alt Hacker NewsThe issue with strictly enforcing the speed limit on roads is that sometimes, people must speed. They must break the law. Wife giving birth, rushing a wounded person to the ER, speeding to avoid a collision, etc.
If we wanted to strictly enforce speed limits, we would put governors on engines. However, doing that would cause a lot of harm to normal people. That's why we don't do it.
Stop and think about what it means to be human. We use judgement and decide when we must break the laws. And that is OK and indeed... expected.
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No, that's not the reason why people speed. True emergencies are a rounding error.
The real reason is that speed limits are generally lower than the safe speed of traffic, and enforcement begins at about 10mph over the stated limits.
People know they can get away with it.
If limits were raised 15% and strictly enforced, it would probably be better for society. Getting a ticket for a valid emergency would be easy to have reversed.
The answer is not a governor but a speed camera, they have them all over in Brazil and they send you a ticket if you speed through them. Put an exception in the law for emergencies, provide an appeal process, and voila.
> sometimes, people must speed. They must break the law. Wife giving birth, rushing a wounded person to the ER, speeding to avoid a collision
I would argue that only the last one is a valid reason because it's the only one where it's clear that not speeding leads to direct worse consequences.
Speed limits don't exist just to annoy people. Speeding increases the risk of accident and especially the consequences of an accident.
I don't trust people to drive well in a stressful situation, so why would it be a good idea to let them increase the risk by speeding.
The worst part is that it's not even all that likely that the time saved by speeding ends up mattering.