Speeding is basically a function of road design.
Until this year, I lived on a street that was just wide enough for 3 cars. It had street parking on both sides of the road, and allows traffic both ways. Believe me, nobody is speeding on that street.
Until this year, I lived on a street that was just wide enough for 3 cars. It had street parking on both sides of the road, and allows traffic both ways. Believe me, nobody is speeding on that street.
This is why we have things like the 85th percentile rule. There is no such thing as a road with a speeding problem, just a road that is designed for and thus encourages higher speeds than the posted limit.
When that happens, you have to change one of those two things. Either fix the road to match the desired speed, or raise the posted limit to be appropriate for the road as it exists.
Anyone who simply advocates for stricter enforcement of the limits as they stand without changing anything does not understand the problem.
Smalltown cops are bored.
Regardless, “the right enforcement” thing is clearly true, but the right enforcement isn’t necessarily practical. Some of the worst offenders I’ve seen wrt speed limit aren’t (imo) highways where people go 15 over, but really wide locals in suburban residential areas where people come off the highway and keep driving 40+, putting bicyclists or pedestrians in danger. These roads are rarely enforced by traffic cops probably due to how little traffic they see in the first place
If you're on a road that goes through a town just barely large enough to have a police department, you can guarantee that the road suddenly gains a posted limit of 35 MPH without changing in any significant way and that there will be strict enforcement which may or may not be biased towards those with non-local tags.
The exception is the state of Indiana. I don't know what they put in the water there, but no one in Indiana seems to have noticed that interstate highways are no longer stuck with the double nickel. Of course they also have the most bare minimum 2+2 interstate where one dawdler refusing to pass a semi can tie up traffic for miles on end.