[rdwallis]

I've chosen to never speed because it reduces my cognitive load.

Nobody speeds all the time. Even people who speed a lot will try to slow down for speed traps.

So everyone who speeds even those who speed only every now and then have to be constantly making a choice for when to speed.

They must constantly assess whether the benefits of speeding in this specific moment outweigh the disadvantages. There are dozens of variables: how much quicker will speeding be? will I be caught? is it safe to speed on this road at this time?

Much easier to ignore all that and just to drive below the speed limit.

[larrys]

"I've chosen to never speed because it reduces my cognitive load."

Never? Never speeding also means not always keeping up with traffic which might be flowing at a higher rate of speed. Consequently you are chancing a greater risk of an accident by not keeping up with traffic and not speeding.

[pyoung]

Not exactly. Those that are speeding have accepted the higher risk of accident in exchange for getting to their destination slightly faster (if at all). The choices of the speeders have externalities in the form of a higher risk of accident for all other drivers around them, regardless of others speed. The drivers who obey the law bear none of the of the responsibility for that increase in risk. If you want to argue that speed limits should be raised because everyone is breaking them anyways, I think that is a fairer point of view. But to blame people who are following the law for the externalities caused by those breaking the law is absurd.

[fredophile]

Driving at a rate faster or slower than the flow of traffic increases the risk of an accident more than an equivalent increase in speed. Here's a detailed article about it: http://priceonomics.com/is-every-speed-limit-too-low/

[wavegeek]

The link is pretty weak evidence.

> “We all speed, yet months and months usually pass between us seeing a crash,”

This is a stupid argument. Do you really want to be in a crash every few months? Roughly the average person has a 1% lifetime chance of dying and a 10% chance of serious injury in a car crash. To me these are pretty high numbers.

> that sign won’t make people drive any slower

Where I live, speed limits are zealously enforced - loss of licence for a third offence in two years - and people do comply with them. So yes a sign won't do it but you can get people to comply.

As usual the US seems to find the worst solution: overly restrictive speed limits (55mph) combined with lack of enforcement. This causes large divergences in speeds, which is apparently dangerous.

The article seems to confuse the merits of driving slower than most traffic, with the merits of slowing traffic as a whole down. They are very different things. If most people on the autobahn are doing 110mph then one driver doing 55mph would be dangerous. However slowing everyone down to say 60 mph may be a much safer overall situation.

[watwut]

Your personal risk is lower when you drive with the flow, even if that flow is faster then speed limit. This is kind of collective action problem, if most drivers restrict their speed, everyone is safer. If only few of them restrict themselves, those few are not much safer.

The drivers who obey the law do not bear responsibility for the increase in risk, but neither they raised their own safety.

[rdwallis]

Sorry for the delay in reply.

I live in Durban, South Africa. Lots of people speed here and sometimes the fast lane will be moving faster than the limit. But I don't think I've ever been in a situation where all of the traffic is moving faster than the limit.

Is it common for all lanes to be moving faster than the speed limit where you are?

[roel_v]

"I've chosen to never speed because it reduces my cognitive load."

That's a utilitarian approach which is completely orthogonal to what this thread is about.