What Speed Limits Aren’t . . . But Should Be

Hi Marinesebee!

I enjoy driving out West for exactly the reasons you’ve laid out. The driving on this side of the continental divide, on the other hand, is a teeth-aching ordeal….

Actually, you should ask the cop who he works for. Then ask the judge who he works for. If both say the same city (or county) then move to dismiss based on conflict of interest as both parties work for the same corporation.

“I personally favor an advisory speed “zone” where there are additional penalties for going too fast if there’s an accident.”

Yes, ma’am, I agree. Allowing legislators to levy fines against “speeders” is wrong. In the absence of an injured party, there is no crime (or tort) so the law that levies fines is simply a money trap. Speed limits set by traffic engineers could set a standard to be used in levying charges against those at fault only in the event of an accident with injuries or property damage.

I don’t agree that speed limits are set by science. County, state, and city agencies set speed limits with an eye to collecting revenue. You’ve probably seen it yourself, where a stretch of road which has a 55 mph speed limit is suddenly changed to 35. Passing zones are eliminated for no safety reason, but only to allow police to issue tickets. It’s all about revenue.

Counties and cities are bankrupt because their governments have hired huge numbers of do-nothing employees for political reasons. Payroll and pensions, benefits and administration costs have broken budgets everywhere, so traffic fines have been increasingly used to raise revenues where taxes are already too high and would cause resistance.

It wasn’t the feds that mucked it up. It was some supposed race car driver who thought it was reasonable and prudent to drive 120mph on a narrow two lane with slow farm equipment and sometimes loose livestock. Took it all the way to the MT supreme court and THEY threw out the “reasonable and prudent” rule as too vague to be enforced. So we got numerical limits. Damn shame, too – because back then it was actually easier to drive slower if you wanted knowing the other guy could easily pass and make up the time.

I wouldn’t count on not getting a speeding ticket in MT, at least on certain highways. The county mounties spend all their time either at the high school or on the main north/south highway collecting revenue.

Hi Doug!

I “speed” habitually. Every day. Often, “recklessly” – as defined by the idiotic statute in VA, which decrees that to drive 20 MPH faster than any posted limit is, ipso facto, “reckless.” This includes the Interstate spur near me (I-581) that is still posted 55 (the adjacent highway is posted 70) despite it being a four-lane/limited-access highway. Almost everyone is doing 65-70.

And 76 is “reckless.” That is 6 MPH faster than the legal speed limit on the highway 581 connects with. And anything over 80 is “reckless” anywhere – even on I-81, where the PSL is 70.

Yes, really.

Well, I’ve been driving “recklessly” all these many decades and have yet to so much as scuff a fender, my own or anyone else’s.

Why is it that I can’t point to a 30-year record of no “accidents” as objective proof that I am a “safe” driver and ought to be left the hell in peace by armed government workers?

Doug, revenue and safety aren’t mutually exclusive propositions. There are way too many people who simply have no business driving at all, much less driving over the speed limit. I don’t know how many hundreds of thousands of miles I’ve spent driving across the country, but when you spend that much time on the road, you can’t help seeing lot’s of accidents. One of the things you notice is that when there’s a fender bender in rush hour traffic, barring air bag deployment; no one gets hurt. At freeway speeds, cars start flipping, and bouncing off of other cars. It doesn’t matter how good a driver you are when a car comes out of nowhere and stops you cold going 55 mph. These accidents are horrifying, and when there’s a fireball there’s usually a nice big black stain to remind you of it every time you pass that spot.

Big rigs are equipped with governors and company drivers get governed trucks because the company is paying for the fuel, and they also know that there’s less likelihood of an accident if their driver is going 55 down the freeway rather than 90. So, everyone else who is going 80 is the problem because they’re going to be the one’s who cause the accident, not the guy who can’t go any faster. Over and over I’ve seen people attempt to pass a big rig only to almost cause an accident because some dipshit going 90 didn’t think anyone else would be dumb enough to pull into the fast lane with them approaching like they were sitting still.

I see something similar when driving on icy roads. I’m creeping along because my car has no traction whatsoever in the snow. I even pulled over one time on an offramp and the car started to slide sideways off the pavement. Everyone else is cruising along way too fast for the conditions and the next thing you know they’re all spinning in circles and disappearing into the brush.

To think that Eisenhower pushed the Interstates as we know in them in 1956 because as his forces stomped into Germany in 1945, he was impressed by the Autobahns then already built, believing that they’d facilitated the movement of German troops and supplies between fronts. In reality, Germany had relatively few trucks to spare, and lacked fuel for what they did have; they were as dependent on the Roll-Bahn (railroads) as they’d been in WWI. The autobahns actually helped the Allies roll across Germany, once they’d surrounded the bulk of the German forces in the West in the Ruhr Industrial region by April 1, 1945, getting to within 70 miles of Berlin in only ten days. Unfortunately for the Berliners, they were left to the ‘tender mercies’ of the Soviet armies by “Ike”.

The Interstates were originally labelled “National Defense Highways” to sell them to the public, and it didn’t hurt Ike in his 1956 re-election campaign, as he took all but the then “Solid South” (and even got Texas, Florida, and Louisiana), and some of those states he narrowly lost. Ike had already learned the value of being “patriotic” with other people’s money!

Chris, eric, the other problem is that too many of the freeways in the US simply aren’t built for speed. Removing the speed limits would naturally result in cars just flying off the roads. There are patches of freeway all over the country that would toss you right into a ditch if you went much more than ten over the limit. The autobahn is something like 18 inches thick. Ike didn’t think that far ahead or it was just a scam because you can’t run tanks, or heavy equipment over these flimsy freeways without them crumbling apart, but hey who doesn’t like job security? I’ve noticed in some parts of the country they have this new way to put down pavement that is incredibly smooth and level, but again, they’re(i.e. the roads) not anywhere as thick as they are in Germany.

I drove the AutoBahn some 15 or 20 years ago when on assignment in Germany. One rule I liked was that you did not pass on the right. This would seem to be in place to make it safe to get over to the right when you spot someone doing 150 mph coming up on you and you’re in the left lane.

I also drove around to France etc. There was an extreme difference in the smoothness of the road when I crossed into France. It was like being home in the US again. Potholes, grooved roads swishing your car left to right, almost making you dizzy, and of course a bumpy ride.

However, I also experienced a giant traffic jam one day on the AutoBahn, only to find there had been a fiery crash. And when they do have crashes, they are spectacular.

Where is gray asphalt common?

I was just like you when I was living in New England, I got to know 95 like the back of my hand. After getting a ticket the first year there, I would look up every entrance ramp, I would look in the rear view mirror especially in the evening after those Crown Victoria cop cars, I would look for the thick tires and a ‘determined driving style’ typical cop. I would think of everyone ahead of me being my forward feelers and was watching for people hitting their breaks as my early warning system. I used to drive like that 75-80mph and never got another ticket for the next 10 years I was there. I never bought a radar detector because I never wanted to become so complacent as to rely on it.

Hello Shnarkle, You clearly have a whole lot more knowledge than I do about boating and the countries you have visited, but eightsouthman, I, and other current truckers have more current experience concerning driving truck. Nowadays, you can drive over 100 miles in at least the midwest with your CB turned on and not hear anyone talking unless you turn your squelch down enough to hear constant static. I believe there are 2 reasons for this. 1. Cell phone service plans with low cost unlimited yapping allowed. The blabbermouths are now yapping to people they actually know as opposed to strangers on the highway. 2. So many truck drivers are driving governed trucks. They do not care about speed traps since they cannot speed anyway. They therefore yap on phones or listen to satellite radio with their CB radio turned off. CB radios only seem to get turned on when traffic gets stopped or slowed down significantly.
Most truck drivers nowadays are slowpoke law-abiding clovers! I have found that speedometers usually understate your speed. GPSes are more accurate. My speedo understates my speed at around 2-3 mph at 70-75 mph. Many if not most OTR truckers likewise have GPSes, but they choose to go by their incorrect speedos ‘just to be safe’. I am usually among the fastest truck drivers in my area even though most trucks can out-pull mine on hills, because I am driving an old-assed 2003 Freightliner with a Detroit Diesel and more than 1,300,000 miles on it. I have been driving this truck at those speeds for nearly a year now, have met cops, and have thus far never been pulled over for speeding. I am also among the fastest truck drivers in Kansas City and St. Louis once my weak-assed truck can get up to speed. My method is to drive the average speed of the 4-wheelers in those cities while most truckers don’t dare exceed 5 mph over the posted speed signs. This means that around 15% of the cars are driving faster than I am in those cities, and my hope is that a porker would pull one of them over rather than me since I am going so much slower than those fast 4 wheelers are. I do not wish for ANYONE to get a speeding ticket, especially myself.
I used to drive castrated trucks too! Whenever I decided to pass another truck driving a bit slower than me’ I always looked into my mirror to see if a faster truck was overtaking me. If so, I would try to estimate if I could complete the pass before the faster truck behind me caught up. I very often let the fast truck pass me before I made my pass. No that I drive an ungoverned truck: I see that I had been an oddball! Most of the time when I am passing a line of slower trucks; one of them will pull out right in front of me, forcing me to hit the brakes in order to avoid a collision! Further, many times I will be rapidly catching up to another truck when suddenly its driver notices me. He will then speed up to about my speed, pretending to not be a slow poke. Sometimes I continue on at the same speed until I wring him off with other traffic, and sometimes I speed up a little bit. Once I have actually passed him, he will slow down and quickly drop way behind me.
As to 55 mph governed trucks: They did not exist. Decades ago Schneider and JB Hunt had Quallcomm installed on the trucks to snitch on drivers, but the trucks would actually go 57-60 mph. There certainly existed states with 55 mph speed limits for trucks such as California and much of the N.E. Yankee states, but the rest of the country for the most part did away with the stupidly low speed limit for trucks outside of metropolitan areas. Governed trucks are usually set at 65-68 mph.
I have little doubt that driving so slow saves fuel on flat ground; but how far should it be taken? I wish that some engineers would run tests on ideal speed fluctuations in hilly terrain for optimal mileage.
Driving 20 mph would virtually eliminate wind resistance; but who could stay awake driving that slow for 10-11 hours per day? Even if someone could stay awake, the temptation to read books, magazines, newspapers, or watch TV while driving would be incredibly strong in rural areas. Driving 55 mph is likewise extremely boring on rural 4 lane highways. You know this because you used to speed yourself. So why defend sorry trucking and insurance companies for forcing absurd limits on truck drivers? Further, speed limits ASSume everyone and every vehicle has equal skills and abilities, which is utter nonsense!
A recent article here criticized V.W. for caving to the U.S. government bureaucrats fatwas. The truth is that modern CEOs are content to slide their lips up and down Uncle Sams commanding erect penis in the hopes of avoiding having Uncle sic the IRS on them.
Many CEOs are likewise psychopaths who do not really care about employees! They only pretend to care in the hopes that the employees will stay there at the company and work hard. Nearly every company tells employees to give them a 2 week notice before quitting so that they can find a replacement worker; yet not one of them will give an employee 2 weeks notice about getting fired. Both situations amount to one entity firing the other! Who gets hurt the most during a sudden departure: the fired employee who has lost 100% of his income, or the company who has lost +-5% of its income? But we are not supposed to even think about that sort of thing here in the Soviet USSA!
Intelligent people do not need a dictators hand up their back to control them like puppets. The State screws up everything it touches. Its only skill is to commit crimes such as murder, fraud, theft, battery, libel, slander, extortion, blackmail, jury tampering, and a whole host of other crimes. Those among us who are highly moral in a real sense despise being ruled by our moral and/or intellectual inferiors.
I really enjoy reading your posts about living abroad and boating; therefore I hope that we remain online friends even though I strongly disagree with some of your opinions.

Hi Ron,

I remember it, too! Unfortunately, Road & Track and C&D are now run by Clovers; Nader clones who worship saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety (that is, control by bureaucratic elites) uber alles.

My position on the issue has evolved as well. I support advisory speed signage but not enforceable speed limits. Advisory signs can be very helpful and certainly cause no harm. Siccing armed government workers on people who’ve not harmed anyone merely for driving faster than a number on a sign, strikes me as of the same species as arresting and caging a person as a “drunk” solely because they were found to have an open bottle in the car, or “x” arbitrary BAC level – even when their driving gave no indication of impairment.

Inevitably, the argument about the guy who “drives 100 MPH through a school zone” comes up. These arguments are always hysterical, over the top – using extreme and extremely unlikely (but possible, I admit) examples to justify punishing everyone for actions far less extreme – such as driving 35 in school zone (and there are no kids around).

There are several things at issue:

* Not punishing people who’ve harmed no one – because they “might.” It’s important to defend this principle, because to not defend it got us to where the country is today – a suffocating control grid where that argument is used to justify myriad tyrannies, from the petty to the not so petty.

* There is risk even in maximum security prison. I would rather not live in a maximum security prison.

* Liberty is much less risky than tyranny. Consider the body count. The more authoritarian a country becomes, the more dangerous it becomes.

* Individuals vary. One size does not fit all. Speed limits assume one size does fit all and as such are prima facie unreasonable and unreasonable is unjust.

Highway design is based on that experience. When the Interstates were being designed in Tennessee, for example, the design speed for the rural interstates was 80mph, with the intention of setting the limit at 75. That also turned out to be the 85th percentile when the speed studies were done.

I’ve been an Engineer at 3 DOTs (TN, OH, and NC) and seen the old plans for the rural interstates. The same idea applied in all 3.

I had a recent experience on Idaho Scenic Byway 34 – Which runs from the Wyoming state line west and then south to Soda Springs and the Utah border.
There is a 55 mile section with one small community about midway through.
the caution signs at blind corners are accurate, even to a motorcycle rider, but the open sections are delightful at 115 to 120.
I thoroughly enjoyed the drive, was delighted that the Highway Patrol stayed home on that Sunday afternoon, and was grateful to meaningful signage.

The Quiz political map is based on the “Nolan Chart” created in 1970 by David F. Nolan. In 1987 Advocates Founder Marshall Fritz created the World’s Smallest Political Quiz by adding ten questions to Nolan’s Chart, along with other refinements.
https://www.theadvocates.org/about-the-quiz/

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The Nolan chart is a two dimensional political map replacing, or maybe enhancing, the standard left-right model. The original had the up-down axis represent “personal freedom” and the left-right axis represent “economic freedom.” The new version has the chart tilted to the side, so that the up-down axis shows a Libertarian/Authoritarian or Libertarian/Statist axis. (There is considerable debate as to what the opposite of Libertarian should be. The original version used “populist,” though a populist can be quite free.)

While the chart in itself is not fundamentally biased, the “World’s Smallest Political Quiz” (put out by the libertarian Advocates for Self-Government) uses it in a skewed and extremely simplistic manner. The quiz has ten issues, things like “Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet” and “Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security,” which are worded ambiguously enough that people will be more inclined to agree with the libertarian answer.

NolanChart.com uses a different set of questions, which are still slightly biased.

The Enhanced Precision Political Quiz is not as biased (but still sometimes offers ten different possibilities, none of which are appropriate for certain political viewpoints), and has reading suggestions at the end.

Contents
1 Fun with the World’s Smallest Political Quiz
2 The Enhanced Precision Political Quiz
3 See also
4 External links
Fun with the World’s Smallest Political Quiz

The Nolans’ chart career was brief, but spawned an entertainingly misleading political quiz.
The selection of only ten issues and how they are worded can affect the outcome greatly. Take the first example from the World’s Smallest Political Quiz, “Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet.” Most people would be inclined to agree. Add this and you get a very different outcome: “Publishing kiddie porn is just fine. Anyone should be allowed to legally post others’ credit card numbers to the Internet. There should be no censorship of libel and slander either.” Doesn’t sound so appealing anymore does it? Note that even with a libertarian bias, it is unlikely that slander, libel, or thievery would be supported by the creators of this chart or quiz.

Yet look at another question, “Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security.”, which sounds a lot better than “let your grandparents fend for themselves on coupons after a pension company scams them.” This, however, might suffer the same problems as the first, that is, that the creators of the chart might not support such an extreme, even if the outcome is exactly that. Some of the largest problems inherent to right-wing ersatz libertarianism are encapsulated therein. They don’t necessarily want gran-gran to die of starvation (though many, including party leadership, are actually perfectly fine with this), but their ideas would inevitably see gran-gran dead in a couple of months due to untreated illness, starvation, and exposure. Theirs is ultimately a socially darwinian ideology.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nolan_chart

I passed one of those right hand drive Jeeps yesterday morning while driving truck. The left side window was down, and I could see a thigh and the steering wheel on the right side of the Jeep. I figured that the vehicle and driver were from Australia or something. I also considered the possibility that the driver was a postal carrier.

Hm. Those people should probably take the world’s smallest political quiz over again so that they may receive their past due wakeup call re: their deluded self-identities!

Hi Kent,

People who defend speed limits and checkpoints are not Libertarians. Libertarians do not accept such concepts as presumptive guilt or collective guilt nor do they defend enforcement of laws which penalize actions that do not create victims.

I harm no one merely by driving 65 on the road near me. The fact that I am “speeding” (the posted speed limit being 55) affronts a statute, nothing more. And no Libertarian who understands Libertarian principles can defend punishing a person merely for affronting a statute, on the basis of an assertion that driving 65 “might” result in harm to a hypothesized “someone.” An actual victim, evidence of harm done, is required before a personal may justly be held responsible for having caused it.

Some – Clovers, especially the “conservative” sort who may consider themselves to be “Libertarians” – will try to justify speed limits/enforcement of such as being the equivalent of acting when someone points a loaded gun at them but hasn’t yet actually pulled the trigger.

But it doesn’t parse. In the first place, it’s a very female, exaggerated/overhyped analogy. A person doing 65 on a road with a 55 limit is nothing like a person pointing a loaded gun at others. Any person who so asserts is in need of therapy.

The argument presumes that speed limits are speed limits – that it is “unsafe” to drive faster – which is an imbecility that ought not to require further elaboration. Pointing a loaded gun at someone, on the other hand, is a murderous threat (assuming it’s not in self-defense). There is no question about it. There is nothing arbitrary about loaded guns; they are always dangerous – and it is always dangerous to the health of another person to point a loaded gun at him.

Finally, there is intent.

When one points a loaded gun at someone, they clearly intend to threaten them with deadly violence. Driving 65 on a road with a 55 MPH speed limit involves no such intent. One merely wishes to drive at speed that is faster than the arbitrary maximum speed decreed by the government.

The Indiana Toll Road (I-90) has electronic signs in various locations for temporary lowered speed limits. Haven’t seen them in operation yet, so I don’t know how low the speed limit will go.

Variable speed limit signs were installed in St Louis over 10 years ago on I270. The funniest part of the signs is that they are behind-the-learning-curve as compared with real-world drivers who have to make speed decisions on-the-spot. For example, normally the speed limit is 70mph (everyone drives 80) but during a particularly nasty rainstorm, the drivers around me had slowed to about 35…and the signs ‘helpfully’ set 45 as the speed limit.

Morning, Brian!

Spooner (and Leonard Read and Mencken) were formative influences upon my own development as a writer. They all three had great style – as well as great ideas.

I knew you’d like this one, Graves!

If I get done with work in time, I may take the ZRX out and give it an Italian tuneup…

How in the world can they figure out 1 mph? My dash cam and downloaded speedometer app both tell me my speedometer is out, but my wife’s car it shows the speedometer is accurate. 1 MPH is ridiculous as not every single car in North America has the exact “to a tee” speedometer and that’s why most cities will have a 10 percent threshold. Somebody in Rhode Island has been bought out under the influence of the Photo Enforcement company with false stats and propaganda.