Speeding Violations

So, just yesterday I was pulled over for doing 70 in a 55. Okay, fine... I was speeding.


Now, a new question: should the speed limits be raised.

I drive 70-75 on the interstate all the time, and I never get into a wreck. Now, on an open 2-lane highway with hardly anyone on it, should I not be allowed to drive faster? I think so.

The sherriff said I should drive the speed limit so I would make it home alive, and I said "Excuse me sir, but I'm tired for one, and the longer I am on the road, the more tired I will be. Further, 70 is not that fast, especially when I drive it on the interstate. Now explain to me how I might have a higher risk of dying on a highway, with little traffic, such as this one?" and he was silent and told me not to mouth off any longer. Now, I was very congenial and not really that uptight at all, I was just wondering why the sheriff was being a jerk.


Now, have you ever been picked up for speeding? Was it terrible?

I don't speed. Sure, things don't get done as fast. But I really do like being alive.

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Originally Posted by Meat Puppet

I don't speed. Sure, things don't get done as fast. But I really do like being alive.

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most accidents do not happen because people are speedings, btw. usually it is due to distractions, or bad cars.

Maybe you shouldn't mouth off to cops. I don't like cops as far as I can throw a truck, but they'll stick it to you for being a smartypants.

I think speed limits should be raised and driver's licenses should be much, much harder to get. Too many idiots on the roads etc.

No. The speed limit should not be raised. Cars are designed to get max fuel efficiancy in corelation with speed at 55 mph, by design. Enouraging people to go faster will encourge stuipids [us] to use more gasoline and thus the price of gas will rise again...

no they should not be raised
they're there because you have a higher chance of survival going at said speed in case of an accident

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most accidents do not happen because people are speedings, btw. usually it is due to distractions, or bad cars.

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source?

Nope, I never get caught speeding so it really doesn't matter to me whether it's legal to go as fast as I go.

The speed limit is set at a carefully analyzed level - too low and people simply break it, regardless of it being against the law. Too high and accident numbers and, more importantly, severity increase a great deal.

But yeah, you Americans do have pretty low speed limits.

I speed walk. Yet to have been givin a citation. :D

When I finally come of the age to drive, I'm not sure which of my personalities will take over. Will I be doing 90 in school zones, or will I be doing 30 on the freeway?

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Originally Posted by I'm my own MILF

But yeah, you Americans do have pretty low speed limits.

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Don't forget we use miles/hour, not kilometers/hour. :3

Interstates are generally safer for higher speeds, not vice versa. The reason for this is that you only have to worry about traffic going the same direction.

Actually, from what I've heard speed limits are calculated with the realization that people will likely go x miles over it.

Every interstate I've ever seen does have a speed limit of 65-75.

:confused:

In the US, in my experience, interstate speeds outside city limits are around 70 mph; inside, they are about 55 mph. This is the case where I live (it's a fairly large city), and 55 is ridiculous. Nobody- I mean NObody does less than say 65; most people do around 70 or more. Driving at these speeds is perfectly safe as long as, like dignified pauper suggested, cars are in decent shape and people are paying attention...and not following two feet off of your bumper...:mad2:.

I can never keep myself from hitting the breaks when someone does that to me. It's nearly impossible to be at fault (according to the law) when you are rear-ended. :p

I don't know what worldwide statistics say about any correlation between speed and volume of wrecks, but I know that I have been in less than 5 wrecks in my life, and none while I was driving fast (none while on the interstate and none while going over the speed limit.)

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Originally Posted by Xaven

Don't forget we use miles/hour, not kilometers/hour. :3

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We do in England as well. Every one of your speed limits is 5 to 15 MPH lower than ours on equivalent roads, even though your road system kicks the absolute crap out of ours.

interstate curves are a lot wider than standard road curves.

British people drive so fast it's scary. we americans would die, btw.

but I speed sometimes, but haven't been pulled over yet. I've never gone 70 on a high way though. Close the other day, but that was waaaaay out in the hills where they never heard of cars before.

An interesting anecdote concerning speeding:

A had set up a surprise date for my girlfriend one night, but, as things typically go, I was running tight on time, and I needed to go pick her up. Thus, I sped, and sped by a lot.
A police-man noticed and pulled me over.

85 in a 55.

The man walked, shaking his head up to my window. He gave me the usual talk of how fast I was going, and asked for my license and registration and then suddenly stopped. I just stared at him with my papers and license held out for him, frantically trying to remain calm while I desperately tried to obvert my thoughts from the astronomical fines running through my head. When he began talking again I knew instantly as to why he had stopped.

He had noticed that I was dressed in complete formal attire, and the passenger seat there lay a single white rose in full-glory bloom.
The officer looked over my papers and then said,
"Late for your date, eh?"
Through a tight throat and thick toungue I replied, "Yes, quite so in fact."
The officer chuckled and said, "I'm going to make the fine, lucky girl wait on you aren't I?"
It seemed like a rhetorical question but I answered in the same thick tone, "Yeah..."

In the end, he let me go with a warning, saying that I ought to keep the speed at the limit, otherwise my girlfriend may not have a boyfriend anymore, and if she did, a poor one.

He also told me to tell my girlfriend that a cop says hi.
And that was that.


It's my personal thought that the speed limit is perfectly fine where it is at the moment. If we were to raise it, I would like to see safer cars and safer drivers before any of that happened. People are terrible drivers, for the most part, already, and it seems that higher speeds certainly wouldn't help matters...

I go with the flow of traffic, and I never impede it. If everyone is doing 50 in a 45, well I'm doing 50. My dad always said to his drivers, "Nowhere is worth going without doing it safely."

If you honestly believe you can justify your actions by going 75 in a 45 because you were 'tierd,' you need to sort out your smurfing priorities in life.

I've gone 110 on the freeway before. And about 90 down a normal street, in front of school. Mind you this was all at night with little to no other drivers going either way.

I've never been caught for speeding, but I have been busted twice for expired tags.

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Originally Posted by Nominus Experse

An interesting anecdote concerning speeding:

A had set up a surprise date for my girlfriend one night, but, as things typically go, I was running tight on time, and I needed to go pick her up. Thus, I sped, and sped by a lot.
A police-man noticed and pulled me over.

85 in a 55.

The man walked, shaking his head up to my window. He gave me the usual talk of how fast I was going, and asked for my license and registration and then suddenly stopped. I just stared at him with my papers and license held out for him, frantically trying to remain calm while I desperately tried to obvert my thoughts from the astronomical fines running through my head. When he began talking again I knew instantly as to why he had stopped.

He had noticed that I was dressed in complete formal attire, and the passenger seat there lay a single white rose in full-glory bloom.
The officer looked over my papers and then said,
"Late for your date, eh?"
Through a tight throat and thick toungue I replied, "Yes, quite so in fact."
The officer chuckled and said, "I'm going to make the fine, lucky girl wait on you aren't I?"
It seemed like a rhetorical question but I answered in the same thick tone, "Yeah..."

In the end, he let me go with a warning, saying that I ought to keep the speed at the limit, otherwise my girlfriend may not have a boyfriend anymore, and if she did, a poor one.

He also told me to tell my girlfriend that a cop says hi.
And that was that.


It's my personal thought that the speed limit is perfectly fine where it is at the moment. If we were to raise it, I would like to see safer cars and safer drivers before any of that happened. People are terrible drivers, for the most part, already, and it seems that higher speeds certainly wouldn't help matters...

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I love that story. Very nicely done.

I have been pulled over 18 times and have never gotten a ticket or a written warning. I always get off with a verbal *knocks on wood*. I have been pulled over for not having plates, speeding (over 30 over), not using a blinker (I clearly did though :)), Burned out lights, expired tabs, and just about anything else except for being black; as my buddy puts it - and that is all he has been pulled over for. lol.

Bipper

I cant even drive yet! I wanna get caught speeding :(

I remember one night being taken home by my mum at midnight, we were driving on a straight empty road thorugh a village. My mum was doing a bot avove the speed limit. There was a speed camera she's forgotted about. It flashed and I never thought she could swear that much. Its rare for my dad to do less than 80mph on a motorway, near 90 is more common.
I'm personally to young to drive by a year.

see, this is my dilemna, i didn't really mouth off to the officer, i simply asked him after he had given me the ticket. Driving fast does not increase the rate that accidents happen, it does increase the severity of an accident that has a chance to occur, but whether i'm doing 55 or 75, the accident is going to be pretty terrible.

I think we need to adopt a German system of doing things, where-as I can drive as fast as I want, but if I ever get into an accident that is ridiculous and is completely my fault, or drinking and driving, then i lose my license for life. Simple, I think anyways.

This is what you tell the cop. It is my formula for safe driving.

"The more time you spend time on the road, your chances of gettting in an accident will grow. If I drive 100 mph everywhere I go, I will be on the road for a shorter ammount of time. Therefore, I would be subjected to traffic for a much shorter time, and will actually reduce my chances of getting in an accident."

Bipper's lawlgic of speeding.

I've only been pulled over once for speeding. I was leaving work at 11:30 a couple years ago and wasn't paying attention and he busted me doing 52 in a 35 zone. He asked if I knew the limit, and I told him sorry, that I wasn't paying attention and I was tired from work and just trying to get home. He gave me a ticket, but he only wrote it like I was doing 44 in a 35 zone, instead of me doing almost 20 over. That took it from a $200 ticket to a $50 ticket...

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Originally Posted by bipper

I have been pulled over 18 times and have never gotten a ticket or a written warning. I always get off with a verbal *knocks on wood*. I have been pulled over for not having plates, speeding (over 30 over), not using a blinker (I clearly did though :)), Burned out lights, expired tabs, and just about anything else except for being black; as my buddy puts it - and that is all he has been pulled over for. lol.

Bipper

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:eek: :confused: Hmmm....you wouldn't by chance be female, would you? :p

I am not female. The cops were! no... not really. Infact, I have never been pulled over by a she-cop. ever. My shoddy charisma would have had my ass in jail had that been the case!

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Originally Posted by bipper

I am not female. The cops were! no... not really. Infact, I have never been pulled over by a she-cop. ever. My shoddy charisma would have had my ass in jail had that been the case!

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OK, so how do you explain 18 or whatever times being pulled over without a single ticket to show for it? :p

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Originally Posted by farplaner

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Originally Posted by bipper

I am not female. The cops were! no... not really. Infact, I have never been pulled over by a she-cop. ever. My shoddy charisma would have had my ass in jail had that been the case!

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OK, so how do you explain 18 or whatever times being pulled over without a single ticket to show for it? :p

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My buddy I drove to college with for two years said I have a gift for manipulation. He has been pulled over four (?) times with me. I am just a talker, as you can tell by my posts :D

Kinetic energy equals one half mass times velocity squared. Basically, a slight increase in speed equals a huge increase in energy. Going 10 mph over the limit can drastically increase your car's stopping distance, and the likelihood of you - or someone else - getting killed in a collision. It's also far easier to lose control at higher speeds, as the time you get to respond to surprises is reduced and the margin of error decreases also.

The police road-safety slogan in my country is basically true - "the faster you go, the bigger the mess". To put it in other words:

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New Zealand Land Transport Safety Authority
If you’re driving at 90 kilometres per hour and you crash, the speed your body impacts is the same as falling from the first floor of a building. At 110 kilometres per hour, the impact is the same as falling from the fifth floor. And at 125 kilometres per hour, the impact is like falling from the ninth floor.

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Most of the roads we drive on were originally laid out decades ago, long before vehicles routinely travelled as fast as they do now. Even with re-engineering and other upgrades, most suburban streets aren't designed to cope with higher speeds than the limit.

It's rather strange: we're constrained by various laws every day, some convenient and some not - and yet most of these go unquestioned and unchallenged, except the speed limits, something in place to preserve life during an extremely risky practice - driving - which is routinely undertaken by civilians with little or no formal training. Sure it'd suck if I got a ticket for going 6 mph over the limit (10 kph, the minimum threshold for triggering a speed camera here), but them's the breaks and that's the law. Road safety is managed by people who know way more about it than me, so I'll go with what they say.

In England you have to drive no faster than 30mph through residential areas. I always try and stick to that - I think its frustratingly slow but as a rule I think someone is about 50% (or is it 80%) more likely to survive being hit at 30mph than 40mph. Maybe. Its something rather large though. I think its worth it for that.

I was reading an article in new Scientist a few weeks ago about how scientists are trying to develop new engines with the ability to have optimum economy with fuel at higher speeds - around 70mph so less fuel is wasted by people speeding.

I think British people do go very fast. I go fast sometimes, not always..I try and go carefully but on my way into work I generally go no slower than 45/50mph through twisty tiny country lanes. 60/70mph on the straight bits. I need to leave the house earlier.

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Originally Posted by Chaos

In England you have to drive no faster than 30mph through residential areas. I always try and stick to that - I think its frustratingly slow but as a rule I think someone is about 50% (or is it 80%) more likely to survive being hit at 30mph than 40mph. Maybe. Its something rather large though. I think its worth it for that.

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In Wisconsin it is 25mph through residential unless otheriwse marked (which it rarely is :)) I have kids though, so I really appriciate the enforcment on it.

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I was reading an article in new Scientist a few weeks ago about how scientists are trying to develop new engines with the ability to have optimum economy with fuel at higher speeds - around 70mph so less fuel is wasted by people speeding.

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The speed to fuel ration is actually controlled by transmition. Ford has developed a CVT, constant variable transmision that gets less miles per gallon at peak speeds, but better average fuel ecomony across the board. This is to help with speeders, toeing, freeway driving, constant variable driving (thus the name). I did hear that Volkswagon and Volvo (owned by Ford) are developing engines that impliment a similar technology to CVT in thier mechanics. Who knows though.

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It's rather strange: we're constrained by various laws every day, some convenient and some not - and yet most of these go unquestioned and unchallenged, except the speed limits, something in place to preserve life during an extremely risky practice - driving - which is routinely undertaken by civilians with little or no formal training. Sure it'd suck if I got a ticket for going 6 mph over the limit (10 kph, the minimum threshold for triggering a speed camera here), but them's the breaks and that's the law. Road safety is managed by people who know way more about it than me, so I'll go with what they say.

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I completely agree with this. Social nature is a bit uneducated.

55 is slow. We have an approximate speed limit of 62 mph (100 km*h^-1).

Anyway, no talking back to the sherriff. He can arrest yo ass!

:D