Yes, they really do. Just ignoring the fact that people tend to drive faster when they don't have a speedometer, people already travel too fast for road conditions as a matter of course. Let alone the fact that at residential road speeds, the difference in life expectancy of someone hit by a vehicle drastically changes with even a slight increase in speed.

Safety checks exist because vehicles are roving machines of death driven by easily distracted people, who have a long track history of ignoring what they can't see.

Your life shouldn't be put in danger because some other arsehole decided that it's perfectly fine to drive a rust bucket with nothing more than a sheet of paper left by way of brakes, or with lights that are so badly adjusted anyone else gets blinded, or with windows in a state that someone sneezing will shatter them, or any other number of things.

But yeah, authoritarian government overreach. Sure.