| ABOUT SPEEDING Try asking a few people the question "what is speeding?" and you may get more than one definition; you may even get three or four definitions. Technically, and as far as the law is concerned, any speed over the posted speed limit is "speeding." Therefore, if I'm traveling at 31mph in a 30mph zone, I'm speeding. I think you'll agree that's not very serious, but you could get a speeding ticket. I don't think many police officers would bother anyone for driving one or two mph over the limit, but I suppose it's happened. How much over the limit would you have to be driving in order to get a citation? Excellent question, and I don't have an answer for you. You can be quite sure though that it depends on various factors such as: the individual police officer, road and weather conditions, traffic conditions, any hazards in the vicinity, etc. Let's compare two different situations for illustration purposes. (1) You're driving on a wide city street in good weather conditions, with no parked cars or any hazards in sight, and you're traveling along with all the other traffic at 35mph in a 30mph zone. (2) You're driving in a residential area in good weather conditions, but there are parked cars, and some children playing in driveways and on the sidewalk.You're traveling at 35mph in a 30mph zone. There's a huge difference in these two situations, right? And if you don't agree with me, then I worry about you, and I worry about the safety of the kids playing on the sidewalk. As a matter of fact, if you were driving at 30mph in example 2, and there was a police officer nearby, you could easily get a ticket for an unsafe speed. The posted speed limit means the maximum speed allowed under ideal conditions. In the first example, I see nothing very wrong with going 35mph, or maybe even 36 or 37 mph. Yikes, you say, but you're a driving instructor! Yes, but this is the real world, whereas going on a road test, for example, is not the real world. You must not go over the speed limit on your road test, because you're doing a demonstration. Everyone knows that almost nobody drives at the exact speed limit, or below. If you drove at 29 or 30 mph when the whole flow of traffic is traveling at 35 to 37mph, you would be creating a lot of angry motorists, and I think you would hear a lot of horns blaring. Let's say you were in amongst 100 cars, all doing 35 in a 30 zone; do you think you would be singled out for speeding? Not very likely, and if you were, I think you would have a good argument for the judge, that you had safety in mind. (I mention speed variables below.) What, then, are police officers after? I believe they're after the people who aren't content with being just a little over the limit; they want the really fast, aggressive drivers who create a hazard on our roadways. I know there will be teenagers reading this, and their parents, and possibly some people in law enforcement, but I'm not telling you something you don't already know. Studies have shown that a contributing factor in collisions is speed variables, ie everyone driving at 60mph and a lone driver doing 50mph. This creates a mad scramble of motorists trying to get around this driver, flaring tempers, and a very unsafe situation. I'm convinced that if you're a responsible driver, with the safety of yourself and your fellow motorists uppermost in your mind, you will have little or no trouble with law enforcement officers. You will find loads of valuable information in my defensive driver training program "Learn To Drive And Survive." http://www.ultimate-driver-training.com/index.html Webmasters: if you would like to link to this article you can use the following URL: http://www.ultimate-driver-training.com/speeding.html
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