Speed limits

I don’t think most people truly understand the concept of the speed limit.

This statement is based on the idiots who grace the roads of New Jersey and have a tendency to slam on their breaks and come as close as possible to a complete stop every time they see a cop on the road. Can somebody please explain to these people that as long as they slow down to the posted speed limit, they will not receive a ticket for speeding unless they were already caught doing the pre-cop sighting speed, in which case they’re screwed anyway and might as well not hold up the rest of us?

Seriously, what is wrong with these people? If the speed limit is 65 and you spot a cop up ahead while you’re cruising along at 80, then slow down to 65, not zero. It’s a very simple concept that many drivers do not seem to get.

Of course, then you’ve got the opposite extreme: those people who decide to view the speed limit as more of a recommendation than a legally-enforceable guideline. Now I usually don’t have a problem with the people who choose to do 90 in a 65 zone since a) they help maintain the flow of traffic, and b) they serve as a benchmark in terms of my own speed limit abuse.

However, lately I’ve come to get annoyed at these people too, because what inevitably happens is that they do get caught for not only blatantly ignoring the speed limit, but for basically saying “screw you” to the often-vigilant enforcers thereof. The result is a pulled-over speed demon on the side of the road, coupled with the warning lights of a police car flashing away. This, in turn, prompts the moderate speeders to engage in the aforementioned “slam and stop” method, which ends up causing heavy delays for the rest of us who are actually in somewhat of a hurry to get to wherever we happen to be headed.

It’s a vicious cycle really, and the only way to break it is to educate drivers on what the words “speed limit” actually mean and how flexible they can usually be with the term.

I wonder if the root of the problem is poor driving skills or poor language comprehension…when it comes to New Jersey, it can really be hard to tell.