Let’s define terms – by speeding we mean to say excessive, deliberate or inadvertent velocity beyond a posted speed limit. Legally it’s anything above the speed limit, be it 1kmh or 5 kmh. But let’s be generous and define excessive speed at anything beyond 5kmh above; although a case could be put for 10kmh, or perhaps more logically a 5-10% buffer above the posted limit. I’d recommend no more than 5% myself and would back 100% compliance if pushed, but it’s open for debate. I’m simply allowing for some variation in attention, practical effects imposed by local hills (both going up and down) and inaccuracy in speedometers.

OK, so why is excessive speeding bad? Plenty of people do it. I stick pretty rigidly to the limit, as probably do “most” people, by what I see. But maybe 30% of drivers either miss a sign – or choose to ignore it. By that I mean 60-70 in a 50kmh zone (past my house!) is pretty common. And 120-130 in a 100kmh zone, for another example. Hey, it happens, sure. Sometimes you just have to get someplace and are running late. But do you understand the risks and the impact on others, or do you just think the law’s an ass and are out to get you for no good reason?

Here are my top reasons to slow down and stick to the posted limit:

1. Traffic is more predictable when it flows at the same rate; by speeding at whatever rate you choose you are by nature unpredictable and are the cause of disturbance and risk to all traffic. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s ‘safer’ to speed, no matter what the stats supposedly say! (There are lies, damned lies and statistics… you can correlate something with anything if you try hard enough!)
2. Other drivers cannot as easily judge a speeding vehicle’s closing distance and will seemingly jump out in front of you at intersections and make ‘sudden’ and inopportune lane changes or other manoeuvers. Slow down, let people come out of their driveways and intersections without having to guess what speed you may have chosen today. Let me guess, currently you are blaming them for your poor judgement!
3. Speeding screws up the traffic; by gaining on the cars ahead you eventually meet them and cluster in a group, forming an unnecessary bottleneck, especially when a hazard or delay is reached. Why not stay back, don’t gain on those ahead, stay at the same pace and let the traffic flow?
4. By speeding you reduce your reaction time to the unexpected. Unless you are on a road with no other traffic, no potholes, no animals, no driveways, no intersections and no other unexpected obstacles, what makes you think it’s safe to choose any speed you like?
5. Faster means more energy expended; so not only are you burning more gas and making more air and noise pollution you have raised the energy level in any collision that occurs. Instead, slow down, reduce the cost of your travel and reduce any impacts that may occur. Don’t imagine it’s more ‘efficient’ to go faster – any open road gains are lost above about 80kmh and in city driving any speed gained in quickly lost as heat when you apply the brakes for the next red light. Slow down, anticipate traffic flows and see the $ benefit yourself!
6. Other people live here too. Just because you can get away with it, why is it right to speed past other people’s homes, workplaces, parks or whatever? It may seem ‘safe’ but only because other people fear death or injury and have learned to lock their kids and pets away from the roads and to shut doors and windows to keep the noise and fumes out
7. In summary, speeding is plain selfish and simply bad manners – why do you think that you can cause disruption to traffic, get ahead of everyone else, cause undue noise and fear and raise the risk of injury for everyone?

In answer to that last question, you are probably not even thinking about it, just doing what you see done to you. Whilst we respect each other when we meet face to face and usually don’t push into queues, when sealed in our steel capsules the normal rules and niceties go out the window and it’s open season on civilised behaviour. Why not set an example and buck the trend?

Let’s define terms – by speeding we mean to say excessive, deliberate or inadvertent velocity beyond a posted speed limit. Legally it’s anything above the speed limit, be it 1kmh or 5 kmh. But let’s be generous and define excessive speed at anything beyond 5kmh above; although a case could be put for 10kmh, or perhaps more logically a 5-10% buffer above the posted limit. I’d recommend no more than 5% myself and would back 100% compliance if pushed, but it’s open for debate. I’m simply allowing for some variation in attention, practical effects imposed by local hills (both going up and down) and inaccuracy in speedometers.

OK, so why is excessive speeding bad? Plenty of people do it. I stick pretty rigidly to the limit, as probably do “most” people, by what I see. But maybe 30% of drivers either miss a sign – or choose to ignore it. By that I mean 60-70 in a 50kmh zone (past my house!) is pretty common. And 120-130 in a 100kmh zone, for another example. Hey, it happens, sure. Sometimes you just have to get someplace and are running late. But do you understand the risks and the impact on others, or do you just think the law’s an ass and are out to get you for no good reason?

Here are my top reasons to slow down and stick to the posted limit:

1. Traffic is more predictable when it flows at the same rate; by speeding at whatever rate you choose you are by nature unpredictable and are the cause of disturbance and risk to all traffic. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s ‘safer’ to speed, no matter what the stats supposedly say! (There are lies, damned lies and statistics… you can correlate something with anything if you try hard enough!)
2. Other drivers cannot as easily judge a speeding vehicle’s closing distance and will seemingly jump out in front of you at intersections and make ‘sudden’ and inopportune lane changes or other manoeuvers. Slow down, let people come out of their driveways and intersections without having to guess what speed you may have chosen today. Let me guess, currently you are blaming them for your poor judgement!
3. Speeding screws up the traffic; by gaining on the cars ahead you eventually meet them and cluster in a group, forming an unnecessary bottleneck, especially when a hazard or delay is reached. Why not stay back, don’t gain on those ahead, stay at the same pace and let the traffic flow?
4. By speeding you reduce your reaction time to the unexpected. Unless you are on a road with no other traffic, no potholes, no animals, no driveways, no intersections and no other unexpected obstacles, what makes you think it’s safe to choose any speed you like?
5. Faster means more energy expended; so not only are you burning more gas and making more air and noise pollution you have raised the energy level in any collision that occurs. Instead, slow down, reduce the cost of your travel and reduce any impacts that may occur. Don’t imagine it’s more ‘efficient’ to go faster – any open road gains are lost above about 80kmh and in city driving any speed gained in quickly lost as heat when you apply the brakes for the next red light. Slow down, anticipate traffic flows and see the $ benefit yourself!
6. Other people live here too. Just because you can get away with it, why is it right to speed past other people’s homes, workplaces, parks or whatever? It may seem ‘safe’ but only because other people fear death or injury and have learned to lock their kids and pets away from the roads and to shut doors and windows to keep the noise and fumes out
7. In summary, speeding is plain selfish and simply bad manners – why do you think that you can cause disruption to traffic, get ahead of everyone else, cause undue noise and fear and raise the risk of injury for everyone?

In answer to that last question, you are probably not even thinking about it, just doing what you see done to you. Whilst we respect each other when we meet face to face and usually don’t push into queues, when sealed in our steel capsules the normal rules and niceties go out the window and it’s open season on civilised behaviour. Why not set an example and buck the trend?

The old-world media love to beat this stuff up:

Last year three of the highest speeds recorded on Queensland roads occurred on the M1, including two at Stapylton of 243km/h and 237km/h and one at Helensvale, of 235km/h.

Let me guess, they were probably young males in one of (a) turbocharged grey market Nissan Skylines; (b) another brand of after-market hotted up Japanese car or (c) high-end US-style V8 sedans (what some of us imagine to be “Aussie” cars, simply because we build or assemble some part of them here). But they could just have easily have been white-shoed cardigan wearers in their Maseratis, Ferraris or Astons. Except they aren’t as news-worthy, unless of course they are a “celebrity” or a politician responsible for road safety.

Of course it goes without saying that the police are “exasperated“. And naturally it’s downplayed as just lucky that there have been “no fatal crashes on the motorway so far this year.

We can all draw the pictures in our minds, of these criminally insane law-breakers tearing around at stupidly excessive speed, but truth be told every motorist exceeds the posted speed limit at some point in their driving lives. Perhaps not by these speeds, but certainly by non-trivial amounts. Perhaps you choose to do it, I don’t know. But whereas here in this article we are looking at just 3 incidences of clearly deliberate and excessive speeding on one motorway, the majority of otherwise law-abiding “speeders” are equally deliberately going 10, 20 or 30 kilometres an hour over the limit, usually on potholed suburban streets littered with intersections, driveways, cyclists and pedestrians to boot. Now whilst we can easily say that “if they crash (at these extreme speeds), they’ll likely die – police” we can also quite justifiably say that far more people are taking equally life-threatening risks on a daily basis. Sometimes they do it deliberately, sometimes by carelessness or ignorance. But tell me, why focus on the extreme “hoons” when the greater risk is all around us?

Why indeed do we make, sell or modify road-registerable cars that can easily double the speed limit? And why do we spend so much money replacing narrow, curvy roads with straighter, safer and faster multi-lane motorways? If we seriously wanted to reduce speeding we’d govern cars and restrict traffic flow (ok, we do that now – they are called traffic jams). Fact is, humans like to get places faster, not slower, and they enjoy some degree of personal risk-taking; indeed some of our community simply enjoy living closer to the edge.

None of which is particularly helpful in reducing death or injury on our roads, or saving us from our wasteful, unsustainable selves. But it does give us something to read in the press.

The old-world media love to beat this stuff up:

Last year three of the highest speeds recorded on Queensland roads occurred on the M1, including two at Stapylton of 243km/h and 237km/h and one at Helensvale, of 235km/h.

Let me guess, they were probably young males in one of (a) turbocharged grey market Nissan Skylines; (b) another brand of after-market hotted up Japanese car or (c) high-end US-style V8 sedans (what some of us imagine to be “Aussie” cars, simply because we build or assemble some part of them here). But they could just have easily have been white-shoed cardigan wearers in their Maseratis, Ferraris or Astons. Except they aren’t as news-worthy, unless of course they are a “celebrity” or a politician responsible for road safety.

Of course it goes without saying that the police are “exasperated“. And naturally it’s downplayed as just lucky that there have been “no fatal crashes on the motorway so far this year.

We can all draw the pictures in our minds, of these criminally insane law-breakers tearing around at stupidly excessive speed, but truth be told every motorist exceeds the posted speed limit at some point in their driving lives. Perhaps not by these speeds, but certainly by non-trivial amounts. Perhaps you choose to do it, I don’t know. But whereas here in this article we are looking at just 3 incidences of clearly deliberate and excessive speeding on one motorway, the majority of otherwise law-abiding “speeders” are equally deliberately going 10, 20 or 30 kilometres an hour over the limit, usually on potholed suburban streets littered with intersections, driveways, cyclists and pedestrians to boot. Now whilst we can easily say that “if they crash (at these extreme speeds), they’ll likely die – police” we can also quite justifiably say that far more people are taking equally life-threatening risks on a daily basis. Sometimes they do it deliberately, sometimes by carelessness or ignorance. But tell me, why focus on the extreme “hoons” when the greater risk is all around us?

Why indeed do we make, sell or modify road-registerable cars that can easily double the speed limit? And why do we spend so much money replacing narrow, curvy roads with straighter, safer and faster multi-lane motorways? If we seriously wanted to reduce speeding we’d govern cars and restrict traffic flow (ok, we do that now – they are called traffic jams). Fact is, humans like to get places faster, not slower, and they enjoy some degree of personal risk-taking; indeed some of our community simply enjoy living closer to the edge.

None of which is particularly helpful in reducing death or injury on our roads, or saving us from our wasteful, unsustainable selves. But it does give us something to read in the press.

What are we doing speeding? I just read this: NSW motorists are losing their licences at a record rate of 110 a day, because of accumulated traffic and speeding fines. If petrol prices are hurting, as our media and politicians tell us daily, why are we speeding? Wouldn’t it make sense to slow down and save fuel? Hmmm. Maybe fuel remains too cheap?

Anyway, according to that report “the proliferation of speed cameras is blamed for the surge in suspensions”, so it’s not the drivers’ fault, it’s just that we are catching more speeding drivers. Ah-ha. They are not in control sufficiently to actually obey the law, apparently, or were distracted by their MP3 player, their cell phone or their passengers. Or they just didn’t see the camera. Or they deliberately and consciously law-break by habit. Or whatever.

But wait, there’s more. “Peak motoring group NRMA says the rising rate of licence suspension was also a threat to economic productivity, with a recent survey of business showing 23 per cent had workers who were currently off the road.” Wow, who cares about the lives that are impacted by suspended licences, it’s the economic consequence that matters. Is the NRMA for real, or simply misquoted?

In any case 23% sounds absurbly high and we don’t know the sample size or error, but it could just be one person in each firm (how can we know?); so the economic impact is not actually revealed usefully by that stat at all. It looks big but is actually a rubbish number designed only to mislead. Ask instead ‘what percentage of workers does this represent?’ and ‘what percentage of those suspended workers are thereby unable to satisfactority perform their work or an alternative?’ They don’t use those stats so the actual economic impact is probably small.

Let’s also not forget that speeding itself has a social and economic cost measured in increased fuel consumption, noise and social dislocation, and in the cost of fixing smashed cars and people. Whilst punishment may not be the answer – no-one wants to see people forced out of jobs because of repeated lapses in concentration or a basic misunderstanding of the importance of road laws (hmmmm) – we can’t ignore a problem that creates both ill-feeling and disrespect for authority and a rough-house bullying attitude by one group of motorists that sets them against the law-abiding and the non-motorised.

So let’s get real. Balance punishment and education, sure, and start a cultural change in our society that increases care and respect for our community, including respect for laws designed to regulate and improve traffic flow. Yes folks, speeding stuffs up the traffic. You speed, you catch the guy in front and queues start. So just slow down, save gas and improve traffic flow. That’s my 2 cents worth.

What are we doing speeding? I just read this: NSW motorists are losing their licences at a record rate of 110 a day, because of accumulated traffic and speeding fines. If petrol prices are hurting, as our media and politicians tell us daily, why are we speeding? Wouldn’t it make sense to slow down and save fuel? Hmmm. Maybe fuel remains too cheap?

Anyway, according to that report “the proliferation of speed cameras is blamed for the surge in suspensions”, so it’s not the drivers’ fault, it’s just that we are catching more speeding drivers. Ah-ha. They are not in control sufficiently to actually obey the law, apparently, or were distracted by their MP3 player, their cell phone or their passengers. Or they just didn’t see the camera. Or they deliberately and consciously law-break by habit. Or whatever.

But wait, there’s more. “Peak motoring group NRMA says the rising rate of licence suspension was also a threat to economic productivity, with a recent survey of business showing 23 per cent had workers who were currently off the road.” Wow, who cares about the lives that are impacted by suspended licences, it’s the economic consequence that matters. Is the NRMA for real, or simply misquoted?

In any case 23% sounds absurbly high and we don’t know the sample size or error, but it could just be one person in each firm (how can we know?); so the economic impact is not actually revealed usefully by that stat at all. It looks big but is actually a rubbish number designed only to mislead. Ask instead ‘what percentage of workers does this represent?’ and ‘what percentage of those suspended workers are thereby unable to satisfactority perform their work or an alternative?’ They don’t use those stats so the actual economic impact is probably small.

Let’s also not forget that speeding itself has a social and economic cost measured in increased fuel consumption, noise and social dislocation, and in the cost of fixing smashed cars and people. Whilst punishment may not be the answer – no-one wants to see people forced out of jobs because of repeated lapses in concentration or a basic misunderstanding of the importance of road laws (hmmmm) – we can’t ignore a problem that creates both ill-feeling and disrespect for authority and a rough-house bullying attitude by one group of motorists that sets them against the law-abiding and the non-motorised.

So let’s get real. Balance punishment and education, sure, and start a cultural change in our society that increases care and respect for our community, including respect for laws designed to regulate and improve traffic flow. Yes folks, speeding stuffs up the traffic. You speed, you catch the guy in front and queues start. So just slow down, save gas and improve traffic flow. That’s my 2 cents worth.