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The fight against low speed limits is a very hard one, although we win occasionally (like recent changes in Virginia raising limits to 70).

The problem is multi-faceted. First, it is likely that raising the speed limit COULD lead to more crashes. Now, lowering the limit would reduce crashes, so we’ve already established that there is a risk/reward curve being used. But any politician voting for a speed increase risks a major crash attributed to the change that his opponent can use in the next election. Few politicians are voted out for NOT raising limits. So it’s a tough sell.

Second, while many drivers speed, most aren’t willing to spend money and effort to lobby to get limits increased. I’m convinced that if speed limits were put on the ballot, we’d get much higher limits — but to lobby politicians and push for legal changes takes time and money, and most speeders do so because they want to save time, not waste it trying to get the limits changed.

Third, there are people who aren’t good enough drivers to go faster. In a perfect world, we’d have speed by lanes, and qualify people to drive in different lanes so the worse drivers had to go slower and stay on the right, while competent drivers could go faster on the left. But that will obviously never happen. Speed limits should also be set based on current conditions, and traffic levels. One size definitely does NOT fit all. So while I’d argue that almost any highway can be safe for me to drive 80 mph, there are times when there is too much traffic for that to be safe, and conditions (rainy, windy, snowing) where that might not be true either. You put a sign up that says “80”, people will want to do that even in a blinding rainstorm.

Better, in this particular case (and I hate saying this) to just let people use some level of common sense about how fast to drive, and have police trained to take all this into account when giving out tickets. And I’ve blown by enough speed traps at higher-than-limit to know that police by and large ARE taking this into acount, in a way that a one-law-fits-all approach can’t handle. On a clear day, with mid-amounts of traffic all moving 75 on a 60-mph highway, the police are still out with radar, pulling over the guy doing 80mph in the right lane while weaving, but leaving us 75-mph alone. If the traffic was bad, and we were all doing 60mph, and some idiot is weaving in and out and doing bursts of 75-mph, they are going to get a ticket.

But in any case, surely you are not arguing that most drivers don’t think the speed limits are stupid? Because, absent limiting amounts of traffic, I can’t think of the last time on a highway where I drove the actual speed limit and passed anybody.

In other words, virtually NOBODY is obeying highway speed limits when I’m out on the highway, except when there is so much traffic that we are all going slow. I get passed when I’m driving 80. I get passed more driving 75. If I want to drive 70 in a 65 zone, I have to drive in the right lane, and even then trucks and cars are pulling over and passing me. Occasionally I’ll pass a car going under 65, but it’s not a common thing.

The only time people go the speed limit is when they come up on a state trooper. And even then if the trooper turns off the lights and drives 75, most cars will follow him along.