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Wednesday, April 28, 2021

We Are Done: Speed Limit Edition

 Everybody - once in their lives - should drive through West Texas on I-10.

Once you get out of El Paso and past the trailing border cities to Fort Hancock, you get into a world of long landscapes, mesas, rocks, scrub brush - and learn what the word "vista" means.  The towns there - Van Horn, Balmorhea, Fort Stockton, and on to Ozona, where you begin to reach the Central Texas Highlands - are small communities strung out between the wilderness, towns which probably have the same purpose now as they did 150 years ago as rest stops for travelers.

The ground is white and brown with gravel or rocks and dirt.  If you drive at the right time of year, storms blow through - the kind of storms you picture in the deserts, full of wind and driving rain and lightning that flashes above the mesas and drives the periodic windmills faster and faster as they dance between the oil pumps.  If you drive at the wrong time of year, the sun beats done without mercy, straining the air conditioner unit and making one keep an eye on the gas gauge to refuel every chance one gets.

The other reason you should drive it is because of the speed limit.

Once you get out of the towns, the speed limit climbs:  75 mpg, 80 mpg, 85 mph even (in some stretches of road) no speed limit to be seen at all.  The Texas authorities, in their wisdom, decided that in long stretches of land,  mandating a lower speed limit for the sake of a lower speed limit made no sense at all.

Contrast this with my drive in Old Home this past weekend.

Old Home, like many other states, likes to consciously trumpet its 65 mph speed limit and how much more sane and rational it is.  

It may sane and rational.  It is also noteworthy that no-one seems to follow it.

I am actually one of those sticklers for speed limits and so I am always at it. During a three hour total driving time as I drove to my in-laws and back, I passed a total of 4 cars doing at or less than the limit.  Everyone else was bustling along at 70 mph at least, if not higher.  And on a major interstate, so there were plenty of vehicles on it.

Yes yes, I know this happens all the time.  So what does it matter?

It matters because it says a great deal about how people view the law.

The speed limit - everywhere - is a law.  It is not a suggestion or a "good idea".  And yet, more often than not, people break it.  Routinely.

They break it routinely, smug in the fact that it exists and may be doing "some good", whether in safety or environmentally - but it does not apply to them.  They have important places to be and frankly, driving there slowly is just an excuse to waste time.  And after all, almost no-one every gets caught, except those that are going really fast (and probably deserve it).

But it is a mendacious belief.  

By firmly adhering to this practice, they in point of fact make the law meaningless.  Oh, it feels good to say "look how much good this speed limit does" - but in point of fact, they undermine their position by failing to follow it.  They have pushed their minds to where law breaking is really more of an inconvenience than a violation.

They will not fight to change the law.  They will not obey the law.  They just act as if it is not there.

Which is fine, I suppose, if all you are concerned about is speed.  But do not be surprised when all of a sudden, everyone else stops paying attention to or obeying laws that they find inconvenient.

"But the law!"  will be the cry of those righteous folks.  "It is written" they will call out.

"True"  will be the response.  "But other things were written as well, and you ignored them.  You have set the standard.  We are merely following your example."

20 comments:

  1. You are absolutely correct. And the two tier justice system will breed even more contempt of the law.

    Close to where the Central time zone ends and the Mountain begins, is a big curve in the highway. That was about as far as you could get safely if you were heading to El Paso from San Antonio. LOTS of people were fatigued by that point when the speed was 55, or that insane time of 65 at night. And that stretch, especially that curve, is where they died. Raising the speed limit was a smart thing to do. It actually saved lives.

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    1. STxAR, I have driven that curve I did not know the history. But is makes sense.

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  2. I am a stickler for speed limits too. Guys like you and I don't need those laws... but some people on the road today are so dumb or incompetent that they shouldn't be behind the wheel at all. Those laws are there for them, and they will ignore them anyways. Laws are written to reduce us to the lowest common denominator.

    Germany has a better approach to traffic law, IMO. On the autobahns you can go as fast as safety and your skill allows. But the second you get dangerous, they will pull you over and throw the book at you. It doesn't matter if you are a suicidal rocket pilot or an old stubfart putting along slowly in the fast line - the second you become a hazard, you are dealt with.

    People need sane laws, and they need to see them work and that they are enforced for the benefit of everyone. But given some recent rulings in some high profile cases in the last little while, the argument can successfully be made that America is throwing out rule of law in favour of mob rule. It's the same up here in Canada. You can't run a country like this, with laws for some people and laws for others.

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    1. Glen, I have driven on the autobahn in the past. And it is exactly as you note - there is no speed limit, but everyone knows you drive on the right, pass on the left, and then get back over to the right.

      Now that you mention it, I do not specifically remember speed limits in Iceland when we were there outside of the towns, and we did a fair amount of driving. I also do not remember being really concerned about the driving of others.

      Even with Ed's legitimate point below about "Driving for Surviving", I still maintain my original point: either enforce the law or change it. Leaving it as is just makes everyone not take it - or other laws - seriously.

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  3. I am one who routinely breaks the speed laws of our state. I generally drive 5 miles over the limit. I don't do so to smugly flout the law, or for my disregard to the environment. I do so for one reason only. If I drive the speed limit, my life gets routinely put into jeopardy as people tail gate, pass and then cut me off, or come upon me at a higher rate of speed that makes slowing down questionable. If I drive at 5 mph over the speed limit, all that goes away. I would be quite happy if our actual speed limits were enforced as it would make the driving world a safer place. But it isn't practical for a number of reasons and so the safest place I have found is 5 mph over the speed limit. (Mostly just referring to the higher speed limits and not say school zones where the opposite is true.)

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    1. Ed - Fair. That said, I think the original point stands - you are reacting to environment where others are routinely doing so. If that is the case - and it is - why does not your state, or any state, either raise the limit or enforce the law? And why do we accept this as normal? If we are doing it to avoid harm - which you suggest - then something is wrong with either the law or our interpretation of it. Laws are meant to protect and preserve, not create danger.

      As a note, I have been informed in the past by peace officers that especially on Freeways, 5 mph will most likely not get you noticed (not true in small towns, of course, where 1 mph above the limit is enough to get a ticket).

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    2. What Ed said. Most people driving that 5 over the speed limit, though, do it because that is the sweet spot for a speeding ticket, so to speak. But most police departments are so short handed that you need to go a lot faster for them to pull you over.

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    3. Most people do, Linda - and as Ed said, as much for "Flow" and safety as anything else. That said, it still does not address the underlying problem. If more people drove the speed limit, there would be less need to go faster.

      While most police departments are short handed, small towns that use it as a revenue enhancer always seem to have the people...

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  4. There is a difference between Laws and Rules.
    Laws are enforced by Lawyers.
    Rules are enforced by Rulers.
    We can do away with lawyers, but we will always have rulers.
    The trick is to know the rules, or the rulers.

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    1. Good comparison and difference, Just So. But how do we decrease the power of the rulers?

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    2. They need to understand that we have rules too.

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    3. True Just So - Sadly (at least in this current manifestation), it only seems to run one way.

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  5. I'm guilty of going too fast AND too slow, as my wife will tell you, which is why she routinely volunteers to drive. I don't mean to do either, it just happens. I can't argue with what you've written here. Also, what a fine word "mendacious" is.

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    1. Bob, I am forever driving below the speed limit, so much so that The Ravishing Mrs. TB has a regular habit of urging me to at least go the speed limit.

      Mendacious is a wonderful word. I always recheck the definition before I use it, because I want to get it right.

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  6. "But do not be surprised when all of a sudden, everyone else stops paying attention to or obeying laws that they find inconvenient."

    They already do. I don't wear a mask except to see my doctor.
    And when the rules (Constitution) are broken by our supposed betters in Washington a lot more rules are soon to be broken, as Ed points out in his blog, you can bet more will be and more seriously.

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    1. And that is both the relief and the curse, Linda. Once laws stop being obeyed, it is all the laws, not just the ones found to be inconvenient or wrong. It is some of the good laws too.

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    2. Not to belabor it, but the wearing of masks is about so much more than rules.

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    3. No, that is true as well Bob. There is an element of conformity to authority that often extends simply beyond the "ask".

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  7. TB - a famous quote that has some application to what you see in this...

    “I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

    Robert A. Heinlein

    In a lot of respects, I agree with this philosophy. At the same time, though, there can be said to be a responsibility on the part of the individual to adhere fairly closely to cultural norms and the expected/defined rules of behavior, call them laws or regulations if you will. The balancing act is between setting reasonable, logical laws and a persons own definition and observance of personal freedom. We could have an interesting evening discussing this around a fire with a few refreshments.

    Peace to you, friend.

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    1. NM - Heinlein was an interesting fellow, and the older I get, the more he makes sense to me.

      I think the only thing that I could add to your comment is that it also assumes a certain level of moral responsibility of the individual to be able to adhere cultural norms/defined rules of behavior and practice personal responsibility. The mature can do this. Sadly, we seem to lack a great deal of mature people in today's world.

      My hope is, someday in the afterlife, we indeed get to have one large meet and greet for all the bloggers we have known and corresponded with. What a conversation that would be.

      Peace as well to you.

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