Submitter here --
bob2231 I spent my first eighteen years in the Tampa Bay area (second-generation native), the next four in college in Miami, and from 1994 to 2002 I lived in the Palm Beach area, so yes, I do know a *little* about the traffic there. Fortunately this veto does not affect me, because I escaped to Wisconsin three years ago. It's too cold for me here, but I thank God I got out of that place. No traffic, no wait to get into a restaurant, and excellent schools.

/my first greenlight, after two years! Woo hoo!

FYI, the 'speed limit' is not just a suggestion, it's the law.

That is true in Florida, but not in all states.

What states don't have mandatory speed limits?

The states without mandatory speed limits are Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Texas, and Utah. Several other states have a mix of absolute and non-absolute speed limits, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Michican, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Oregon.

The best known non-absolute speed law is California's. Unless you were driving over 55 on a two lane road or 65 on a wider road the police have to prove you were driving faster than the speed safe for conditions. The speed limit is relevant, but not the last word.

Florida already has a law to deal with the really slow drivers. Section 316.081(2) reads Upon all roadways, any vehicle proceeding at less than the normal speed of traffic at the time and place and under the conditions then existing shall be driven in the right-hand lane then available for traffic or as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway except when overtaking and passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction or when preparing for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway. Most states have an identical law which goes equally unenforced.

I live in a keep right except to pass state. People are good about keeping out of the left lane on the wider Interstates. Not perfect, but better than in some other states I could name. Yes, I'm looking at you, Ohio. If you try to hang out at the speed limit in the left lane you're likely to find a state trooper coming up behind you at 85-90 MPH. He expects you to get out of his way. If you don't he will plant himself about five feet off your bumper. If you hit the brakes, even a little, to send him a message you will get an expensive ticket. If you don't move over he'll turn on his lights. If you didn't piss him off too much he'll just zoom past once you move over. If you did annoy him, you will get one of those speeding+left lane blocking tickets I mentioned earlier.

This one's for the benefit of the SHEEP that have fallen for lobbyists' BS.

Left lane hogs cost taxpayers money. To achieve road capacity for a given speed limit, if the lanes are not used efficiently we need to build more lanes at over $1MILLION a mile road cost. The solution for lane capacity is a) to enforce its use to allow the fastest traffic flows b)crank up the speed limit.

Sensible states that have had their treasuries cut short by Dubyah are all passing lane use laws and have cranked up the speed limit. Now you'll know why. Illinois recently did, and there are others that don't come to mind immediately. Since they can't pay the bill for roads, they set cost avoidance as a priority. Now you also know why, here at Fark, we have a tag.

But....

Speeders result in less taxes being paid. A lot of municipalities get 50% of the take on a ticket, so it's a hidden tax that keeps the cops employed. This is why the cops have quotas each month - ticket or get laid off. A team of cops (a "shooter", and several chase/writers) in a trap can rack up $10,000 an hour in tickets AT ONE LOCATION.

When I broke my knee, the cops were not ticketing healthy people from parking in handicap spaces despite a $400 fine - now you know why.

However...

Speeders cost insurance companies money because kinetic energy (the thing that makes the boo-boo in your Lexus fender) goes up with the square of speed. The insurance companies have successfully supressed legitimate highwy speeds. Ever been to Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada...you could do 160MPH and not see any cars for an hour. Fortunately, with shortfalls in state treasuries, the lobbyists are now getting ignored.



thanks to Imageshack for hosting the little gif for me.

kinetic energy (the thing that makes the boo-boo in your Lexus fender) goes up with the square of speed

That's maybe relevant if you have a habit of driving into bridge abutments, but not otherwise. Accidents rarely involve head-on collisions with immovable objects.

In speed limits debates somebody usually drags out a statistic saying that your chance of dying goes like the fourth power of speed. What they don't say is that by those figures the chance of dying reaches 100% at 50 MPH, so every 70 MPH crash must kill you four times. Same flaw -- if you hit something solid head-on at 70 MPH your chance of survival is very small but the vast majority of accidents are not that worst case.

OH MY GOD! Bush actually vetoed a bill passed by a Republican Congress!?!

Oops, my bad. Bush vetoed a bill passed by a Republican legislature.

/Damn, it's so hard telling the dumb one from the dumber one.