I’m talking specifically about obeying the speed limit, doing a full stop at stop signs, etc. After receiving a speeding ticket for doing 53 in a 50, As an experiment I went a full day obeying all traffic laws 100% and it caused so much road rage. For example, there is a 2 lane road near me with a speed limit of 50 (where I got the ticket), traffic usually moves at about 60/65. There was a huge line of cars behind me and nowhere to pull over. As soon as an opening came up on the shoulder I was about to pull over and one of the cars behind me blew past me on the on the right blaring their horn. Then another truck passed me at the next opportunity and brake checked me. Both of these cars proceeded to run a red light about 1/4 mile ahead of me endangering others. By far the worst part of driving on this 2 lane road was the 25 mph work zone which is completely ignored by everyone else. It effectively resulted in me doing 25 mph in a “60” which is very dangerous.
Having needed to spend the entire day pulling over at every opportunity to let people pass I inevitably picked up a drill bit and got a flat tire.
Even matters as simple as stopping completely at a stop sign for 1 second cause immediate anger and dangerous behavior from other drivers.
What on earth are we expected to do? All I want is to avoid speeding tickets and drive safely.
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Speed limits are one of the many transportation issues that have been researched with findings that the US has ignored and the EU has implemented.
Drivers go at the speed they’re comfortable with regardless of any posted speed limits. They dont work. What does work is road design to make it uncomfortable to go faster. Narrower lanes, less vision on intersections, raised crosswalks, among other things.
I don’t think most of the EU really did anything about speed limits
I dont know about how widespread it is, but yeah EU has been doing what Im talking about https://www.pps.org/article/livememtraffic
WTF are you talking about, I e stopped at every stop sign for 30 years. This is all in your head. And complete fiction.
I think it depends largely on where you live. There’s a reason it’s called the “California Stop.” And arpund Boston, the shoulder is a completely additional, auxiliary lane, which so. many. people. use.
There’s a funny video where a group of people got on the Atlanta 285 loop, spread out across all lanes, and did the speed limit for a few miles. They had a camera set up on an overpass to watch the procession come around a curve. They say they did it to show how stupid the speed limit on the loop was, and I’m sure it was infuriating for the miles of cars backed up behind them, but… yeah. It showed few people there obeyed the speed limit. I don’t know if this is the original; I don’t remember it being edited by a spastic gerbil, but that’s what I could find before I lost interest.
Getting a ticket for going 3 over is silly. That part does seem contrived, and if contested OP could easily get that thrown out. I suspect either OP was being a douche in some other way, and the cop put something down to harrass them, or they dropped a “0” in the retelling.
After receiving a speeding ticket for doing 53 in a 50
This sounds too ludicrous not to be made up.
I’ve received a LOT of speeding tickets in my life. The only time I’ve EVER gotten a ticket for doing <5 mph over the posted limit is when I was actually doing +14 over the posted limit but the cop wrote it for 10 less than actual because he had to write a ticket but didn’t want it to be excessive…so the final ticket ended up being 54 in a 50 zone.
I can’t imagine anyone not being able to beat a +3 over speeding ticket in court. I probably wouldn’t even call my attorney for that and would just fight it myself.
Standards of driving sound bad where you are
It is fairly easy to obey the road rules. The problem is that if over time the laws aren’t enforced then it is easy over time for thos laws to erode, and then suddenly it feels weird to obey them.
I think you can take that 53 mph to court. Thats way too close to be legit.
In Germany, it’s against the law to not do a full stop at traffic signs. You will fail your driving test doing this and you’ll definitely get pulled over when you’re seen doing it.
One time when I lived in Utah, I literally got pulled over for driving the speed limit. Literally. The cop told me that I needed to go with the flow of traffic instead. He didn’t give me a ticket, but it was still an annoying interruption to my day, and I assume it gave him a power boner of some sort.
But another time, living in the same area, I got pulled over by a different cop for going with the flow of traffic, because speeding isn’t justified even when everyone else on the road is.
As another comment said, you’re fucked if you do and fucked if you don’t. Although, I do prefer the alternative of going with the flow of traffic to avoid road rage incidents as you’ve pointed out.
I think I would have demanded a ticket in your case. I would have really liked to see how that played out in court.
It’s a game unfortunately.
Sometimes you get nailed for something fucking stupid like 53 in a 50. (Maybe that is worth contesting). Sometimes you deserve it (like me doing 40 in a 25 one time). But there’s no justice. Loads of people get away with breaking loads of laws all the time before they finally get caught.
So it’s a game for us. But actually it’s a money maker for the government doing the enforcing.
One thing works well for me: using Google maps to navigate everywhere I go has the benefit of speed trap notifications.
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All I’m getting from this is that, on the day you obeyed all traffic laws, you were the good driver and the others were bad. Things didn’t run smoothly because the others didn’t obey the traffic laws, not because you obeyed them.
If that many people are ‘breaking the rules’ then maybe we need to look at the rules rather than asking 95% of drivers to change their habits. I know in my state the speed limit is capped at 65MPH on the freeway, but the second you cross the border, the “maximum safe” speed on that same freeway somehow jumps 5-10MPH. How is that possible?
The reality is that it’s a game like the other commentor pointed out. We’re allowed to break the rules and drive 80MPH with the rest of traffic so long as the state can quickly and easily generate additional revenue off of it by catching a few stragglers each day and charging them hundreds of dollars in fines.
The reason that many people can’t stick to traffic rules like speed limits and full stops, as I see it, is more a result of people lacking patience, they are stressed, they are under constant pressure. And they lash out in road rage against others because they are protected by their little metal box and no one can get to them.
Society needs to slow down and individuals need more empathy. If you have kids, make sure to teach them those two things.
I was going ten to fifteen over in the right lane on a major street and I literally felt fear for my life the way people around me were driving. People were raging at me for not running red lights! It was insane.
And I thought my local New Zealand town had bad drivers, my god. Are the drivers all suicidal over there??
You would come to Wellington and cum at how respectful the drivers are there
So you don’t need to obey the laws because others don’t? You’re being childish, it isn’t that big of a deal.
I will say that ticket you got is bullshit though. That’s just a dick cop.
It is when you’re constantly getting harassed on the road for just going even 5 above the speed limit.
Uh, what? This whole post feels like rage bait or you live in a very angry and unsafe area. I don’t experience any of this.
No one gets a ticket for a 53 in a 50 and if you actually did it would get thrown out in court. Definitely fight that.
2 Lane roads. I hate em. But but that’s all I have within 10 miles of me. I pass people, people pass me, no one is blaring their horn and brake checking (which is extremely dangerous) at all, much less daily.
Never in my 30 years of driving have a had someone lose their shit over stopping at a stop sign or a red light. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen someone run a red light.
And while people do speed in work zones, doing 60 in a 25 work zone will lose you your license here. That would be an exceptionally stupid thing to do.
This reads like an angry exaggerated rant by someone pissed they got a ticket. If it’s not, I’m sorry you live in an area full of unsafe angry people.
I follow all traffic laws to a tee, just to be the change I want to see in the world. Pedestrian deaths (negligent manslaughter IMO) by cars are at an all time high in my country. As a bonus, I usually end up right next to the asshole speeding and weaving in and out of traffic at the red light
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