I'm not claiming this topic is inappropriate, it's actually been a really interesting thread I've enjoyed reading. I'm just still yet to work out why you're taking so much time to make your point and supposedly talking about change, when I can't really see you're taking any steps to make any changes.
However, you are right. I shouldn't have pushed the, 'it's the law so obey it or STFU' angle. What I should have been highlighting was that, in this instance, I agree with the law. To me, and this is just my opinion, it's common sense that the faster you go, the less control you have over your vehicle if something goes wrong.
eg In average conditions, a car travelling at 60km/h will take about 45 metres to stop in an emergency braking situation. A car braking from 65km/h will still be moving at close to 32km/h after 45 metres travelled.
Earlier in the thread someone posted an article stating that with every 5km/h increase in speed, your chance of an accident doubles. Even if the risk was half that, or a quarter, do you still think there's no need for regulating speed? Did you read that article?
As for it being revenue raising, I agree with that to a certain extent, however, it's estimated Australia spends $18 billion dollars on road accidents/ year. Around 40% of crashes involve speeding drivers, so that's around $7 billion spent each year. At least we can put the fines towards that.
edit: And thank you for correcting my word usage! I hate when I make errors like that.
What steps exactly should I be taking to make a change? And why is that relevant? People on this forum discuss the death penalty, drug policy, and all sorts of other political issues. They don't necessarily have plans to "make a change," they are just debating the issues for the sake of an exchange of ideas. Sometimes discussing the issues IS a way to make a change. If you can change a few people's minds, maybe they will then try to make a change, or maybe they will change a few other people's minds. Who knows? Anything is possible.
But I don't understand why some people are implying that I have no business discussing this here, that I should be out lobbying the state legislature instead.
As you said, Yes, it is common sense that the faster you go, the less control you have over your vehicle. But so what? If you apply that fact literally, we should all stop driving altogether. That is the only way to ensure we have no deaths from driving. 15 MPH is more dangerous than 5 MPH, and 25 MPH is more dangerous than 15 MPH, etc. Where do you draw the line?
The state says 65 MPH so you just automatically agree? Why? What credibility does the government have? They don't really have a good track record for getting things right, or for looking out for people's safety and well being, or for presenting accurate and well-researched facts.
I glanced at the article. I had a difficult time actually reading it, I thought the layout and format was very poor and needlessly complicated. It did seem like the article was slanted and that there might have been sample size issues. It struck me as one of those articles where the researchers stated a conclusion they wished to prove then sought out data to support that conclusion. Of course, that is not the way to conduct a study. The correct way is to gather information and data, then analyze it to see what conclusions, if any, can be drawn.
Maybe I am wrong, but when the results of a study are so implausible, I have to doubt the entire study. Remember, the average person WALKS faster than 5 KM / hour. So are we really to believe that a 5 KM / H increase in driving speed DOUBLES the accident rate? Come on. That hardly seems plausible. The difference between 40 KM / H and 45 km / H is fairly negligible, isn't it?
Also, I did not say there is no need to regulate speed. I just think the speed limits should be higher. The states have made it fairly obvious that driving speeds of 80 MPH are acceptable, so why not just raise the speed limit to 80 MPH? (Please do not ask me to repeat why I am saying what I just said, I explained it in painstaking detail many times already in the thread).
As for the speeding crashes and associated costs, that is not really relevant to the discussion. Saying speed was a “factor” in 40% of crashes in meaningless. People can distort stats however they like. The flaw in the reasoning here is that there isn’t just ONE cause for each crash. If there were, and speeding were the cause 40% of the time, I would have long ago stopped arguing and I would start driving the speed limit.
But that is just false. There are dozens of things that can be a factor in an accident. So, if a person is drunk, half asleep, swerving, cutting people off, tailgating, and fumbling with the radio while talking on his cell phone, and then he crashes his car, do you really want to say that speeding was a factor in his accident? I don’t see that as a reasonable assessment of the accident.
If drivers did not tailgate, did not cut people off, stayed in their lane and drove 80 MPH on multilane highways in dry weather with properly inflated tires, I do not believe we would have accidents. Why would we? All of the accident scenarios people keep mentioning involve someone doing something ELSE wrong. Well, why don’t we focus on those something elses that cause the accidents? We don’t, even though they are far more dangerous.
The Maryland driver’s handbook says that accidents are usually caused by things other than speeding. It also says that people should NOT slow down on the highway when they are exiting (they should use the exit lane to slow down once they get into it), and that drivers should attain highway speed when merging onto the highway on the acceleration ramp. Yet, drives who have this “slower is safer mentality” repeatedly violate both rules because they think they are being safe, when in fact, they are making themselves a road hazard.
My overall gripe is this knee-jerk reaction people have of “Slow is safe, fast is dangerous.” In actuality, if people drove in harmony with each other and respected each other’s space, everyone would be safe, even at higher speeds.
