How is it even possible/practical to obey traffic laws?

I’m talking specifically about obeying the speed limit, doing a full stop at stop signs, etc. After receiving a speeding ticket for doing 53 in a 50, As an experiment I went a full day obeying all traffic laws 100% and it caused so much road rage. For example, there is a 2 lane road near me with a speed limit of 50 (where I got the ticket), traffic usually moves at about 60/65. There was a huge line of cars behind me and nowhere to pull over. As soon as an opening came up on the shoulder I was about to pull over and one of the cars behind me blew past me on the on the right blaring their horn. Then another truck passed me at the next opportunity and brake checked me. Both of these cars proceeded to run a red light about 1/4 mile ahead of me endangering others. By far the worst part of driving on this 2 lane road was the 25 mph work zone which is completely ignored by everyone else. It effectively resulted in me doing 25 mph in a “60” which is very dangerous.

Having needed to spend the entire day pulling over at every opportunity to let people pass I inevitably picked up a drill bit and got a flat tire.

Even matters as simple as stopping completely at a stop sign for 1 second cause immediate anger and dangerous behavior from other drivers.

What on earth are we expected to do? All I want is to avoid speeding tickets and drive safely.

krayj,

After receiving a speeding ticket for doing 53 in a 50

This sounds too ludicrous not to be made up.

I’ve received a LOT of speeding tickets in my life. The only time I’ve EVER gotten a ticket for doing <5 mph over the posted limit is when I was actually doing +14 over the posted limit but the cop wrote it for 10 less than actual because he had to write a ticket but didn’t want it to be excessive…so the final ticket ended up being 54 in a 50 zone.

I can’t imagine anyone not being able to beat a +3 over speeding ticket in court. I probably wouldn’t even call my attorney for that and would just fight it myself.

SeeJayEmm,
@SeeJayEmm@lemmy.procrastinati.org avatar

Uh, what? This whole post feels like rage bait or you live in a very angry and unsafe area. I don’t experience any of this.

No one gets a ticket for a 53 in a 50 and if you actually did it would get thrown out in court. Definitely fight that.

2 Lane roads. I hate em. But but that’s all I have within 10 miles of me. I pass people, people pass me, no one is blaring their horn and brake checking (which is extremely dangerous) at all, much less daily.

Never in my 30 years of driving have a had someone lose their shit over stopping at a stop sign or a red light. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen someone run a red light.

And while people do speed in work zones, doing 60 in a 25 work zone will lose you your license here. That would be an exceptionally stupid thing to do.

This reads like an angry exaggerated rant by someone pissed they got a ticket. If it’s not, I’m sorry you live in an area full of unsafe angry people.

HRYDJPCHNMNDGBLTFIYA,

I also follow traffic laws. People often rage at me completely unprovoked, and I’ve been in more collisions than I can count.

What matters is you are not responsible for the actions of others. Yes driving 60 in a 25 is incredibly dangerous. See what happens when you slam on the brakes for the work zone sign, it’s absurd.

But it’s not our job to police that. The best we can do is follow the law, try to avoid the idiots, and collect the insurance money when they do hit us and move on.

BirdyBoogleBop,

Where do you live? I do the speed limit all the time. Only get a random pissy BMW once a month or so.

andthenthreemore,

Just ignore them. If they want to be idiots, let them. Doesn’t mean you have to as well.

son_named_bort,

The last ticket I got was from parking within 15 feet of a fire hydrant. There’s no sign or marker indicating where 15 feet is, so I had to basically eyeball it and hope that I was far enough from the hydrant. Yeah, that’s one that’s almost impossible to practically obey.

IphtashuFitz,

My wife once got a ticket in Boston for an expired meter. The meter was labeled as being in effect until 6pm. The ticket was issued at around 6:30.

When she went to fight it the traffic judge was adamant that she should know all meters in the city are enforced until 8pm. He let it go but warned her not to do it again.

A few weeks later she ran into one of the parking enforcement people who said that they know a handful of meters are labeled wrong, but despite reporting them nothing ever happens. He said they do try to be lenient and ignore cars parked in those spots between 6pm and 8pm but sometimes they’re just so frazzled from the day that they forget…

Blackspider1111,

“After receiving a speeding ticket for doing 53 in a 50…”

How to tell me you’re not caucasian without telling me your not caucasian.

SwingingTheLamp,

I’m going to remember this question next time I see one of those “BuT cYcLIsTs!” idiots.

driving_crooner,
@driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br avatar

Car drivers are the only group of people who can disregard the laws that govern them, risk the lives of everyone around them, and then cry that 1% of the time they get penalized for it.

sirico,
@sirico@feddit.uk avatar

Standards of driving sound bad where you are

MrSlicer,

In the US speed limits are usually set by what speed the average motorist drives.

agent_flounder,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.one avatar

It’s a game unfortunately.

Sometimes you get nailed for something fucking stupid like 53 in a 50. (Maybe that is worth contesting). Sometimes you deserve it (like me doing 40 in a 25 one time). But there’s no justice. Loads of people get away with breaking loads of laws all the time before they finally get caught.

So it’s a game for us. But actually it’s a money maker for the government doing the enforcing.

One thing works well for me: using Google maps to navigate everywhere I go has the benefit of speed trap notifications.

GiddyGap,

All I’m getting from this is that, on the day you obeyed all traffic laws, you were the good driver and the others were bad. Things didn’t run smoothly because the others didn’t obey the traffic laws, not because you obeyed them.

CmdrShepard,

If that many people are ‘breaking the rules’ then maybe we need to look at the rules rather than asking 95% of drivers to change their habits. I know in my state the speed limit is capped at 65MPH on the freeway, but the second you cross the border, the “maximum safe” speed on that same freeway somehow jumps 5-10MPH. How is that possible?

The reality is that it’s a game like the other commentor pointed out. We’re allowed to break the rules and drive 80MPH with the rest of traffic so long as the state can quickly and easily generate additional revenue off of it by catching a few stragglers each day and charging them hundreds of dollars in fines.

GiddyGap,

The reason that many people can’t stick to traffic rules like speed limits and full stops, as I see it, is more a result of people lacking patience, they are stressed, they are under constant pressure. And they lash out in road rage against others because they are protected by their little metal box and no one can get to them.

Society needs to slow down and individuals need more empathy. If you have kids, make sure to teach them those two things.

kabobglance,

I follow all traffic laws to a tee, just to be the change I want to see in the world. Pedestrian deaths (negligent manslaughter IMO) by cars are at an all time high in my country. As a bonus, I usually end up right next to the asshole speeding and weaving in and out of traffic at the red light

socsa,

WTF are you talking about, I e stopped at every stop sign for 30 years. This is all in your head. And complete fiction.

darklamer,

Exactly. Especially this complaint about stop signs. That’s not something that a normal motorist would encounter during a normal day of driving. If you ever happen to encounter a stop sign, as rare as they are, and feel that you then can’t spend a minute to make a proper stop there then the real problem certainly must be in your mind.

Toasteh,

Not sure where you live but in America stop signs are everywhere. You can’t go anywhere without hitting multiple.

jscummy,

American residential streets often have stop signs at every intersection

asuka,
@asuka@sh.itjust.works avatar

You do? To be frank, I rarely do unless I’m unfamiliar with the intersection, and neither do 95% of the other people I see on the road. I live in the US.

sxan,
@sxan@midwest.social avatar

I think it depends largely on where you live. There’s a reason it’s called the “California Stop.” And arpund Boston, the shoulder is a completely additional, auxiliary lane, which so. many. people. use.

There’s a funny video where a group of people got on the Atlanta 285 loop, spread out across all lanes, and did the speed limit for a few miles. They had a camera set up on an overpass to watch the procession come around a curve. They say they did it to show how stupid the speed limit on the loop was, and I’m sure it was infuriating for the miles of cars backed up behind them, but… yeah. It showed few people there obeyed the speed limit. I don’t know if this is the original; I don’t remember it being edited by a spastic gerbil, but that’s what I could find before I lost interest.

Getting a ticket for going 3 over is silly. That part does seem contrived, and if contested OP could easily get that thrown out. I suspect either OP was being a douche in some other way, and the cop put something down to harrass them, or they dropped a “0” in the retelling.

dan1101,

You just had some bad luck. I have passed dozens of police while going 3-5 MPH over the limit and they never took a second look at me. Same thing riding with others. The main thing in driving is try to be a decent person and try not to stand out. If you encounter an unsafe asshole, stay away from them. If you are in the middle a line of cars going 10MPH over the limit, you are probably fine. If you at the front of a line of cars going 10MPH over the speed limit, you are more likely to get pulled over because you stand out as the first speeder.

Ocelot,

The point is even doing 1mph over the speed limit is breaking the law, and there’s no excuse for it. If you were doing 51 in a 50 and all of the other traffic was doing 65 mph it makes absolutely no legal difference and there is no argument to what everyone else was doing, because the fact is that you are actually exceeding the speed limit in that scenario. Your driving is dangerous because you were driving too slow, but your ticket would be because you were driving too fast. Its the whole point of my original post, what are you supposed to do exactly?

dan1101,

But why would police look at a line of 100 cars going 65MPH and pull you out of the middle for going 51? Unless it’s for impeding traffic, which is a thing.

It’s not technically right, but you go with the flow of traffic and try not to stand out. Everyone technically breaks traffic laws, including the police. Unless you have exceptionally bad luck or you are traveling past the same speed trap or really strict cop, you likely will not receive any more tickets for 3MPH over. Stop signs though, I always come to a 100% complete stop, if the people behind me don’t like it too bad.

DeadDjembe,

There are excuses that are perfectly reasonable to go over by 1 mph. Speedometers are not perfect, and neither are radar detectors. All my cop friends have told me they are trained to give 10% of the speed to normal variation, so at 50mph you would be within the limit to go 55. This has been my personal experience while driving too.

ZeroEcks,

I’m confused why America has such strict rules on it. I’m pretty sure Australia has 5-10% leniency for inaccuracies in measurement.

AnarchoYeasty,

They do if you’re white. This kind of enforcement usually is reserved for the most heinous of criminals. Those who committed the dangerous crimes of dwb. Driving while black. /S

dan1101,

You generally won’t get a ticket for a few over the speed limit. You can do it hundreds of times without getting a ticket, but an officer can at their discretion pull you over for 1MPH over if they want to. I’ve heard of people successfully arguing in court that infractions like 53 in a 50 are within the margin of error, and others put into question the calibration of the speed detection equipment.

Dark_Arc,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

More than that, if you’re at the front of the line, that indicates you’re holding up traffic (even if it is “worse speeders” you’re holding up) and creating a dangerous situation.

If you’re speeding and someone is tail gating you, just let them pass.

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