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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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.
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 don’t think most of the EU really did anything about speed limits
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.
It can be a life ender depending on where you live. My wife doesn’t drive and my last house I stayed was 30 minutes from the closest town. Uber can get me home if I am ok with waiting for an hour and a half for a driver to take up my ride request but they won’t even let me put in a request to get from my home to that town. I would have been fucked if I lost my license or car since my wife’s and I no longer have families in our lives and our neighbors all had issues with my wife for being black so it’s not like we could just ask for rides.
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
I dont know about how widespread it is, but yeah EU has been doing what Im talking about https://www.pps.org/article/livememtraffic
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think you can take that 53 mph to court. Thats way too close to be legit.
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
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.
reddit post about possibly uncalibrated speed meters
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.
American residential streets often have stop signs at every intersection
Not sure where you live but in America stop signs are everywhere. You can’t go anywhere without hitting multiple.
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.
I’ve been driving for about a decade and a half now, including a few years here and there working jobs with a lot of wheel time. Either pizza delivery or cable technician or driving around a box truck.
I have never gotten as much as a speeding ticket. I typically don’t speed more than 5~10 mph over the limit. If it’s a 35 or 40 in a city area though I will typically stay the speed limit. Sometimes I go a little ham on country roads in the middle of nowhere. I drove through central Florida once at like 4am and I peaked at like 120mph because I hadn’t seen another car for at least an hour.
I think it probably depends on your jurisdiction, but nobody really respects the laws. On the interstate near my house, the speed limit is 65 but it might as well be 80. Cops will pass you and people will pass the cops and nobody cares.
I think the speeding laws are just to give the cops a reason to pull you over if they want you - OR a way to get people that are really being crazy. For example if you’re going 110 in a 65 you deserve to get pulled over and given a ticket or worse, depending on context.
I think it probably depends on your jurisdiction
This is the real answer. There’s a town near me that used to be training grounds for new sheriff’s deputies. The accepted rule was to never deviate by even 1mph there. I recently heard that training doesn’t happen there anymore, but I’m not willing to risk it unless I’m in the middle of a bunch of other cars that are also going above the limit so I don’t stand out.
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 also follow traffic laws. People often rage at me completely unprovoked, and I’ve been in more collisions than I can count.
What matters is you are not responsible for the actions of others. Yes driving 60 in a 25 is incredibly dangerous. See what happens when you slam on the brakes for the work zone sign, it’s absurd.
But it’s not our job to police that. The best we can do is follow the law, try to avoid the idiots, and collect the insurance money when they do hit us and move on.
Where do you live? I do the speed limit all the time. Only get a random pissy BMW once a month or so.
Just ignore them. If they want to be idiots, let them. Doesn’t mean you have to as well.
The last ticket I got was from parking within 15 feet of a fire hydrant. There’s no sign or marker indicating where 15 feet is, so I had to basically eyeball it and hope that I was far enough from the hydrant. Yeah, that’s one that’s almost impossible to practically obey.
My wife once got a ticket in Boston for an expired meter. The meter was labeled as being in effect until 6pm. The ticket was issued at around 6:30.
When she went to fight it the traffic judge was adamant that she should know all meters in the city are enforced until 8pm. He let it go but warned her not to do it again.
A few weeks later she ran into one of the parking enforcement people who said that they know a handful of meters are labeled wrong, but despite reporting them nothing ever happens. He said they do try to be lenient and ignore cars parked in those spots between 6pm and 8pm but sometimes they’re just so frazzled from the day that they forget…
What on earth are we expected to do?
Pay the fines. It’s a money-making scheme, not a public-safety scheme.
Exactly. It’s also a “jerks on power trips” scheme for the police. A ticket for going 53 in a 50 zone will be dismissed by any judge, but the cops know you probably don’t have the time to waste taking them to court over $100.
I’m terms of other impatient drivers, that’s why you have a middle finger on each hand.
Not to mention it’s easy work for them. Why solve a murder when you can just bust some people for driving at the same speed as traffic? Solving murders doesn’t generate any money for the department or state.
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.
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 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.
I’m confused why America has such strict rules on it. I’m pretty sure Australia has 5-10% leniency for inaccuracies in measurement.
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
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.
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.
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.
Realize that a lot of traffic laws are more or less designed to make everyone a criminal. That leaves it up to the cop to decide who they like to pull over.
Sprinkle in a little racism and bam! This is America.
