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How is it even possible/practical to obey traffic laws? (lemmies.world)

submitted 1 year ago by Ocelot@lemmies.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I'm talking specifically about obeying the speed limit, doing a full stop at stop signs, etc. After receiving a speeding ticket for doing 53 in a 50, As an experiment I went a full day obeying all traffic laws 100% and it caused so much road rage. For example, there is a 2 lane road near me with a speed limit of 50 (where I got the ticket), traffic usually moves at about 60/65. There was a huge line of cars behind me and nowhere to pull over. As soon as an opening came up on the shoulder I was about to pull over and one of the cars behind me blew past me on the on the right blaring their horn. Then another truck passed me at the next opportunity and brake checked me. Both of these cars proceeded to run a red light about 1/4 mile ahead of me endangering others. By far the worst part of driving on this 2 lane road was the 25 mph work zone which is completely ignored by everyone else. It effectively resulted in me doing 25 mph in a "60" which is very dangerous.

Having needed to spend the entire day pulling over at every opportunity to let people pass I inevitably picked up a drill bit and got a flat tire.

Even matters as simple as stopping completely at a stop sign for 1 second cause immediate anger and dangerous behavior from other drivers.

What on earth are we expected to do? All I want is to avoid speeding tickets and drive safely.

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[–] minorninth@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have a hard time reconciling that with my observations in Europe:

People travel significantly faster than in the U.S., for example on the autobahn
Taxi drivers routinely do things I consider crazy in order to get around old European cities, like driving up on sidewalks, passing on narrow two-lane roads
There are a lot of narrow mountain roads and people seem to drive way too fast to be safe

I've never felt like European drivers were "more safe".

The only differences I can think of that are positive for Europe:

Less drunk driving
Traffic circles instead of stop signs

[–] bigschnitz@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The two differences you listed improve traffic flow and safety massively!

Driver education is often more strict depending on country (I'm thinking Scandinavian countries and Germany), unsurprisingly this makes a big difference.

Traveling faster is a bit of a moot point. If people drive faster and rate of incidents and road toll are lower, surely that proves that travel speed isn't the problem in the US.

But really, the drink driving culture in America is terrifying. The state of Texas has a similar population to Australia (where I'm from), 9,560 people died on the road in Q1 2022 in texas. Australia had just under 2000 FOR THE WHOLE YEAR! Both places have similar speed limits that are considerably slower than Europe, so I don't think it would be honest to try and say the low speed limits cause deaths. My best guess would be that drink driving is enforced at 0.05 in Australia compared to 0.08 in Texas. On top of this, Texas only enforces if officers have a cause for lawful detainment, which is a high threshold to cross compared to random breath tests common where I'm from.

[–] blazera@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago

Its the same drivers everywhere. Road design is the difference, and europe has a lot of traffic calming road design.