Why are fast cars legal?

Factual Questions
1

Why is it legal to manufacture and sell an automobile that can drive four times the legal limit? I understand that anything has the potential to be used illegally (ie: a baseball bat could bludgeon a person) but we have the technology to limit the speed of vehicles through governors. Believe me I have no desire for more federal regulations, but I don’t understand.

Fully automatic weapons are illegal, right? But a person wouldn’t have to use them illegally. (I am under the impression that automatic weapons have selector switches so that they can be used in a semi- or non- automatic manner if the user chooses.) We could sell them and leave it to the owner to decide to obey the law or not.

CD burners are legal, even though they could be used for illegal purposes. As I understand it, the recording industry is taking steps to make sure that they can’t be used for illegal copies. This takes the option of using the product legally or illegally out of the user’s hands.

Why are automobiles than can drive faster than 65 MPH allowed to be built and sold, leaving it to the owners’ discretion whether they obey the law or not?

In the interests of full disclosure, I have no pristine driving record, love driving fast, and have no desire to see fast cars legislated.

2

Different countries have different restrictions (if any) on speed of automobiles. Maybe the government refrains from speed restrictors (or whatever they would be called) so that a car can be taken/sold and used in any country at their regulatory speeds.

3

An automobile may be driven legally into another country, where speeds aren’t as restrictive. They may be used off road…possibly on a drag strip, or closed course, or at a sanctioned legal event.

In South Jersey, you can buy a new car, say a Mustang Cobra, capable of hitting 150+ MPH, drive it to Atco speedway and run a quarter mile, exceeding 100 MPH easily, while racing someone else, drive home at 65 MPH and have done it all legally.

I know of some tracks (oval and road courses) that permit similar activity. Many regular cars are converted for SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) events. They get some safety modifications, but the power and performance comes off the showroom floor. Thousands upon thousands of red blooded Americans participate in legal drag racing, sanctioned SCCA events, closed course racing, and I’ve been to a legit “cruise night” where the police allowed burnouts and some drag racing.

Also, in some states (Dakotas and other very rural areas), the speed limit is higher than 65 MPH. (Someone validate for me???)

Sure, 80-90% of the Corvettes, Mustangs, Camaros and Porsches won’t see a track, dragway or sanctioned cruise night, but the opportunity to do so still exists. There are places where you can do 100 MPH legally. Also, there is always a chance legislation will change, permitting states to have higher speed limits. I believe this step has already happened. States can make their own speed limits, but the chance of getting federal funding for roads where the limit is higher than 65 mph gets harder, so some states are disuaded from doing so…but they can if they so choose.

65 and 55 are the most commen legal speed limits, but there are legal opportunities to extract the speed and power of many of the cars on the road.

:slight_smile: …Thank goodness…

4

Montana, during daylight, allows you to drive at whatever “safe speeds” are (taking into acct. the weather, etc.), IIRC. When I drove through in 1996, we traveled at 95-105 the whole time. So until we have even a national speed limit, it doesn’t make much sense to limit the cars.

5

Nebraskas Rural Interstate speedlimit is 80mph. Years ago there was no Daytime Speed Limit on Rural Montana Interstates. “Keep it in double digits” they did ask nicely.

6

Why? Because we, as a country, love automobiles. We enjoy driving quickly. To limit a car, you’d either have to (a) make the engine weak, or (b) limit the engine with a chip of some sort. A weak engine system wouldn’t work because that would limit the cars real-world accelleration, and nobody wants that. A chip-based system can be easily defeated (many high-end cars today have top-speed limiters, and customizers replace the chips). As well, car manufacturers are dependant on what the public wants. The public WANTS the ability to drive fast if they so desire. Many would be outraged if the government mandated slower cars. In the 1980s, the gov’t came close to this by mandating that speedometers would only reach 85 MPH (check an 80s American car). I don’t believe foreign cars were subjected to the same, and thus the American car market suffered. Of course, the cars could go faster than 85 MPH, you just wouldn’t know how fast you were going. Stupid, no? The bottom line is, most people don’t obey the speed limit and the government, of course, knows this. Speed limits are designed to keep speeders in check, not prevent speeding. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn’t get it.

7

Why? Because we, as a country, love automobiles. We enjoy driving quickly. To limit a car, you’d either have to (a) make the engine weak, or (b) limit the engine with a chip of some sort. A weak engine system wouldn’t work because that would limit the cars real-world accelleration, and nobody wants that. A chip-based system can be easily defeated (many high-end cars today have top-speed limiters, and customizers replace the chips). As well, car manufacturers are dependant on what the public wants. The public WANTS the ability to drive fast if they so desire. Many would be outraged if the government mandated slower cars. In the 1980s, the gov’t came close to this by mandating that speedometers would only reach 85 MPH (check an 80s American car). I don’t believe foreign cars were subjected to the same, and thus the American car market suffered. Of course, the cars could go faster than 85 MPH, you just wouldn’t know how fast you were going. Stupid, no? The bottom line is, most people don’t obey the speed limit and the government, of course, knows this. Speed limits are designed to keep speeders in check, not prevent speeding. 55 MPH? Give me a break.

8

My apologies for the obnoxious double post.

9

Think of all the lost revenue from speeding tickets.

10

I belive the highest legal speed limit is 75, I have seen 75 MPH in Arizona and IIRC Utah. Montana did not have a speed limit (actually the speed limit was what was reasonable and prudent for the conditions) but that turned out to be a problem.

This sounds like a Great Debate but …

I agree with the OP and even though I would hate to see more government regulation it seems foolish to allow cars capable of tripling the speed limit to be built. A regulator that could be turned off for track use could be installed for the small percentage of cars that are used this way. Then the penalty would be for speeding and driving on road with your regulator turned off, possible losing ‘adjustable regulator privileges’ as a result.

I am sure the real argument has more to do with the profit made by car companies that sell these cars and the jobs that are created by building them.
AAARRRG!! … 6 posts since I started typing!
I must agree with occ, there would be public outrage (justified or not).

11

If a person buys a fully automatic weapon, it’s illegal for them use it in self defense or hunting. But he can take it to a private course and use it there. (Just as a person could take a fast car to a closed private track to race.) But the owner of the gun can’t carry that dangerous weapon around, even though he’s not hurting anyone while not using it illegally. Why is it okay for a person to drive around in a car that can exceed 100 MPH, when use of such speed would only be legal on a closed, private track?

My apologies for insinuating in the OP that 65 is the national limit. I know better. But even the few states where one can exceed this limit, no cop is going to let a driver cruise at over 100 MPH, regardless of conditions. At the very least, the cop would pull you over to assess whether or not you seemed like a capable, cognizant, alert driver, in a vehicle without threat of falling apart or something.

So again, why allow cars that can drive fast? Why hasn’t the legislature “protected us from ourselves” as they have with in so many other venues?

12

Who could forget the 1980’s when they made speedometers in the US that only went to 80mph for this very reason?

Accelleration is not illegal, thus, fast cars are legal.

13

There’s a real easy answer to this question. It’s because neither Congress nor the state legislatures have passed legislation requiring regulators or other means of limiting maximum speed. Suffice it to say that neither the legislators nor the voters want 'em (for any of the GD reasons posited above), so we don’t have to have 'em.

BTW, I remember when my dad came back from a trip to Saudi Arabia, he had some videotape from a car trip through the desert. I asked him what that damned incessant dinging sound was. His explanation was that cars in Saudi Arabia had to be equipped with a warning bell that goes off when the car exceeds 100 km/h. Cars could go faster, but the price you had to pay was a neverending bell tone.

:rolleyes:

14

TwoBuyFour

Most cars on the road today, other than the economy 4 cylinders, can break 100 MPH. Once you get above the speed limit, you are breaking the law. Using a governor to limit the speed to 100 MPH would not stop speeding. You could be doing 40 MPH in a 35 MPH zone, or 100 MPH in a 35 zone.

All cars have the potential of being taken to a track and raced so any speed governor will have to have a shut off switch. A cop will not know if the governor is disconnected unless he stops you. He won’t have a reason to stop you unless you are speeding, so what’s the point of the governor? The faster you are going, the more severe the penalty, so the punishment is already in place.

Many things can be used to break the law. Obeying the law or breaking the law is always a choice.

15

So there’s some sort of constitutional limitation on the power of Congress to regulate driving speeds on private property? Not likely. If Congress wished, it could mandate governors on every car, with no on/off switch possible.

The point is, Congress does not wish to do so. Everything else is pure speculation.

16

In Europe(but not the UK) there are horsepower limits on bikes, to 100bhp at the back wheel but since most bikes are sold around the world in unrestricted form this adds to the cost of manufacture, having to assemble with differant cams, exhausts, and injection electronics.

Even so these bikes can usually get to around 150mph.

Japanese bikes are also restricted too and since we have many grey imports from there we have developed a small industry de-restricting them.

This can mean repalacing the speedo if the limiter is inside it,or any of the following, changing exhaust header pipes, changing air intake tracts, changing engine management systems.

I read in Bike magazine and another article in Motorcycle News, that mass car makers had made a ‘gentlemans agreement’ to limit production car speed to around 156 mph to forestall legislation around the world and that bike manufacturers had followed suit but at a speed of around 180 mph, which would mean that the Sukuki GSX1300 Hayabusa will remain the fastest bike since it was produced just a year before it came into effect.

Speed trials of Kawasaki ZX12R seem to bear this out as it has as much power as the Suzuki but seems to top out before it has made full power in top gear.

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/home/index.asp

Here a link for bike fans, it doesn’t have much to do with anything but I’m sure ** Johhny LA** will appreciate it.

17

It’s even simpler than all that. Two cars sitting side by side on the showroom floor are equal in every important respect except that one of them can do 140 and the other can do 150 (as indicated by the peg on the spedometer). Which one do you think Mr. Testosterone is going to buy?

A related question: Why do people absolutely have to have a 1GHz processor in their PC when they do little else with it but compose documents, play hearts & check their email? Because, all else being equal, the 1GHz processor sitting next to a 650MHz processor looks like the better deal. Never mind that 99% of average home PC users almost certainly will never call upon the speed of a 1GHz chip (or even 650MHz), the simple fact that it’s available means it will be preferred. And if your product is preferred, it sells better than your competitors’.

A manufacturer can out-sparkle the other will probably get the sale.

18

I’ve read that German car manufacturers, in fact, have a speed govenor on their cars to limit speeds beyond 150 M.P.H. This is because high performance tires available to the general public are not safe to be driven faster than 150 M.P.H.

19

Safety.

Let’s say there still was a national speed limit, and cars had governors limiting them to that speed.
You’re driving on the interstate at the maximum the governor will allow you, when the car in the left lane next to you inexplicably starts to drift into you. You wouldn’t be able to accelerate away to avoid the accident.
I’m sure numerous other situations exist where the ability to go faster than the speed limit be necessary to avoid accidents.

Sua

20

The basic question shows a misunderstanding of the US legal system. Few things are intrinsically illegal. Murder would not be a crime if a state legislature hadn’t passed a homicide law. Something is only illegal if a law is passed making it so. Fast cars are legal because no one has passed a law making it otherwise.

No they are not, only unregistered machine guns are illegal under federal law. They have been tightly regulated since the 1934 national firearms act and prices have gone up dramatically since the 1987 ban on registering new machine guns for civilain ownership but there is no reason a person can’t own one if they are willing to pay the $200 tax and go through the FBI background checks. Some states prohibit them but that’s not universal.

Some machine guns have selector switches that allow them to be used in semi-automatic mode but some do not. Some have a plethora of options to allow for single, double, triple and unlimited numbers of rounds to be fired with a single trigger pull. There are legal legitmate uses for machine guns. I have twice competed in submachine gun matches here in Phoenix. (FWIW I don’t own one but use one belonging to a friend under his supervision) Competitors are required to have any selector switches set to full automatic or at least “burst” mode.