Few Respect Stupidity

Few people with working brains respect the obviously stupid. Which explains why almost everyone disrespects posted speed limits … by ignoring them.

Any law or edict  that is almost universally ignored can be safely presumed stupid. Or – as here – cynically dismissed as a tool for separating people’s money from their persons. Most speed limits (and thus, speeding tickets) fall into this latter category.

None of this is news.

But because speed limits exist as an artificial barometer of reasonable maximum velocities, there is the problem of a generally distorted perception of what constitutes reasonable average velocities.

The Clover who mopes along at say 44 in a 45 contents himself with the thought that he is “doing the speed limit” and feels righteous or at least, justified, about not yielding to the faster-moving traffic stacking up behind him. Even though almost everyone is doing more than the limit – or at least, trying to – he does not question the reasonableness of the statute. Typically, he defends it. Takes the position that whatever the posted maximum is, the fact that it is posted constitutes definitive proof that it is the balls-to-the-wall highest safe speed; that anyone (which is almost everyone) who drives faster deserves a ticket.

And – in his defense – if the lawful maximum is 45, going any faster does expose him to being ticketed.

We all live in constant dread of this.

Which fact explains both the characteristically bunched-up traffic that defines American roadways and the resigned passivity of most American drivers – who have been conditioned to be positively terrified of acceleration.

Never in the history of the car has the average, nothing-special A to B transportation appliance been as potent as today – yet traffic probably flows no faster than it did in 1970 and probably slower, because the consequences for daring to use even 80 percent of the capability of, say, a new Toyota Corolla entail more grief than using 100 percent of the capability of a new Z28 did back in 1970.

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