Only you and I should be allowed to speed

Let the roads be our canvas

I hail from a small town where driving is necessary. I have been driving for five years now, and I have never been in an accident. No accidents, no tickets (take a moment to knock on wood, please). However, I speed during much of my driving. While matching the pace of traffic, I am consistently moving anywhere from five to ten kilometers above the posted speed limit. I have three questions to examine: Is speeding common? Is speeding okay? And who can be trusted to break the speed limits?

Is speeding common?

Yes, speeding is common. A survey from “The Zebra” survey shows that 87% of American drivers admit to speeding (n=1210). A separate survey from the University of Purdue is “consistent with other research,” showing that “two-thirds of all drivers regularly exceed posted speed limits, and roughly one-third report driving at least 10 mph [16 km/hr] faster than most other vehicles” (n = 988). In the case of the first study, the result is likely conservative due to social desirability bias.

Anecdotally, I have only ever seen speed limits respected as suggestions and never as the strict “this is seriously the maximum speed you can ever go and only ever in ideal conditions” law I learned while studying for my learner’s permit.

(It may be the case that I and the people I surround myself with are particularly reckless drivers. I’d counter by saying that I and the people I surround myself with are relatively young, early-twenty-somethings. Compared to older, more confident, and further removed from their driving tests drivers, we are likely more hesitant to break the limit.)

Is speeding okay?

TLDR: Because driving has become safer, and because of the relatively low risk that speeding adds, yes, speeding is relatively harmless if done with caution.

1. Speed limits are out of date

Many speed limits were set decades ago, but lawmakers haven’t adjusted for inflation. As safety education and car safety technology advances, traffic fatalities have continuously decreased. My car is more easily maneuverable, the brakes work quicker, and my dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree in case of any risk—my 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan laughs in the face of your 1972 speed limits! Of course, in the 70s, your average drunk-driving, unaware of shoulder checking, cruising in a lead-painting driver should absolutely be following those speed limits. But I don’t need to. More precisely, many speed limits were set with a specific tradeoff between convenience and risk management. As driving becomes safer each year, that balance moves further toward risk management. I can accept the tradeoff that society determined was okay, but continuing to abide by limits that move the goalposts year after year is undemocratic and, frankly, unacceptable. So, why are they still low?

Politicians do not campaign on adjusting the speed limits. No(t enough) single-issue “whoever adjusts the speed limit will win my vote” voters exist, and independents are unlikely to be swayed by speed limits. Furthermore, I would assume that adjusting speed limits is subject to massive bureaucracy, with different ministries, municipalities, and interest groups bargaining to represent their interests, meaning adjustments are always made slowly.

Moreover, artificially depressing the speed limits has three benefits.

1. For the safety-oriented, keeping speed limits low can anchor drivers to safer speeds. Most drivers have an upper limit on how far they will break the speed limit because erring too much might risk serious consequences. Further, for a minority of drivers that respect the speeding limit, they may be sufficient to slow down the overall rate of traffic, making the roads safer.

2. For the greedy, keeping speed limits low can help bolster city revenues from traffic violation tickets.

3. For the evil, keeping speed limits low limit may help keep insurance companies profitable.

So, these laws are sticky, multiple concerted incentives point towards keeping them low, and the diffuse, nebulous frustration of drivers isn’t enough to make this issue worthwhile. However, a low speed limit doesn’t mean a bad speed limit. For example, I will continue respecting the 30 km/hr school zone limits even if those limits feel slightly too low—what matters most in a school zone is minimizing risk. So, lets examine risk.

2. What is the Risk of speeding?

Let’s chew on some data. Most sources I’ve checked say that every 16 km/hr that you speed over the limit doubles your risk of a fatal accident. In Canada, there were 140 thousand total car-related injuries compared to 26 million registered vehicles. These odds seem promising. More precicely, I have a one in 74 million chance of dying in a car accident per mile driven. 

I don’t flatly speed everywhere; I speed at my discretion. So, when I’m on a 5-kilometer downstretch of the highway going to work, even though the speed limit is 80 km/hr, I will continue to (allegedly) go, let’s say, 96 km/hr (Funnily enough, highways are considerably safer than other roads). 

Yes, speeding reduces reaction time to potential hazards and increases the likelihood of a fatal accident. However, keeping speeds low around corners, bad weather conditions, and populated areas is likely sufficient to manage the worst risks of speeding. Even if I devoured the bullet, a 2/74 million chance of dying is still so vanishingly low that, honestly, I can’t easily wrap my head around it.

This bad habit may save me a few minutes of discomfort each year, with an expected value of 20-30 dollars in tickets and a very high intangible value of getting home faster and beating all the other punk drivers into the merging lane.

Who can be trusted to break the rules sometimes?

After writing this essay, I found myself at a roadblock of sorts. Let me explain.

After researching, I am slightly less concerned with the risk of speeding. However, I would not prefer a world where every driver was similarly less concerned. Firstly, I don’t care about other drivers and their satisfaction. Secondly, society is likely better off erring towards safety for climate and economic reasons. I enjoy safe roads, and hypocritically, I would sacrifice everybody else’s convenience to increase collective good in most hypotheticals.

So, for society, stay within the limits. For myself and the friends who drive me around, speeding is sometimes okay. As we have established, the tradeoff between safety and satisfaction is negligible when a cautious, discerning, and intelligent driver takes the wheel. Obviously, I fall into this category, and so do all my friends. However, I, like everyone else, am biased in my favour—80 percent of drivers rate themselves as above average. I won’t sit here and flex my no-accidents and no-tickets record, my various intellectual feats, or how people everywhere comment on how incredibly cautious, discerning, intelligent, and handsome I am. These would be bad arguments. Thus, outside some objective metrics to measure driver skill, it becomes really tough to make a conclusion about who can be trusted to break the speed limits.

But if you are reading my blog, then you are clearly cooler and smarter than most, so I trust you to speed.

What should we do about the speed limits? What is your stance on speeding? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.