Let's say we get rid of speeding laws since they're not 100% enforced. Should we have unregulated driving? Move towards a law that simply says "no driving unsafely"?
IMO those are both poor ideas—they're either unsafe or vague and subjective. I don't see a way around having well-defined speeding laws, yet there are plenty of situations where it's silly to ticket an individual who's going 5+ MPH over the posted limit.
I'm fine with no speeding laws. It's not the speeding part that hurts people and causes damage, it's the crashing part. We, as a culture, love to make these second order laws that outlaw not the harmful action but the risky "derivative" of the harmful action. Because some people might crash when they speed, we outlaw speeding. Because some people might hijack planes, we confiscate nail cutters and toothpaste. Because some people might commit mass-murder we outlaw scary looking guns.
I'd be totally down to remove speed limits in some places (I drive cross-state every weekend, so I'd love it :-) but, in my opinion, speed limits can be useful in certain areas.
Off the top of my head:
- Residential areas (like actual suburbs or cities) would benefit from speed limits. I'm a bit of a libertarian, but I'd prefer we have intentionally slow things down in highly populated areas, particularly where there's dumb little kids running about and chasing balls into the road.
- Parts of unincorporated county where I live have no shoulder, so crashing takes you into somebody's house. (Actually, a local house at the end of a road that comes to a "T" had to install a concrete barrier after a couple cars plowed through their front door.) I can't speak to the math behind it, but IMO it'd be reasonable to limit cars to a speed that prevents them from skipping the little ditch and ending up in my living room.
- School zones. (See first bullet.)
- Hilly areas and curvy roads (or just roads with limited sight distance).
- "Kill zones" (you know, places where elk and deer play chicken with cars).
- Frequently icy/wet/slick areas. (A friend of mine managed to slide his truck off the side of a hill he'd lived near his entire life somehow after forgetting it usually ices over.)
IMO a lot of it has to do with preventing new or infrequent drivers (to the area) from driving too fast for conditions. Sometimes having a "chilling effect" (of sorts) can be a good thing.
I also think that speeding laws are good. However I think it would be better if we designed our streets so that drivers don't drive at dangerous speeds. Have frequent speed bumps, narrow lanes, cobblestones, etc on residential streets.
This can have the unintended side-effect of reducing access for emergency vehicles. I lived in a neighborhood once with a traffic circle at the entrance, initially with a tree and shrubbery. That was gone within a year after the ambulances had driven over/through the shrubs a few times. The traffic circle remained, but the physical barrier became, essentially, a 15mph speed bump.
Narrow lanes, frequent speed bumps have to be considered carefully. With regard to speed bumps, they need to be the gradual sort (where you can actually pass over them at 15-25mph depending on the slope) rather than the ones that effectively force a stop (a curb in the road). Narrow lanes only work if streetside parking is illegal. And so on.
Otherwise, I entirely agree with your point. Design roads so that certain speeds are unattainable, then speed limits barely matter anymore.
Posting a "SPEED LIMIT 25 MPH" sign is not nearly as effective for keeping cars out of your living room as a few stout concrete posts extending 4 ft above ground level and 8 ft under it.
The sign does not prevent someone from driving like an ass.
More or less. While I usually speed, the speed limits do regulate my speed since I dislike tickets. So, I'm willing to drive a speed that: I feel is safe and is close enough to the posted limit so I don't get a ticket.
IIRC Montana didn't have speed limits in a lot of places until the national speed limit came around and the federal government threatened to take away federal highway money if they didn't step in line.
IIRC some part of Australia got rid of speed limits and nothing happened. It wasn't the end of the world like the concerned mothers association predicted
If the speed limit is 65 but in practice driving 70 is still safe enough, we should raise the speed limit to 70.
Going further, there is some evidence that getting rid of the speed limit actually reduces accident rates (eg. German autobahns, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn#Safety:_international...). You can look at these sort of stats in the context of the broader idea of removing explicit rules in order to increase personal responsibility and encourage safer behavior (eg. replacing stop signs and traffic lights with roundabouts, https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Safety/roundabouts/benefits.htm).
Let's say we get rid of speeding laws since they're not 100% enforced. Should we have unregulated driving? Move towards a law that simply says "no driving unsafely"?
IMO those are both poor ideas—they're either unsafe or vague and subjective. I don't see a way around having well-defined speeding laws, yet there are plenty of situations where it's silly to ticket an individual who's going 5+ MPH over the posted limit.
I just don't see a win-win scenario.