The American Autobahn
By Eric Peters
We're picking up speed, in case you hadn't noticed.
Since Congress finally ditched the Nixon-era 55-mph National Maximum Speed Limit (NMSL) back in 1995, most states have raised their highway limits to at least 65 mph; more than than two dozen states have raised them to 70-mph -- and in Texas, it's 75. For the most part, posted speed limits have been posted to reflect the natural flow of highway traffic -- in the 70-80-mph range -- just as the designers of the Interstate system had planned, back in the 1950s.
Most of us were driving that fast before, of course -- but we had to live in constant fear of being ticketed for "speeding " -- jamming on the brakes at the first sign of a suspicious-looking Crown Vic or Chevy Caprice.
Now we can drive at the speeds for which our highways were designed -- without risking a a fat fine and "points" on our DMV record.
But for more than 20 years, we had to live with the dumbed-down "double nickel" -- a federal law enacted during the energy crisis as a fuel conservation measure. But when the gas crisis ended, the double nickel stayed -- morphing from a temporary conservation measure imposed at a time of national emergency into a supposed "safety" issue.
"Speed kills" became the mantra -- and the radar trap a fact of American life.
All of a sudden, virtually every driver on the road was guilty of "speeding" -- because the dumbed-down limit was so unnaturally low that complying with it was not only tedious but difficult and awkward -- like forcing oneself to shuffle down the street at the pace of an 80-year-old rather than walking normally. Driving at speeds previously considered perfectly safe and reasonable -- 65, 70, 75 mph -- was suddenly not merely illegal, it was "unsafe." Doing so exposed one to large fines, DMV "points" -- even a "reckless driving" charge if you got caught doing more than 20-mph over the limit (i.e., 76-mph in a 55-mph zone).
It was all nonsense -- and everyone, from the cop pulling you over to the judge levying the fine -- knew it. But the NMSL generated enormous sums of money for local and state governments -- a "revenue stream" they quickly became addicted to and would not give up easily.
Hence the 20-year legacy of double-talk about "safety" and "speed kills" that was used to prop up the corrupt system of absurdly under-posted speed limits -- and the gauntlet of radar traps set up to exploit motorists at every turn. We're still living with much of the after-effects today -- even though the NMSL is history and highway limits have been raised back to reasonable levels.
With the exception of a minority of hysterics who actually believed driving 65 or 70 on a major interstate in a modern car to be "dangerous" (despite abundant evidence to the contrary), most Americans knew in their own minds they were doing no wrong ignoring the double nickel -- and accordingly felt no moral guilt when they did so. Evading cops -- with radar detectors, by "flashing" other motorists to alert them to the presence of a smokey up ahead -- became a national pastime. But the corrupting of traffic safety enforcement was no laughing matter.
As with Prohibition, police were compelled to enforce unjust laws on absurd pretexts -- harassing sensible and otherwise law-abiding people for no good reason. This created an ugly rift between ordinary citizens and the police that has yet to be healed. Ordinary motorists rightly resented the cop lurking in a cut-out with his radar gun, ready to hand out a $100 piece of payin' paper. Instead of focusing on genuinely dangerous driving (inappropriate speed for conditions, tail-gating, weaving through traffic, etc.) the majority of time and effort was spent radar-trapping -- because it was the easiest, fastest way to generate "revenue." Many departments had (and still have) explicit performance quotas -- each traffic patrol officer being strongly urged to write a certain number of tickets per month or face some sort of sanction.
The abandonment of the NMSL was a great leap forward in restoring sanity to America's traffic enforcement system. But a great deal of work remains to be done -- starting with a shift in emphasis away from enforcing "technical fouls" (such as "speeding") that do not necessarily involve dangerous driving, to a laser-like targeting of the handful of genuinely unsafe (or incompetent) motorists who are the biggest threat to themselves and other drivers.
It might raise less cash -- but it would make our roads much safer.
By Eric Peters
We're picking up speed, in case you hadn't noticed.
Since Congress finally ditched the Nixon-era 55-mph National Maximum Speed Limit (NMSL) back in 1995, most states have raised their highway limits to at least 65 mph; more than than two dozen states have raised them to 70-mph -- and in Texas, it's 75. For the most part, posted speed limits have been posted to reflect the natural flow of highway traffic -- in the 70-80-mph range -- just as the designers of the Interstate system had planned, back in the 1950s.
Most of us were driving that fast before, of course -- but we had to live in constant fear of being ticketed for "speeding " -- jamming on the brakes at the first sign of a suspicious-looking Crown Vic or Chevy Caprice.
Now we can drive at the speeds for which our highways were designed -- without risking a a fat fine and "points" on our DMV record.
But for more than 20 years, we had to live with the dumbed-down "double nickel" -- a federal law enacted during the energy crisis as a fuel conservation measure. But when the gas crisis ended, the double nickel stayed -- morphing from a temporary conservation measure imposed at a time of national emergency into a supposed "safety" issue.
"Speed kills" became the mantra -- and the radar trap a fact of American life.
All of a sudden, virtually every driver on the road was guilty of "speeding" -- because the dumbed-down limit was so unnaturally low that complying with it was not only tedious but difficult and awkward -- like forcing oneself to shuffle down the street at the pace of an 80-year-old rather than walking normally. Driving at speeds previously considered perfectly safe and reasonable -- 65, 70, 75 mph -- was suddenly not merely illegal, it was "unsafe." Doing so exposed one to large fines, DMV "points" -- even a "reckless driving" charge if you got caught doing more than 20-mph over the limit (i.e., 76-mph in a 55-mph zone).
It was all nonsense -- and everyone, from the cop pulling you over to the judge levying the fine -- knew it. But the NMSL generated enormous sums of money for local and state governments -- a "revenue stream" they quickly became addicted to and would not give up easily.
Hence the 20-year legacy of double-talk about "safety" and "speed kills" that was used to prop up the corrupt system of absurdly under-posted speed limits -- and the gauntlet of radar traps set up to exploit motorists at every turn. We're still living with much of the after-effects today -- even though the NMSL is history and highway limits have been raised back to reasonable levels.
With the exception of a minority of hysterics who actually believed driving 65 or 70 on a major interstate in a modern car to be "dangerous" (despite abundant evidence to the contrary), most Americans knew in their own minds they were doing no wrong ignoring the double nickel -- and accordingly felt no moral guilt when they did so. Evading cops -- with radar detectors, by "flashing" other motorists to alert them to the presence of a smokey up ahead -- became a national pastime. But the corrupting of traffic safety enforcement was no laughing matter.
As with Prohibition, police were compelled to enforce unjust laws on absurd pretexts -- harassing sensible and otherwise law-abiding people for no good reason. This created an ugly rift between ordinary citizens and the police that has yet to be healed. Ordinary motorists rightly resented the cop lurking in a cut-out with his radar gun, ready to hand out a $100 piece of payin' paper. Instead of focusing on genuinely dangerous driving (inappropriate speed for conditions, tail-gating, weaving through traffic, etc.) the majority of time and effort was spent radar-trapping -- because it was the easiest, fastest way to generate "revenue." Many departments had (and still have) explicit performance quotas -- each traffic patrol officer being strongly urged to write a certain number of tickets per month or face some sort of sanction.
The abandonment of the NMSL was a great leap forward in restoring sanity to America's traffic enforcement system. But a great deal of work remains to be done -- starting with a shift in emphasis away from enforcing "technical fouls" (such as "speeding") that do not necessarily involve dangerous driving, to a laser-like targeting of the handful of genuinely unsafe (or incompetent) motorists who are the biggest threat to themselves and other drivers.
It might raise less cash -- but it would make our roads much safer.