defendant's, Trooper's, and clerk's shock. The Trooper made it a point talk to the defendant and inform he could talk to the court clerk about the appeal process. The defendant appealed it down to a fine of around $150.

[1]https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter1/secti...

[throwaway0a5e]

Realistically you'd be out a grand because it'd cost you $500 of lawyer to get it plead down to a $500 non-criminal offense.

VA only cares about the money. Individual cops will stop people they see doing stuff that warrants a "that's seriously unsafe, I can't just let that slide" response but the courts just see it as a revenue stream and will gladly let people plead down as long as the total shakedown is about the same. They don't care if a large chunk winds up in the lawyer's pockets because it's a giant revolving door.

[shadowgovt]

In Virginia?

Death.

But it will be enforced by the velocity squared proportionality of kinetic energy and chronically underfunded highway maintenance coupled with old highways, not the police.

[hobs]

That's the part I chuckle at - what do you think your braking distance is at 100MPH? Most places do NOT have roads that are conducive to this as a regular practice.

[cryptonector]

What if the police use Waze though? Last time I used it -and it was many years ago- it was clearly possible to use it to find speeders using it.

[somehnguy]

Can you explain how? Waze doesn't show your speed to others on the map.

[cryptonector]

It's been like eight years. I don't recall exactly, but what I recall is that Waze showed me other Waze users on the road, including their positions, and these were updated in something close to real-time, which means one could estimate their speed. I imagine a police officer waiting to "ambush" a speeder they know is coming.

[Bedon292]

I have never seen anything close to real time updates on Waze, even 10 years ago. Its always very delayed jumps and never seeming to be actual accurate positions.

[xwdv]

If a police uses Waze to find me and catch me he can go ahead and just throw me in jail.

[bladegash]

Depends on the county and the judge. There’s a judge in Loudoun who is known for giving, at minimum, three days in jail for reckless driving. He allows for work-release so people don’t miss any days of work, but still.

[TheCoelacanth]

That's reckless driving, which is a class 1 misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 and up to a year in jail.

At over 100, you would have a pretty high chance of spending a weekend in jail.

[Spooky23]

Potentially a misdemeanor. Big waste of your time and money, with potential career impacts.

[kylehotchkiss]

I grew up there and remember the fear of hitting 81mph and how the police just hid on the side of the road off 95 and 81 waiting to shove a ticket into your window.

My friend once got a ticket for going 81mph downhill on highway 81 in the middle of nowhere southwest VA and had to trek out there for a court date.

I don’t ever miss living in Virginia

[randombits0]

> It's also the only state to prohibit radar detectors

Which is arguably outside of the state’s jurisdiction. Only the FCC has the authority to regulate the airwaves and specifically transmitters and receivers.

I bet that cop’s radar gun has an FCC sticker on it.

[novok]

Maybe they are not regulating radio receiver usage, but the just the possession of it, which would be a separate kind of regulatory space.

[blantonl]

All radio receivers have local oscillators built into their receiving circuitry that actually transmits energy that can be detected by specialized receivers.

[xxpor]

Not only are there radar detector detectors, but then there are radar detector detector detectors, and radar detector detector detector detectors. A hilarious arms race.

[ianhawes]

You should be fine with a trace buster.

[worik]

> All radio receivers have local oscillators built into their receiving circuitry that actually transmits energy that can be detected by specialized receivers.

All efficient radio receivers....

It is possible to build radio receivers without such. I built a crystal set as a child that could power an air piece without a battery using only the AM signal.

[someguydave]

Not so much with modern ADC based receivers, it is possible that the only oscillator is at a fixed frequency and the only “tuning” happens in a computer.

[hammock]

That is accurate. Your vehicle is not allowed to be equipped with a radar detector that is powered or accessible to the driver.

The police even have radar detector detectors.

[cjrp]

I can’t be the only one thinking “so how do you build a radar detector detector detector?”

[VistaBrokeMyPC]

It's basically just a more sensitive radar detector. Instead of picking up the main frequencies radar guns use, it picks up the harmonics emitted by the oscillating crystal inside the radar detectors. All radar detectors leak on harmonic frequencies of the frequency they pick up on, it's just a matter of how much. Those cheap Walmart radar detectors leak so badly they detect each other. Pricier ones are more sophisticated in how they shield.

[function_seven]

Could one build an SDR version of a radar detector that doesn't have a detectable oscillator? (Or, if it does, it's oscillating at a much higher frequency?)

I'm no RF guy, so I'm clueless on this stuff. But my understanding is that SDRs aren't radio receivers in the traditional sense. That's the whole "SD" part of it, the device scoops up everything and FFTs it or something.

[randombits0]

You could tune an antenna to trip a detector detector (side note: which would be some great civil disobedience!), but I don’t think you can get to the detector detector detector without an interaction with law enforcement. Layer eight problem.

[CodeAndCuffs]

Some Troopers have a Radar-detector detector (such as the VG-2).

There are Radar Detectors that have VG-2 (Radar detector detector) detectors on them.

I haven't heard of a radar detector detector detector detector. Such a thing would be pretty useless for a cop's intent and purposes.

[Wistar]

How do radar detector detectors work? A video.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=upCm4ONlvBY

[throwaway0a5e]

Which is stupid if the goal is safety. A radar detector makes the user slow down for a much longer area than the sight of a cop car does.

[worik]

Golly.I read that article.

What a hideous person.

Who drives so fast on country roads? Very selfish people who do not care about their own lives let alone the lives of others.

What a good punishment! Much better than a fine. We should use short prison sentences much more for the sorts of crimes rich privileged reprobates like this do.

Then the winging! It seems gaol is not pleasant. Does the writer want sympathy? None from me!

I so wish the officer had impounded the car and left these two people on the side of the road. The officer did not. But still the winging!

[tomc1985]

The 101 through Sonoma/Humboldt/Mendocino counties is, at some places, a 2-lane highway weaving its way through a twisty curvy Redwood forest at 55-65mph, and up to 75mph when it's a six-lane highway. And here in Southern California I regularly get away with 80-85mph in front of CA highway patrol. Most places I've been to in the US seem to consider 5-10 over the limit to be acceptable. I have even heard of freeways in Texas permitting 80 MPH! So these speeds are not unheard of (maybe on a country road but you'd expect the kind of treatment that guy got for 100MPH+)

Judging by your writing you sound British, IMO speed limits in a lot of Europe are ridiculously low; our highway speeds shown in MPH are often a larger number than your highway speeds shown in KPH.

[jameshart]

For someone so ready to leap to conclusions, you don’t sound particularly informed about British attitudes to road speed (notably, Britain still uses mph, not km/h). You might be surprised to discover that outside built up areas in the UK the national speed limit on an undivided road is 60mph. Not an undivided highway - an undivided road.

Here’s an example of a random British B road with a 60mph speed limit: https://goo.gl/maps/2jetrMeoWbuTvShN9

[tomc1985]

Most of my experience is on continental Europe, where it seemed like multilane highways topped out at 55-65 km/h. So you're probably right.

No need to go on the offensive though. "Gaol" is a pretty dead giveaway of Britishness.

[jameshart]

Sorry to burst your preconceptions, but... no, it isn't. 'Gaol' is barely used in British english outside of affecting an olde-worlde charm for tourists. British usage tends to words like 'prison', 'custody', 'cells', 'remand', 'detention'... barely even use the word 'jail', let alone an archaic spelling of it (and the pretrial/postconviction jail vs. prison distinction common the US system doesn't apply to the terms in the UK). HM Prison Reading might have a sign outside noting that it is the eponymous "Reading Gaol" that Oscar Wilde wrote about, but nobody's calling it that outside of a guidebook.

[BalinKing]

I think you’re conflating P(Is British|Uses “gaol”) with P(Uses “gaol”|Is British), the latter of which I would expect to be much higher than the former.

[jameshart]

(Oh, and to put you out of your misery, a more recent comment by OP contains the clue: "Where I live (Aotearoa)", which suggests they're a New Zealander. So, you missed your guess by around 11,000 miles, and apparently 80 years or so in terms of English language usage.)

[tomc1985]

Slow golf clap from me I guess. Pedantry is super impressive.

[multjoy]

And here's an unclassified road with a 60mph limit: https://goo.gl/maps/LNmtw44z8BQXatXu9

[devilbunny]

I don't know precisely what countries you're indicating, but I've driven in the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, and Poland, all in the past five years. Some of the country roads had what seemed to be fairly low speed limits (e.g., 80 km/h), but freeways are much higher in general - usually 120-130 km/h.

[duncan-donuts]

There are a few stretches of highway near Austin that have 80 posted and people absolutely fly on that road. I was in a shitty rental trying to do 80 and people were passing me like I was driving slow. It was wild

[lolpython]

Nitpick: I think you meant to write “whinging” rather than “winging”

[ZoomerCretin]

Considering the effects of driving at these speeds, I'd say the legal absurdity is the other 49 states not having similar punishments for people who drive at these incredibly dangerous speeds. An enormous amount of people die or acquire permanent, life-altering disabilities at the hands of people who were speeding and crashed.

[casion]

This kind of absolute thinking is not helpful. The US is a HUGE place. Each location has different driving conditions, types of roads, driving habits etc...

Affluence also factors in significantly both on a community level and personal level.

Driving 80mph through a small town with significant environmental debris on the roads where everyone is driving trucks from the 60s? That should be a felony.

Driving 80mph on a clean, straight highway where everyone is driving a relatively modern car? There should be _no problem_.

Separately, IMO, vehicle should factor in at the judgement level of law enforcement. My car can stop from 60mph in <100ft, will pull >1g on skidpad, has a full bevvy of features to alert me of surrounding conditions and will intervene in certain dangerous scenarios. The idea that such a vehicle should be equally treated as a 1992 unmaintained civic is ridiculous. Yes, the laws should be consistent in a given area, but the application of those laws should be just not blindly applied. There's clearly a boundary to be crossed, but my car going 10mph over is SIGNIFICANTLY less dangerous to the public than that hoopty going the speed limit.

[woodruffw]

> but my car going 10mph over is SIGNIFICANTLY less dangerous to the public than that hoopty going the speed limit

To the driving public, specifically. Pedestrians and cyclists will still be goop on your windshield 50 feet into your 100 foot braking.

[spaethnl]

There are typically two kinds of roads these speeds are reached in the US:

1. Expressways, where pedestrians and cyclists are not allowed. They are walled off with specific entrances and exits.

2. Country highways, where pedestrians and cyclists are nearly unheard of, and are typically very easy to spot from a distance and adjust accordingly.

There is a third area where these speeds are sometimes reached in urban areas that Strong Towns calls "stroads", and these have a whole host of problems. Going 10mph over the speed limit in these areas probably doesn't make a huge difference, because the are already so pedestrian and cyclist unfriendly to begin with. Not Just Bikes has a great video about them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM

[woodruffw]

It's not uncommon to see people go 20 over on country roads (including mountain roads) in Virginia. That means 55 in a 35, or 60 in a 40. Those roads don't have great visibility, and I've had more than a couple of unnecessarily close calls because of recklessly speeding drivers.

Edit: The upstream thread even has an article where the author describes doing 93 on a 55 backroad in VA and subsequently getting arrested[1].

[1]: https://jalopnik.com/never-speed-in-virginia-lessons-from-my...

[spaethnl]

Sure, but that isn't what we're talking about.

The comment that this thread branched off of is about the relative difference in danger of 10mph with a modern vehicle, not 20, 30, or 40mph. I don't think I agree with that user's overall point, but I also didn't think your response to it was particularly on point either.

I think our transportation infrastructure needs a massive overhaul to be more pedestrian, bike, and even motor-vehicle friendly, but I think speeds limits are such a poor answer to that problem that arguing about +10mph is merely a distraction.

[casion]

That was my point. There's A LOT less distance covered by one car than the other, and the speed in that time as well.

An old pickup trick will still be going 35mph at 100ft. I will be completely stopped.

The severity of injury at 80ft for the two is quite different as well.

Of course... I'd never be driving at 60mph if there was a chance of pedestrians. However, the 30-0 difference is even more staggering between older mass market vehicles and modern sportscars.

[Dylan16807]

Of which there are none on the roads where people want to go particularly fast.

[woodruffw]

I take it you've never cycled in Virginia. I have (on "slow" roads no less) and I've had no less than a dozen people buzz me at over 20 miles above the speed limit.

(There is no such thing as a road where people "don't want" to go fast, because "fast" is disjointed in meaning: there's the legal speed that drivers regularly and unsafely exceed, and there's the "fast" speed at which drivers perceive how unsafe they're being.)

[verve_rat]

You are making an argument for different places having different speed limits. Yes places should match their limits to the local conditions, but people should still get in trouble for breaking the law.

[casion]

The person I responded to only talked about punishments for "these speeds", and that is why I responded specifically to begin a discussion about the nuance of speed limits across areas.

There should be punishments for exceeding reasonable limits. There should not be punishments for "these speeds" as they exist in Virgina compared to another location. Heck, even just across virginia it doesn't make sense to have a single set of speed limits.

[earleybird]

With you on "driving to the conditions". Although just because your vehicle can stop quickly doesn't mean that unmaintained civic can do the same when you go flying past and then hard brake.

My one hope for self driving vehicles is that it normalizes efficient traffic flow.

[hammock]

To add to the other comment, your idea ignores the history of speed limits and how they aren’t just for safety. For example how the highways were reduced to 55mph during the 70s oil crisis as an indirect way to ration gasoline. Or how small towns will lower sections of road for the specific purpose of creating a revenue-generating speed trap.

[eganist]

Virginia is ranked 35th in deaths per 100 million miles (0.96), and it's not as if people don't drive either, as it's ranked 12th in miles driven. Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, New York all log more miles driven and less people dead per million miles.

So it doesn't really seem like Virginia's insanely restricting laws are actually helping.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/fatal-car-a...

[testbjjl]

I once got a ticket from a Virginia state trooper for driving in the HOV restricted lanes, with two passengers in a two seater. I took the ticket (like there is a choice) thinking I would go to court and contest. While looking for where to appear I came across the FAQ stating no exceptions for two passenger vehicles in the HOV. Nothing illegal, just feels wrongheaded in public safety and service are the priorities of the organization.

[Zak]

The purpose of HOV lanes is not safety directly, but reducing traffic and pollution. It is rational with regard to those goals that cars are not granted exceptions for having only two seats.

Some of the other exceptions, such as motorcycles and hybrids (but not exceptionally efficient cars with conventional gasoline engines) are less rational.

[logifail]

> Virginia as a whole has some pretty absurdly pro police laws, at least re: driving

(Full disclosure: have never driven in the USA), but without wishing to sound like a know-all, how about sticking to the speed limit?

I've been dinged exactly twice for speeding since getting my licence almost exactly 30 years ago this month. No points in either case. It's not hard, honest. My wife might disagree, but her licence, her problem :)

[alistairSH]

how about sticking to the speed limit?

Because the speed limit in much of the US is below the “natural” speed of that roadway. We have highways where 80+mph is the norm, but the posted limited can be anywhere from 55-70mph (I-95 along the east coast). Driving the speed limit actually becomes dangerous. At this point, speed enforcement becomes a hit-or-miss affair, where you’re at the mercy of the police officer. Better hope he’s having a good day and you don’t “look suspicious”, etc. Making it even worse, that same interstate (I-95) has the limit vary from 55-70 depending on state/town - the highway itself didn’t change, just the jurisdiction. And yes, the states with the lower limits are notorious for ticketing out-of-state drivers.

And that’s just the highway. Secondary roads through small towns are just a racket. https://www.newsweek.com/police-chief-quits-after-report-rev...

[cycomanic]

As someone who grew up and drove in Germany and being used to 160+km/h on highways moving to Australia made quite a positive change to my driving. In Germany outside of cities everyone drives at least 10%over the limit. You also constantly look where to overtake and be a little faster (and I was by no means a speeder or very fast driver) .

Australia on the other hand is very strikt about speed limits and even being 10% over can be a significant fine, so people gereally adhere much closer to the limits. Having to stick to the limit is actually liberating, I just stopped trying find some extra time by e. g. overtaking yet another car, and instead my driving experience is much more relaxed, I just put on cruise control and that's it. I seriously encourage you to think if you really need to be speeding, because the time you save is miniscule, while the driving is significantly more stressful.

[UncleMeat]

> Driving the speed limit actually becomes dangerous.

I've lived in VA for decades and have driven all over the state. There is no highway where driving the speed limit is actually dangerous and there certainly isn't a highway where the norm is 20 over.

[throwaway0a5e]

>here is no highway where driving the speed limit is actually dangerous

That's only true if you're oblivious to other traffic to the point of being dangerous to said traffic.

I used to zip down I95 in my personal car, get in a commercial vehicle and then proceed to get in a commercial vehicle and be a rolling obstruction at 55-60. The latter was way less safe than just being another ant in line like I was in my personal vehicle.

Sure, if someone clipped me while I was driving the truck it would have been their fault but I was though my actions still creating a bunch of unnecessary danger. There was a constant stream of people having to merge to go around me. It was all the problems you get at an on-ramp with merging traffic. I will cut some slack to heavily laden vehicles, big slow trucks and shitboxes that can't maintain traffic speed. But some self-righteous jerk in his Camry or whatever has no excuse.

>There is no highway where driving the speed limit is actually dangerous and there certainly isn't a highway where the norm is 20 over.

I95, literally every weekday morning and evening just before and just after rush hour clogs things up. Sign says 55. Most traffic goes 75+/-5 with the occasional fast and slow vehicles well above/below that speed.

[alistairSH]

I was referring to the interstates in general, and I-95 specifically. Not just within Virginia. Particularly stretches through South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

[UncleMeat]

But the context was VA's reckless driving laws. There is no stretch of 95 in VA (I've driven it across the entire state many times) where it is unsafe to drive the listed limit.

[sterlind]

in Atlanta there's a stretch of interstate at 50mph, and the traffic flows at 70+mph. driving the posted limit is dangerous, and possibly even illegal (delaying traffic.)

[callalex]

Are the loaded semi trucks also driving 70+?

[oneplane]

Since when is a speed limit not a rule/law but a 'feeling' for a 'natural' speed? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. That essentially just escalates as everyones 'naturally' speeds up as a herd and then the whole point of having rules is moot.

[jjav]

> That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. That essentially just escalates as everyones 'naturally' speeds up as a herd and then the whole point of having rules is moot.

You'd be wrong. If you remove all speed limits and all enforcement, people won't be driving 180mph on small roads.

Turns out for the vast majority of the drivers, a combination of awareness and experience will lead them to correctly judge a highest actually safe speed and they'll just drive that and no more.

This is codified in the rules that state that speed limits are supposed to be set to 85th percentile of natural traffic flow, not lower. That way for nearly everyone on the road the speed limit will make sense and not be oppressively low (laws are supposed to make sense, not just be arbitrary enforcement).

That's the rule on paper. Of course, if the speed limit matches the natural speed, it means hardly anyone will ever be speeding, which cuts the revenue source of speeding tickets. So jurisdictions play all kinds of games to set the posted speed limit far below the 85th percentile, which increases ticket revenue.

[alistairSH]

Roads tend to have a speed where people feel comfortable. In theory, road engineers design roadways to match the desired speed. In practice, that doesn’t always happen. Even worse, cities/towns have been known to lower the speed limit to drive revenue.

Edit, some links: https://beyondtheautomobile.com/2021/02/08/what-is-design-sp...

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/6/the-key-to-slow...

Usually, when people talk about the topic, they’re trying to calm local traffic. But the concept applies to highways where speed limits can be pretty arbitrary. Plenty of interstate where 80+mph feels safe, but is posted at 55 or 65.

[Dylan16807]

Your common sense is wrong here. If you replace speed limits with "go a safe speed" then people don't go faster indefinitely, they'll find a speed that depends on road design. It doesn't escalate, and it's only notably faster than the speed limit when something has gone wrong with the road planning.

[jfk13]

You're ignoring the fact that many people's perception of what is "a safe speed" is not at all reliable. (Compare: what percentage of people would claim to be better-than-average drivers? https://www.smithlawco.com/blog/2017/december/do-most-driver...)

We have speed limits because trusting people to "go a safe speed" doesn't work, in general.

[Dylan16807]

Objectively, the group settles into a particular speed.

It's based on both safety and perceived safety, and it's not perfect, but it works out pretty well.

If the road is designed properly it's the top few percentile that you need to restrain, not the masses.

If you make a super wide straight shot of asphalt down a residential neighborhood, and people go too fast, that's the road designer's fault.

[klyrs]

As we're sitting calmly, reasoning about safety, sure. But when the rubber meets the road, you get problems. People learning how to drive don't know the limits of their vehicles; hope you like dead teenagers. Then, you've got somebody in a hurry to get someplace, and their cost/benefit analysis says going an extra 30mph is totally worth the 2 minutes it will shave off their trip.

[cycomanic]

You obviously have not seen any of the many posted videos of some guys racing on public streets. Or are you saying the natural speed is a personal thing and everyone should be allowed to drive as fast as they personally feel comfortable with?

[alistairSH]

There are outliers in any group. Nobody is debating that. All we’re saying is roads tend to have a speed where the vast majority of drivers are comfortable and they’ll tend to go that fast.

Most times you’re on a road and traffic is flowing significantly faster than the posted limit, either the limit is wrong or the road is poorly designed and not fit for purpose. And that happens a lot in the US.

[jjav]

> You obviously have not seen any of the many posted videos of some guys racing on public streets.

Speed limits are supposed to be set to the 85th percentile of natural flow speed for the road.

The very few people racing on public streets are well above the 85th percentile, so that's a straw man argument.

[ghaff]

You could also ask when is walking across the street against a red light or outside of a crosswalk a "feeling" about whether it's a safe thing to do that doesn't impede traffic--even though it violates the law?

The fact is that there are plenty of laws we somewhat violate on a daily basis. This has its own set of problems but it's the way things are essentially everywhere.

[vkou]

The problem with this line of reasoning is that the 'natural' speed limit of a freeway is a death sentence in the event of a crash.

I have zero sympathy for this. If you're doing 20 mph over the limit, you shouldn't be driving, whether it comes from taking away you car, or from putting you in a cage for a few weeks.

[alistairSH]

In that case, the road isn’t fit for purpose.

[vkou]

It's not the road that isn't fit for purpose, it's the human body plus the modern automobile that's not fit for safely handling a crash at 80 mph.

Either build better humans, better automobiles, or slow down.

[criddell]

I think in most places, the speed limit is set to the 80th percentile speed. If there is a road where people routinely drive much faster on, you might want to ask for your county to do a speed study on that road.

In some places, you may be able to use the lack of an up-to-date speed study as a defense against a speeding charge.

[sharken]

A modern car with cruise control, either adaptive or not, will make the task of keeping to the speed limit a breeze.

The only improvement would be that the car always knew the speed limit for any stretch of road.

[Wistar]

Many modern cars have traffic sign recognition systems that extract the speed limit. The BMW system is fairly amazing to watch work as the speed limit display changes juuuust as you pass the sign and are surprisingly good at reading signs that are even partially obscured. Although I can't remember exactly which cars feed the detected speed limit into their adaptive cruise control systems, I think some of the Range Rover models do. Some even allow you to set a percentage or absolute speed value above or below the speed limit that you want the car to travel.

Others use a speed limit database and GPS/accelerometer system to establish the speed limit.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

When I was driving in the EU I had a car that used gps to pull the limit (but never actually enforced that you followed it). It was really cool to hop on the Autobahn and see a symbol for none pop up in the indicator. It looked like a nonsmoking sign without the cigarette in it.

[ghaff]

I haven't used (non-adaptive) cruise control in years. I find that a lot of the time in the Northeast US roads are busy enough that you have to be constantly dropping out of cruise control or end up driving in ways that are suboptimal other than for keeping the cruise control active. To be honest, I just stopped using it at some point and just don't think to use it even when it's a match for conditions.

When I get adaptive cruise control--presumably when I eventually get a new car--I may well change my tune.

[kwhitefoot]

Adaptive/traffic aware cruise control makes life so much easier, especially in heavy stop-go traffic. Tesla's Autosteer works really well.

[kwhitefoot]

Teslas recognize speed limit signs. Driving on Autosteer my Model S respects speed limits unless it recognizes that it is on a dual carriageway (divided highway for US readers) in which case it allows you to speed if you want to but warns you that you are over the limit.

Mercedes have had this feature as an option for many years.

[cryptonector]

American highways for decades now have been designed for very high speeds, often 100mph or more, but the speed limits are set much much lower than that.

Perhaps you are in Europe, where speed limits are generally just the natural speed for the roads they're posted on, and the roads are designed for natural speeds that are appropriate for their uses. Lucky you, if so. Here in the U.S., speed limits are set to give police probable cause to stop anyone, any time.

[cycomanic]

> Perhaps you are in Europe, where speed limits are generally just the natural speed for the roads they're posted on, and the roads are designed for natural speeds that are appropriate for their uses. Lucky you, if so.

What are you talking about? With the exception of Germany all countries in Europe have maximum speed limits and I have no idea what you mean by natural speeds. Sweden which has highways that are in better condition than pretty much all US roads I've driven on has a maximum speed of 110 km/h (as has Australia btw) , Spain has 120 km/h, France 130 km/h. All lower than the US 85 miles/h.

[devilbunny]

85 mph is on one road skirting Austin, Texas. It's 146 km long. That's it.

Everything else is 80 (~130 km/h, actually a little slower) or less, and even 80 only applies to western roads with pretty much nothing around. But if you drive in the parts of the US where most people live, you're looking at 70 (a bit over 110), or 65 (~105) in rural areas. But those 105-112 km/h limit roads are in most states, even when the European example would suggest that 75 (which is almost exactly 120 km/h) would be far more appropriate.

[cryptonector]

You're talking about posted speeds. There are long stretches of other highways in the Austin area where, if traffic conditions allow, you can safely drive much faster than the posted speed limits. This is and has been true over much of the U.S. for decades.

One time I was driving on the NJ turnpike, passing a car at about 100mph, and far behind me, on my rearview mirror, I saw cars gaining rapidly on me and flashing their highbeams almost desperately. I barely managed to get in the right lane ahead of the car I was passing, and those cars that had been far behind passed me at what must have been 150mph. They were all beemers and such. Now, I wouldn't do that, but apparently that was a common sight at the time -- young drivers driving rich New Yorkers cars between NY and FL when their owners were flying to FL to spend the winter or back to NY for the summer. I've driven on quite a few highways in the U.S. where 80mph wasn't breaking a sweat and where I believe 100mph would have been perfectly safe weather and traffic allowing. I'm quite certain that our highways are simply designed for much higher speeds than posted.

[cryptonector]

Your roads are often designed with natural speed control devices. Things like making them narrow, or lining them with trees, etc.

[cycomanic]

Highways certainly have not, and for other roads it highly depends, just like in the US. But the Bundestrassen in Germany (the next larger roads after highways) have a speed limit of 100km/h and are very straight and definitely not artificially narrowed.

I'm actually not aware of any roads without a specific lane separator (like highways) that have speed limits above 100km/h in Europe (I certainly could be wrong though).

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Reading your comment makes me think you’ve never driven in Europe whatsoever. Driving on your typical E road (say E6 or E4 in Sweden) is no different in design than any US interstate. In fact, driving on regional highways is mostly roughly equivalent in design with USA state highways, except roundabouts are often in place of street lights.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Some highways in Sweden go up to 130 kph. E4 in Halland is an example. Still not 85mph but close.

[cycomanic]

Really, TIL. I live in the Gothenburg area and in all my driving I only encountered 110 km/h so I assumed that was the maximum. Should have looked it up, thanks for correcting me.

[1MachineElf]

>how about sticking to the speed limit?

Remove speed limits on the highways and you have a deal sir.

[chrismcb]

Because im and places it is designed to catch you. But I got a ticket in Zurich for doing 16 kph in a 15 kph zone.

[mdoms]

> I've been dinged exactly twice for speeding

Not to be a know-all but why not stick to the speed limit?

[dictateawayyyee]

Because it is very dangerous to drive at the speed limit on a 55-65mph interstate.

You'll get 18-wheelers harassing you, even if you stick to the slow lane and don't mind paying extra attention to the on-ramps every mile. And those semi trucks almost never get pulled over; their job is hard enough.

[klyrs]

Funny, I've run that line in front of a judge, challenging a ticket for 45 in a 35 that feels like 50 should be safe. He said "That's the most lethal road in the city. Next time, turn up your radio and ignore the honking." I paid full price.

[Diesel555]

The person you replied to is being sarcastic. Their response to the quote is a also a near quote of the parent post.

[worik]

> You'll get 18-wheelers harassing you, even if you stick to the slow lane and don't mind paying extra attention to the on-ramps every mile. And those semi trucks almost never get pulled over; their job is hard enough.

Where I live (Aotearoa) trucks do not act like that. They are heavily policed and drive to the speed limit.

It is very common to see a truck stopped on the side of the road with a police officer checking it.

Good

[cryptonector]

I thought Connecticut also prohibited radar detectors.

[Wistar]

Apparently not.

"• Under federal law, the use of radar or laser speed detectors is illegal in all commercial vehicles over 10,000 pounds.

• Radar detectors are illegal to use in any vehicle in the District of Columbia.

• Radar detectors are illegal to use in any vehicle in the state of Virginia.

• Radar detectors are illegal to use in any vehicle while on any military installation."

https://k40.com/are-radar-detectors-illegal/