RE: Speeding is good? No I don't agree...

["L. M. Lloyd" <ubik@austin.rr.com>]

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OK, I have to take issue with this, because though I don't know any
professional drivers or cops, I have had lots of friends who were
civil engineers, two of whom made their living surveying roads to
ascertain recommended speed limits. The first thing you have to
understand is that every road has two distinctly different speed
limits. The first is the recommended safe speed, and the second is
the posted speed limit. In a perfect world these two would be the
same, but for many reasons they rarely are. 

The recommended safe speed, is the speed at which any inspected
vehicle, driven by any licensed driver, should be able to travel down
the given road in any normal lighting or weather condition safely.
For safety reasons this speed assumes a poorly maintained, but still
legally inspectable, vehicle and a poor driver, who still falls
within the limits of the state licensing board. These speed
recommendations are made based on a survey of the average speed of
traffic flow, accident history on the given road, and the engineers
assessment of the drivability and condition of the road. These
recommended speeds must be reviewed every five years. All state roads
(at least in Texas and California which are the only two states I am
familiar with) must fall under certain guidelines to qualify for
their various qualifications, for example, any state highway must
have a recommended safe speed of 80mph, else it is slated for
renovation or decommission.

The posted speed limit, on the other hand, is a number with no rule
other than that it must not exceed the recommended safe speed. Posted
speed limits are set for any number of reasons. Many of these reasons
make perfect sense such as lowering speeds for school zones or
because a city planner wants to promote better traffic flow. However,
many posted speed limits are set for the most spurious of reasons,
for example speed traps, or because an untrained neighborhood
association "feels" that traffic moves too fast down their street. In
fact, any property owner can petition to have the speed limit lowered
along a given street for any reason, and if they can get enough other
property owners to agree with them, then the city council has the
obligation to conceder the request. Some of the more ridiculous
reasons I have seen for approved low posted speed limits include
merchants petitioning to lower the posted speed limits so passers-by
had more time to notice their establishments, and neighborhoods in
the heart of a metropolitan area lowering the posted speed limit to
discourage people from using their neighborhood roads as a shortcut.
Then of course we are all familiar with those areas in which the
local city council has lowered the speed limit on a given high
traffic road, simply to increase the income from moving violations.

What this all boils down to, is that an officer can give you a ticket
for speeding any time you are going over the posted speed limit, but
to prove reckless endangerment, he must prove you were going well in
excess of the recommended safe speed.

What is my point in all of this? Well, simply put just because you
are traveling over the posted speed limit does not mean you are
traveling at an unsafe speed. I, for example, am a fairly competent
driver with better than average reaction time, and a vehicle that
responds better than the minimum required by law. This does not mean
that I can safely travel at 100mph in a zone posted at 30mph, but it
also does not mean that I am constituting a hazard going 40mph. In
fact, if the posted speed limit has not been changed from the
recommended safe speed, then on a clear day in a good car with a
competent driver there should be no hazard involved with traveling at
50mph on a road posted at 30mph. In the city I live in, you could not
even make a reckless endangerment charge stick unless you could prove
the driver was doing at least 35mph over the recommended safe speed.
On a Texas highway that would mean that you would have to be doing at
least 115mph to constitute reckless endangerment, since all Texas
highways should have a recommended safe speed of 80mph.






The goal is to overcome the deliberate nature of the process. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-scirocco-l@scirocco.org
> [mailto:owner-scirocco-l@scirocco.org]On Behalf Of Patrick Bureau
> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 9:07 PM
> To: Scirocco List
> Subject: Speeding is good? No I don't agree...
> 
> 
> Dear Adam I do have to reply and do try to understand thatthis 
> commentary is
> a conversation and not a bashing of any sorts.
> if you should feel I am doing a personal attack, I would like you 
> to tell me
> and I will make proper apologies.
> 
> 1) The "doing about 65mph in a 55 zone and this little old granny 
> pulled her
> land yacht right out in front of me.." if you where doing 55 in a 
> 55 zone..
> you would have plenty of time to slow down and WOULD of seen her
> ahead of time.
> 
> 2) "I drive at high speeds all the time and I have NEVER crashed a
> vehicle or caused an accident of any kind." personally I had a good
> long 
> time friend
> of mine like you, who used to drive professional racing stock cars,
> and drove his car on the road in teh same way , "I am a
> professional 
> driver, get
> out of my way attitute" he died after slamming his car into a truck
> that decided he had the right of way with his 18 ton truck... the
> engine on his Maverick 74 backed up into the car 3 and 1/2 feet
> into the cockpit, he was crushed by the steering wheel into his
> seat and died on impact at  the young
> age of 22.
> 
> Sorry, and Cannot say that I respect speed limit all the time, in 
> town I do
> stick to speed limits, and on the highway on a clear day I do run
> 80-90MPH on some short "empty" 3 lane highways just for kicks. if
> we did not enjoy "speed" we would all be driving Fort T model 1's.
> 
> Though I agree there should be new laws agaisnt young driver 
> (under the age
> of 21) to be allowed to drive over certain areas (like in france
> for example, a new driver has a 90KMPH MAX speed, and is not
> allowed on Highways, nor after dark on roads, and their permit only
> carries a 3 point demerit (normally 17 on a fully licensed driver)
> for 90 months, these drivers are visibly identified on their cars
> with a big rough black and white sticker marked 90. it is not a
> perfect system (knowing full  well from
> personal experience with driving in france many times over) but I 
> am sorry I
> cannot warrant SPEEDING in "in-town streets" and "being a 
> professional" you
> would understand this even more, and you would keep your "speeding"
> on the track and not on the road.
> 
> I am not bashing your opinion nor the way you drive, but there are
> a many "young drivers" online that think redlining a 16v 2300 pds 
> vehicule at every
> gear in streets make them invincible, I have seen (lost 4 friends
> now to speeding in cars and motorcycles, 3 were professional race
> drives, one was my brother (at the age of 25, on his birthday,
> doing 80MPH in a 45MPH zone passing in a curve, going uphill, his
> car plowed into a 
> "caterpillar" , they
> found his body in the back seat on the car...he was passing a group
> of people on bicycles...)
> 
> I will state that though any speed above stated speed limit is
> technically considered speeding, 5MPH above speed limit is not
> mechanically speaking speeding, 10MPH over speed limit is. any
> mechanic can explain and  prove that
> the tachometers in any car is as accurate as the specs of the 
> cars and tire
> manufacturer designed the car with, change the wheels and you 
> change this..
> why most cops do not give out ticket for only 5MPH over limit
> permissible.  
> 
> Sincerly hoping this willnot start a "flame war" as it is NOT
> intended as so.
> 
> Patrick
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-scirocco-l@scirocco.org
> [mailto:owner-scirocco-l@scirocco.org]On Behalf Of adam lefevre
> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 8:04 PM
> To: Scirocco List
> Subject: RE: waking up a cop late at night at a light.... WAS:
> Whatdoyou g et when you pass the State trooper at 85?
> 
> 
> I have to respond to this one...
> 
> I too was professionally trained in Germany (I lived there from 
> the age of 9
> to 23). There are a lot of people driving who got their licenses
> out of a box of Cracker Jacks or in a box of cereal and they have
> no business being on the road. Everyday I see people  not doing
> things that are 
> allowed by law
> or taught in the rediculous driver's ed, and they are causing 
> traffic jams,
> accidents or even killing themselves or others. A lot of "children"
> are driving high-powered cars that mommy & daddy bought for them
> and they have no clue what to do in the event that something should
> go wrong.  For example, a few months ago I watched as some kid in a
> new Camaro ripped out of a parking lot, spun it around 180 degrees,
> jumped a curb and hit my friend's parked Durango head-on. Luckily,
> no one was hurt but the  Camaro was
> trashed in the front and underneath.
> 
> It's not just young people, it's elderly people too. Just today I 
> was going
> home from work, doing about 65mph in a 55 zone and this little old
> granny pulled her land yacht right out in front of me...no one was
> behind me at all. I guess she was late for bingo or something and
> couldn't wait 10 seconds for me to go by.
> 
> I drive at high speeds all the time and I have NEVER crashed a
> vehicle or caused an accident of any kind. Take my scirocco, who
> killed it? My girlfriend, who didn't know what do to when she
> started sliding and then BAM...scirocco, meet the wall...wall, meet
> the scirocco.
> 
> The faster you go on the street, more attention is needed for 
> what is going
> on around you, behind you and way, WAY out in front of you - not
> just the vehicle directly in front of you. You HAVE to know what's
> around 
> you at all
> times. You must compensate for the idiots who don't pay 
> attention, who can't
> see you, who are blabbing on their cell phone or whatever. You must
> be ready - at all times, at any speed - for anything that is thrown
> at you.  
> 
> ok. I could go on and on but I'll stop now. I just had to get that
> off my chest.
> 
> adam
> 86 8v
> 
> 
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