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 have a hard time reconciling that with my observations in Europe:
- People travel significantly faster than in the U.S., for example on the autobahn
- Taxi drivers routinely do things I consider crazy in order to get around old European cities, like driving up on sidewalks, passing on narrow two-lane roads
- There are a lot of narrow mountain roads and people seem to drive way too fast to be safe
I’ve never felt like European drivers were “more safe”.
The only differences I can think of that are positive for Europe:
- Less drunk driving
- Traffic circles instead of stop signs
The two differences you listed improve traffic flow and safety massively!
Driver education is often more strict depending on country (I’m thinking Scandinavian countries and Germany), unsurprisingly this makes a big difference.
Traveling faster is a bit of a moot point. If people drive faster and rate of incidents and road toll are lower, surely that proves that travel speed isn’t the problem in the US.
But really, the drink driving culture in America is terrifying. The state of Texas has a similar population to Australia (where I’m from), 9,560 people died on the road in Q1 2022 in texas. Australia had just under 2000 FOR THE WHOLE YEAR! Both places have similar speed limits that are considerably slower than Europe, so I don’t think it would be honest to try and say the low speed limits cause deaths. My best guess would be that drink driving is enforced at 0.05 in Australia compared to 0.08 in Texas. On top of this, Texas only enforces if officers have a cause for lawful detainment, which is a high threshold to cross compared to random breath tests common where I’m from.
Its the same drivers everywhere. Road design is the difference, and europe has a lot of traffic calming road design.
I would disagree that its the same drivers everywhere. In places like germany it is far more difficult and more expensive to obtain and keep a drivers license. Here in the US the DMV basically just checks for a pulse and you get one. A DL in the US is the primary form of identification, everyone is expected to have one. There are clearly lots of people still on the road who have absolutely no business sharing the road with others who haven’t had their licenses taken away.
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
Speed radars+ removing driver licences if too many infractions?
Not perfect, but a step in the right direction
We absolutely need a points system in this country. Dui, lose your license AND your car for a month. Hit a pedestrian, come see us in 5 years.
I know these harsh consequences can be even harder in the US than Europe, but as someone who has never been able to drive I know it’s not a life ender to lose the privilege for a short time. It’s worth the grief to get people taking it more seriously.
I’m curious. Are you located in a city center with decent, or even just existing public transit? I’m in Canada, not even 1h outside the nearest large city. Public transit is basically non-existent, so no car means I’d have to move much closer to downtown (and pay twice the rent).
I did go without a car for years, back when I lived in the city. Took the bus, metro and train. Walked a lot more. Rode my bike or my longboard for really short commutes. Used car sharing services when I did need one. But for 90%+ of the province (in terms of area, not population, admittedly), it’s just not an option at all.
However I do think that consequences for DUI are way too lax, even up here lol
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.
It’s actually impossible to obey road rules, by design. Any cop will tell you that, if they follow you for long enough, they will have an excuse to pull you over. Being too close to the lane markers. Marginally over the speed limit. Cracked windshield. Something dangling from your rear view mirror. Phone/GPS mount on windshield or dashboard. Following distance. Weaving inside your lane. They can even tailgate you and bust you for speeding if you speed up. I even know someone who got a ticket for not speeding up with a cop car tailgating him - with no lights on - for blocking an emergency vehicle.
You can obviously make it more likely you will get pulled over. Excessive speed, dangerous driving, or being of an ethnic minority all should be avoided. But honestly, the only thing actually protecting you is the herd around you and the cop not wanting to be bothered.
Yep! I’ve only ever been pulled over two times in my life. Both times were shortly after moving from a different state, both times were some absolutely bogus claim by the cop, both times let me off “with just a warning” against the crime of Driving With Out Of State Tags. It’s absolutely intentional since they expect an out of state person wouldn’t be able to contest it in court. Pigs, all of then
European here. You Americans sure do love stop signs! And I did a full stop. Every time. People honked and looked at me like I was a criminal weird 😢
Four way stops are even more exciting.
I have never been honked at for stopping at a posted stop sign. Maybe that’s how they do it in some other regions of the US, but that’s not how it works in the Pacific Northwest. Are you certain you weren’t honked at for doing something else and just mis-associated it with stopping at a stop sign? Was it a 4 way stop and you didn’t go when it was appropriately your time to go?
It was in LA. No one did a full stop at stop signs. Even saw police cars drive right through. Why not make one road a priority, and then have yield signs on the others? Makes more sense
NotJustBikes have a video about the only stop sign on the Nederlands.
WTF are you talking about, I e stopped at every stop sign for 30 years. This is all in your head. And complete fiction.
Exactly. Especially this complaint about stop signs. That’s not something that a normal motorist would encounter during a normal day of driving. If you ever happen to encounter a stop sign, as rare as they are, and feel that you then can’t spend a minute to make a proper stop there then the real problem certainly must be in your mind.
Not sure where you live but in America stop signs are everywhere. You can’t go anywhere without hitting multiple.
American residential streets often have stop signs at every intersection
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.
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You do? To be frank, I rarely do unless I’m unfamiliar with the intersection, and neither do 95% of the other people I see on the road. I live in the US.
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.
You’d probably be more likely to get a ticket for a broken tail light or going 51 in a 50 than any sort of court catharsis
You realize these guys are allowed to kill you at will, right?
That’s when you ask for a name and badge number and report them. They’re not allowed to pull you over for nothing.
But they are allowed to lie to you, and allowed to pull you over for perceived infractions. So, yes they can pull you over for “nothing”.
You should obey the basic rules such as speed limits, stopping for red light, etc. Driving faster is associated with higher rate of road fatalities.
The real solution is that our society must abolish the reliance on cars. We should opt for safer modes of transportation that do not make it necessary for us to trust every random person to have the patience and skill for operating a car that can kill people so easily.
The Fuck Cars community is so prevalent over here on Lemmy it’s crazy. I wonder why that is.
Btw you guys do you, no hate or whatever I just see this sentiment everywhere on other people’s posts.
I think it makes sense. Just think about what makes the average Reddit user interested in a platform like lemmy, and ask yourself if it makes sense that it correlates with fuck cars. I think it makes sense.
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.
I don’t think “not wanting to be the target of others’ road rage for actually following traffic laws” is childish, tbh
It is when you’re constantly getting harassed on the road for just going even 5 above the speed limit.
Should absolutely dispute that. It will most likely get thrown out.
I think you can take that 53 mph to court. Thats way too close to be legit.
In most jurisdictions police can do you for even 1mph over. There are a number of things in their favour, as they’ll have multiple pieces of evidence (device readout + police statement minimum) against only you and your word. Some places will also give you a far worse outcome if you lose in court than if you just accept the ticket. At the very least you should talk to a lawyer first about how best to take it to court and the likelihood of winning.
End of the day, with the way car speedo’s over-read, for you to be doing 53 mph your needle would’ve been reading ~56, which is well over.
Yeah wtf, cops in socal don’t typically even bother unless you’re doing 15 over. Must have been desperate to hit their ticket quota
Do it anyway. If a driver crashes into you because you’re obeying traffic laws, they’re at fault, and their life gets ruined because they’re an awful person. If someone blows through a red light, same deal. If traffic gets backed up for several miles because nobody wants to travel at the speed limit, fuck 'em, they should have left earlier. I enjoy the impotent fury that other drivers feel towards me when I’m going 35 in a 35.
It might be “immoral” and “sociopathic” for me to think this, but if someone is gonna get themself killed because they can’t stand to come to a complete stop at the stop sign, GOOD, I hope they die. The world is better off without them in it. Of course, never block someone from passing you even if they have to break the law to do it. You never know when someone is bleeding out from a chainsaw wound.
I agree with the spirit of this comment, but AVOID CRASHES. Don’t be dead right. A crash can cause you a lifetime of pain, avoid collisions at all costs, even if you have to break some traffic laws to do so.
This 100%. and thats my point exactly. I’m 100% confident that I’m in the right and of course there will be no legal issues with what I’m doing, but if a driver gets pissed off and speeds away resulting in someone getting killed, does that matter? Yes, its their fault but its a direct result of my actions. My only choice it seems is to just break the law.
In principle, sure their behavior causing an accident is their problem.
In reality, if someone crashes into you because you’re following the law, it still results in you having to deal with the accident (which could mean you’re dead or permanently disabled).
If someone is tailgating me they are in the wrong. I’m still going to do what is necessary to get out of their way ASAP, because the longer they are there the longer they have to potentially kill me with their behavior. It doesn’t matter if I’m in the right if I’m dead.
I couldn’t give less of a damn if the person being the aggressor gets into an accident and/or gets injured, but very often this results in them hitting another car, or worse a pedestrian.
Get into a potentially fatal car accident on principle? Nah
It might be “immoral” and “sociopathic” for me to think this, but if someone is gonna get themself killed because they can’t stand to come to a complete stop at the stop sign, GOOD, I hope they die.
That’s not immoral or sociopathic, that’s just plain dumb and shortsighted.
How exactly do you imagine someone ends up dead after running a stop sign? It very often involves a violent crash that may very well kill innocent people who did nothing wrong. They unfortunately don’t take only themselves out of the gene pool.
I have no choice but to do this in my current car, the transmission is fucked and if I accelerate too fast it slips and I don’t go any faster. So I slowly go to the speed limit and slowly slow to a slow stop
Driving safely, saving gas, and pissing off drivers
Win/win/win
And if I really hit that accelerator like people want me to, the thing slips, stops, and then suddenly engages full force and I burn out. So that’s not much safer either
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.
American cops are a bit more lenient, but you will get penalized for it on the driving test.
It depends on the jurisdiction. Small towns will absolutely ticket you for a lack of a full stop.
Op is full of shit. I’ve stopped at every stop sign the entire time I’ve been driving and there’s never been any issue. This is a troll. Plain and simple.
In Brazil too, but we don’t ever get pulled over for that, so nobody really stops, just slows down and if they see someone coming they stop. I’ve seen cops running red lights just because there was no one crossing.
In Argentina it’s against the law too. I have never seen anyone, ever, stop at a stop sign. At most people slow down a little more than usual. Not even cops stop at stop signs. But if you don’t stop in your driver test, they can theoretically deny your license. So this is definitely a regional thing.
Fwiw, I visited a lot of South American countries, and Argentina is one of the most respectful of traffic laws. But yeah, stop signs are merely a suggestion at best. People slow down way more in a “dangerous crossing” sign, than a stop sign.
Not even cops stop at stop signs.
You’re talking like if cops respect the laws they’re supposed to enforce.
Same in the UK. But here most signs are ‘give way’ so there can be confusion when there’s an actual stop sign.
I think the UK has completely eliminated the US style stop sign. I haven’t seen one in years.
Well that sent me down a random Wikipedia dive.
In the United Kingdom, stop signs may only be placed at junctions with tramways or sites with severely restricted visibility.[30] Until 2016, each stop sign had to be individually approved by the Secretary of State for Transport.[31][32] This requirement was removed by the 2016 amendments to the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions;[33][34] the responsibility for approving stop signs now lies with local authorities
I remember Tom Scott did a video about a really dangerous junction with one a few years ago. The road layout there has now been fixed so it’s not needed.
I’ve never seen one in the wild though.
It is very much against the law in the US too. The point is that any attempt to follow the law causes serious safety issues around road rage.
A ticket for 53 in a 50? Either you were using a GPS speedo instead of the mechanical one in the car or you were actually going faster than you thought.
Here in the UK speedometers are required to read fast and all speed cameras have 5mph dead zone to account for errors in the reading so doing 53mph on the speedo wouldn’t even set off a camera. Obviously idk about the US but it seems a bit stupid not to have a system similar to the UK one.
Yeah that’s weirdly strict. In Florida, going 5mph over the limit means the only thing that cop can do is give you a “warning”. That effectively means it never happens because they aren’t going to waste their time on that (unless maybe you’re black or something like that).
In practice, most people go 10 over and cops don’t do anything about it unless it’s close to the end of the month and they haven’t met their quota yet.
Your system isn’t designed to extract as much capital as possible. It’s not the same.
My speedo is accurate I checked, but yes that is the argument I would use in court and honestly I would win. The point of the post is that I was actually breaking the law where no reasonable person would expect me to follow the law.
You just had some bad luck. I have passed dozens of police while going 3-5 MPH over the limit and they never took a second look at me. Same thing riding with others. The main thing in driving is try to be a decent person and try not to stand out. If you encounter an unsafe asshole, stay away from them. If you are in the middle a line of cars going 10MPH over the limit, you are probably fine. If you at the front of a line of cars going 10MPH over the speed limit, you are more likely to get pulled over because you stand out as the first speeder.
The point is even doing 1mph over the speed limit is breaking the law, and there’s no excuse for it. If you were doing 51 in a 50 and all of the other traffic was doing 65 mph it makes absolutely no legal difference and there is no argument to what everyone else was doing, because the fact is that you are actually exceeding the speed limit in that scenario. Your driving is dangerous on that scenario because you were driving too slow, but your ticket would be because you were driving too fast. Its the whole point of my original post, what are you supposed to do exactly?
There are excuses that are perfectly reasonable to go over by 1 mph. Speedometers are not perfect, and neither are radar detectors. All my cop friends have told me they are trained to give 10% of the speed to normal variation, so at 50mph you would be within the limit to go 55. This has been my personal experience while driving too.
But why would police look at a line of 100 cars going 65MPH and pull you out of the middle for going 51? Unless it’s for impeding traffic, which is a thing.
It’s not technically right, but you go with the flow of traffic and try not to stand out. Everyone technically breaks traffic laws, including the police. Unless you have exceptionally bad luck or you are traveling past the same speed trap or really strict cop, you likely will not receive any more tickets for 3MPH over. Stop signs though, I always come to a 100% complete stop, if the people behind me don’t like it too bad.
I’m confused why America has such strict rules on it. I’m pretty sure Australia has 5-10% leniency for inaccuracies in measurement.
You generally won’t get a ticket for a few over the speed limit. You can do it hundreds of times without getting a ticket, but an officer can at their discretion pull you over for 1MPH over if they want to. I’ve heard of people successfully arguing in court that infractions like 53 in a 50 are within the margin of error, and others put into question the calibration of the speed detection equipment.
They do if you’re white. This kind of enforcement usually is reserved for the most heinous of criminals. Those who committed the dangerous crimes of dwb. Driving while black. /S
More than that, if you’re at the front of the line, that indicates you’re holding up traffic (even if it is “worse speeders” you’re holding up) and creating a dangerous situation.
If you’re speeding and someone is tail gating you, just let them pass.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6611240-three-felonies-a-day
It’s a feature, not a bug.
Your not expected to obey all laws all the time, its a tool in the toolbox for selective enforcement punishment, taxation.
Ironically, self driving cars will do more to make traffic laws more sensible, since the cars will OBEY every law, no matter how silly… and that will back up traffic until the law is fixed.
I’ve always thought that if you want to fix bad laws, go to the capital city where the law makers are and obey the law very carefully, such that the cost of obedience is paid by the lawmakers.
That looks like a pretty interesting book, will definitely give it a read.
I personally feel that speed limits, etc are actually quite reasonable given the average human’s response time, and the fact that impact force increases non-linearly with increased speed. I think the bulk of the problem is that so many drivers far over-estimate their driving abilities and are out of touch from the outside world being completely isolated in their cars. The fact stands that if you hit a pedestrian at 25 mph, they have a 75% chance of survival but at 35 mph it is 75% likely to be fatal. The 2-lane road in my original post has a lot of hikers, bicyclists, and even horseback riding not to mention the deer that regularly jump out in front of you. Efficiency of literally every car on the road goes up just by slowing down a bit, too. Don’t people like spending less on gas?
Funny you mention the self-driving car thing, I’m a tesla FSD beta tester and thats how I made sure to obey every limit and road rule to the T. It was the only way I could get through it since obeying the laws gave me so much anxiety I wanted to speed up at every chance. Using the FSD in real life, though it has a setting to always go x% over the posted speed limit. As if the word “limit” has lost any and all meaning in our society.
I think you would really enjoy reading about the strategies used in traffic engineering. Where they not only take into account the physics of driving, but the human psychology of drivers.
The highway manual indicates for new roads a traffic survey should be done and the 80% speed should be the traffic limit for the road (this doesn’t always happen). From a TE perspective you want the law to encourage everyone to work at the same flow.
For roads where drivers go to fast for the conditions, you can create visually hostile environments where drivers naturally slow down (not just speed limit signs, which most people ignore). I.E. add trees, break up sight lines, add curves and chicanes, making lanes more narrow, speed humps, REMOVE traffic markings (this forces people to pay more attention to figure out whats going on).
The highway manual manual is based off gut feelings and little else. Why 80%, where did that come from? How is the currently set speed limit impacting the survey? If you go to a speed trap town by the highway, you’d say the speed limit is dead on, as no one speeds since they know its a trap.
Roads should be designed for the speed you want, and not the other way around. Your last paragraph is dead on. Real solutions look like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bglWCuCMSWc
The speed limits were set at 80% many years ago when driving a car at that speed felt a lot faster. Physics and impact forces haven’t changed since then though.
You should protest the ticket in court. Going along with traffic is a valid defense. Get documentation of the behavior mentioned in your post. Doing what you did is more dangerous than going 3 over. The local bureaucracy has a problem there and you can use this issue to shine light on it.
It’s not a valid defense. I tried using it once and the judge said, if they all drove off a bridge, would you too?
You will have better luck arguing the 3 mph is within the margin of error of the radar gun, that you were on a hill that was slightly accelerating, you slightly sped up to avoid and accident, etc.
Or within the margin of error of your speedometer.
deleted by creator
First speeding ticket in my late teens so live and learn.
Write to your local member.
Care less about what others do.
Move to a first world nation or state. (Most of the US isn’t).
Definitely get a dashcam.
Post dashcam footage on YouTube.
Send a bill to the city to the tyre.
Complain about people’s dangerous road behaviour until the behaviour is enforced or speed changed.
You know after thinking about it, its only really been a huge problem on this one road where I live. The speed limit varies between 35,45,50 mph and theres one construction zone that is 25 mph. As a whole traffic goes about 60-70mph throughout. Its a windy valley road that is frequented by bicycles and hikers and people have absolutely been killed there in speed related accidents. I sent a message to the sheriff’s department voicing concerns but I’ve heard complaints from neighbors about it for years and its still a huge problem.
On other roads especially highways its mostly no problem to avoid speeding as long as you stay in the right lane, after all trucks avoid speeding most of the time for efficiency and safety reasons, unless you hit a 50-55mph zone like for construction. Those are nearly always ignored by other drivers. Slowing down to comply with the speed limit is likely to get you rear ended since so many are distracted. If you’re lucky enough not to be rear ended it usually results in getting flipped off, but sometimes road rage incidents can escalate.
