[Jeff Higgins]

I have worked and driven in countries with either no speed limits, or speed limits set so high as to be a real challenge to beat, outside of their town and city limits. Speed limits enforced vigorously within town and city limits, with no enforcement whatsoever outside of those limits.

Their accident rates are lower than ours. Even on far, far narrower roads, with tighter, often unsighted corners and steeper unsighted hills. They drive much faster on those roads than we are allowed to drive on our much more open, flowing, wide, gently curving, well sighted roads. And their accident rates are lower than ours.

I do not speed in town, on the freeways, or in any sort of populated, congested area. I agree that we need enforcement in those areas. The more populated and congested the more enforcement. I'm all for that.

Yet that is not what we see. We see the heaviest enforcement where and when folks are actually comfortable speeding. I saw a great example just this morning - Sunday morning - a state trooper with his LASER gun out on a freeway overpass on I-5 going into Seattle. It was 6:00 am. The freeway was almost completely empty. What better time to ramp it up a notch and make some time? As safe as it will ever get. Yet there was our trooper. Because he really doesn't give a flying fking hairy rat's ass about safety. He knows full well that it's safe to "speed" at that hour, and that people feel comfortable doing so. He's nowhere to be seen during rush hour on Monday, when the really dangerous jackasses are weaving in and out of traffic, tailgating, cutting people off, and other behaviors that actually do lead to collisions.

And, yeah, back to my backroad. Similar roads, but narrower, with sharper corners, lined with stone fences and hedgerows in other countries would have the limit set by road type at 60 mph. I have personally followed the school bus on this road at over 50 mph. Yet the limit is set to 35 mph. There is only one reason it's set so low, and that reason has nothing to do with safety.