Legal Questions and the LawPost your questions about the law, or speeding tickets or anything legal. Disclaimer: 7thGenCivic.com and it's moderators are not lawyers or police officers (unless otherwise noted) and can in no way be held responsible for any advice or action
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Do you know how they determine how fast a speed limit should be on a road? The answer might surprise you, the department of transportation surveys a road's speed limit by taking the average speed people drive on the road and subtract 10 mph, rounded down. So if most people drive an average of 60mph, DOT says the road can only be traveled safely at 50mph. HOW does that make sense?!
I call BS !!!
The American Association of State Highway And Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is a national agencies that has very strict Highway Design Criteria.
The Manual "Geometric Design of Highways and Streets" is the national standard for the safe design of ALL roads in the united states of America.
AASHTO and the Manual (loveinly called "the green book" because it's big and green) have been around since the 60's.
Each Road is Designed by Professional Engineers. Most are private sector and have no ties to the government. In the planning stages of Road Development a certain design speed is requested. The Professional Engineer will then do his best to design that road to meet the criteria required to meet that speed.
The criteria is very involved. Stopping Sight Distance, Passing Sight Distance, Horizontal Curve Radius, Vertical Curve Data, Slopes of the road, Super Elevation of the road and of course traffic volumes of the surronding area and predicted traffic on the new road. Speeds of existing traffic are not measured.
The Engineer will then do his best to design the road to the requested design speed. Very Rarely will he have to go back and request a lower design speed, and ussualy for a really trick site constraint.
The design speed is based on a vechile safely driving on that road, going around corners, interacting with other traffic, ability to stop should they have to.
Once the road is reviewed and approved, the road is constructed and a speed limit is posted. The posted speed limit is always FIVE (5) mph under the design speed, not 10 under the average speed of traffic.
This is why most of our speed limits end in 5. 25 mph, 35 mph, 45mph, 65mph, etc. Although even numbers are also around (40mph, 50mph)
Sometimes (like in Texas) once a road is open, the community will request the speed limit be raised, if that gets approved they ussually just up it 5mph, so that it still meets all the criteria of the Design Speed.
So anyway, thanks for posting but I call BS on that part.
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you guys wanna hear some BS? i got a speeding ticket for allegedly going 44 in a 35 construction zone, and I was out of it in a 40 zone... last day of the month too. anyways, they wrote the ticket on the street of the construction, and at that street, i had been stopped at a redlight. saying my weak fuck d17 civic went from 0-44 in 5ft is fucking absurd... court date on oct 1 XD
Here's one for ya: how do you fight a ticket in which you were estimated going 30km over the limit and he estimated you on that in comparison to a car beside you that you "ripped" past? haha.
Haha, whoever wrote this just don't like cops. All the doughnut jokes can tell you that. My thing is that the writer stated "Speeding is a victimless crime."
Sounds like he's the jackass (he called the judges jackass')that can't accept the fact that he got caught breaking traffic laws. From the sounds of it, he should have had his license taken away, if it hasn't already. If you get caught, you get caught, but I wouldn't want the person that can't drive able to go even faster if they had higher speed limits.
Awesome, thanks for correcting me about that. i was just going on word of mouth. So the information most likely got messed up as it was wispered down the lane.
Haha, whoever wrote this just don't like cops. All the doughnut jokes can tell you that. My thing is that the writer stated "Speeding is a victimless crime."
Sounds like he's the jackass (he called the judges jackass')that can't accept the fact that he got caught breaking traffic laws. From the sounds of it, he should have had his license taken away, if it hasn't already. If you get caught, you get caught, but I wouldn't want the person that can't drive able to go even faster if they had higher speed limits.
Heh, well you do have the freedom of speech to call me whatever you want. The honest answer is, yes I don't like cops. Through my entire life, I've only ever had ONE encounter with a police officer that was pleasant. I'm a nice guy, I don't start trouble. But every officer that's interacted with me has an condescending attitude. Who knows why. In regards to the comment you wrote about the fact that I couldn't accept the fact that I got caught breaking the law is superficial at best in my opinion. I've been pulled over for speeding, when I wasn't at all. They just SAY you're speeding so they can pull you over and try to get you for something else. I still have my license... because I know my rights. They say driving is a privilege, I say it's a associative designation to obtain power. It's a privilege that comes with rules. I could go on, but it wouldn't be worth it.
The radar thing is tricky, the cop may be headed in the opposite direction, but his buddy you didn't see down the road could of radared you and radioed ahead.
Before I moved to Durham I got a ticket in my piece of crap 87 accord. The cop was from some small town outside of the town I live in. We were on one of the busiest streets in town on a Saturday night. I was at a stop light and the cop pulls up behind me. The light turns green and I go accelerating faster than the people in the other two lanes. The speed limit is now 50 mph and as we come to another stop light, which has just turned green and people are slowing down to turn... I get over (turn signal and everything... a cop is behind me) I'm doing 55 mph (thats the only 5 increment that is on the '87 speedometer and its orange) Now I'm in the middle lane and the police officer behind me is a good 2-1/2 to 3 car lengths behind me. We go through another light, which has just turned green, and no one is in the left lane so I get over again... the cop follows me again and as we pass through the fourth light he turns on his light and pulls me. Now at this point I'm thinking why is he pulling me over... I pull into a parking lot and he comes to the car and asks me if I knew why I was pulled over. I say no and he tells me I was doing 65 mph in a 50mph zone. I tell him thats total BS and I would like to see his radar. He says he didn't catch me on radar but used his speed estimating technique that they teach them. All the while I'm furious that he is the biggest liar on the planet right now and he knows he's getting away with it too. I argue with him a little bit more and he threatens to arrest me and put me in jail over the weekend so we can go see the magistrate. Before I leave another one of his buddies pulls up and starts to get out of the car, so I just give up and leave. I talk to the DA and he just drops it to five miles over and doesn't even want to hear my story. I was going to fight the ticket in court but my brother and his wife are both lawyers and advised me otherwise. I pay the ticket the day of the court date and move to Durham.
nice read...i got a ticket doing a 85 on a 70 and it was raining hard, i coudn't talk straight to the officer because i was high as hell hehehe, i'm just glad it was raining that night. $135 ticket though.
I guess I'm the lucky one here. I get pulled over at least once a week for speeding early in the morning but due to the fact that I have my military I.D. in front of my license they ask me all sorts of questions about the military and let me slide each time. But good advice.
So I have a question about cop radars for our cars. They sell them everywhere and they seem legal to me. But whenever my friends get pulled over they yank the thing off the window and toss it on the floor like they weren't using it. They don't seem illegal or anything but is it more likely that a cop will give you a ticket because your using one of those?
