[Dennis Kalma]

I find this all pretty amusing and irritating at the same time. The laws are set up to make lawbreakers out of all of us and we just gullibly go along and pay the fine because it is "the law". Well, the law is an a** in this case. Why is it that we happily agree that in a democracy we are willing to take the leaders that the majority of us vote for, yet we are not willing to accept the speed limit to be set at the level where the majority of us feel safe? Us same brilliant souls who elect our representatives somehow do not have the brains how to ensure a correct balance between safety and speed....bugs the crap out of me.


Ask pretty well any traffic engineer, the safest speed for a particular section of road is the 75th (or so) percentile, which typically would result in speed limits going up somewhere around 10 mph or so. Barring any unusual road configuration, it is what needs to be used to maximize the safety/time balance.

As sit turns out, the driver for most speed limits are either cash cow set by the PD or they are set politically by a special interest group. Case in point near us....4 lane, divided, limited access road...speed limit 30 kmh. Why? Because some guy living on the road wanted to cut down on traffic going past his house (the road was there when he bought) so he kept lobbying for years until the finally accepted his argument that the presence of a school required a permanent slow down, not even a school zone limit. Cops just love that road, any time they need to make their quota they just park there and rake in the tickets.


So my view...lobby our beloved politicians to use rational speed limit setting, and then direct the PD to enforce those pretty hard with pretty limited tolerance for overage. Have them focus their attention on the higher risk behaviour like following too closely and driving without due care and attention (like on a cell phone). And make absolutely sure that ZERO ticket revenue goes to the police force, completely eliminate any possible linkup between PD behaviour and revenue...

Just my .02..

Dennis