The Paradox of “Speed Kills”

By
eric
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We are lectured by the enforcers of speed limit laws that “speed kills.” So what to think about the wanton disregard of speed limit laws by those who enforce speed limit laws?

If it is dangerous for someone who isn’t a speed limit enforcer to drive 80 MPH on the highway when the speed limit is 70 is it not also dangerous for an enforcer to drive even faster to catch him?

This chasing of “speeders” by enforcers sometimes results in both going much faster than 80 MPH.

Because the “speeder” is wanting to escape being robbed.

This is a not-unreasonable motive. Most people would probably try to get away from an ordinary street thug after our money. But we are supposed to just “pull over” for government thugs who are after our money.

And – yes – it is our money they’re after.

If it weren’t about that – if “speed” really did “kill”- they’d arrest and cage us as they would any other criminal, which they often neglect doing when it comes to actual criminals because they’re too busy collecting money at gunpoint from “speeders.” But what they want is our money, as they are essentially tax collectors. This means they’re essentially robbers – and trying to avoid being the victim of an armed robbery is not unreasonable.

Of course, it is the “speeder” who is to blame for his own victimization – and for the extreme speeds that are required to catch him when he attempts to avoid being victimized.

So goes the logic.

But if “speed” really did “kill,” then it would safer to not chase the “speeder” attempting to get away because he would then slow down – and would likely not have increased his speed from say 80 to 140 in an attempt to get away. And there wouldn’t be two vehicles operating at that speed, each driven by an adrenaline-infused operator, the one desperate to escape, the other determined to catch. Watch these chases and asl yourself: Does it appear that “safety” is being enhanced by a speed-enforcer driving 100-plus MPH – often in heavy traffic, sometimes in a residential area with lots of side streets and pedestrians? Or would it be actually safer, on the whole, to let the “speeder” doing 80 in a 70 on the highway “get away”?

This gets to the fundamental moral problem with speed limit enforcement. It is a textbook case, as the saying goes, of malum prohibitum – an action that is forbidden by law that is not necessarily a moral wrong. As opposed to malum in se, an action that is wrong as such, irrespective of “the law.”

Interestingly, malum in se can also be malum prohibitum – murder being against the law is a good example – and malum prohibitum can also be malum in se.

It is always a moral wrong to commit armed robbery, for instance. Even when it is legalized.

Speed enforcing is arguably just that. It’s defended, of course, as being necessary because  . . . speed kills. This is an assertion of hypothetical consequences based on subjective criteria. Obviously,  “speed” usually does not “kill.” Almost everyone “speeds” almost every time they drive yet they are neither killed nor kill.

How much “speed,” exactly, “kills”?

No one can say, exactly – because “speed” as such does not “kill.” It is the impact that does and that can happen at any speed. So the question becomes: How much “speed” is too much “speed”?

The answer varies according to the answerer’s feelings. Including those of the speed enforcer. Most do not enforce every instance of “speeding” – as that would require them to waylay almost literally every driver who passes them in their hiding place by the side of the road. And – more tellingly – they sometimes “give people breaks” after pulling them over. That is to say, they sometimes issue a warning or reduce the “speed” they are charged with driving. This is an odd thing, if – as we are told – “speed kills.”

The whole thing is a kind of Kabuki – and the enforcers know it as well as those enforced upon. All play their parts in the roadside song and dance, the one pretending to be “keeping us safe,” the other pretending to believe his driving wasn’t “safe” in the hope that, perhaps, the enforcer will “give him a break.” 

It was a relatively minor song-and-dance when the performance ended with what is styled a “fine” that didn’t amount to all that much and you just paid it and chalked it up as a cost of doing business.

But the cost of even one “fine” is now typically at least $150 and that’s a lot when a bag of groceries costs that much. Besides which, it is not just the $150 – for the fine. It is also what you’ll be paying to the car insurance mafia, the other half of the tag team that feeds like a lamprey off the money taken under color of law and via the force of law (you cannot legally refuse to pay the mafia).

A single ticket on your “record”- as if you were a criminal of some kind – can easily end up costing you many times the cost of the fine and many people can no longer afford that.

So they sometimes attempt to get away from the enforcer – who will drive as fast as it takes to catch the “speeder.”

And that actually does put lots of people in danger.

Maybe it’d be preferable to diffuse that danger by ending this business of speeding even faster to catch “speeders.” Maybe it would be safer to get rid of speed limits entirely and instead hold people who cause wrecks – at any speed – responsible for the harms they have caused and  leave people alone who haven’t wrecked and who have not caused any harm.

Cops could spend their time pursuing criminals instead. Most of us would go our entire lives without ever having any dealings with a cop.

And we’d all be a lot safer.

. . .

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Related posts:
  1. Does “Speed” Really “Kill”?
  2. Why I “Speed” . . .
  3. What Speed Limits Aren’t . . . But Should Be
  4. Speed Limiters Will Kill Driving
  5. Is it Ever OK to Speed?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

47 COMMENTS

  1. I would say that people driving slowly or stopping in places they shouldn’t be are FAR more dangerous than “speeders”! Especially the ones going out of their way to block people from passing them.

  2. Me and my family got “pulled over” this weekend for speeding driving through a small town along the highway on our way back from a family reunion in rural Oklahoma. Clearly a speed trap, set up to separate people from their hard earned money.

    The highway went from 65 to 45 with a single sign. The hero was waiting in the optimum position for revenue collection.

    Didn’t see the sign or the pig until it was too late. 58 in a 45.

    $145 of my hard earned paycheck gets transferred to this asshole faggot of the state. Food taken off of my table to put on his. If I could have ended him and gotten away with it I would have.

  4. Leaf EV burns down a garage while charging….

    While EV batteries can catch fire, it might be the EV owners that are causing more risks, with dodgy charging solutions and cheap cables.

    With cables costing sometimes $500…EV owners are buying cheap after market cables….which can catch fire….EV owners are sometimes using crappy cheap cables…sometimes stretched across sidewalks, trying to charge their crappy EV…..this a huge safety and fire hazard……

    Fueling an ice car at a gas station is a highly contolled, regulated and safe environment….

    Morons are charging their EV’s at home…in a dangerous, unregulated environment…using improvised, dangerous charging setups…..illegal wiring, under spec cables, etc….

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOfwbUDKfMo

  6. Drove through a small town in Wyoming today. I drive the speed limit, I’m older and too fast isn’t good anymore.

    The speed limit reduced to 50 mph, no speed zone sign to a reduced speed limit beforehand. All of a sudden, there was a yellow light flashing and a 30 mph sign. It was a downhill slope, you have to slow down right away. Up ahead 150 yards was a sheriff’s vehicle. An obvious speed trap.

    Out on the highway every single car and truck exceeds the speed limit. Where is the highway patrol to catch the speeders?

    Too much work to catch highway speeders, piece of cake to catch someone off guard now and then to fine them 50 or 100 dollars.

    Too much risk to chase down out on the highway, they know that.

    It’s much easier to sit in your sheriff’s truck and not have to do much.

    Just plain old laziness and greed.

    And they wonder why travelers would rather not be involved in anyway with those dirty dogs.

  7. y wife fixed an AGW who had probably planned to extract some money from her. He ran right up on her bumper, with those eyeball burner lights on high. She nailed the parking brake, and out her rear bumper into his grill and radiator.

    • Hi John,

      I’m glad the AGW didn’t arrest your wife for “threatening his safety” or some other such thing. One must be careful around steroid-addled psychopaths.

  9. I’m constantly telling people, “They post an arbitrary number on a sign, pull you over when you exceed that number by an arbitrary amount, and then make the arbitrary decision of whether or not, to write a ticket”.

    Yep, follow the “science” to that conclusion.

    • Most roads are chronically under-posted to begin with. Many roads in my area are under-posted at 30mph, when traffic moves at just over 55mph. So if “science” or logic was applied, the speed “limit” should be no lower than 60mph!

  10. Great topic.

    I do believe that speeding can be dangerous and reckless in certain instances — doing sixty in the 30 on a city street, for instance. I have also seen people dangerously speeding in the interstate.

    But I am talking about cases that would typically be covered by reckless driving statutes. Even in those cases, the old adage “you can’t outrun the radio” is true: cops have enough resources to initiate a stop, or place spike strips, further up the road instead of partaking in a reckless chase themselves.

    However, most of the tickets that get written are not for reckless driving, they are for penny-ante stuff like doing 40 in a 30 or something like that. In fairness to the cops, they to typically give a bit of leeway, 10 mph seems to be typical (unless you’re in Virginia!) In the deliberate speed traps, they will get you for less, of course — 37 in a 30, etc.

    The last one I got was for 60 in a 40 on an open, two-lane rural road with no other traffic. I knew damn well that the cop himself would do 60+ on that road all day long if it was time for his coffee break or he had to take a piss. Thankfully I got it pled to a $100 parking ticket.

    Seems to me that the people most likely to obey the law are the ones who get the penny-ante tickets, and the ones who are truly reckless DGAF and will go as fast as they want whether it is legal or not, whether their license is suspended or not, and whether they have insurance or not.

    Around here a woman just got sentenced for hitting and killing a pedestrian earlier this year and leaving the scene. She had a suspended license, no inspection, no insurance, and an expired registration.

    She got probation.

  11. Speeding on an interstate? Purely a revenue generator little to do with safety unless totally reckless speed and technique.

    Racing around in residential areas or worse the store parking lot? Total morons and I’d have no issue with booking these idiots. See what the judge thinks of this driving habit after they paste some little kid in a parking lot.

    Last time I got pinched was for 83 in a 65, middle of nowhere eastern Montana Hwy 212. The good ol boy sheriff was polite about it, pay now at the county office or mail it in. I mailed it later frankly they needed the $50 bucks pretty desolate poor area. It never showed up as points on my record no insurance rate affected. I was doing closer to 87. Transactions like this would go a long way to garnering some respect for enforcement.

  12. From the looks of the ‘driver’ in the first video,,, might have been a good thing to take it off to jail. 10 to 1 it was an illegal that was likely turned loose upon arrival at the holding pen. Many that attempt to avoid capture have many crimes under their belt and are still wanted in connection to those some of those crimes.
    If that guy just raped someone then the cop would have done his job. Today many illegals are hired as cops by our rogue local governments we elect. I would not be expecting too much ‘policing’ from them. Our entire legal system is compromised. Just part of a dying nation. Nothing to see here….

  13. Back when I was still working, I’d periodically be forced to travel the Kentucky state capital. It always irked me when I’d be passed by AGW’s driving at a high rate of speed who were in a hurry to get home. Rules for thee and not for me.

  15. I see it nearly every day on I-65. Traffic that’s moving just fine all the sudden slows down bc of an AGW in the median or otherwise hiding somewhere.

    Instead of traffic, while ‘speeding’, has little to no closing rate relative from car to car, the AGW’s presence creates a situation where there’s a significant closing rate. That is, he fucked up the flow of the traffic and created a dangerous situation.

  16. But the police will tell you the have “special training” in driving fast.

    By that measure, anyone who races should be permitted to exceed the speed limit.

    • That was my angle for a long time. I used to roadrace motorcycles, and would ‘speed’ cars almost everywhere, and got pulled over a lot. Guessing 20 times +/- in a 5yr period before I got older and smarter. They let me off 17 +/- times, cause I had a ‘way’ to get out of it. Don’t completely remember my schtick, but it certainly involved “I road race motorcycles…….” which almost always made them smile and or engage in a more fun conversation than a stupid speeding ticket. And it probably helped that I drove old man sedan’s for work and not wanna be race cars.
      The interesting part to me, was after leaving a race weekend for home (100+ mph), I would drive home relatively slow the whole way……… go figure……… I think it was a brain calming measure?

      • Got pulled over,,, CHP cop asked for my pilots license. I was/am a licensed pilot so I gave him that license. He handed it back and started laughing so hard he couldn’t get in his car. Just motioned me on. Last I seen of him. They don’t have that sense of humor anymore. Wouldn’t try it today.

        • Ken: “They don’t have that sense of humor anymore.”

          Most of my experience is in the ’50s-’60s. I have kept records I call “Good Cop, Bad Cop”. By my experiences back then, the good cops outnumbered the bad cops. Most of the messages were “Now that you know what I could do to you, go on your way and don’t make me do it the next time.” I did have my tendency to get them on me because of drag racing and “movin’ right along”, but most were pretty good guys.

          Best good cop story I have is the guy who showed up in the brand new, black, ’57 Ford and said he wanted to see what it would do. Asked if anyone had something to try against it. One guy had just finished an engine for his ’56 and they figured it might be a good match. The race was a drag and went upwards of 100. At engine “show and tell” after the race, he said “Oh, yeah, you guys ought to be more careful who you race!”. Pulled out his NJ State Police shield, got in his brand new, as yet unmarked, NJ State Police car, and drove away. “They don’t make them like that anymore.”

    • Not only that, they claim to have “special training” to use cell phones and computers while driving–unlike us mere mundanes…
      Let’s not forget the“drug dogs” who respond to “cues” from their handlers.
      The whole system is rotten to the core.

      • Hi Anarchyst,

        I love the “special training” thing. Well, I have “special training.” Bob Bondurant’s SCCA course as well as the same course GM used to offer to the FBI at Black Lake. Yet it cuts no ice in court, does it?

  17. You gotta be OJ Simpson to have a police chase at 23mph down an LA freeway.

    Two sheriffs deputies were on a high speed chase of a person who was in an addled mental state.

    An attempt was made to stop the vehicle with those stop strips.

    One deputy was pulled over to the side of the road and positioned himself at the front of the sheriff’s vehicle.

    The vehicle being chased slammed into the sheriff’s vehicle. The sheriff’s vehicle ran over the deputy and the deputy was killed right there.

    So, yes, speed does kill.

    Just assume that every driver is OJ Simpson and speed won’t kill, at 23 mph, there will be plenty of time to catch a really slow speeder.

    High speed chases are bad for ya.

  18. Why am I sometimes logged out after I’m at a story comment section? Very frustrating when I have a fairly complete thought but when I click “Post Comment” I get taken to the “please fill out all required fields” page and can’t go back!! My best work is lost to the aether when this happens!

    Anyway, the reason speed is measured is because there were machines developed in the 1970s in response to the national 55 MPH speed limit. It became scientific evidence that you were traveling faster than PSL.

    Radar systems use doppler shift to measure the speed of a moving vehicle. The radar “gun” transmits a carrier at a known frequency. The radio signal is reflected back in the direction of the transmitter. That received signal is mixed with a sample of the transmitted carrier and the difference is measured and calculated (it is usually within the audio frequency band so even low speed microprocessors of the 1970s could determine speed). The older radars used the X band (10GHz). Newer systems use K (24 GHz) and Ka (33 GHz) bands. The advantage of the K and Ka bands is that the wavelength is much shorter to allow for more directional beams and better isolation of individual vehicles.

    Of course radio waves are easily detected. This has led to the introduction of LIDAR, which uses infrared lasers instead of radio signals, but otherwise functions in the same way. The only advantage of LIDAR that I can see is it is difficult to detect. My detector won’t go off until the cop is pointing his gun directly at my vehicle. He cannot hide either. Most of the time he’s outside of his car, usually on a ramp or overpass, so requires two AGWs, one for detecting and another to chase.

    There were other systems developed as well. VASCAR was pretty common in Pennsylvania because the locals were barred from using radar. Apparently it was too complicated for anyone but a State Police trooper to figure out. VASCAR used painted lines on the road and a box on the dash. As a vehicle passed over the lines the cop would push a button. The box would then calculate speed based on distance. This had the advantage of being able to be used from aircraft and other situations. The problems with this system are obvious, depending entirely on the cop’s trigger finger. There was also another system that used air-filled rubber hoses. This had the problem of requiring two vehicles and lots of set-up time.

    I have a feeling that all those traffic monitoring cameras set up will eventually be used to feed AI systems that will determine everyone’s speed. Comparing movement between video frames can be used to calculate speed of movement. And they are passive devices, so other than mapping every camera location there’s nothing to detect. And as that technology moves through the courts it will only be a matter of time until all manner of driving behavior will be detected and logged. The missing link is identification of who’s behind the wheel. It’s already common in China. There are massive gantries over the roads that look like the big sign displays around major interchanges, but they’re cameras. These cameras are pointed at the driver’s seats in each lane. That’s probably coming too, but it won’t be as obvious.

    • And all that surveillance is without a warrant or a victim. But if you get away with calling the right to drive a privilege, then the driver has no rights. Ain’t that easy?

      • I’m fairly certain there are people who should not be driving. My father for one. My mother isn’t far behind. Doesn’t mean they should be restricted in travel, but they shouldn’t be doing it themselves. Luckily there have always been alternatives, even if they’re less convenient.

        As the population ages this will be an issue. And instead of telling old folks to pound sand (as is the case today), the politicians will cave and either spend on boondoggles like self-driving cars and light rail, or dumb down the rules like reducing speed limits and installing even more traffic lights. Likely a mix of both.

        • Agreed. If a drivers license is in fact a certification of competency to use the public roads. But that still doesn’t make driving a privilege and your rights on the road an irrelevancy.

    • Hi RK. I copy my post to a text editor just in case after losing several posts to the aether. Must be all the bots out there that have resulted in a higher network security policy along with automatic log offs after a certain time period.

    • I grew up in PA and remember those painted lines. They’re still there in many cases, but not sure it they still use them or not. I haven’t lived in PA in a long time. Although I do see the signs “speed measured by aircraft’ on the interstates.
      Those air-filled rubber hoses speed detectors brings back some great memories. Our local suburban cops used these a lot. BUT, they had to be connected to inside the cop car. With a chaser up the road. That gave us the angle we needed. If we were on motorcycles or small cars (we had lots of little honda civics back then), we would go over the lines, dam…… then just turn around as fast as possible (easier on a bike), and the look on the cop with the lines face was priceless as we did the maneuver, and fade away before the ‘chaser’ could get to us. hahahahaha………..

    • In Indiana it’s worse.
      No specialized equipment is required for Indiana police to determine whether someone is speeding.
      The Indiana Supreme Court has deemed that police officers are “experts” who can tell if someone is speeding even when not moving and standing by the road.

  19. The problem isn’t the Stapo. Yes, they are usually stupid and evil. The problem is the legal system, the allowance of traffic “crimes” to be adjudicated without a jury of your peers, and instead by a judge and a persecutor (sc) who have zero incentive to throw out bullshit accusations by the Stapo. Who both draw paychecks from the taxpayer, signed by a treasurer.

    Our system has features of democracy, communism, fascism, oligarchy, and kritarchy. And judges independent of the local population are a major corruption of the constitutional republic/self rule the constitution’s were supposed to provide.

    All matters criminal and all civil one $20 are supposed to be under the jury system, both petit and grand, precisely to thwart the ambitions of tyrants petit and grand.

    Instead we have parliaments of lawyers, petty stupid creatures who believe they have a right to rule, who benefit vastly from such a system, and who are largely able to sidestep its snares.

    • Unfortunately, the Seventh Amendment has never been “incorporated” against the States… so it applies to Federal civil suits only.

  20. Its not just fine, its points as well. Get enough on your punchcard and they take away your license.

    Also those chargers were targeted, just going with the flow of traffic. Also notice the cop cars don’t seem too fast, and a tuned sports/muscle car without a gov could be easily pull away too

    • Yes, they’re not that hard to beat. But as we used to say, you cant beat Motorola. And now you cant beat an entire surveillance and control network. Face the fact that you live in an open air concentration camp. And until we have a real insurrection it wont change.

  21. Just a little legal question. If in the commission of a crime the victim kills one of the criminals they (the criminals) may be charged with felony manslaughter as they were engaged in a criminal activity at the time of death if memory serves correctly. Now if Officer Friendly runs over a child while chasing a speeder can the speeder be charged with felony vehicular manslaughter?

    For that matter if your self driving Tesla has outdated speed limit data and speeds you are presumed liable because while the car was driving itself you were supposed to know the speed limit. Fun times.

    • Yes, they can and have charged people with manslaughter and murder if a cop kills someone while attacking same people.

      Being Stapo means never having to take responsibility for your actions.

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