Meanwhile where I am, if I see a cop on the highway, I just check to make sure I'm going less than 20km/h over the limit. Occasionally I wasn't but still got ignored.
Sounds like Belgium?
Nope, Canada.
Let's not pretend obeying the speed limit will save you.
Once got pulled over for doing 25 in a...25. when I raised my eyebrows he said it was "foggy" out. Could see clear as day all the way down the road. I'm white too so it wasn't even a race thing. I get it was a retirement area but ppl really got nothing better to do.
Obviously it was pretext for seeing who you are.
This or if you drive anything other than a big lifted truck the small town cops will swarm you.
Thank Satan we don't really have this problem in Quebec. What a bunch of fucking losers.
you should have probably put american small town cops as title. Cops have actual training in europe and other places and speed limits or road safety can't be compared either. In the small town I live in cops are very down to earth and are generally fair unless you are being an asshole. Our laws are made so the fine is comparable to the % of speed over the limit and cops don't care much unless you are 5-10% above the limit. This means they go after you if you drive with your head under the arm in cities, but you can go a little above on the highway. We also have car regulation so you don't drive deathtraps that are a safety hazards to OTHER people. Which is why the shit cybertruck is not legal in EU and never will be.
Anyone familiar with cops in europe knows experiences vary widely. British police have gone on a campaign to arrest people for preaching on sidewalks. German and other european police physically beat people with clubs without much provocation. They were arresting people for talking walks by themselves in the woods in 2020-2022. In Switzerland, they use water cannons to spray protesters when it's below freezing. Small towns in America are pretty laid back for the most part, because there's not much happening to begin with. All of the murder is in the larger cities or a few regions where they have a history of high crime like northern alaska and native american reservations and the areas marijuana is farmed illegally by organized criminals. These are easily avoided.
A small town near me got in deep shit for being small town assholes recently. That and embezzlement. This town is on a major highway to Myrtle Beach. They also prided themselves on the "safety" and "smallness" of their town, while also preying on vacationers.
Their municipal police police would aggressively enforce the speed limits. Every time I had to go through there you'd see someone running speed at nearly every speed zone change. As little as one to two mph over would get you an interaction with them. They also would issue tickets for far more than was normal. Up to 10 over was easily a $400 ticket, when most places would only do $150. They were also kind and polite about it. They'd offer to take payment right then and eliminate the speeding points. Which was the issue.
If you paid there they wouldn't report the ticket. Or the cash. The town kept the money; the town was making about a million a year. You were fined under a safety ordinance and not traffic law. They were also supposed to share portions with the county and state, but didn't. They argued that it was not a traffic violation. This town of barely 700 people had fifteen police just running speed traps.
They eventually were found out, and the municipal police department was heavily curtailed. The county manages speed through there and is nowhere as aggressive about it.
The town had 250 people and 50 police officers.
The shocking part is where it says that's only 5X the cops for a town that size. Wtf? One or two should suffice in a town that small. We have a town here with just over a thousand, and they have no city cops at all.
10 cops means 1-2 on shift at a time, once you figure in days off, needing people working 24 hours a day, a leadership position or two, and people out sick/vacation, 10 people isn't as many as it sounds.
However, even 10 is a huge amount for a town of 250. I think most towns of 1-2k people generally don't have a department and usually rely on county police.
Jfc 😅
half of the department’s 50 officers "had been suspended, demoted, terminated or dishonorably discharged from their previous law enforcement jobs," the station said, citing personnel records obtain under a Freedom of Information request.
It's never very clear in the US if the speed limit is locally a thing, a suggestion, or completely ignored. As a visitor, it's always problematic. I wish they got that sorted out.
The way speeds are decided are rather ridiculous too. If I recall in some places (ahem: suburbia), it's some kind of consensus of local landowners.
So they'll set the speed limit to 35 mph along a ridiculously long and straight road with nothing on either side but suburb entrances and sidewalks.
The limits in my city are such that going 10 over is usually no big deal. It's weird.
Because also if you stuck exactly to that limit, everyone drives dangerously around you because they'd go faster driving a horse and buggy lol.
In the US, there is the "85th percentile rule" that says the speed limit can't be lower than the speed 85% of the traffic travels on that road. It's not always followed, but is a factor I've heard cited in speed limit discussions several places I've lived, mostly as an argument against traffic calming measures for pedestrian safety. But to my understanding, the law implies that if enough people decide not to follow the speed limit, it could theoretically be deemed legally too low and would need to be increased.
Yeah, I live in small-town US where many residents have complained about speeding in areas with heavy pedestrian use. In response, the local PD was quoted on the front page of the paper saying they don't have time to enforce speed limits. A few years later and they were again on the front page saying that they don't have time or equipment to enforce parking regulations. So here they're somewhere between suggestion and completely ignored, but the next town over is filled with speed cameras and highway patrol sitting in wait to meet their quota...both towns on the same road.
don't have time
TF are they doing, then?!
Figuring out ways to look understaffed so they can get more officers...around that time their call volume "doubled" over a year because they changed how they tracked calls. (Accounting for that, it was roughly the same.) But they used that to ask for another officer...and I assume they probably even need another one if we want them to do speed enforcement.
Figuring out ways to look understaffed so they can get more officers...around that time their call volume "doubled" over a year because they changed how they tracked calls. (Accounting for that, it was roughly the same.) But they used that to ask for another officer...and I assume they probably even need another one if we want them to do speed enforcement.
When I first went to the US, the unrealistically low speed limits were one of the first things I noticed when driving.
I kinda assumed that this is by design so that police can pull over anyone they feel like since virtually everyone drives over the speed limit in some areas as it is so ridiculously low.
I mean you could just follow the limit. Just saying.
Small town cops looking for 1% less white skinned people and even a hint of a foreign accent.
I never understood why americans seem to feel entitled to drive illegally fast over an already heavily overestimated speed limit on their humongous death machines they call cars.
The average majority of people's commutes are over 30 minutes, about an hour every day. Many people's commutes are much longer. Combine it with zoning laws that make routine errands and necessities (like grocery shopping, pharmacy's, basic services) much further from residential areas meaning the average American has to drive a lot. A substantial portion of their life is just spend driving, potentially 1-2 hours a day. If you are already up to your neck in work and chores, that time is extremely precious, so it's understandable people want to minimize it by speeding, not considering the real risks if doing so.
I spent some time in very rural Maine, and EVERYTHING, even the most basic of necessities were at least 30 minutes away. The nearest hospital was an hour. People speed there like crazy.
I'm not on the side of speeders, or condoning their actions and behaviour, but do realize that it's coming from a place, not necessarily of entitlement, but desperately trying to claw some of their life back
yada yada, I commute more than an hour per direction by bus to go to university in my city and you don't see me crying (well OK maybe a bit) about it.
Speed limits, at least on state and federal roads, are often governed by a set of rules that basically look at sight distances, entrances to the roadway, and some other factors. So there are rules to them. I think the highway speed limits are generally fine.
Putting all that aside, entitlement is absolutely a thing, and this post does a good job of nailing it. There's a speed limit. If you go over it, you are taking a risk. If you get pulled over for 70 in a 65 and you bitch about it, you're an entitled idiot. I say this as someone who exceeds the speed limit, it's just how things operate over her. But if I get tagged for doing so, I will eat it, because I was knowingly breaking the law. Now, if it were more regularly enforced, I might not do it, but it seems to be that 20% above the posted limit is acceptable, and so that's how I operate (except I do 25 in residential areas because there is no reason to speed on streets people are walking and kids are riding bikes).
Speed limits in the U.S. aren't set to any specific standard. 6 lane divided highways and laneless rural roads carry the same speed limit.
Speeds limits are known for being way too high in that country.
Speed limits are routinely posted 30-50% below the actual "maximum safe speed" in my neck of the woods. The US is many things, but it's far from homogenous
No sympathy to drivers of objectively environmentally worse modes of transportation unwilling to follow traffic laws.
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