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There are good reasons why someone might temporarily be breaking the speed limit, that are even accepted legal defences in some countries (if you have enough pr

by thworp 3y ago

There are good reasons why someone might temporarily be breaking the speed limit, that are even accepted legal defences in some countries (if you have enough proof). Biggest one is just merging / changing lanes. Often you have to go 10 or 20 over the limit to merge without impeding a lane of traffic. I sometimes see people stopping(!) at the end of a merging lane when there was a perfectly good gap they could have gotten by just speeding up. Trying to merge from a dead stop onto an 80kph+ road is more dangerous than going 90 fore sure. Another one is on 2-lane roads. You catch up to a truck/lorry and see a gap. The gap is big enough to get the overtake done, but you instinctively go faster to make the whole thing less of a close call. Is society really helped if every truck has a 20-car queue behind it because people are afraid they'll get fined if they help traffic flow? On a more general note, I agree that there needs to better enforcement. However, better enforcement to me includes removing all the sneaky money-making schemes you see in the wild. They put a speed limit sign on the wrong side of the road, behind bushes or behind street-side parking (often making the limit non-enforceable legally), put up a speed camera and cash in on people that won't defend themselves. That shit has to stop, put those ressources on deadly country roads, in front of schools and other accident hotspots instead. While we're at it, do more preventative traffic stops. It's not right that blind grandma or psychotic grandson have to seriously hurt someone before anything happens. Little anecdote here: I passed my driving exam despite going 30kph over the limit while overtaking a tractor. I just told the examiner that I was trained to leave the opposite lane asap, slowed down as soon as I noticed how fast I was going and there was no issue.

cameronh90 3y ago
In the UK there is no legal tolerance for going over the speed limit to overtake or merge. The only defence (and not even technically a defence) is that there was some emergency/duress. Some police might individually tolerate it, but it won't get you out of a fine and you'd almost certainly immediately fail your test. I'm actually kind of shocked to read that a (presumably European?) country would tolerate going 30kph over the limit on a driving test! However, the UK is fairly strict about traffic rules. You can't even go through a red light to let an ambulance through here. People have been fined for it, and their fines have been upheld at appeal. Personally, I would imagine it's very unlikely to improve safety, and have seen near crashes result from it, so I think if you're needing to go 30 kph over the limit to make the overtake, then you probably should have just waited. However, I am completely willing to accept that this is a case where evidence should outweigh anecdotes, so if there was some study and reliable data to show that this sort of a tolerance is a good idea, then we should absolutely adopt it into the law under some objective criteria. I do of course agree about malicious enforcement though. Again that's something that doesn't tend to be a big problem in the UK. Speed limits must be posted on both sides of the road to be enforceable, and if it's not the default limit (e.g. 30 in a built up area), there will be repeater signs every 200 metres or so. Plus we tend to also paint the limits on the road, and speed cameras are painted yellow and have a sign telling you that there are cameras, often with a reminder of the limit. You do occasionally get situations where the signs are obscured by trees, especially now that maintenance budgets have been cut, but you can use that to get out of the fine. My experience driving around the UK is that it's really rare that I don't know what the limit is, and if I don't, 99% of the time it's my fault for not paying attention.
- rascul 3y ago
  In the US, in some states, there can be many miles of road with no posted speed limit signs. Unless you're already familiar with the area, or there's other traffic on the road you can match speeds with, about the best you can do is guess what speed to go.

by thworp 3y ago

cameronh90 3y ago

In the UK there is no legal tolerance for going over the speed limit to overtake or merge. The only defence (and not even technically a defence) is that there was some emergency/duress. Some police might individually tolerate it, but it won't get you out of a fine and you'd almost certainly immediately fail your test. I'm actually kind of shocked to read that a (presumably European?) country would tolerate going 30kph over the limit on a driving test! However, the UK is fairly strict about traffic rules. You can't even go through a red light to let an ambulance through here. People have been fined for it, and their fines have been upheld at appeal. Personally, I would imagine it's very unlikely to improve safety, and have seen near crashes result from it, so I think if you're needing to go 30 kph over the limit to make the overtake, then you probably should have just waited. However, I am completely willing to accept that this is a case where evidence should outweigh anecdotes, so if there was some study and reliable data to show that this sort of a tolerance is a good idea, then we should absolutely adopt it into the law under some objective criteria. I do of course agree about malicious enforcement though. Again that's something that doesn't tend to be a big problem in the UK. Speed limits must be posted on both sides of the road to be enforceable, and if it's not the default limit (e.g. 30 in a built up area), there will be repeater signs every 200 metres or so. Plus we tend to also paint the limits on the road, and speed cameras are painted yellow and have a sign telling you that there are cameras, often with a reminder of the limit. You do occasionally get situations where the signs are obscured by trees, especially now that maintenance budgets have been cut, but you can use that to get out of the fine. My experience driving around the UK is that it's really rare that I don't know what the limit is, and if I don't, 99% of the time it's my fault for not paying attention.

rascul 3y ago
In the US, in some states, there can be many miles of road with no posted speed limit signs. Unless you're already familiar with the area, or there's other traffic on the road you can match speeds with, about the best you can do is guess what speed to go.