Speed limits exist to improve safety, yet many drivers feel pressure to exceed them. During one week I heard from three drivers facing very different situations: one was being pressured by an employer to speed, another felt unsafe obeying the speed limit because everyone else was driving faster, and a third admitted speeding and wanted advice about disputing a ticket. Together, their stories illustrate the everyday pressures that encourage otherwise responsible drivers to break the law.
One of the drivers was a commercial vehicle operator whose employer expected him to travel faster than the posted limit. Another commuted through a school zone where few other motorists slowed down. The third had already received a speeding ticket and hoped to avoid the consequences.
A Commercial Driver Under Pressure
What is the purpose of a speed limit? I recently began a new career driving long-haul semi trucks and I'm beginning to wonder whether speed limits are really about safety. Hardly anyone actually drives the posted speed and my boss keeps getting upset when I won't travel at 110 km/h in a 100 km/h zone.
I slow down for heavy downgrades, temporary hazards, night driving, poor weather, poor road conditions and erratic drivers.
I value my commercial driver's licence because it cost me a lot of money to earn.
I'd like a reasonable response the next time my boss gets angry because I'm driving 105 km/h instead of 110 km/h. None of the reasons above seem to satisfy him.
My goal is simple: arrive safely.
The School Zone Dilemma
I travel through a school zone on Hammond Bay Road in Nanaimo every day before 5 p.m. Almost nobody slows down.
Last week a pickup truck flew past me at about 80 km/h.
I really want to obey the law, but even when I'm driving 45 km/h in the 30 km/h school zone, drivers behind me become impatient. If I obey the speed limit, I feel like I'm obstructing traffic. If I drive with the flow, I'm speeding.
It feels like a no-win situation.
Looking for a Way Out of a Speeding Ticket
The third driver wanted advice about disputing a speeding ticket. His reasons were the same explanations I heard repeatedly while working traffic enforcement:
- I'm late.
- I have to pick someone up.
- It was downhill.
- I'm sorry.
- It's a speed trap.
- I've only had one ticket before.
- I normally follow the rules.
- I'd pay the ticket if I didn't get the penalty points.
One of my personal favourites was, "I always set my cruise control 10 km/h over because police never write tickets for that."
Governments sometimes contribute to the confusion. Drivers are expected to move out of the left lane when they are impeding faster traffic, even if they are already travelling at the posted speed limit. Some motorists wrongly interpret that as permission to exceed the speed limit.
Who Is Responsible?
For the commercial driver, this is workplace pressure. No employer can require an employee to break the law. If you're expected to speed as a condition of employment, keep careful notes of every incident and seek advice before allowing yourself to be intimidated into unsafe driving.
For the commuter in the school zone, remember that you are responsible for your own driving, not the behaviour of everyone else. Travel at the posted speed limit.
Don't let another driver's impatience pressure you into speeding. If they become aggressive, pull over when it is safe and let them go. If their driving is dangerous enough that you believe someone could be hurt, report it to police. Whether enforcement follows depends on the evidence available, but your responsibility is to drive safely, not to match someone else's poor decisions.
For the driver disputing the ticket, the decision to speed was yours. Speeding is one of the most frequently disputed traffic offences in British Columbia, but it is also one of the most difficult to successfully challenge.
Every driver faces pressure from time to time. The safest choice is remembering that the speed limit is not determined by what everyone else is doing. It is determined by law, and ultimately you are the person responsible for obeying it.
Learn More
If you've ever felt pressured to speed, slow down anyway. Arriving a few minutes later is always preferable to risking a collision, a ticket, or losing your licence.
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It is very easy to fall into the trap of going the same speed as everyone else on the road no matter how fast. I found a way to avoid this from happening that works, for me.
I ALWAYS use cruise control. I set my cruise control at the speed limit weather I am on the highway or in the city. I don't care if traffic following me doesn't like it, it is my legal responsiblility to follow the driving laws and I do. PERIOD. I will always use the right lane if there is one and I am always very aware of following traffic that will try and pass at very inapropriate times and locations such as double solid lines, school zones and curves. I don't drive for everyone else on the road I drive for myself. I don't personally care if you pass me in these situations, it is not my responsibility to police other drivers, just to be a safe driver myself. As a defensive driver I am also very aware that you can not coach another driver that is in a different vehicle, just let them do what they do.
It is very unfortunate that there are so many drivers that feel they own the road and everyone else is in their way, it is also unfortunate that there are very few drivers that are willing to have an assessment of their driving skills so that they could possibly improve themselves.
As a licenced driving instructor and defensive driving coach, observation while driving is my entertainment. It is not at all uncommon while stopped at a light for me to watch a random driver in my vicinity for eight to 10 seconds and see three or four moving violations. It is also very common to see several following drivers of my target blindly follow through the same violations as they have become the norm for so many drivers that have allowed their default settings to be reset to whatever suits them regardless of what is legal and proper.
I also stop completely at stop signs, but that's a story for another day.
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It seems these two definitions have fallen to the deep ditches of the aggressive speed mongers. My pet peeve. The sense of entitlement is not only out of control, but parents have seriously neglected to teach their children that being second is not for peeking order but for good manners.
Actually, I don't think that courtesy exists but in the small bowels of smaller cities. There is an abundant of drivers who have taken up that elusive position of "who died and made you the road police?" And suddenly all those rational, considerate, patient, tolerant - LAW ABIDING drivers have no place on our roads, its for the fast, the furious and the contempt. All the while as they lay down a path of mess and meyhem of close encounters of the road kind, they are little further ahead but at the next light/intersection and they are simply the car in front of you!
I think the best instructions I received at motorcycle training (V-Twin.... thank you) was to adapt to true facts that there are many others out there, on two or four wheels who take some morbid pleasure to either scare you off the road or in some extreme case, cross the centre line and run right at you in the game of chicken. Its true. Its gut wrenching and its positively a death defying maneauvor to excute through those.
As our instructor made it perfectly clear, a motorcycle will never, ever win in a road rage - we must swallow our dignity, our pride and let the bastards go...... just go...... and sigh and roll your eyes that he will not take someone else down the road. I learnt a whole new level of defencsive driving through Motorcycle training and applying those to my abilities as a cager, has most certainly put the road rages into persepective.
They can go, go, go, - faster, faster, faster.... but even those odds will diminish to their demise, we can only hope no innocents are taken with them.
For the truck driver. Good on you. Stick to your principles and values and never be bullied by the boss. Carry on till he wants to give you walking papers and I'd bet dollars to donuts, Jimmy Patterson would hire you in a heart beat! You are proud, you display pride and us 'quiet' majority are standing right beside you.
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Regarding the commercial driver I offer the following rational that may resonate with his boss. Driving the speed limit uses less fuel than driving 10-15 over the limit,
When I was driving long haul from Abbotsford to California I paid for my fuel. I could save, on average, $45-50 per trip by driving the speed limit. Sure I didn’t get as far down the road as other drivers but the money in my pocket was worth it.
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Simple-it’s a me first society.
A friend and I discussed cyclists today - entitled to take their share of the pavement, often side by side, When youngster's we rode on the gravel, out of the traffic flow.
That’s it, simple - Today we are entitled to do what we want on the road.
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You used the word "psychology". It's an important word in this discussion, because the standard engineering methodology for setting speed limits relies on empirical observations of motorist (human) behaviour, and recommends speed limits accordingly. From these speed surveys engineers have in turn developed design speed standards.
The normal design speed for controlled access divided highways in North America is 130 km/h or about 80 mph. The 80 mph limits on Interstate highways in Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota represent the implementation of engineering principles over political considerations. (Having driven a good deal in Montana, I have observed that many motorists, and probably the majority, drive at less than the posted limit, making it a true speed limit.)
The root cause of "speeding" in most places is a fundamental disconnect between design speed and posted limits. My assertion is that a speedometer is not a safety device. It is nothing more than a speeding ticket avoidance tool. If a motorist needs to constantly monitor the speedometer or use cruise control to avoid a ticket, the speed limit is, in all likelihood, set too low.
The primary determinant of traffic speed is roadway design. If we connect design speed with desired traffic speed, we will fundamentally change the driving environment. This applies in urban environments as well as open highways. For example, downtown streets can be readily designed to create comfortable shared environments for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists by narrowing driving lanes, adding crosswalks with different pavement textures, landscaping, and other techniques. (Note that I have not included speed bumps. They constitute design failure, and illustrate a sheer lack of creativity. I also dislike the notion of "traffic calming", preferring to discuss the matching of roadway design with a desired outcome.)
If a government believes that a certain absolute speed limit is critical for safety, fine. But proper implementation requires making sure that the speed limit is consistent with roadway design, to avoid making lawbreakers out of motorists who are behaving as reasonable, responsible human beings. To put it another way, motorists should be concerned about driving in a reasonable, controlled, and situationally-aware manner, but their precise speed should be entirely secondary to the task.
Of course, speed enforcement for revenue would be negatively affected, especially in those jurisdictions that permit photo radar. But that's another discussion.
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I do try very hard, often under duress from the drivers behind me, to drive at the speed limit.
Then when I got home I found a post on the Peachland Neighbours Facebook page. It was strongly pointed out the "rules of the road and the speed limits"....all well over the posted speeds and I had better shape up. Rather intimidating don't you think?
That unfortunately is the mentality in this small BC town.
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