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Comment by xapata | Hacker News Reader

While we're at it, let's automate speeding tickets. Free up the police for other crimes.

That's hard to do in California (for good reason): for speed limits under 65 (and outside school zones) there's a presumption that drivers know what they're doing.

So the speed limit may be 25 but if the prevailing traffic indicates that everyone thinks 40 is OK then you can't get ticketed for keeping up with traffic.

I see this issue come up all the time in Palo Alto where I live: people want the speed limit enforced on, say, Embarcadero Rd, but if the the city were to do so they'd have to do a traffic survey which would actually tell them to raise the limit on the signs.

There was a wave of sensible lawmaking in California that was sadly abandoned in the Wilson+ era and has never come back.

+ I don't mean Wilson was the cause, though he was a bad one; he got elected in part because people forgot about being sensible in the regard.

>So the speed limit may be 25 but if the prevailing traffic indicates that everyone thinks 40 is OK then you can't get ticketed for keeping up with traffic.

oh! that probably explains why i never in the almost 20 years here got tickets in such a situation, and i thought that i'm just good at spotting police cars (and slamming on the brakes each time i see a one) - here they are much easier to spot because they don't hide cheetah style in roadside bush like the traffic policemen do back in Russia.

Also in Cal they can't use radar unless they've recently done one of those surveys and set the radar speed threshold based on the criteria I mentioned. And they have to post a sign warning you of radar use. Of course there's no rule saying they have to remove those signs once the survey has expired (3 years I think...) so those radar in use warnings are all over the place and you can't tell which are actually true :-(

Also in California "speed traps" are illegal: this is when a highway runs through a town or district and the district puts up a sudden "25 MPH" sign so they can catch out of towners and charge them money.

That's wild. They could fix the roads to calm traffic, such as add more lights and bumps.

They do, though it's hard to put a bump on an arterial road.

Adding too many lights and stop signs speeds traffic up rather than slowing it. Fortunately Cal. seems still (mostly) to hew to the "listen popular opinions to decide what to focus on; listen to actual domain experts to decide what action to take".

There's been a lot of work done in this area, with predictable backlash. I think the issue is that the most dangerous speeding is the kind which occurs in neighbourhoods and by schools ("50km/h in a 30km/h zone"). But the easiest to apply automatic enforcement against is highway speeding ("130km/h in a 100km/h zone"), so people legitimately complain that the enforcement isn't being applied where the danger is.

The worst of it is that all the infrastructure is in place already for average speed enforcement on toll roads, since you know when everyone gets on and off the highway and all their license plates. But isn't the whole point of a toll road that you pay for the privilege of being out of traffic and going as fast as you can? Who wants to pay for a toll transponder only to get a bunch of speeding tickets in the mail the next month?

I approve in principle but currently the speed limits, especially on freeways, are unreasonably low (and that's the reason everyone breaks them, including cops driving in non-emergency situations). If the speed limits are brought up to be consistent with traffic actual speeds then I am all for automated speed ticketing of people who go much faster than the natural speed of traffic.

That's one possible interpretation, mine would be that people will always speed slightly above the posted limit because they know the odds of being ticketed are small (up to some very high speed, at which point many vehicles and/or drivers would fail). By setting them lower we are basically playing with two variables - high speed (which means getting people and goods places faster) and high risk (of higher energy collisions with less time to react). Pushing either to their limit doesn't seem like a good idea...

Then drive around America more often. Pretty much wherever you go, whatever the highway sign posts, people go 75-85. That includes places where the speed limit is 55 and where it is 80.

The federal limit of 55 mph was set by Nixon during the gasoline shortages due to OPEC supply control. Clinton repealed it, so some states went up to 70 mph. Today we might consider enforcing them to help reduce carbon consumption (and collision fatalities).

Heck, maybe it's time to go back to 55 as a federal limit. Last I checked, most vehicles on the road get dramatically better gas mileage at 55. Rather, it gets exponentially worse as speeds increase past 60ish due to wind resistance.

That data was true back then, but is it true now? This is a legitimate question. Cars have changed a lot since then. They're mostly plastic, more aerodynamic, and engines are more efficient. So is 55 still the average optimal?

That would tend to fit with my upper limit idea - most people aren't capable of handling their vehicles much faster than that (or reacting to other vehicles doing unexpected things). Of course, when I do drive I'm often stuck in heavy traffic which is far slower than that, so it's more of thought experiment. That said, I'd personally be surprised if people would risk a citation for reckless driving to go 85mph in a 55mph zone.

Indeed. I believe there is an upper limit of comfort for most people (somewhere in the 80-85 mph) and if the limits were raised to 80mph and then enforced at that using automated methods I would support it.

If we charge companies for polluting, it's reasonable to charge individuals for consuming carbon at an unnecessarily high rate. I'd support automatic fees enforced as drivers hit 65, 75, etc. No limit, per se, just trying to internalize the externalities.

Hard limits are strange for things that are continuous and probabilistic. If we could set an automatic fee equivalent to the cost of increased risks, pollution, etc., it'd be a function of speed. Someday we'll have the technology to communicate that back to the driver as they change speed and location from urban to rural, go through construction zones, etc.

Of course, setting an appropriate gasoline tax, paid at the pump, would reduce the value of those fees.

So if i have a solar charged Tesla, i can drive as fast as i can?

I suppose the fee would correspond to increased risk, so it'd be cheaper than for someone who was driving a gas guzzler at the same speed. In the ideal (dystopia or utopia?) world, the fee would also take into consideration average rates of collision by vehicle type, perhaps your age, number of hours spent on the road that year, etc.

We already have a solution deployed: gas taxes.

They're not high enough. And while there are gasoline taxes at the pump, there are various subsidies on the extraction and refining part of the supply chain. I'm not sure the taxes cover the subsidies. It's a wealth transfer from consumers (the ones buying gas) to the producers (the ones receiving subsidy)

> That's one possible interpretation, mine would be that people will always speed slightly above the posted limit because they know the odds of being ticketed are small

Data doesn't back you up. In places where they have raised the speed limit, the overall flow speed does not increase correspondingly.

People drive at the speed they deem safe irrespective of the speed limit.

Speed limits usually are for the worst case scenario: an old car, foggy and rainy day.

Sure, and for most people these speed limits are inappropriate. Forcing everyone into the worst common denominator is not a good idea for automated systems.

No, you should drive extra below speed limit on days with low visibility or reduced control.

As long as the change we well advertised and gave people time to adjust norms, I would be all for it.

That's what OnStar's for, right?

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