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Comment by Philip-J-Fry | Hacker News Reader

>I'd probably have to quit that job. I at least need the autonomy to drive the vehicle if I'm the one risking my life in it

Speed limits are less about you and more about everyone else around you. Your autonomy means nothing to the mother and child driving the limit when you smash and kill them.

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Let's be real here for a moment. Amazon didn't implement a system like that 'For The Children', they did it to limit their liability and produce goodwill/leniency/court-appeal for when, if ever, they need it.

It produces a very nice after-effect of additional safety, but it's not the raison d'etre.

Yeah, but that's a little beside the point: the liability and social pressure exists (in part) for that reason, especially since without it we all kind of understand what companies like Amazon would do.

I don't think the comment implied that it was the "raison d'etre". A company who has employees on the road should strive to make them follow the law. If the vehicles are owned by corporation XYZ, the drivers are employed by corporation XYZ -- it stands to reason that they should ensure that laws are followed. e.g. that the drivers have valid licenses, they are authorized for employment in the region they are employed, etc. Why should following speed limits trigger this train of thought?

Yeah, everyone knows that these hourly workers get impossible schedules that have every moment allocated and they can't recover when something slows them down, speeding is one way to get there.

That's just companies externalizing their costs. Instead of paying for more staff + vehicles to get the job done quicker, they're externalizing the cost to the people they hit. At amazon or doordash scale, it's not a matter of if they injury or kill someone, it's a matter of how many people they will injury and kill by causing their drivers to speed.

In america, speed limits are about municipal police funding.

For the downvoters, “The speed limit is alternately too low on interstate highways, giving police discretion to make stops at will”

https://slate.com/business/2021/12/speed-limit-americas-most...

The speed limit on interstate highways is too low. There are no Amazon packages being delivered to homes whose driveways go directly on to the interstate.

Correct. It’s not a great citation because I assumed that the average HN reader knows the games municipal police play with speed limits but I got downvotes and (at the time) no replies.

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