I've a question for our police officers..

[brtaus]

Of course you got a ticket, and I will tell you why and why you will continue to get tickets:

1) You are 23
2) You drive a new Camaro SS
3) In addition to this one, you have two other tickets w/in 6 months
4) You were doing 12 over

It doesn't matter how nice you are, if you make them laugh, or ask for leniency, that's the nature of the beast with your car, age and your "priors."

[JProberts]

Originally Posted by Seminole

Stop moving the goal posts. You asked if lower speeds were inherently safer. I pointed out stopping distances were remarkably shorter at lower speeds.
Maybe you think you can handle 100mph on a city street, but when something you don't expect happens the guy going 30mph is going to have more time to react, and need less distance to stop, than you. That is a cold, hard fact, inherent in speed and governed by the rules of the universe you find yourself sharing with me.

You can argue that speed differential caused by people violating the law makes driving less safe, but that is why the cops enforce the laws, it isn't a justification in and of itself that 'faster is safer'.

If cars were governed at 5mph, do you think there would be 37,000+ fatalities?
So yes, slower is safer, and we establish speed limits to try and maintain a balance between safety and convenience.

Why don't you ask a cop how many of the fatalities they see on the road involve going too fast vs. going too slow?

Just like guns people kill people not speed. Ever driven on the auto bahn in Germany? To many cars on busy roads is the cause of most accidents not speed itself IMO. Along with drivers that make mistakes not due to their speeds.

[Blade]

Originally Posted by TommyTSquared

I hate my sister for this reason... she ALWAYS pushes them up and out, make sure her shirt is nice and tight, then prepares the waterworks should that not work.

What are we guys supposed to do, unzip our pants a little an hope the officer swings the other way? :(

I don't think its worth the last part.

[Contemporary485]

Originally Posted by xBlackout_Camaro

Police LOVE camaros

LOL .. you know, and by the way i'm not a cop .. just a student at school but:

It comes with the territory. If you own a fast car, you have to be responsible with it. Now am I saying drive slowly, no, drive responsibly that's all but if you get a ticket for speeding, and you were ... it is what it is. You have to pick your battles in life, learn the roads where you can hit it a little bit and stick to them ... Basically, learn your neighborhood, and more importantly, try not to speed .

I wish I had something better to tell you but usually the guy with the handcuffs and the gun is the boss ... that's the way it works. Point is, don't try to piss up a tree ...

Again, learn better routes around town and try to stay no more than 10 mph over the speed limit and that doen't necessarily apply to 30 and 40 mph zones. You have to weigh tthings out ... is the speed limit 30, is the road a big main road .. okay do 40 .. What i mean is, 10 mph or less over the speed limit is usually permissible if the road is a main road where vehicles commonly travel a bit faster ... aside from that, slow down!

[RAdams]

I think a lot of people don't realize how little time they are actually saving by speeding.

I got really frustrated one morning when I was in the right lane and (once again) the only car that slowed down for the school zone. Some people would completely freak out over that - even honk & flip me off; others just tailgated. If we were in the middle of nowhere that would be one thing, but every day there are elementary school kids at the curb milling around this intersection.

So for grins I made this little Excel spreadsheet to find out how much I was "inconveniencing" everyone. The zone is about 1/16 of a mile long (I used 1/8 mile to account for deceleration & acceleration), speed limit in the school zone is 25, but people don't want to slow down from 40 MPH. They were losing their minds over an entire 6 seconds.

I was surprised at the difference so I started comparing the speed limits and my usual speed and saw I was only knocking off less than 2 minutes on my trip to work and 6 minutes when I drove across state. Speeding just didn't really seem all that important or productive after I saw that.

If you want to play around with the spreadsheet, just fill in the 3 items highlighted in yellow: distance, speed limit, speed #2.

[The_Blur]

Originally Posted by irocnroll

You have more of a time to react at slower speeds than you do at higher speeds. And less of a chance to get injured during an accident at a slower speed.

You have the same reaction speed. It's a biological factor. In that amount of time, driving faster only affects reaction speed if you are headed into an object at a velocity of 0 mph. Traffic moves at roughly the same speed across the highway. It is the responsibility of the driver to drive safely and to obey the law, but let's not assume that the law is always correct. Think back to the civil rights era. It is the responsibility of those who write the laws to listen to their constituents.

Originally Posted by biojack

That's a fair question. Haven't seen any in-depth studies recently, but i would comfortably say that speed limits are considerably geared towards factual/proven best practices, as opposed to having political motivation (in. I do have many anarchist tendencies in me, but speed limits are not the focus of any wrath i may have.

If you want to speed, go ahead if your are skilled to do wo without hurting anyone, but be prepared to face the repurcussions.

and some people should not be allowed to drive period, let alone over the speed limit

It is my belief that we need some reform when it comes to speed limits. There is nothing inherently different about the human beings that drive in Germany that warrant that they get higher speed limits; therefore, all suggestions that the massive United States have lower speed limits because we need them more baffles me. Germans are not born as better drivers. They obey the law better and the law is enforced better. Perhaps these things are correlated. If our laws reflected the importance of safe driving practices, like the use of turn signals and passing on the left, instead of associating speed with safety, we might just follow the law. Instead, I go on the highway at 5 over every day getting passed by countless vehicles ranging from sporty to boring.

Originally Posted by Seminole

Stop moving the goal posts. You asked if lower speeds were inherently safer. I pointed out stopping distances were remarkably shorter at lower speeds.
Maybe you think you can handle 100mph on a city street, but when something you don't expect happens the guy going 30mph is going to have more time to react, and need less distance to stop, than you. That is a cold, hard fact, inherent in speed and governed by the rules of the universe you find yourself sharing with me.

You can argue that speed differential caused by people violating the law makes driving less safe, but that is why the cops enforce the laws, it isn't a justification in and of itself that 'faster is safer'.

If cars were governed at 5mph, do you think there would be 37,000+ fatalities?
So yes, slower is safer, and we establish speed limits to try and maintain a balance between safety and convenience.

Why don't you ask a cop how many of the fatalities they see on the road involve going too fast vs. going too slow?

Aside from associating every nationwide fatality in an automobile with speeding, you have a good point, but I'm not suggesting that fatalities are associated with driving slower. I'm suggesting that there is room for reform, not revolution. We should have limits that reflect the maximum safe speed for roads rather than the average speed that everyone should drive. Ideally, people will drive slightly faster but not necessarily the speed limit.

I'm also not suggesting that the police are doing a bad job. They do their job which is to enforce the law without regard to whether they agree with the law.

Imagine that the speed limit is the absolute fastest acceptable speed on a road. The word limit implies that the speed is a maximum, so why is it acceptable to many officers that we drive 12 mph faster than the posted speed? Is it perhaps that the police simply cannot catch every driver going 1 mph over the speed limit? The number of tickets issued per day would exceed the number of people in the United States.

I am moving the goal posts, and I realize this. I'm trying to draw a conclusion from everyone following. The initial goal was to point out that lower speed limits are not necessarily safer speed limits. Reckless drivers are reckless at any speed. The next goal was to point out that the speed limit system needs to be reformed to make limits a maximum. The word limit, after all, indicates that there should be no excuse for exceeding it. If you are past the limit, you are out of bounds, and that is when you should get a ticket. No one in this forum drives below the speed limit 100% of the time. Anyone eager to post a holier than thou response claiming otherwise is either lying or driving a scooter. The final goal of this thread is to separate the idea of speed from the idea of safety. If speed directly correlated with safety, we'd all have a horse and carriage as mandated by federal law. We don't because that's ridiculous.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me. Some of you vote for the people that pass these laws and believe that they make the right decisions without your help. You're wrong. In a democracy, you have an obligation to voice both your support and your rejection of the law. If you believe in higher speed limits, then you need to let your elected officials know this. You'll never get your way if you don't express it. I'm moving the goal posts again to my final objective: to get support for higher speed limits. There are a lot of ways to make the world safer. Higher speed limits has nothing to do with safety. If you think the speed limit is too high, drive slower. If you agree with me, contact your elected officials.

[Darsh 007]

Originally Posted by RAdams

I think a lot of people don't realize how little time they are actually saving by speeding.

I got really frustrated one morning when I was in the right lane and (once again) the only car that slowed down for the school zone. Some people would completely freak out over that - even honk & flip me off; others just tailgated. If we were in the middle of nowhere that would be one thing, but every day there are elementary school kids at the curb milling around this intersection.

So for grins I made this little Excel spreadsheet to find out how much I was "inconveniencing" everyone. The zone is about 1/16 of a mile long (I used 1/8 mile to account for deceleration & acceleration), speed limit in the school zone is 25, but people don't want to slow down from 40 MPH. They were losing their minds over an entire 6 seconds.

I was surprised at the difference so I started comparing the speed limits and my usual speed and saw I was only knocking off less than 2 minutes on my trip to work and 6 minutes when I drove across state. Speeding just didn't really seem all that important or productive after I saw that.

If you want to play around with the spreadsheet, just fill in the 3 items highlighted in yellow: distance, speed limit, speed #2.

Ahh, two major philosophies of physics. An object in motion, and relativity...

6 seconds can mean a lot in this area, when that 6 seconds is the difference in making a light, or getting trapped at it. Not to mention the subsequent lights you won't make. 5 minutes extra on an already 12-mile, .75-1.5 hours commute. 5-10% extra on an already hellish commute will drive some folks bonkers.

But, the numbers break down a little more easily. Lets say highway speeds, and round for ease of calculation. 60mph as the standard. Thats 1 mile/minute. The average person wants to do 10 over. Thats 10 miles/hour faster, or 1.167 miles/minute. Whatever the commute standard is, call it 30 miles a day, which is .5 hours of drive-time @ 60 (to & from work). @ 70, 25 minutes. So, 30*5 = 180 miles. So, per week, you spend 3 hours commuting at 60. Only 2.5 hours at 70. Half hour per week...which adds up to more than a day in a year.

So, the 60 mph driver gets an extra day with their camaro in a year! Good thing the camaro is so nice to relax in!

[Dukeboy01]

It's the other two tickets since September that are hurting you. The "being nice and polite" thing only works when you don't have any other recent violations showing. I'd say you need to do no more than 5 - 8 mph over the posted speed limit for awhile (like a year or two) regardless of the situation in order to get some time and distance between you and your violations.

[Wikedwil]

Sorry but you kinda make other young drivers look bad. Not all of them but if you get a officer with a bug for kids with cool cars, you don't get a break. And you get sterotyped. Lots of responsible drivers here,young, old and older. don't make Camaro owners look bad. go to the strip to go fast. JMO
Not hating anyone.

[TommyTSquared]

Originally Posted by Wikedwil

Sorry but you kinda make other young drivers look bad. Not all of them but if you get a officer with a bug for kids with cool cars, you don't get a break. And you get sterotyped. Lots of responsible drivers here,young, old and older. don't make Camaro owners look bad. go to the strip to go fast. JMO
Not hating anyone.

[Angrybird 12]

Originally Posted by blazzin1

I think this pretty much answers your question......

yeah a picture of his car is in every patrol car, so they are looking out for him....

Solution... SLOW DOWN!!!!

[drogoneye]

I bet if you grew some boobs you'll get off with a warning

[Agent Atomic Orange]

Going 10 mph over on a secondary road in your car and you are asking for it. The ticket is the easy part to pay, you had better hope the insurance company does not catch wind of this. I cannot imagine what your rates would go up to. I am sure they where through the roof already.

Slow down!

[JMG680]

The best saying I ever heard when I was running Radar......9 your Fine, 10 your Mine!