I address all of this in other areas in this thread. I don’t feel like rehashing it with you, given your unwarranted aggression out of the gate. If you want to read some actual rebuttal, go for it. Otherwise, enjoy your life.

I didn’t say it was created to hinder the poor.

I said fines DISPROPORTIONATELY PUNISH THE POOR.

If you have $1000, a $200 fine is 20% of your money.

If you have $2,000,000 a fine of $200 is . 0001% of your money, basically nothing.

This means that, relative to their money, a poorer person hurts more from the same fine. This is a BAD IDEA for enforcing rules everyone is supposed to follow. Essentially, we’re encouraging people to drive slow, unless they can pay the toll for speeding.

There are ways to mitigate this - sliding scale fines, for instance. I personally don’t like fines as punishments in general, though. I’d rather use neutral traffic calming features, that always invariably impact people who use the route the same, and make it a criminal offense to drive recklessly, akin to drunk driving.

There are a lot of clarifying information needed regarding rural fatalities. Are most of the fatalities from people who live in the area, or are they people passing through? What about the proportion of fatal:nonfatal accidents? Is it that you’re less likely to get into an accident, but when you do it’s more likely to be fatal?

Overall, like I said, I don’t really have any ideas for change for rural areas, except maybe limiting the routes trucks can take, and maybe more abundant rest areas. I truly think cars are practically a requirement as you get outside of the city, and don’t really have any notion on how to fix their issues without introducing more or worse ones.

The speed limit, in this scenario, would be set at what is absolutely, inarguably, a dangerous speed. A speed at which NO ONE can argue what you’re doing is dangerous. The bulk of speed management would be done by better urban planning. If no one feels safe going over 50, yeah, you may have the rare dumbass pushing it, but you’re always going to have dumbasses.

I’m not concerned about myself not being able to stop. I’m generally not concerned about my behavior. I’m concerned, once again, about how OTHER drivers will react to ME going slowly and becoming an obstacle. I can control myself, I can leave proper follow distance. I CANNOT make anyone else do that. No one can, all we can do is encourage better behavior.

If we follow that thread, how do we encourage people to slow down? We can do so with fines and enforcement. We can fine anyone who goes over an arbitrary speed. Or, we can do it with physics and behavioral psychology. Make it so that those same roads are less easy/fun/convenient to drive on at high speeds.

I’m beginning to doubt that you’ve read half of what I’ve posted, so I’m not going to continue with this.

((yeah it seems like there’s a down vote hitting each comment in this thread hahah. Fwiw, same sentiments to you, very good points.))

Both of those are horribly ineffective options. Let’s call cops who won’t get here before a crash happens, and let’s throw tire spikes that will force a crash to happen.

The proper response is to create distance from the situation. In this particular scenario, by merging into another lane as soon as it’s safe, and accelerating back to the speed of traffic.

None of this changes the fact that the slower driver, while within the letter of the law, is the root cause of all of this danger. Speed is determined by more than an arbitrary number on the side of the road. It’s determined by myriad road factors, from congestion and moisture to the current traveling speed of traffic.

If you want to reduce the speed safely, you have to reduce the speed people naturally want to travel at. Anything else will result in speed disparities, which are always more dangerous than just raw speed.

Ok cool. You addressed half of my concern. Now I’ve become the obstacle. How do I keep people from dangerously swerving around me?

In fact, this has INCREASED the likelihood that I, personally, will be in an accident because now, more people around me are swerving trying to get past.

I’m not sure what I said to make you reply about traffic jams? Want to elaborate?

Rural areas are an interesting case, admittedly. Most of my personal suggestions are for urban areas, even so far as my general loathe of cars - they suck in cities but are practically required for rural living.

I’d be curious to see the difference in fatalities for an optimally set up city versus a current rural setup. My gut tells me that, just due to the relatively sparse density of cars, rural driving is already significantly safer, and if you DO drive like shit, you’re likely to only injure yourself.

Ultimately, rural and urban driving are COMPLETELY different beasts, and what works for one doesn’t for another.

Edit: and, any implemented traffic calming measures are only worthwhile if they incorporate pedestrian and bike friendly implementations. Otherwise you’re just trading one problem for another. For instance, instead of just moving the curb inward, keep it where it is and install bollards every 10-15 feet or so, so cars can’t use the area but bikes can.

And as long as the penalty is fines, it’s literally “pay the toll to go fast”. At very best, this leaves a class of people completely unimpacted by traffic enforcement. But, without a drastic change in the public perception of speed limits, we can’t just say “ok 1 mph over is now criminal. Go to jail.” That’ll do way more harm than good.

I can broadly agree with these sentiments. I think speed limits, as they’re implemented right now, are largely folly and should be replaced with something that can’t be abused for revenue. And even if we agree that MOST cameras and speed fines aren’t revenue focused, we HAVE to acknowledge the possibility of abuse.

I think in an ideal world, I’d set speed limits to be higher than they are now - say, (spitballing) 100mph for interstates. It’s HARD enforced, at even 1mph over, and a criminal offense. I know this level of enforcement is already in place, technically - usually speeds like, 20 over are considered criminal - but it’s subject to too much discretion. Those cases need to be enforced almost unilaterally.

From there, addressing the rest of the speed issue is the job of urban planners. Make the roads just not fun)safe, convenient, whatever) to drive at speeds even approaching the limit. From there, enforcement becomes far more justifiable, and will consistently target people driving the most unsafe.

Obviously, reckless driving and other such penalties would be in place, to catch anything else reckless, and that’s going to be case-by-case, still subject to discretion, but at least it’s something.

I don’t disagree with anything you said. Slowing down is a good thing.

The problem I have with this approach is that speed limits either do nothing, or do marginal work compared to designing roads that aren’t able to be driven at excessive speeds. Narrower lanes, chicanes, medians, speed bumps or cushions - all VASTLY more effective at actually slowing traffic than a camera or cop saying “hey! Slow down or pay the toll!”

I would love to see a more recent study. Safety tends to be a weird subject, particularly the treadmill of introducing safety features, which means more drivers drive unsafely because safety features give an appearance of safety.

Overall, I still stand by what I said outside of maybe the very first sentence. Even if they DO slow traffic, there are vastly better ways that don’t have a disproportionate impact.

My city started putting in speed cushions at roads that were constantly over-traveled. Neighborhoods that would see increased traffic during rush hour, for instance. They’re aggressive, you have to go BELOW the speed limit to safely drive the route. Those roads see SIGNIFICANTLY less traffic, and the traffic that is there is slower.

Fines just don’t work to deter your average driver, or at least not as much as physics does.

Completely agreed, now we have to get the entire population on board. I don’t want to be trying to swerve around drivers going slower than the traffic around, and I don’t want people swerving around me all bloody day. Both of those are vastly more dangerous than simple speed. Drive the road conditions, which includes the speed of traffic around you.

If only speed cameras worked to lower the speed anyone travels at… Realistically, people are going to drive the speed that feels safe for that road, and a speed camera is just going to disproportionately punish people without the money to pay the fines.

Make roads that are designed for the speed you want people to drive at, not wide open expanses that give no actual reason to slow down.

That only works if you shift the entire populations perception of speed limits. If too small of a percentage adopt this mentality, they become obstacles. People will drive the speed they FEEL safe at, regardless of actual safety. Speed limits do nothing to change that. Better options are making roads that don’t feel safe at higher speeds.

• Glocks have a half cocked striker once you rack the slide, and this gives a factory glock a trigger pull weight that is directly in between a cocked single-action trigger and an uncocked double-action trigger.

I can see your interpretation of this passage, now that I re-read it. My interpretation of the passage was that, upon racking the slide, you’d have a trigger pull weight between the two. Glad we could clarify hahah.

From what others are saying, the trigger pull is always the same. I’m not familiar with the intricacies of Glocks specifically, but this seems to match with my experience as well.

Awwww I wanted to read the delicious conclusion. Will Hercules finally behead the vile hydra?