Oddly enough, "obeying the speed limit law" doesn't seem to qualify as an "incredibly important and positive traffic safety concept".
Failure to control speed and failure to yield right of way are the two primary causes of accidents.
A speeder has NO right to speed and must yield to traffic already ahead of him. First come first serve. Can you jump a line of cars at a stop sign? I've seen jackasses DO this but they have no right to do so.
Speed limits are dropped when weather conditions are bad (and some make this clear by dropping highway speeds after sundown).
Yielding right of way applies to merging on and off a highway, giving left lane traffic changing lanes to the right lanes "right of way", yielding at driveways, intersections, and red/yellow lights.
Speed Limits on interstates are not correlated with safety at all. In Germany the open Autobahns were as safe as US highways even when speeds were unlimited -- until they had to absorb a bunch of East Germans in Trabants, who drive like Americans.
And most of those Autobahns were two lanes, with trucks going 50 being overtaken by everybody else. But everyone moved over.
Of course, in Germany, lane discipline is enforced by the law, by insurers (if an overtaking car hits you in the left lane, you were wrong), and by an extremely thorough driver training program that costs serious money and takes serious time. Also, the Germans did (when I lived there) not allow you to get a license until age 18. That would eliminate a number of the worst drivers in any country.
Ask any cop how many times he's responded to an accident of a car packed with teens. More than he wants to think.
Another reason we have poor lane discipline in the US is the large numbers of minivans and SUVs. These high-centered vehicles feel unstable in lane changes, so when Suzy has lane changed into the left she isn't going to change for anything -- unless she sees the highway patrol coming in her rear view mirror.
I find that most big Winnebago campers are driven with a view to their limitations, but most SUVs are not. I know several guys who bought their wives SUVs because the gals were accident prone -- in one case, because she was much given to drinking and driving.
I can (and do) drive all day without seeing a competently driven SUV. On the other hand, most commercial trucks, not just the big rigs but Joe the Electrician, are driven well. Go figure.
And while I am ranting -- how about the old senile geezers who respond to cataracts or macular degeneration by simply driving as before, but way slower? I had a ringside seat an an accident one of these guys caused three weeks ago. His reaction time was so bad that he was still on the gas for a half minute after his vehicle had come to rest.
I wish these guys luck with their courtesy campaign, but as long as we will licence any testosterone-addled yout', blind senile geezer, or illegal aliens who can't read even in their own savage language, it's gonna be a bloodbath out there.
One final rant -- it is graduation time and we're going to get all the "Nine teens die in high-speed rollover" stories by thumb-sucking liberals with all their prattle about lives cut short and the poor victims and how they ought to sue GM because a Suburban couldn't take that corner at 95 MPH. Yeah, right. That's just the process of natural selection exerting a eugenic effect.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
SedVictaCatoni wrote:I'll make you a deal.
Oddly enough, "obeying the speed limit law" doesn't seem to qualify as an "incredibly important and positive traffic safety concept".
When "obeying federal laws and regulations and sound safety engineering principles when setting speed limits" becomes an "incredibly important and positive traffic safety concept," we can add obeying the speed limit to important safety measures.
But with speed limits set below the maximum safe speed for the road(s) they apply to for various reasons (revenues from fines, false sense of "safety," or environmental reasons as very common and bad examples), there's little safety in obeying the speed limit.
Lane discipline is a much bigger issue and does cause wrecks. And speed limits set too low also cause wrecks and kill people.