This is a bit like keeping speed limits down at 65 mph (a standard set when car technology was 50 years less mature).
It's another way that the state can selectively punish most any citizen at will, within the bounds of law.
It's another way that the state can selectively punish most any citizen at will, within the bounds of law.
"The speed limit is commonly set at or below the 85th percentile operating speed (being the speed which no more than 15% of traffic is exceeding)[41][42][43] and in the US is typically set 8 to 12 mph (13 to 19 km/h) below that speed." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_Sta...
There's a huge benefit to this: there would be less inconsistency between driving speeds. It is more dangerous when someone is going 85 and someone else is going 65 compared to 85 and 75.
The most dangerous is when one car is much faster than the others. There is little difference in terms of the chance of a crash if everyone is going 65 or everyone is going 75. The crash is more likely to be serious, but at least the people who are speeding are less likely to plow into someone when they're distracted.
As a rule of thumb, any correlation observed in the wild has at least three equally plausible explanations, two of which are tailored to the narratives of the two main political parties.