[learc83]

In the United States speed limits are not enforced for safety. They are instead a revenue stream for local government.

Relative speed kills, and if police were really concerned about safety they would prevent people from driving too slowly for traffic conditions as well as too fast.

I'll give you a similar example from recent news. Over the last few years, many towns have installed red light cameras. However, many local governments have discovered that red light cameras work too well.

After people got used to them, they stopped running red lights, and the revenue from citations dried up.

Guess what happened? Towns started removing red light cameras even though they enforced safer driving.

[wazoox]

Sounds a bit too good (in the usual anti-government, libertarian style) to be true. Any reference?

[learc83]

Just a quick Google search, but here's an article about Fort Lauderdale removing their cameras.

http://www.browardcountyduilawyers.com/broward-county-dui/fo...

It's also not really a libertarian no government issue, because red light cameras are basically privatizing traffic enforcement.

It's no secret that companies sell these systems by promoting them as revenue generators.

Furthermore, there are plenty of other ways to decrease red light violations. The most effective is to increase the duration of the yellow light.

According to this report "Straight through violations drop 92 percent after yellow lights are extended by one second in Loma Linda, California."

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/30/3055.asp

Here's some more info on increase yellow light duration.

http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shorteni...

The reason that more cities don't do this is because it leads to a massive drop in revenue. In fact here is an article on 6 cities that were caught shortening yellow light duration to increase revenue.

http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shorteni...