I regularly come across posted speed limits that have a smaller sign underneath that reads “Strictly Enforced.” Is there a point to this? Shouldn’t a responsible (ha!) driver reasonably assume that all speed limits are strictly enforced?
It is to encourage people to slow down more, rather than just continue along at 10 above the limit.
A truly responsible driver wouldn’t care about the level of enforcement; they would simply obey the posted limit.
IANAL, but I’m guessing it makes it harder to claim “everybody knows that going x amount over the speed limit is never enforced so why am I being hassled?”. They are saying (again, a guess) that maybe elsewhere there is a grace amount, but there isn’t here.
In general, most places seem to ignore anything over about 5mph over (10mph in highway speeds). The logic is that most courts won’t see going a slow walk speed over the limit may as serious enough for a big fine.
“Striclty enforced” sounds like “We’ll nail you for 1mph over, so go a few mph under to be sure you avoid a ticket.”
I have to pass through just such a place on a regular basis.
And they DO mean it. I’d WAG you might be okay if traffic is heavy and you and everyone else is going 5 mph over. But no heavy traffic and you doing 5mph over? You are getting pulled over. And of course they also IMO pull over anyone for any “suspicious” reason they can think of.
Everytime I drive through there I feel like I am trying to get over the Berlin Wall undetected.
It seems just the opposite to me around here. There’s several roads that I see with those signs, and I rarely see police on them, and when I do, traffic is regularly going by at least 10mph over. So, I always sort of interpretted it as “we don’t have the resources to enforce it, so maybe if we scare you with some verbage we don’t need to as much.”
I wonder about these types of signs. Personally, I think they have the opposite effect from that intended.
Around here there are tons of signs that say “Police in $TOWN arrest drunk drivers”. No Shit! Are you implying that police in the next town don’t care?
Or you’ll get a stretch of highway: “Drive Safe Zone”. Presumably, outside of that zone, you should drive dangerously?
I get the feeling I’m driving through a revenue stream and I’m the trout.
A truly responsible driver will note the general pace of traffic around them, and try to more or less match it. You drive at the limit here in moderate traffic, you generally will become a moving roadblock with a nice parade of cars behind you.
Same thing with those “speed enforced by aircraft” signs. Oh, I know they will use VASCAR (as they call it-watch out for thin white lines separated by c. 300 yards or so) once in a blue moon here and there, but every time I see one of those signs, I will look up for the plane, and am always disappointed.
If you’ve ever taken a good defensive driving course, you should know this isn’t true.
A truly responsible driver will go with the flow of traffic.
For an interesting case study I present you with: A Meditation On The Speed Limit - YouTube
The speed limit in Atlanta’s I-285 loop is 55; which is ludicrous; and if you go the speed limit there, you’re likely to get run over. One thing is for sure; by obeying the posted limit; you are causing problems a lot worse than breaking the speeding law.
Here’s the difference in my view:
If a cop gives me a ticket for going less than 10% over the speed limit, I just figure he/she is being a dick.
If the town has “strictly enforced” speed limit signs and a cop gives me a ticket for going less than 10% over the speed limit, I just figure the mayor is forcing him/her to be a dick.
So the important distinction is how much I blame the cop.
(For the record, in 20+ years of driving I’ve only received two speeding tickets and deserved them both, though I contend that half the reason for driving through the Grapevine is so that you can come down out of it at 90+ miles and hour.)
Where I’m from there are sometimes signs posted at intersections saying
I try to do my part by causing collisions whenever I can.
There are a number of roads around here where you can get a speeding ticket without going too much over the posted limit. They are not marked “strictly enforced”, they are simply roads where, because of the terrain (long and straight) people frequently drift into higher speeds. They are also marked by a number of good hiding places for police with radar guns. I don’t notice any correlation between them telling you how strictly they enforce it and strictly enforcing it. However, I would not go so far as to say that there is an inverse correlation.
When in doubt, I always use my cruise control.
First, there are a lot of dicks out there. Even the female CHPs have (and are) dicks. In Santa Barbara on Hwy 101 in 1981, I once got a speeding ticket for doing 56 in a 55. Major Dickness, there. I wasn’t weaving or changing lanes alot, or otherwise driving irresponsibly or even remotely erratically. Again, Major Dickness, there.
As for the Grapevine, much agreed. Especially the long, steep downgrade at its north end. 90mph is often the minimum speed.
In Pennsylvania at least the reason 5 mph above the limit is the magic number is that it is incontestably outside the margin of error of a radar gun or VASCAR; you won’t be able to successfully claim you weren’t actually speeding and the radar gun or VASCAR was giving an erroneous reading.
A responsible driver would ignore the speed limit but drive safely. Unfortunately they might get a ticket for this.
Just as an anecdote…
While driving in Houston, Tx. (on a dry, sunlit day) down the freeway, with a posted speed limit of 60mph, a marked police car enters onto the freeway directly ahead of me and proceeds to drive exactly 60mph. Up to that point, traffic had been going approx. 65-70mph.
Of course everyone slowed down so as not to pass the LEO, with the assumption that he (the LEO) would speed up and ‘go along with the flow’ (which is normally what they do). He did not speed up. Rather, he continued at this speed (exactly 60mph) until one brave (foolish/stupid?) soul decided to ease by him at a slightly (maybe 3mph) faster speed than the LEO was going.
And guess what?! Immediately the lights on top of the patrol car came on and that person was pulled over.
So, the moral of the story?
YES, they CAN, (and often will be) DICKS!
Please, pardon this ‘rant’.
No such thing as a roadblock at the speed limit
If the people behind are speeding bullies, they are speedng bullies
For those of us who want to drive the speed limit, that’s fine. But if traffic behind wants to go faster then we should be in the right lane to let them pass, otherwise we could get a ticket for impeding traffic – yes, a ticket, while others are speeding. It happens.