Driving above the speed limit is a common practice for many motorists. It’s also illegal behavior that vastly increases the risk of losing control of a vehicle and causing an accident.
1. There is a huge diversity of skill levels in licensed drivers. One guy can do 75 on a road all day long, and safely. Another can barely keep his car under control at the posted limit of 55, and just prays a car doesn’t pull in front of him, or a deer.
2. They are intentionally at least 10 mph lower than they need to be because it causes pretty much everyone to speed, allowing cops to be able to pull over any car they want if there is some other suspicion that they might have.
The thing about “illegal behavior” behind the wheel is that you are not so much breaking laws - You are breaking “rules”. Most infractions are not civil or criminal. They are “something else”. I just see them as suggestions, and when a cop disagrees about your decision, he fines you. It’s very much like a game to me.
The exception is the ones that ARE felony’s or misdemeanors. That is when you are actually “Breaking the law”. You can speed, but if you speed by too wide a margin, you’ll go to jail. That is when you’ve broken the law.
1. Cops don’t have to obey speed limits or other traffic laws because no cop will ever cite another cop. Ever heard of a citizen pulling a cop over for speeding? I haven’t, but I have seen cops traveling at dangerously high speeds with no sirens or lights.
2. Speed enforcement is the easiest to do since a cop can just sit somewhere beside the road monitoring his radar/vascar/whatever waiting for a target to come into view. It’s also the most profitable.
3. The most dangerous things drivers do rarely result in citations because the cop has to be right there to see it happen (unless there’s an accident). When the cop is manning a stationary speed trap, he is not out there watching for idiots doing stupid things.