[seanmcdirmid]

Speed enforcement is a political issue these days, not a cost issue, it is quite cheap to put speed cameras everywhere and many countries do. We could eliminate speeding if we wanted to, Americans just don't want to. So what if a few more people die every year...freedom!

[pdonis]

The problem I have with speed enforcement as such is that speeding, in and of itself, doesn't harm anyone. Note that in my suggestions above I didn't say anything about speeding by itself; I said if you are involved in an accident and your speeding is a contributing factor, that should increase the negative consequences you suffer. That would give people an incentive to properly consider the risks of speeding; and the person who is actually driving the vehicle, and sees the road conditions and other variables as they are, is in a much better position to judge what is a safe speed than a bureaucrat writing speeding laws.

[Dylan16807]

Oh shut up with half-baked emotional arguments, if a 'few people' dying in accidents was always a good enough reason to slow down traffic there wouldn't be a road in the world faster than 20mph.

At any rate, speed limits are set extra low with the expectation that people will go faster than the number on the sign. Trying to 'eliminate speeding' by itself is a nonsense goal.

[seanmcdirmid]

I'm not making any arguments. Is it ok to go 90mph when the speed limit is 75mph? Even if its straight I90 freeway in the middle of Central Washington? I'm not sure, but today we have that choice as enforcement is choppy.

Anyways, we'll be into self driving cars in 10 or 15 years regardless, the question is almost outdated.

[Dylan16807]

"So what if a few more people die every year...freedom!" is the emotional and clearly-wrong argument I'm referring to.

As to your question, it depends on the road and 15mph is an unusually large number. I'm used to things more like '70-72 in a 65 zone' and '39 in a 35 zone'. On a straight freeway 90 is probably safe.

But my point was that the current system is broken in such a way that rigorous enforcement of the exact numbers on speed limit signs would make things even worse.

[seanmcdirmid]

Do you go to Canada often? There speed limits are more strict than ours and they have pretty sophisticated enforcement (speed cameras). The world didn't come to an end there. It is even worse in Europe and Japan; I think our American ideas of "broken" is a bit warped, but I actually like going 90 mph to get from Seattle to Spokane; once you get across the mountains it is a boring trip. Europe and Canada annoy me. But then maybe we could have something like the German Autobahn.

I don't drive anymore. In my city, people barely get up to 80 kph given the traffic, but sometimes I get a crazy Beijing taxi driver who knows where all the cameras are, then I fear for my life.

[stefan_kendall3]

You don't drive, and yet you make a lot of claims about how driving should be.

[seanmcdirmid]

I did drive back when I lived in the states, got my license at 15 (in a state where that was possible), you have to drive there as a matter of reality. I live in a city right now where driving is very expensive, and taxis are very cheap, so it makes sense not to. I get that America is completely different than the rest of the world.