If the speed limits are being set illegally (ie, not per the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, or MUTCD, which has been adopted as LAW by every state, whose governments ignore it so that they can set the speed limits artificially low to engage in revenue generation) then is it really breaking the law to violate them?
The MUTCD sets forth a standard whereby the speed limit is to be set at the speed at which the 85th percentile driver drives. If everyone is "speeding" it's an indication that the speed limit is too low, not that everyone is a scofflaw.
If the government won't abide by the law, then why should the citizens, particularly when the "offense" is merely malum prohibitum and not malum per se.
Shhhh. You're not supposed to know this.
My last "violation" was on a stretch of road that featured a junk yard on one side, an undeveloped wooded area on the other, with a few scattered factories and residences thrown in. The road is straight and wide. No one can convince me that the 25 mph. limit there is reasonable, let alone legal under the standard you cite. It is a speed trap, pure and simple.
Good point. Here in Tucson, the cops sit right outside the spot where a new speed sign is posted, hoping to bust people who speed up prematurely. But they wouldn't lift a finger to go after the perps who stole my son's wallet and ran up two thousand dollars in bills. We even had them on a store camera buying things. Didn't matter. They gotta write those tickets. They busted my wife for three miles otl in a 25 zone. She drives a lot slower than I do.
Anybody remember the tyranny of the 55 mile an hour limit which gauged us for years. But you got soccer moms and liberals and children's advocates, most of whom drive like maniacs, all over it if you ever try to get speed limit changes officially.
Right.
The law is bad, so we break it. We don't change it, we just break it and justify breaking it because we think it's bad.
"Everyone" is speeding so OBVIOUSLY the speed limit is too slow.
The same attitude goes for drugs. "Everybody does it, so the law MUST be bad." Sounds like teenager-think.
Relative morality.
Work to change the law rather than just break it and try to justify violating the law.
Or break the law, pay the fines and stop whining about it.
Or break the law, then don't bellyache or sue when someone gets in an accident and dies or becomes a quadreplegic from speeding.
I agree where there are some situations where politicians might intervene and set speed limits below MUTCD standards, however, there also exist situations of calculated distances, roadway curvature and geometry, which mandate some speeds which appear too low to the majority of drivers as they approach them, but are nevertheless, the safe speed limit to drive. Many of these involve blind curves, mid-parcel intersections and mountainous roadways.
Other limits are purely social in effect. Consider traffic in SoCA vs NoCA. One can drive 20mph over the highway speed limit in SoCA and still get pulled over for impeding traffic. And that's with drivers driving in nearly bumper to bumper conditions at over 70 mph. Go figure.