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Comment by georgemcbay | Hacker News Reader

This would be trading one set of problems for another.

I routinely drive around 80 mph (15 over the speed limit) on the freeway here in San Diego, just like virtually everyone else (when there isn't traffic). Cops here don't even blink when it comes to this sort of speed on the freeways. But drones would, presumably, issue tickets at any technical infraction regardless of the "situation on the ground".

To be honest, I'm not sure which situation I'd dislike worse, the occasionally arbitrary power-tripping cop or the completely clinical and technical rule following of the drone, both are pretty bad, IMO.

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You (and I) shouldn't be driving 80mph on 65mph streets. This is one of those laws we all routinely break that we've all become expert at rationalizing, but unlike the laws we break by, say, trading bottles of Dark Lord for Pliny The Younger across state lines --- laws which have no victims --- we're probably wrong about the speed limit situation.

The faster we drive, the less time we have to react to a fast changing situation on the road, and the more dangerous collisions become.

I'd be really unhappy if speed limits were rigorously enforced too; I'm pretty routinely 5-10mph over them too. But I'd adjust my habits eventually, and so would you.

A much better situation would be to increase the speed limit where the road is good enough for that. That way, you are not getting annoyed that you are limited to 65mph on a straight road, and yes, while it increases reaction time it also makes you more focused on the road. I live in a country where the legal speed on motorways is 90mph, and frequently drive through Germany where I regularly go 120-130mph for long stretches of the Autobahn. And from my own experience(YMMV) driving 90-100mph makes you very aware of road waaaay ahead of you, a thought of looking anywhere else(phone, radio) but the road does not even cross my mind,because of how fast I am going and how much more intense of an experience that is. And then when I drive in the UK where the speed limit is only 70mph long drives get incredibly tiring and it's hard to remain focused, I have to stop regularly. Obviously, each system has its advantages and disadvantages, but none of them is ideal.

I'm not concerned about you or I, but the woman who just barely passed her drivers test on the third try and is trying to corral 2 kids in the back seat, drink her mocha frapuchino, and talk to her sister on the phone.

There is also the fact that the unrestricted portions of the German Autobahn were designed deliberately to accommodate 80mph traffic, unlike much of the urban US interstate system.

Of the 11-12 figure transportation projects the US could undertake in 2013, making it easier for people to achieve dramatically lower fuel efficiency by driving 10-20mph faster seems like a poor investment.

But that woman should not be driving in the first place. So if your training/testing system allows irresponsible people like that to get behind the wheel, then that's where the problem is,and not with the speeds on freeways. Most EU countries have massive fines for eating/drinking/talking on the phone while driving so most people don't do it - that's one problem solved.

This is a kind of "New True Scotsman" argument where, presumably, any example of an unsafe driving situation will be countered with with some failure of driver certification. Be specific. How many people do you think we should try to get off the road, in order to increase the speed limit (implicitly, by not enforcing the one we have now)? How should we select those people?

By looking at how other countries do it. In Germany you actually have to drive on the motorway at high speeds as part of your training . I have a friend who was told to drive at 120mph during his training, and the instructors argument was "the road is empty, the weather conditions are appropriate, and there is no speed limit on this stretch of the road,so you should know how to handle the car at those speeds". Yet in my own country I know people who have never driver faster than 40mph during their training, yet the legal motorway speed is 90mph. Are they ready for driving at those speeds? No, they are not.

And the argument "what about woman driving while talking on the phone, eating and tending to children??" is completely pointless, just like "what about drunk people driving??" - both of these groups of people should be banned from driving, as both pose a danger to safety on the road.

Sounds great. Tell me again how we ban the kinds of drivers who are likely to talk on the phone, eat, and tend to their children?

We don't ban them when they are likely, we ban them when we catch them doing it. Psychological tests complimenting the practical driving test would also be a good idea.

Though speed limits on most roads were set long ago, improvements in automotive suspension, steering, and brake technology in the intervening decades have raised the effective safe design speed of many highways. Eg. a 1970 highway with cuts, fills and curves spec'd for a design speed of 75mph is easily and safely navigable at far higher speeds today, even in comparatively low-end vehicles. This fact is very rarely noted in legal circles.

I'd argue in my case I should in fact be driving 80 mph a lot of the time, because everyone else is, and it is safer to go with the flow of traffic than it is to follow the letter of the law. As I'm sure you're aware, non-head-on collisions become more dangerous when the delta between speeds of the colliding objects are divergent more so than they are impacted by absolute ground speed of the colliding objects. In fact, even the DMV tells you to disregard the speed limit if it is at odds with the natural flow of traffic speed.

FWIW, I only ever drive 80 mph in 65 mph zones on large 5+-ish lane freeways. On non-freeway roads, I don't speed.

And what do you expect would happen if 90+% of the people driving on that freeway got a ticket?

The local government (or whoever collects fines) would make a lot of money, behaviour would change, and possibly, just possibly, speed limits would rise.

But the increase in revenue raised would make it too tempting not to use, IMO.

The speed of drivers would go down and normalize at maximum 65mph. This falls in line with the idea of a speed limit (not a speed suggestion).

I fail to see how this is a bad thing.

You have a failure of imagination, then. Many times an ill-advised overtake started out below the speed limit but needs to go a bit over to be made safe, and that's not just my opinion, but that of many traffic police officers over here in the UK.

And think about what a low speed limit like 65mph would do to the economy.

Then businesses would clamor to have the speed limit raised, huh? Here in Michigan, we were taught in drivers training that passing another car can only be done legally at a speed differential greater than 5mph and only if you stay within the speed limit. Such as, if the car in front of you was driving 50 and the speed limit was 55. You could pass at 55.

A lot of the discussions I hear on this fall down to "it's inconvenient to drive the speed limit". Man that sucks, but the speed limit is kind of a legal limit.

California would have some money to spend on their lousy roads?

More likely state troopers would be making $300K a year.

French drivers used to be insane. As little as five or six years ago, you'd regularly see people pulling moves that would make a rally car driver blush. Then, they installed speed cameras EVERYWHERE, and sent out mass amounts of tickets, even for going a couple kilometers/hour over the limit. Since that time, people actually stay under the speed limit. Amazing, the difference an oppressive regime of automated enforcement can make on people's behavior.

The courts would be clogged with people challenging the tickets.

Possibly a brief spike in civic participation in the local government process, lasting for exactly as long as required to yank automated enforcement tools back out of local cops' hands.

I'm not saying this is a good thing, but what if the drone gave out more warnings than tickets (ignoring the issue of delayed feedback) and based infractions on average speeds. If the tickets were reserved for seriously reckless offenders, I'm guessing the public backlash would be reduced.

I ride a motorcycle, and may or may not do 3 figure speeds when the roads are clear and safe. Would that count as reckless?

Yes.

People routinely overestimate their driving abilities and underestimate the risk.

People also routinely do much faster than low triple digits on the track, with exactly the same machine that they ride on the street. And when the road is clear, the risk is all mine.

I guess they could just fire a few rounds in front of your car as a warning, that would make you slow down. </joke>

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