Speed limit, or no limit?
In the state of New Hampshire, the government is looking into the idea of changing the speed limit on freeways from 60 MPH to 70 MPH. Reasoning behind it is that drivers drive 70 already because of the unwritten “5 over” law, so the speed limit should be raised 5 MPH. By doing this, people should drop the 5 over law on the freeway. This should, in fact, lead to fewer tickets and a “safer” freeway.
In my opinion, all of this is stupid. People naturally want to push the limits. People get told that they have to go a certain speed, so they go a little bit faster instead. In fact, there will always be a “5 over” law among drivers. Police may start out strong with the new law, and there may be fewer tickets given out for a little while, but it is very evident that if everyone is doing it, they can’t pull everyone over.
What happens when police just sit back and let it happen like they are now. No one has a problem with it now. Police rarely go after the speeders who are doing over five over. People doing 10 or 15 over the speed limit are usually the people who get caught, not the person who is doing 5 over. Within a year after the law would be passed people will be doing five over again, but this time, instead of doing 70, they are doing 75. In ten years are they going to pass another law to have it raised again? If they are going to do that then they might as well just take all speed limits away and let people go as fast as they want. Of course that will lead to countless numbers of crashes, but at least the people can go as fast as they want.
I, myself, like to drive fast, but I am not a crazy driver. I like to do 5 over and I like to keep it like that. Rarely will I do more than that. I wouldn’t mind if the speed limit were raised, but I still think it’s a stupid idea in general. People will only be going faster. If they want people to stop speeding, they would need massive amounts of police officers on the freeways at all times, and they would be handing out hundreds of tickets a day.
I think that the speed limit should stay the same because people are used to it; it is a safe, moderate speed, and not many people have a problem with it. Let the cops pull over the people who are going excessive amounts over, and let the people who are following the 5 over law keep at peace, and follow the flow of traffic.