Whiskey and Rye

Blow the whistle on speeding tickets

Respectable Americans tend to obey laws. As citizens in a democracy, we elect the people who make laws, so most of the rules tend to be fair and in our best interests. However, there is one type of law that many respectable Americans disobey without remorse—speed limits.

Speeding tickets function more like taxes than the criminal penalties that they supposedly are. On most roads, particularly divided highways, speed limits are set unfairly low. They are enforced primarily for the purpose of making money, making safety merely a secondary concern.

The ostensible purpose of all traffic laws is to make driving as safe and efficient as possible. Laws regulating drunk driving, pedestrian right-of-way, speed in school zones, intersections, lane changes, and reckless driving all serve this purpose effectively. However, speed limits on many roads are designed to increase revenue for police departments and insurance companies.

A 1992 Department of Transportation study consistently demonstrates that it is generally safe to drive at the 85th percentile speed—the speed at which 85 percent of vehicles are going your speed or slower. Speed limits on major roads tend to be between the 30th and 50th percentiles. Accidents are rarely caused by excessive speed alone—the more accurate cause is a difference in speeds between cars. Therefore, a freeway with a speed limit of 55 miles per hour where most cars drive closer to 70 miles per hour creates a hazard for all cars on the road.

It is a myth that motorists will always drive 10 to 15 miles per hour above the posted speed limit. It seems to me that most drivers go at a speed that they consider to be safe for the road and the conditions. Raising the speed limit to the maximum safe speed would decrease the difference in speed between drivers who obey the limit and drivers who drive at what they consider to be a safe speed. Reducing the range of speeds on a particular freeway would increase traffic safety. In fact, when the national speed limit of 55 miles per hour was abolished in 1995, freeway deaths per mile driven actually decreased.

But it is not just about numbers. The maximum safe speed on a given road varies widely depending on weather, time of day, numbers of cars on the road, etc. Speed limits, however, are currently absolute, and that's how police officers treat them. It is a waste of time and resources for police officers to spend time doing nothing but ticketing safe drivers for violating the speed limit. Police should use their judgment and only ticket drivers who are actually driving in an unsafe manner. Such a strategy would focus efforts directly on solving the problem of unsafe driving rather than annoying and hassling safe drivers. Furthermore, unsafe drivers come in both fast and slow varieties. If a speed limit is 70 miles per hour, people can be driving in an unsafe manner and needlessly risk accidents at both 90 and 60 miles per hour.

If the current system is so unfair, why do politicians stand for it? Two groups benefit from needless speeding tickets: local government and insurance companies. Local governments use revenue from speeding tickets to fund police, courts, and public works. Insurance companies get to raise the premiums of drivers with tickets on their records.

Local governments are generally worthy causes. Frequently strapped for cash and unable to provide adequate police and other services, they genuinely need some source of revenue. But it is still not fair to use speeding tickets as a form of taxation.

If cities and counties need more money, then they should go ahead and raise taxes. There's nothing wrong with taxes, provided that the government is willing to admit that they are taxes rather than calling them speeding tickets.

Insurance companies are a different matter. They are not simply your local street repair crew, cop or fireman. They are big corporations that profit from safe drivers who are unfairly ticketed for speeding. They raise insurance rates for all drivers with tickets on their records. Granted, a driver with more tickets—on average—has a higher accident rate. However, that's averaging all ticket recipients—both safe and unsafe drivers. Chances are, drivers ticketed for speeding safely are not more likely to be involved in an accident, yet insurance companies collect higher premiums from them anyway.

In order to maintain this unfair system, insurance companies give police departments radar and laser speed detection devices for free. The more the police use this equipment, the more money the insurance companies make. It's time to end this insurance company gravy train and stop ticketing safe drivers.

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