[PvK]

Originally posted by DavidG:

quote:

---

Originally posted by PvK:
their skill, they would be doing so in a situation where they could see the full field ahead of their stopping/dodging distance.

PvK

My God do people really drive like this were you live??? If so they are a heck of a lot better than the drivers around here. (PS the point of the driver names in my example was only to remove differences in driver skill from the example)

---

Some do. Some don't. There are many bad drivers, and some outright dangerous ones. But the way to find the ones who need educating and perhaps punishment is not to measure their speed with a machine and apply it strictly to an out-dated speed limit that takes nothing else into account. The ones doing actually hazardous things are the ones who need talking to, and they are not so hard to detect.

Personally I think the speed limits around here are a nice approximation of the safe driving speed. I would say anyone going more than about 20km faster than that IS driving recklessly. ie people more often than not zip down the road near were I live at 100-120km/h. This is a non-divided highway with lots of driveways and side street that front on to it. Personaly I think anything that would slow these guys down and make them pay is a good idea.

You're probably right about your situation. I've driven in British Columbia and Alberta and I usually didn't think the limits were much lower than appropriate. But I also didn't notice much over-enforcement. I did notice a few maniac drivers, but generally they seemed pretty competant and safe. There are some radar/camera speed trap warnings, which I do think is generally a bad idea unless really necessary, but even there the traffic seemed to be courageously pushing past the limit to what seemed like a safe degree.

My impression is that in Canada the police are usually pretty good about giving you something like 10 kph + 10% of the posted limit leeway to exceed, which is usually pretty reasonable. A UK officer friend also says that's their guideline. There are many places in the USA though where 5 mph over will get you a ticket, even when the limit is inappropriate and the conditions are utterly harmless.

Again though, I'm not saying there shouldn't be limits at all, or that all limits should be increased. I'm mainly saying people shouldn't be cited for just exceeding a limit safely. Get the actually hazardous folks, and leave the letter-of-the-law-breakers alone.

PvK