[rcoveson]

Assigning blame doesn't do anything for safety, even if you're right. Where I live, by far the safest thing to do is to drive ~4 mph over the limit on all non-residential roads. If you drive below or even right at the limit, you will be tailgated or passed with far greater frequency. That behavior is out of your control, at least on the road. You can push for more consistent enforcement while you're not driving (I'm inclined to do so myself), but while you're behind the wheel, the only behavior you can change is your own.

[tshaddox]

> Assigning blame doesn't do anything for safety, even if you're right.

It's reasonable to talk about which party should be the one to change their behavior, and that's essentially the same thing as assigning blame.

[rcoveson]

No disagreement here, but where the literal rubber hits the road, you still have to decide how to act when the ambient semi-aggressive driving population continues to behave in the way that they do. Will you blamelessly be road raged at 50-100% more often than a more moderate driver (who drives at the most popular speed, though it may be over the limit) just because if an accident does happen it will be the road rager's fault?

It's a very frustrating social problem. Obviously we can't let ourselves be held collectively hostage by bad actors in all situations. But I would still predict that there are some situations where the bad actor population is so large and "mildly-bad" that indefinitely giving in to their implicit demands is the right game theoretic choice.

[tshaddox]

> But I would still predict that there are some situations where the bad actor population is so large and "mildly-bad" that indefinitely giving in to their implicit demands is the right game theoretic choice.

Game theory is quite a big thing, that's for sure. And it's no surprise that actors will tend towards these situations where you're tempted to think "eh, letting them do this bad thing with impunity feels like the right game theoretic choice, because it's right at the limit of not being bad enough to illicit a response." And yet, there's a reason for things like territorial behavior in the animal kingdom, where an animal will defend minor territory disputes at great personal cost even when the cost of losing a small amount of territory seems much smaller.

[watwut]

Well, "People who drive below the posted speed limit (road boulders) are a menace" is not just assigning blame, but severely exaggerated angry claim. Somehow, you have choose fairly calm response to it as the thing to criticize as assigning blame.

[kurthr]

And driving in the "slow" lane where every single driver has to go past you to get on/off the road isn't generally safe either. On a 2 lane road you don't have much choice, but on a busy 3 lane road, probably not a great choice either.