Your Driving is NOT Reckless

Drivers:

There is no excuse for reckless driving. Driving the 85th Percentile Speed is not reckless driving, although special interests who want your money would have you think so.

It’s not a matter of driving any speed you want. The highway you are on and your own minute-to-minute assessments of the hazards you encounter determine the speed you feel safe to drive. Most of the time you are right. But 85% of the time you are in danger of getting a “speeding” ticket, because officials under-post speed limits. This is done on purpose, in order to give you a ticket, even though you are not “speeding.”

The MUTCD (Manual On Uniform Traffic Control Devices), the Bible of highway engineering, states that posted speed limits must conform to reasonable and prudent driver behavior. That means you cannot use speed limits to try to dictate driver behavior, as in try to slow traffic by lowering the posted speed.

The 85th Percentile Speed is observable reasonable and prudent driver behavior. It’s the safest speed with the most compliance (do a web search). It is also why officials do not post speed limits at the 85th Percentile Speed.

If they did, with the resulting compliance rate of 85% there would be hardly anyone to ticket, removing the profit motive for RADAR guns in the hands of municipal police, the aim of Speed Trap Bill SB 607.

Tell your Representative and Senator to vote NO on Speed Trap Bill SB 607.

Archimedes