The ethics of driving

You should keep up (or down) with the prevailing traffic speed. Going too fast creates a danger , as does travelling too slowly.
Around here, a normal "keep up speed" is a bout 75 or 80 . Pa people generally keep safe distances when travelling at higher than posted speeds. New Jersey and Virginia are the worst states in the East for craziness.

I believe that each roadway has a "natural" speed. What is involved in the grade of the highway, its width, whether it is a straight road or full of curves, the level of traffic, the state of the weather, etc.

Often, no matter what the speed limit, the majority of drivers attain that "natural speed", even if it is above the speed limit. In fact, where I live, if you drive on the highway at the speed limit, you will get passed, both on the left and the right, honked, and given dirty looks. I maintain that it is actually safer to speed, than to go against the natural flow of traffic.

I don't think that it is immoral if you go above the speed limit, at the road's natural speed, if you use some caution and judgement.

Let's assume that the right lane is going the speed limit, the middle lane is going 10 over, and the left lane is going 20 over.

Do you stay in the right lane, the middle lane, or the scofflaw lane?

DrewDad - I make it my business to never speed in the left lane (except when passing). That is the surest way to be spotted by the law. I usually take the middle lane, and go with the flow of traffic.

So avoiding being caught speeding is your primary goal?

I agree, the the people who made those signs, i.e. the government, does not decide what is morally right.

Nope- I want to go a reasonable speed, with reasonable safety. No, of course I don't want to be caught speeding. But that is not my primary concern.

I am not one of those drivers who cut people off, tailgate, or make other dangerous actions just to gain a few yards on the highway. I actually drive very defensively, and IMO safely.

For instance, in my neighborhood, in the development, one of the main arteries has a speed limit of 30, which is too slow. Thirty five seems about right. Any faster than that, and I can sense that I am going too fast, and I slow down.

Although slowing down to 15 is slow by any standard, it makes sense at a school crossing. The problem there is not the drivers, or the road, but the numbers of kids who are streaming out of the school, most of them probably not minding the traffic.

I agree that the government cannot legislate morality. But they can legally decide what it thinks is appropriate. I don't automatically have to agree with them.

From a pragmatic point of view, i can't see that morality matters. The only two reasonable considerations which i see impinging upon one's speed is whether or not one is willing to risk the traffic ticket, and how aware one is of the sort of mangled corpse which is produced when a car wrecks at high speed.

A speeding car is only dangerous because it is at speed. (A stationary car is not dangerous). A measure of the potential danger is the kinetic energy of the vehicle (which in a collision has to be dissapated). As the kinetic energy is proportional to the square of the velocity a vehicle travelling at the zone speed of 30 + 40 mph has 10 times the extra energy (to do damage in a smash) than one doing 35 mph. So as the potential to do harm is much increased so is the seriousness of the crime.

One can't say that speed alone is an indicator of morality, though. Going 35 mph on the freeway is a bad idea. Is it more moral to avoid freeways entirely?

It's probably most moral to not drive at all, but to me the morality of speeding goes something like: Drive in the safest way that is reasonable in the circumstances.

By that definition, I think 40 mph over the speed limit is less moral than 10 mph over the speed limit, as I think it's likely to be much less safe.

Well I agree. And living here in the county of Essex, one would think people would pay attention to ethics...but they dont

You have brought up a very important point. Going too slowly in traffic may be just as dangerous as going too fast. I see this a lot in Florida. There are a lot of older drivers who do not have the reflexes and judgement to drive in traffic. In many cases their eyesight is impaired.

What I have found are that many elderly drivers compensate by driving much too slowly. The other drivers become annoyed at the slowpoke, cut them off, and make other dangerous moves to get away from the slow driver. I think that going below the speed limit is just as like to cause a crash as going too fast.

There are some older drivers who will only drive in town, and stay off the highways. I think that is a good thing, and shows an appreciation of one's deficits. Sad thing is that some folks don't know when to say, "enough", and stop driving.

well Phoenix, when, for the sake of the good of the herd, are we all willing to give up a large part of that which symbolizes our independence. HMMMMMM?

Im gonna keep driving till Im so old that Ill plow into some pedestrian mall and kill several bystanders sitting at an outdoor cafe. WAiting for these "intelligent" cars that you steer onto an electromagnetic strip and you can cruise at 100 mph while reading a book and your car just stays firmly fixed tothe strip until you get to your preselected destination. Then it just releases you into a slowdown lane and you disconnect from the hiway and drive down some streets.

The first time i drove into Ontario, i had crossed the border from Detroit, and drove east from Windsor on Huron Church Road. The traffic was pretty frisky, but it was heavy, so you wouldn't really notice the speed. I got on highway 401, and by that point, you're well out of built up areas--in fact, you don't see any clusters of buildings until you reach the highway service center. First i was passed by a semi--and i just thought, well he knows the road, maybe he's close to home. Then i was passed by a car load of bluehairs--and thought, "Get it grandma . . . damn ! ! !" Then i was passed by an OPP cruiser (Ontario Provincial Police), and she wasn't trying to pull anyone over. It was not long after that i realized that in Canada, it is not a question of whether or not the Canadians will speed, it's just a matter of how far over the limit they are willing to drive.

But i have also noticed that, except on city expressways, the Canadians usually don't tailgate. They pull out, pass, and pull back to the right. They use their turn signals (a dying custom in the United States) both for turns and lane changes. So, the high speed driving (usually around 75-80 miles per hour) on Ontario freeways is not actually as dangerous as, for example, the high speed lunacy that breaks out north of Toledo when people cross the state line into Michigan, and the speed limit increases by 5 miles per hour (while drivers ratchet up their speed by 10 or 15 miles per hour). The Canadians drive faster, it seems, than Americans--but they also drive more carefully, more safely.

Here in Oz, we have campaigns that read "Every K(kilometre) over is a killer" The TVC's demonstrate how a 25% increase in speed doubles the stopping distance. It's drummed in to us every day, that if you kill someone as a result of speeding, you are criminal scum. I don't automatically agree, but as is so often the case here at A2K, it's interesting to see the different cultural perspectives.

I don't think anyone has mentioned that speeding increases the consumption of fossil fuel and the amount of air pollution.

Of course if the superhighway is lined with little wind turbines....