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Are you really suggesting most people are very bad drivers?

Not at all, but I am absolutely suggesting you are not a safe driver.

http://sense.bc.ca/research.htm

"This graph shows that crash risk is minimized for those drivers travelling 10-15 km/h over the average speed. (Average speeds in BC are almost always over posted speeds.) Contrary to popular belief, there are more crashes at slower speeds than at faster speeds."

Further as you can see from the 2nd graph, the average speed is above the posted limit, and vast majority of people travel above the posted speed limit.

I drive. I drive a lot. I just must be a better driver than you because I don't speed,

You can see on the second chart that the average speed is approximately 95km/h, 5km/h above the posted speed.

On a typical highway in Canada you therefore would be proudly deviating from the average speed by about -5km/h.

Fom the first chart, we can see that the crash risk of driving at -5km is quite a bit higher than then the minimum crash risk.

Moreover we can see that the crash risk is about the same as driving +25km from the average. Thus driving the speed limit, 90km/h is about the same crash risk as driving 120km/h.

You may think you are a "better driver than me" but you are arguably something of a hazard on the road.

Here are a bunch of quotes from studues of accidents; http://sense.bc.ca/disc/disc-05.htm
Notice that they point out driving too slow is as dangerous if not more dangerous than driving too fast.

The main isue with a few slow drivers is that is requires other drivers to do something. Instead of having two lanes of traffic traveling smoothly at a constant speed, maintaining safe intervals and drivers keeping a constant scan on traffic ahead you have drivers changing lanes( which decreases following distances), changing speed ( which requires other vehicles to change speeds), shoulder checking (which takes eyes off the road ahead). All of these changes cause dangerous situations, stress and fatigue in drivers which increase accident risk.

The purpose of that law is not for safety but to avoid "impeding or blocking the reasonable and normal speed of traffic." In fact, it provides an exception for "safe operation." Does it make sense that driving your automobile slowly for safe operation would be unsafe?

You missed a very important part of the "safe operation" clause. The whole clause usually reads "necessary for safe operation". Driving slowly for safe operation of your vehicle may be unsafe for other vehicles on the road. "Safe operation" deals with the capabilities of the vehicle so that it does not get into a single vehicle accident. For example, a construction crane that is top heavy would be dangerous in corners of driven at highway speeds. Impeding or blocking the reasonable and normal speed of traffic cause unsafe conditions. In some jurisdictions (BC for example) police officers are allowed to remove slow vehicles from the road no matter the reason for them driving slowly.

Higher speed limits on the interstate can decrease accidents, but only if traffic already moves faster than the speed limits. It's not high speeds that are necessarily the problem, but rather variation in speeds. That should be the argument against these things, not that higher speeds save lives. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2621023 http://www.science.org.au/nova/058/058print.htm http://www.consumersunion.org/other/speedlimits/speed031500a2.htm http://www.roadsafety.org.uk/information/publish/article_127.shtml http://sense.bc.ca/disc/disc-09.htm http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/

And the proof of that would be multiple vehicle pile-ups. The ultimate going with the flow.

>No need to mention that many people are dead from speeding.

Incorrect. If you would refer to some data, for example, the Ontario Annual Safety Report, you'll see the following extremely helpful data:

Apparent Driver Action by Class of Collision 2001
Total Collisions: 419,937
Speeding: 3,353

As a percentage, speeding causes 0.8% of ALL collisions. In fact, the biggest culprit for collisions is driving properly (48% of all collisions).

845 people died in collisions during 2001 in Ontario. This means, from 845 people, 6 people have died due to speeding. In comparison, driving properly causes 405 deaths each year, and following to close (generally due to slow drivers followed by angry fast drivers) 72 deaths each year. Simply installing more controlled intersections could reduce the number of deaths significantly, whereas it would take a miracle to save the 6 people who died from speeding.

To get numbers that would fit the entire US, multiply those numbers by 30.

>I don't think that anything's wrong with tracking my speed.

I do. Photo radar kills.

>But, I repeat again, if the highway speed is unreasonable low then you should use your democracy, with which you are so proud you have it, and change the speed limit signs.

Better yet, take all tickets to court. The court system of Ontario is currently so backed up, my following too close ticket will likely fall outside of the 8 month maximum, and will be thrown out on Charter grounds. It wouldn't even take 0.01% more people to fight their tickets to guarantee nobody who fights their ticket will actually have to pay.

FYI, Police in Ontario will ticket you for NOT breaking the speed limit on the 401. True story, it's happened. Only on appeal was the ticket dismissed.

In B.C. (Canada), we went throught the automated enforcement cash grab for a number of years until the new "Liberal" gov't shut it down last year.

There was a group formed during the height of the craziness called Safety by Education Not Speed Enforcement (SENSE). They are an advocacy group and have gathered a lot of information and resources for those who wish to fight this thing at the political level.

They also have suggestions on strategies for dealing with any ticket you receive. Keep in mind that their suggestions specifically deal with BC law, but they can probably be used as a starting point and adapted for use in other jurisdictions.

One example: if you get a ticket in the mail and you know it is you and that you probably were speeding, don't pay it right away. In BC (and I suspect most US jurisdictions) a mailed citation is not enforcable. Therefore in order to convict you in absentia, they must first serve you personally. Sending out a process server costs them money and cuts down on their profit margin. In the BC situation, if you were not home the first time and they had to send out the server again, they ended making loss on the ticket, even if you did eventually pay it. They also have tips for arguing your case if do decide fight your ticket in court.

Usual disclaimers: IANAL, nor have I ever played one on TV; YMMV; void where prohibitted.

Trickster Coyote
I'm just a figment of your imagination.

In B.C. (Canada), we went throught the automated enforcement cash grab for a number of years until the new "Liberal" gov't shut it down last year.

There was a group formed during the height of the craziness called Safety by Education Not Speed Enforcement (SENSE). They are an advocacy group and have gathered a lot of information and resources for those who wish to fight this thing at the political level.

They also have suggestions on strategies for dealing with any ticket you receive. Keep in mind that their suggestions specifically deal with BC law, but they can probably be used as a starting point and adapted for use in other jurisdictions.

One example: if you get a ticket in the mail and you know it is you and that you probably were speeding, don't pay it right away. In BC (and I suspect most US jurisdictions) a mailed citation is not enforcable. Therefore in order to convict you in absentia, they must first serve you personally. Sending out a process server costs them money and cuts down on their profit margin. In the BC situation, if you were not home the first time and they had to send out the server again, they ended making loss on the ticket, even if you did eventually pay it. They also have tips for arguing your case if do decide fight your ticket in court.

Usual disclaimers: IANAL, nor have I ever played one on TV; YMMV; void where prohibitted.

Trickster Coyote
I'm just a figment of your imagination.

They could have been place closed to dangerous intersections instead which would have been more useful... basically, the previous government here used it to raise a crapload of money and not use it for traffic saftey and there was a huge public outcry. The goverment was then voted out and the program was discontinued.

We still however have redlight cameras, which make much more sense and the public seem to agree... for the most part they work pretty well out here.

You can get more info regarding how to fight photo radar tickets and other information at the BC Safety by Education Not Speed Enforcement site.