<p>theReach is clearly wrong here. Is there any other driving law that 90% of drivers break at all times? It simply makes no sense. Speed limits need to be increased and enforced strictly rather than police judgment (is it a ticket if I am 10 mph over or 20?).</p>
<p>^right, but if they changed residential ares from 25-35, we would actually have to enforce it, and anybody 2 mph over should get a ticket. this would be very hard to do since it would be political suicide for anybody who tries to implement it. however, i do think this would be a great idea.</p>
<p>hatersunite, </p>
<p>i don’t know if there’s a system that cops use for pulling people over (as in, 10mph over or what), but most won’t pull you over for 5 over, and sometimes you’ll get away with 10. </p>
<p>I was doing around 80 in a 65 (on route 50 here in MD) during rush hour on my way to work while in the fast line in a huge line of cars (all going the same speed), and I passed right by a cop shooting radar out of one of those u-turn things in the middle and i freaked out and braked hard as soon as i saw him, but thank god he didn’t give me a ticket, probably because everyone was going that speed. </p>
<p>i’ve heard that cops usually shoot you at around 1500 ft. away, so idk.</p>
<p>It’s 100% the officers’ judgement. That is why you hear stories of people getting ticketed for 5 above the speed limit when it is easy to get away with driving 15 over. If the cop is having a bad day he may be more inclined to pull you over.<br>
It also has a lot to do with how fast the other cars are going. If every car is going 10-15 over as is normally seen, then you won’t get pulled over for 15 over. However if every car is driving the speed limit you might get a ticket for 15 over. The system is simply flawed because it is based completely on the officers’ decision. It should be based on a radar gun reading, not a split officer decision.</p>
<p>NOTE: The current system also provides a place for racial profiling to fester.</p>
<p>“part of our drivers ed was “getting a feel for all driving environments” during our drive time sessions, so for the city driving part, my instructor took me downtown (baltimore)…and he told me to use the red lights there (“and in any city for that matter”, since i told him i live right outside DC) as “stop signs”.”</p>
<p>well depending on the area, i sometimes use red lights as stop signs too. if people are selling crack on the street corner, i’m not going to stick around. plus he might have been referring to turning right on red, where you do treat the red lights as stop signs.</p>
<p>“If every car is going 10-15 over as is normally seen, then you won’t get pulled over for 15 over.”
if you’re not on the highway, you should get pulled over for doing fifteen over, regardless of the traffic flow. they should triple the fine if you’re doing 40 in a residential area. that gets pretty dangerous. </p>
<p>“i’ve heard that cops usually shoot you at around 1500 ft. away, so idk.”
i doubt cops start tracking you from 1 mile away. i can’t even think of a road here where you can see 1 mile down the road. i would say they start tracking at 50-100ft.</p>
<p>There was some type of graph I saw recently which showed that Maryland has some of the softest treatment towards speeders. They showed the average speed over the limit for tickets given over the past year and MD was around 20 mph over. Some states were as low as 10 so I may have a biased viewpoint.</p>
<p>
Um 1500ft is less than 1/3 of a mile. Around here cops will park on an overpass and radio to cars that aren’t visible from the highway to ticket people. I’m not sure about 1500 ft but there is a lot of distance.</p>
<p>hatersunite, </p>
<p>I believe that. As I said in my original post, I’m usually not the fastest car around me. Even doing 80 on the highway, cars are consistently passing me probably going around 90. Those are the people that should get pulled over, not the ones just keeping up with traffic…them and the people on motorcycles that fly past me doing wheelies while going 100 mph. They’re fairly common around here. </p>
<p>lockn, </p>
<p>lol. i was just about to be like…um pinkslip there are 5280 ft. in a mile. Anyway, I’ve never seen that done here (the overpass thing), but there are some signs on roads around here claiming that there are helicopters shooting radar. Never seen one though.</p>
<p>“Um 1500ft is less than 1/3 of a mile. Around here cops will park on an overpass and radio to cars that aren’t visible from the highway to ticket people. I’m not sure about 1500 ft but there is a lot of distance.”</p>
<p>“lol. i was just about to be like…um pinkslip there are 5280 ft. in a mile. Anyway, I’ve never seen that done here (the overpass thing), but there are some signs on roads around here claiming that there are helicopters shooting radar. Never seen one though.”</p>
<p>lol i’m so used to track whenever i see 1500 i automatically assume meters. sorry everybody.</p>
<p>I would consider myself a fast driver.</p>
<p>I drive about 15-20 over when I don’t suspect any cops. About 10 over when I think a car might be a cop.</p>
<p>On schoolnights when I have debate practice and don’t finish until 10 pm, I drive about 30-40 over. :P</p>
<p>40 over?? That’s a little much. </p>
<p>Then again, if you live in the middle of no where it’s justified.</p>
<p>I usually drive between 5-10 over; everybody else does anyway. Depending on the traffic I’ll do 10-15 on the freeway.</p>
<p>I consider myself a safe driver though. There are people that drive slow but are more dangerous than me.</p>
<p>"I drive about 15-20 over when I don’t suspect any cops. About 10 over when I think a car might be a cop.</p>
<p>On schoolnights when I have debate practice and don’t finish until 10 pm, I drive about 30-40 over. :P"</p>
<p>all of this is too much. do you really go 10 over when you see a cop?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH that^ and you go 40 over at night? There are easier ways to kill yourself.</p>