danielson said:
you're arguing that a driver who want to offend and is a bad driver will and will have an accident, whereas a driver who wants to offend but is a good driver will, but just wont hurt anyone. of course if the good driver is put in an awkward situation where a bad driver forces a mistake, him driving at a higher speed puts anyone in the imediate vicinity at far greater risk, even if he was driving a few miles an hour faster.
I understand that danielson. What I am saying is that people should not be penalized for a crime before the crime is even committed. Situations like potential murder is different because intent, motive, and method can be determined to warrant an arrest, so please don't bring that up. I can use current speed limits as an example as well.
Like I said before, the speed limit on one of our local highways wasn't always 60mph, and the FL Turnpike's speed limit wasn't always 70mph. It used to be lower. Suddenly, people realized that driving faster than the speed limit was NOT dangerous. Why? Because everyone was doing it.
Here's another analogy. Let's imagine a long hallway with enough room for only 2-3 people shoulder-to-shoulder. The building behind them is burning, and outside the front door is the fire department with a nice cold pool to jump in. Much like the road - there are a lot of people and most, if not all, of them don't want to spend any more time in the "hall" than they have to. They all want to reach their destination.
If everyone is walking at 1mph, sure, they might reach their destination, but obviously, they don't want to take that long to get to it.
Let's say everyone is running at 5mph, cool, that's a pretty good speed. We've got a hallway full of people who can run a 12 minute mile. They're sure to get to their destination in good time.
Now let's say that the guy at the back of the line has his ASS ON FIRE. He wants to get to that pool NOW! (real life examples: guy with wife in labor, guy who just got shot heading for the hospital, guy late for a date with his recently pissed-off girlfriend, guy late for a final exam). Well, he starts running faster, knocks someone down, that person gets trampled, he pushes through a few people, then he falls down, gets trampled, we have a big domino game, and we have a big jam in the middle of the hallway. Now, all the people who just got out of their rooms to flee from the fire are stuck behind the road block! Shit!
So what's the problem here? Everyone in that hallway (since they are all Elite fitness members) are able to run faster than 5mph with no problem. If they are all running at that speed, no one will hurt each other, but they don't run at that speed, and since the guy at the back of the line was such a dumb shit, he created mayhem.
The point? If you have a congested area with everyone going 40mph and some dick tries to do 60mph, he is a poor driver and you can expect trouble. If you see a road with very light traffic and many car-lengths of open road, then there is no reason why someone shouldn't be able to drive faster.
danielson said:
dont take my word for it. evidence on the roads shows a small decreae in speed prevents a significan no. of collisons from being fatal. It also shows that those speed limits are set up so the standard all other road users are held to can respond to an accidnet adequately (i.e. stopping suddenly at 40 is easier than at 60)
Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. I know all about kinetic energy and how a crash at 40mph is somewhere around 16x as great as one at 10mph. Unfortunately, there's no way to fix that at the moment unless everyone drives a luxury car with a million crumble zones and thousands of dollars worth of safety features, so let's stick to the issue at hand. I consider speeding to be "unsafe" the moment it causes an accident - regardless of whether or not someone is hurt.
danielson said:
the speeding tickets are meant as a deterrent. at some point, the bad driver is going to realise he cant drive this fast or he will be broke or nothav a licence.
True. That's not something bad. It's good to see bad drivers slowing down. I'm concerned about GOOD drivers being forced to comply as well. I'll use the gun analogy again. Less than a fraction of a percent of legally owned handguns are used in U.S. crimes each year, but there is still a lot of violent handgun crime. We have the responsible gun owners and the dumbasses. Low and behold, the responsible gun owners will eventually get fucked by their government further restricting and possibly banning handgun ownership all together.
Almost everything everyone does in everyday life has an element of risk that could be fatal. Though it sounds ridiculous, it's true, you CAN drown in a teaspoon of water. Taking a sip of your water at the gym could be fatal. Why hasn't water been banned? Because most water drinkers are responsible enough to not drown themselves. So why has vehicle velocity been restricted?
MOST DRIVERS WHO DO DRIVE FAST *ARE* RESPONSIBLE ENOUGH TO DRIVE FAST!
danielson said:
why dont i murder? moral reasons personally....for some it IS only legal. what stops them? 'right-ies' argue the deterrent value of the death penalty. arent speeding tickets a deterrent to those who persistantly put other road users at greater risk of death?
I don't argue the deterrent value of the death penalty. I think arguing the deterrent value of the death penalty as the best reason for its existence is STUPID. Is it a deterrent? For some, perhaps, but that's not its main function. The main function of the death penalty is the punishment of a violent criminal from the world due to his crime that hurt others. What is the value of a speeding ticket? The punishment of a harmless individual who didn't hurt anyone? Nice.
danielson said:
the speed limits exist as a broad method of reducing road fatalities. you get iconvienienced by driving slowly, but it means lesser drivers will not put others at risk, and if they do they get punished
There is no evidence to indicate that 40mph on a local street with little to know pedestrianship (yup, that word came out of my ass) is the maximum safe speed. If many people every day do 50-60mph on such a street with everyone else doing 40mph, and few accidents occur as a result, then it would be logical to conclude that even fewer would occur if everyone was travelling the same speed. It's simple physics - if I'm pissed at the fact that you're arguing for the other team, and I chase after you with a baseball bat at the same speed, I won't hit you if you're out of range!
danielson said:
(btw some countries in europe have motorways with no speed limits (i.e. the autobahns) and people drive relativly responsibly there. i have no disagreement to a purpose built hi-speed road (i.e. a motorway) having increased speed limits or opossibly even no limit....less pedestrains etc. a resedential area is different
I think a local highway, or at least a "No human life until the next rest stop 40 miles away" could be comparable to a motorway. I don't agree with the idea of "no speed limit," though, because then there would be no frame of reference through which to set a speed. Sure, no speed limit, but if I jump to 100mph and the guy a mile down the road is doing 60mph, we could have trouble. 70mph, however, is not an acceptable maximum speed for a long dark road after 10pm where you will find no pedestrians and very few other cars for miles to come. A 3-4 hour trip to Disney World from my house could be reduced to 2 hours or less if not for such ridiculous laws.
-Warik
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