Translating those to our dumber units, that would be a highway posted at 80mph and seeing slower traffic doing 55-70 mph.

This subthread is discussing highways with prevailing 75-80 mph traffic and some road users driving less than the posted 55 mph limit in a belief that doing so adds to road safety.

it really depends on what part of the country and the type of road and even the time of day

if I were to go even the posted speed limit during my morning commute, I would be causing a hazard. it's 5-10 over just to be safely part of the flow

same road in the evening and doing the limit or even a bit under is safe

imho, the dangerous drivers are those who for whatever reason do not base their speed on the flow of traffic around them

Wow, that sounds like a toxic environment.

I'm also in Europe and here it's completely normal to drive the speed limit. The motorway speed limit in my country is 130 km/h (81 mph). I drive an EV, so I usually stay around 110 km/h (68 mph) for efficiency, which is still faster than all trucks (limited at 90 km/h (56 mph)) and quite a few passenger cars and vans. Most cars drive a bit faster than me (at or around the speed limit) and very few drive faster than the limit (mostly the usual suspects, german luxury cars or sports cars).

I honestly can't imagine being forced to break the law every day just to get to work safely.

In the US, speed limits are set far lower than required for safety, in order to maximize revenue from citations. More importantly, it allows the police to pick and choose who to pull over: When 99% of cars on the freeway are speeding, the police can pull over anyone, and they will use that discretion to pull over “certain kinds” of people they would like to target. Black people get pulled over less frequently at night, when the darkness does not allow the officer to see who is in the car they choose to pull over[1].

1: https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/05/veil-darkness-redu...

A large part of the US depends on 2 lane highways on which overtaking slow vehicles can be a dangerous proposition even when done legally.