[austin-cheney]

This sounds like high anxiety nonsense to mommy the rest of us.

Our highways are not lawless. They are among the most regulated areas of daily human life in the US after accounting for both criminal and civil penalties. Whether people abide by those regulations is a different matter, but to say its lawless is a wild fantasy of people who probably shouldn't be on the roads in the first place.

[akaru]

We speak of the Wild West as “lawless”. I assure you there were very much laws against murder and theft then. They just had sporadic enforcement. Much as roads and highways are in many parts of the country. In California I see racing, 100mph driving, weaving like mad. In the ride home from the airport I watched teenagers race and crash. Drunk driving all over wine country. Never once saw anyone like this pulled over.

[austin-cheney]

The wild west is as equally misunderstood. There were far far fewer guns carried by people then compared to now and laws were well enforced even in sporadically populated areas. The exceptions were boom towns, like gold rushes, where the populations grew faster than norms could be established.

I guess if you don't see it then it must never happen to anybody ever. That isn't valid data.

[kube-system]

Traffic law enforcement is a highly localized issue in the US. While there are places that will pull people over for going 5mph over and traffic is calm and orderly, there are also places where traffic laws are rarely enforced. In major cities it is not hard to find roads where severe traffic violations are routine (speeding 20mph+ over, driving on the shoulder, running red lights, etc).