It's different on residential streets, but on freeways I think the way Germany handles it is better. Speeding tickets (and most traffic violations really) are not about safety or curbing behavior they're about generating revenue for the town/city.

His explanation IIRC was that 1. once people broke the limit it didnt matter how much and 2. when speed limits felt more correct more people respected them.

I'd love to know if anyone has any pointers to research on this as around here speed limits are weird. (80 in places where you obviously can't even drive 80 and 80 on the highway, -four lanes)

My (unscientific) theory is that with higher speed limits, you get more traffic waves, and people try to change lanes more often, causing delays.

If the speed limit on LA freeways was only 25mph, I would hope that people would chill out and the traffic would flow more smoothly, resulting in a faster average speed than at present.

Initial "tests" with lighter traffic conditions proved that the system helped stabilize closing speeds and volume, but in the actually troublesome heavier traffic conditions the state has been unable to figure out when and where to deploy the pace vehicles effectively.

Also, changing the speed limits on roads have been studied and it doesn't make a humongous difference. The government usually sets the speed limit at slightly lower than the average speed people actually drive.

Actually, blanket arguments like "speeding is extremely dangerous" are ludicrous. "Speeding" is exceeding a semi-arbitrary speed threshold. If that threshold is, say, 70 mph I'm OK at 70 but if I go to 71 I am being "extremely dangerous"? 71 is speeding in that case, after all.

> A third of crashes (including fatal crashes) involve speeding,

If a third or more of all drivers speed, that statistic is meaningless.

> the faster you are driving the more likely you are to die or fatally injure another.

Indeed, and that statement has nothing to do with speeding. It is a continuum from 0 to whatever the top speed of a given vehicle is. This statement is equally valid when you are under the speed limit.

> Also, changing the speed limits on roads have been studied and it doesn't make a humongous difference. The government usually sets the speed limit at slightly lower than the average speed people actually drive.

I have seen that happen before, but in my experience that is the exception rather than the rule.

"The government usually sets the speed limit at slightly lower than the average speed people actually drive."

I don't think you've ever driven on a US interstate.

If there's a sidewalk or any t-junctions, that's about 20mph tops. Anything faster, and you can't stop in time, plus in a collision, kinetic energy goes as the square of the speed.

For local trips, with stoplights that slow you down anyway, driving slower adds only a few extra minutes to your journey time. Personally, I'm not seeing the need to be so hurried all the time.

http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adviceandinformation/driving... http://blog.americansafetycouncil.com/why-speeding-is-danger...

I think the main difference is the price, especially since 2 point systems turn into n-point systems if you have a lot of intersections.

  a person turns into a sociopathic scofflaw as soon as he 
  gets behind the wheel

That is an ideological position, and I could easily apply the same blanket label of absolute sociopathy to law enforcement, and I'd be just as wrong.

But there's a difference between a mechanized, automatic law enforcement system and a law enforcment system that is implemented as a practice performed by living human beings. The human version is prone to imperfections and corruption, yes. But mechanized, automated law enforcement really COULD express a perfect ideology and attempt to enforce it perfectly, with an unforgiving brutality, which could not otherwise be accomplished with the complicity of human beings. Please understand that difference.

If you think placing a human being behind the machinery of an automobile is automatically bad, think about what it might mean to place a human being behind the machinery of a fully automated law enforcement system, with that same lens of blanket sociopathy.

Every single one of those things has a law attached. People either forget or think that the law doesn't apply to them.

People who speed, hang out in the left lane, run red lights, don't signal their turns and lane changes, and so on are a danger to themselves and others.