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"I hate these damn bike lanes. Screw your studies. I'm not reading that"
"Cut gas taxes. I see no reason why I should pay to support public transit"
"Fuck speed limits. I'm proud to break the law"
This sense of entitlement is insane.
this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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My impression is that there has been an unspoken compromise between safety advocates and ordinary drivers, with the safety advocates getting to set low speed limits and the drivers getting to ignore those speed limits. Speed cameras are putting an end to that compromise. I wonder if that will generate the political will necessary to increase speed limits - there are, after all, a lot more speeders than safety advocates.
Speed cameras are often implemented in areas where heavy pedestrian traffic exists or a history of car crashes has happened. The goal of the cameras is to reduce speed to prevent crashes and reduces injury and death. The solution is not to raise speed limits just because drivers feel entitled to not follow the limit.
Imagine if we did this for other laws. Well people are still murdering each other even though its illegal so we might as well make murder legal. This may seem like an extreme example but speed is one of the biggest factors in how deadly a crash is, so just increasing the speed limit is basically saying we are okay with more people dying so long as they think traffic is moving faster.
Making something legal because a lot of people are doing it anyway does happen. Consider, for example, the decriminalization of marijuana. I wonder if, in fact, it's actually the most common mechanism by which something that was once illegal becomes legal. I don't hear a lot about criminal laws that were strictly enforced being repealed.
The legalization of marijuana came after there was evidence for decades it was mostly harmless. We have had evidence for decades that speed makes things more dangerous on city streets. There are better ways to get you there faster than jeapordizing public safety.
I think you're right. I wonder where cops fit in that relationship. In Ontario, cops rarely seem to ticket speeding. Is that because of political pressure? Because the police brass don't value speed limits?