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No Thinking Happening

Entry 2346, on 2024-06-04 at 20:18:58 (Rating 3, Comments)

I hate to rehash an idea I have discussed a couple of time before, but I want to recount a recent experience I had on Facebook where I debated a few people on how laws should be followed. There was a headline about a road accident which implied the cause of the accident had been speed, and it suggested that speeding was always a bad thing. Of course, I like to be the iconoclast, so I said "No speeding wasn't the problem here, crashing was".

Now I would be the first to say that anecdotes don't matter, but I almost always travel over the speed limit and it has been many years since I had any sort of accident, and even then, the only major crash I have been involved with wasn't my fault and wasn't caused by speed.

However, I do know that as you go faster it can be harder to control the car and the damage and injury resulting from an accident will be greater. The catchphrase we often hear is "the faster you go, the bigger the mess", which is true. In fact it is possibly worse than that might suggest, because the energy of a moving object is given by the equation: kinetic energy equals half the mass times the velocity squared (an equation we all learned fairly early in our science education), so if you double your speed you get four times the energy, and therefore four times the damage.

But this is only an issue if you crash! Going fast is fine, as long as you drive responsibly. So it isn't as simple as keeping to the speed limit, because a good driver in a good car going fast will be safer than a bad driver in a bad car going slower. Have you ever seen F1 drivers walk away from crashes at over 300 kilometers per hour? It happens.

So I was really making a fairly light-hearted point just for a bit of fun, but the response by many people was as if I had admitted to being a mass murderer. The general consensus seemed to be that driving faster than the speed limit is never justified, which any significant amount of thought will soon reveal to be naive and stupid.

Here's a sample discussion on the subject, which I have had to extrapolate a bit because my opponent deleted her comments when she realised I had destroyed her argument...

Her: Speeding is never OK.

Me: Well it is sometimes, as long as the driver is aware of the conditions and other factors.

Her: No it is never OK. The faster you go, the bigger the mess [there she goes parroting an advertising slogan, which is usually a sign that very little thought has gone into this].

Me. OK, let me give you a hypothetical situation, and let's see if you agree that you would speed in this situation, just like I would.

Her: You can try, but speeding is never OK, so I won't agree.

Me: My daughter has a serious illness which requires hospital treatment within 20 minutes, but the ambulance will take half an hour to get here. It is 2 AM and there is almost no traffic around. I can get to the hospital in time if I exceed the speed limit by 10 or 20 kilometers per hour. Should I? [Let's face it, if you didn't speed in that situation, and let your daughter die, you are a psychopath]

Her: [the sound of crickets]

Me: So what do you think? Would you speed in that situation. [It was then that she deleted her comments]

So I think it is fairly clear that there are situations when speeding isn't just OK, its the only responsible thing to do. Some people might say that by trying to save my daughter's life I risk the lives of others. Well, sure, but it's early in the morning and not many people are around. Obviously speeding past a school when the kids are crossing the road would require a different attitude. But condemning a person to death because there is a small increased risk of an accident seems a simple enough compromise to make to me.

Most people would accept that speeding is OK in that case, meaning the statement "speeding is never OK" is not true. Now that we accept speeding is sometimes OK, where does it end? Well, it's not a black and white thing. There are varying degrees of blame for someone driving too fast. In the case I gave above, I think it is always OK (remember it is only 10 or 20 ks over the limit). But it's hard to think of a situaiton when travelling at 200 ks through a built-up area while school kids are crossing the road is justified. Between those extremes, it is really a matter of opinion.

Remember that while the majority of laws are created with good intentions, they are created by bureaucrats who often have little knowledge of the real world situations the law will apply to. Additionally, laws are too general. The open road limit in New Zealand is 100 ks, but there are many places where going a bit faster would not increase the risk much, and others where it might be better to go slower.

The only person who really knows is the driver, assuming they are sufficiently skilled, and if they aren't skilled then they will probably be a major hazard even driving at the speed limit which is quite fast enough to cause some pretty horrible accidents.

People just need to think, and reciting advertising slogans is not a great sign that any thinking is happening.

Comment 1 (7653) by Anonymous on 2024-06-06 at 17:03:35:

Are you breaking the law when speeding to the hospital, yes. Would you be prosecuted once the context is explained, maybe not...

Comment 2 (7654) by OJB on 2024-06-06 at 20:25:10:

Well, sure, I would hope not, but even if I was fined, I still think I would have done the right thing. My major theme here is that people tend to react to these issues with no real thinking, and are too influenced by advertising (AKA propaganda) campaigns on TV.

Comment 3 (7655) by Anonymous on 2024-06-07 at 21:09:46:

Well, some people do, not sure what % of "people" that equates to...

Comment 4 (7656) by OJB on 2024-06-08 at 09:23:51:

Judging by the number of people who criticised me on that one Facebook post, quite a high percentage! Seriously though, you're right, it would be interesting to have a proper survey on attitudes to the law. I'll have a chat with some friends in the Law Faculty!

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