Rick Lindsay SEZ -
> On this count, I have to <mildly> question "...artificially low..."
> because we, the motorsport-enjoying-minority, make up such
> a tiny fraction of the driving community.
(deletions...)
Studies have been done with a lot more statistical rigor
than I can remember or recite here, but they usually boil
down to this:
If you take the speed limit signs off of a road,
eventually the average rate of speed on that road
will settle out to 10-20 MPH over the previously posted
limit. In this case, "average" is the 85th percentile
speed, which is the mathematical average speed that the
"middle" 85% of the drivers travel at. Why specifically
85% is the "magic number" statistically is the part
I don't remember, but it's a number used in a lot of
behavioral studies. I essence, it weeds out the
kooks at both extremes of a behavioral pattern.
Since most non-highway speed limits are set between
25 and 50 MPH, and the 85th percentile speed usually
ends up being between 35-70 MPH, it seems to indicate
that speed limits are indeed set artificially lower
than the vast majority of drivers would go if left to
their own devices.
Why is such a practice followed, unless it is to
increase the population of speeders and thereby
make it easier to ticket them? Remember, a
perennial advocate of lower speed limits is the
insurance industry, which has a vested interest
in finding excuses to raise the premiums of
*otherwise safe* drivers. If you've never had
an accident in 30 years of driving, but get a
speeding ticket every couple years or so, you're
the insurance industry's ideal customer. A low
risk driver that can be soaked for a lot of money.
Not surprisingly, the insurance industry is a very
vocal advocate of automatic ticket-writing machines
such as "traffic enforcement cameras". The makers
of these machines usually provide them to the police
in exchange for a *percentage of the income* generated
by them. Everybody wins! The jurisdiction gets
revenue, the manufacturer gets profits, and the
insurance company rakes in increased premiums from
otherwise safe drivers. Everybody wins, that is,
except the driver, who's the victim of this money grab.
--
David Breneman | "Advice is somethin' the
Distributed Systems S/W Analyst | other feller can't use,
Airborne Express, Inc. | so he gives it to you."
david.breneman@airborne.com | - Cal Stewart
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