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Why does everyone drive above the posted speed limit?


ChrisCo!

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Whenever I drive 50 km/h on a road with a speed limit of 50 km/h, I'm always the slowest one on the road. Everyone is going faster than me, and they go around me to get ahead of me. Even though I am driving at the speed limit. Why does everyone speed? The law states that a ticket can be issued for going even 1 km/h over the posted speed limit, yet I see everyone going 5-10 km/h over the speed limit. The only cars I ever see driving the speed limit are student drivers. Why is that?

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The average driver is intelligent enough to determine what speed is safe (for drinving) on any particular road their on. If you see a road sign that says 120 on a dirt road will you go 120? No. Do you travel at 50 in a suburb on Halloween? No.

Now I'm not so sure that is actually true in Vancouver.

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Whenever I drive 50 km/h on a road with a speed limit of 50 km/h, I'm always the slowest one on the road. Everyone is going faster than me, and they go around me to get ahead of me. Even though I am driving at the speed limit. Why does everyone speed? The law states that a ticket can be issued for going even 1 km/h over the posted speed limit, yet I see everyone going 5-10 km/h over the speed limit. The only cars I ever see driving the speed limit are student drivers. Why is that?

Try driving on the QE2 between Calgary and Edmonton or the Coquihalla.

You can go 10 km/h over the speed limit and race car drivers in mini vans will pass you like you're standing still.

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Because people's egos get in the way. You could make the speed limit 100 kph you'll still see people speeding. The majority of people over-estimate their skill as a driver. The reality is I bet very few people have gone to a track and seen how far it takes for your vehicle to stop in an emergency. Or even bothered to even look the stats up.

People are lulled into a false sense of security with abs, airbags, etc. Try getting to 50 kph in downtown rush hour. The fact that the majority of people don't even keep space in front of them, and can't even handle a simple manoeuvre like merging, or even switching on a turn signal, speaks volumes.

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Actually asked a cop what the realistic limit for speed is before they pull you over with radar/laser. Didn't expect an answer, but I got one:

"Not supposed to say this, but we don't even look at anyone unless they're going 20km/h more than the posted limit."

Make sense. Cops tend to pull over anyone noticable. Like fancyass cars. And anything more than that speed is 'noticeable'. So this is what I treat as the 'real' speed limit, even setting cc to it and I've yet to get ticketed since.

People forget that cops are drivers too. So people that drive recklessly slow, particularly in fast lanes, are more likely to be pulled over than somebody going over the limit, but 'with traffic'. So if you find yourself being passed by literally everyone on the road rather impatiently, do us all a favour and pick up your speed.

Side note: Don't treat HOV lanes like they're your own personal Sunday drive lanes. The reason they exist is to ease traffic by speeding it up, not slowing it down so you can lollygag around. Take your Sunday drives on rarely used rural lanes like normal people instead.

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It's because the speed limits are more or less random and set by politicians rather than say, oh, I don't know, the people that designed the road?

When people think the law is unfair, or doesn't make sense, or is irrational, then a lot of people tend to go ahead and break it. (There's many other laws like this that people break all the time).

If you actually let proffessionals determine the speed limits, they could be higher, especially on highways, especially with non truck traffic, especially if you could prove you are qualified to drive at a better speed. Wouldn't it be nice if you could be certified to go 20km/h the speed limit and instead of getting an "N" for novice you could toss and "E" for expert onto your car/digital licence plate?

And then if we actually had realistic speed limits, we could in fact set a suggested speed, with a max speed on the same post, and then enforce it digitally.

In fact, depending on congetion limits, if you had dynamic speed recommendtions and maximums, you could in fact greatly increase capacity by getting the cars spaced out by getting them to generally travel at the same speed.

Unfortunately speed is in the realm of politics and not proffessionals.

I say cheer on the google car and then you can just read or have a nap while the car drives you and then it won't matter. And of course, we could open up automated car lanes which do to their comuputer reactions would be able to travel in packs at well above existing speeds.

Lots we could do. Lots and lots and lots.

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Actually asked a cop what the realistic limit for speed is before they pull you over with radar/laser. Didn't expect an answer, but I got one:

"Not supposed to say this, but we don't even look at anyone unless they're going 20km/h more than the posted limit."

Make sense. Cops tend to pull over anyone noticable. Like fancyass cars. And anything more than that speed is 'noticeable'. So this is what I treat as the 'real' speed limit, even setting cc to it and I've yet to get ticketed since.

People forget that cops are drivers too. So people that drive recklessly slow, particularly in fast lanes, are more likely to be pulled over than somebody going over the limit, but 'with traffic'. So if you find yourself being passed by literally everyone on the road rather impatiently, do us all a favour and pick up your speed.

Side note: Don't treat HOV lanes like they're your own personal Sunday drive lanes. The reason they exist is to ease traffic by speeding it up, not slowing it down so you can lollygag around. Take your Sunday drives on rarely used rural lanes like normal people instead.

What's more, is the people that design the roads don't design them for what people think should be the speed limit, but rather what it will be. In fact the best way to come up with a design speed as it's called is to survey the traffic. What is generally accepted as the speed to design the road is the 85th percentile speed, aka the speed under with 85% of people actually drive. Turns out that most people kind of clump up under that speed and it's only 15% that go faster, and they tend to potentially go radically faster.

So the cops are effective going after that 15%. If you find yourself setting yourself out in the crowd by driving far differently than everyone else, yep, they are gonna get ya.

Unless we wanted to radically monitor stuff (which would be a political nightmare under our current random speed limit system that people have figured out how to get around already) the only real way to slow people down is to make the road slower, which of course just punishes the 15% by having them crash instead of getting tickets.

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Try driving on the island where it seems 90% of people go 10k or more BELOW the speed limit. God forbid if you need to get anywhere in a hurry, it's beyond aggravating. I wish people would drive with a sense of purpose here as they do on the lower mainland, sunday drivers are 7 days a week around here.

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I personally don't have a problem with those who speed ~15 km/h (city) or ~20 km/h (hwy) over the speed limit (depending on conditions, of course) as long as they're smart about it. The worst kind of driver isn't those who speed (unless they're reckless about it too), but the one that does not react the the environment around them because they're so occupied by following the rule-book to the T. The rules are there for a reason, yes, but unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world where they are always applicable for reality.

Unfortunately for us, Vancouver seems to be full of idiots who are selfish and have no clue about how to drive on the road. I love driving, and even sometimes now I hate to do it just because you see so much dumb stuff happen and realize how dangerous it can be driving through the city.

People feel the need to speed because the limits are on the low side (in some cases), but also because there's the assumption that 5-10 km/h isn't THAT bad and you won't get a ticket for it. Using AB or the US as an example... A 70 MPH speed limit evokes much less speeding. Likewise, the 110 km/h limit in AB does the same. Once you push out further east into the interior, I can understand a low speed limit... But 80 km/h on straight-aways on HWY-1 is sometimes a joke.

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Due to a logistics and practicality you can over the speed limit by a certain amount and be fairly confident you will not get a ticket for it.

Really, this world is effed and we're all in too much of a hurry.

Seriously, everyone is in a mad rush to go nowhere important.

I find it funny all these 'people are intelligent enough to...' comments. Considering the number of daily crashes in Metro Van, obviously they are not. I think speeds on highways should be raised, local roads should be lowered.

But, I agree with Ron (yikes) about fluctuating speeds depending on the time of day/traffic. That type of system should also be used for tolls, transit costs, ferry costs, all sorts of things. We have the technology to do it but we're stuck in this static price for all mentality.

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The speed I drive is dictated by the flow of traffic, whether it is above the limit or not. When the light turns green the first car sets the flow of traffic. Just don't be the fastest car on the road (be the second fastest ;P) and you should be free of any tickets.

What bothers me is when two cars drive side by side an do not allow for traffic to flow between or around them. you should always be driving in a staggered position in relation to cars in the other lanes. This allows for easy lane changes, passing, merging etc. This all can be done above the limit if that is what is safe for traffic and road conditions.

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I personally don't have a problem with those who speed ~15 km/h (city) or ~20 km/h (hwy) over the speed limit (depending on conditions, of course) as long as they're smart about it. The worst kind of driver isn't those who speed (unless they're reckless about it too), but the one that does not react the the environment around them because they're so occupied by following the rule-book to the T. The rules are there for a reason, yes, but unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world where they are always applicable for reality.

Unfortunately for us, Vancouver seems to be full of idiots who are selfish and have no clue about how to drive on the road. I love driving, and even sometimes now I hate to do it just because you see so much dumb sh** happen and realize how dangerous it can be driving through the city.

People feel the need to speed because the limits are on the low side (in some cases), but also because there's the assumption that 5-10 km/h isn't THAT bad and you won't get a ticket for it. Using AB or the US as an example... A 70 MPH speed limit evokes much less speeding. Likewise, the 110 km/h limit in AB does the same. Once you push out further east into the interior, I can understand a low speed limit... But 80 km/h on straight-aways on HWY-1 is sometimes a joke.

Well that's the problem - most people aren't smart about it.

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