Slow Your Horses

Changing how we catch speeders.

Welcome back to The Burnett Breakdown. Make sure to subscribe if you haven’t already and feel free to share it with anybody who may enjoy it.

Fair warning: this newsletter may be much ado about nothing. You may not get as fired up about the topic as I do or have any opinions about it. You may just straight up not care. I understand.

But, it really bothers me that we spend so much time arguing and thinking about politics and ignore little, basic policy changes that can actually improve our day-to-day lives. Speeding ticket enforcement may not be the most exciting or pressing topic, but incremental improvements are more achievable than sweeping national improvements so they are worth looking at.

Speeding Tickets

Even though it may seem like it, this newsletter is not the result of my getting a speeding ticket any time recently. I have gotten a couple in my lifetime, but not in the last five years or so (and I never had to write a handwritten essay on driver safety…Alex).

Nonetheless, this is a very niche issue that is a problem across the country. I am not calling for the federal government to do anything, but I am calling on local governments to get their stuff together.

Why in the world do we have police officers sitting on the side of the road with radar guns pulling drivers over that are driving over the speed limit? I’m not questioning the legitimacy of having speed limits on the road (although let’s be honest, a lot of speed limits are made-up nonsense with no justification other than some bureaucrat picked that number). I’m not questioning the legitimacy of enforcing the speed limits that we have. If people are speeding, then they deserve to suffer the consequences when they get caught. However, I am questioning the way that most places in the United States enforce speed limits.

As I mentioned, the vast majority of speeding tickets are the product of a police officer sitting in his/her car with a radar gun and pulling drivers over that are driving faster than the stated speed limit. This was a great system back when technology limited a police department’s ability to enforce the law; now, technology has sufficiently improved to the point that we no longer need to continue this same system. It’s time to automate.

Current Problems

Because I am a conservative, it’s vital to consider why bother changing in the first place. As the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Well, I would argue that our current system is broken as it does not achieve its purpose effectively and incentivizes negative behavior.

According to the Colorado Department of Transportation,

the primary purpose of speed limits is to enhance safety by reducing risks imposed by drivers speed choices. The intent is to reduce disparities in speeds and reduce the potential for vehicle conflicts. [Author’s note: bureaucratic language is the worst. Vehicle conflicts? Is that when vehicles are in some sort of disagreement? Just say crash.] A related function of speed limits is to provide the basis for enforcement and sanctions for those who drive at speeds excessive for conditions and endanger others.

At the risk of allowing Colorado to speak for the whole country, I think this explanation for the purpose of speed limits and their enforcement would be largely agreed upon. Essentially, it all boils down to safety on the roads.

I think this is a proper government function as one driver’s recklessness could put another person in danger, so I’m not questioning the government’s interest in enforcing speed limits. I do, however, doubt the current system of enforcement’s success in promoting driver safety.

I think it’s fair to say that most drivers essentially add 10 mph to whatever the stated speed limit is and try to stay at or beneath that speed. Sometimes, drivers will live life on the edge a little bit and go faster than 10 mph over the speed limit. When drivers do this, they are essentially gambling that there are no police officers up ahead that will catch them speeding.

To increase their chances of not getting caught, drivers may slow down when their view ahead is restricted, such as around a curve or as they reach the top of a hill, just in case a police officer is sitting on the other side. Police officers choose these locations knowing that there will be some drivers who don’t slow down in these situations and won’t have time to slow down by the time they see the police car.

In other words, our current enforcement system is a cat-and-mouse game between police officers and drivers where police officers try to sneakily catch drivers speeding and drivers do what they can to avoid being caught.

While this game is fun and all, it is actually a remarkably inefficient way to promote safety on the roads. There is a mistaken belief that in order to tamp down on criminal behavior we ought to focus on the severity of the punishment. While the severity of the punishment plays some role, consistent and reliable enforcement is more effective at deterring criminal behavior.

It turns out that people willing to do criminal acts (such as speeding) are less willing to commit crimes if their chances of getting caught are almost certain regardless of how severe the consequence may or may not be. The irregular and inconsistent enforcement of speeding fly in the face of this reality and do not consistently slow down drivers on the road.

Furthermore, traffic stops over speeding expose pretty much everyone involved to unnecessary danger. Police officers know that in a country with over 300 million guns, there is a pretty good chance that any driver they pull over is potentially armed. In spite of traffic stops typically being routine, police officers are exposed to examples of deadly traffic stops in training videos and/or from conversations with other officers. This makes police officers keenly aware of how tragic a traffic stop could be and naturally puts them on the edge which results in on-edge police officers interacting with agitated drivers that are part of a widely-armed population.

Not to mention, the police officer is out of his/her car on the side of the road as other cars drive by and the other drivers on the road are forced to get over in the other lane as quickly as possible. All to inefficiently stop speeding drivers.

Speed Cameras

This is why we need speed cameras. While I don’t look to the United Kingdom as inspiration for pretty much anything, they have had a system of speed cameras for decades. I have no doubt that I will probably have some qualms with the way that the UK implements its speed camera system, but its existence demonstrates that it is technologically feasible. Local jurisdictions in the United States would be wise to take advantage of this very technology.

To be clear, I do think that some basic parameters should be set for the use of speed cameras. For example, I think their locations should be made public knowledge. Also, the pictures taken by speed cameras should be reviewed by a human to ensure quality control. Finally, speed cameras should completely replace police officers with radar guns not simply be an addition to this practice; the goal is to eliminate this way of enforcing speeding altogether.

Speed cameras get rid of the mouse-and-cat game that drivers and police officers play as I mentioned earlier. Because drivers would know exactly where the speed cameras are, they would know that speeding in that area would guarantee a ticket. This guaranteed consequence would drastically reduce speeding in that area.

A criticism could be that this would only reduce speeding in areas where there were speed cameras and encourage drivers to drive faster everywhere else. If speed cameras are strategically located, by using accident data to determine the most dangerous stretches of road, then it shouldn’t really matter if driver behavior changed in this way.

Since safety is the purpose of enforcing speed limits (and the only justified reason for the government to enforce them in the first place), drivers slowing down in the most dangerous areas even just for a speed camera is achieving the goal of increased safety. If the number of people “caught” speeding decreases while the number of accidents and accident-related injuries/deaths decreases as well, then isn’t that mission accomplished?

Philadelphia recently implemented speed cameras and saw a 36% decrease in crashes on its Roosevelt Boulevard. I don’t care how many fewer people were “caught” speeding with those kinds of results.

As for the increased driving speeds elsewhere, I don’t actually think this would be much of a problem. I think it’s obviously true that people would drive faster in non-speed camera areas, but the purpose of enforcing speed limits isn’t to prevent people from driving fast; it is to keep people safe.

If drivers increase their speed in less dangerous areas and accidents don’t increase in any significant way, then those speed limits were too low in the first place. If accidents do increase in significant numbers making other areas dangerous then adding speed cameras in those areas would solve that problem. (Legislation would need to be well-written with clearly delineated and numerical thresholds that define “dangerous” areas in order to prevent police departments from throwing up speed cameras everywhere).

Plus, people still have a vested interest in not dying, so they aren’t going to suddenly start driving with reckless disregard for their own life. Continuing to live, not the threat of a ticket, is sufficient motivation for the vast majority of people to maintain a reasonable driving speed.

Also, I’m not advocating for or expecting all traffic stops to cease, but speed cameras would decrease police officers pulling over drivers and unnecessarily facing danger by eliminating traffic stops over speeding. I think police officers still need to (and would) be stationed on the side of the road pulling people over for offenses such as DUI, reckless driving, missing license plates, etc. These are offenses that ought to be punished and frequently lead police to discover other offenses like drug trafficking. Speed cameras would not get rid of these types of traffic stops and may even allow police to focus more on these more serious offenses.

Once again, I know this isn’t the most pressing concern in the world. It just bothers me when local governments are focused on nonsense like painting crosswalks rainbow colors for pride (yes, I am talking about you Clarke County) instead of doing basic functions well like keeping the roads safe. Fewer colorful crosswalks and more cameras, please.

God Bless,

Hunter Burnett