Driving the Mindset of Change

There one major issue causing danger on the road is mindset. Our nation needs to have the mindset for safety, with both drivers and law enforcement officers on the same wavelength. This is a complex issue, because it seems that currently we have issues with core fundamentals of driving, in regards to safe driving speed and following distance.

Speed limits are like a contract where drivers and officers come to an agreement in the effort to increase driver safety. That contract is the knowledge that drivers must follow a set of rules, or they risk getting pulled over with a ticket, fine, or even getting arrested and thrown into jail. It is my opinion that the fundamental of this contract is the speed limit as posted on signage quite heavily.

Something such as a clearly defined speed limit seems simple, but the reality is that our nation does not agree. If it were just drivers that had different opinions, this would be less of an issue. Once we see that police officers vary greatly in their understanding of the speed limit, we can start to see why there are wildly different implementations of the law.

This exact topic has been a passion project of mine for more than ten years. I have asked multiple hundreds of first responders (95% police) this question in these exact terms: “In your opinion (broad generalization), do you think it is safer for me to drive 5 miles below the speed limit or 5 miles above?”

One might thin that this question would be simple to answer, but even the first reaction to my question gets many different responses. My conversation goes many different ways, depending upon how they react, and their answers given. Only a handful answer that following the law is safer. The vast majority of police officers will try to justify that driving over the speed limit is the safest option.

Velocity that someone wants to drive is their own opinion, but my question is asking if it is safer for me to follow the law or break the law. 80% of police officers (approximately) say that I should break the law, because other people around me are breaking the law. Way too many of them do not agree with me that the speed limit is the maximum that you’re supposed to drive. They will argue that the number on the sign is the speed that you need to drive, and no less.

What we have here is a large disparity in the understanding of the law, and how we are ticketed. Thinking that speed limits are the number one thing drivers are stopped for, and we’re told to break that law if others are doing it, then what other laws should we attribute this to? This is a very dangerous precedent to set, because now a people are being taught to use their judgment on when to follow a law.

Can you imagine the anxiety that a new driver could face when trying to juggle this speed limit issue? Let’s say the speed limit is 65 on the highway. On one hand, they are told to not drive too fast, because they could die. On the other hand, there are people telling them to drive the speed limit, and if they go slower they could die. That tiny bit of margin is very difficult to maintain, but it is also very dangerous.

When we drive, there is a safety technique of keeping a bubble of protection. If you see someone driving erratic, then you choose to stay away. This is one of the pillars of defensive driving. If everyone on the road is driving the speed limit, then everyone stays in everyone’s bubble of protection (and possible sitting directly in blind spots). This is why it is important to allow a safe margin of speed below the speed limit. The quicker that someone lets the dangerous driver out of their bubble, the safer they are. We aren’t discussing driving so slow that a person inhibits traffic, but just 5 miles per hour under.

Even just 5 miles per hour being seen as dangerous is pretty wild to me, but many officers get quite aggressive with their defense that slow is the wrong choice. In these cases, I ask them what they’d say to the fictional granddaughter who just turned 18 and asks “grandpa, is it safer for me to drive 5 miles per hour over the speed limit or 5 miles per hour under”. Nearly every single confrontational officer says they would tell her 5 under. What this shows is that officers are treating their constituents different from their family. It also shows that they recognize and accept the fact that it is speed that kills.

Statistics are used quite often to try and criminalize the slower driver, but again we are only talking about 5 miles per hour under. If anyone hits me with that lower speed, most likely they are a bad driver. There are quite a large number of factors that make statistics difficult. One is that people have incentive to try and place blame upon the other person for an accident. I feel this gives police officers a different perspective than drivers. Cars are designed so well, that we can’t just look at accidents, but rather fatalities.

The statistic that I find most convincing, is a cumulative 15% chance of death for every 5 mph over the speed limit. This reinforces the view that speed kills, and shows a glaring problem with a before mentioned issue. One of the main defenses that police will say, is that you need to keep up with traffic. This is the issue with being told to break the law, as it becomes a slippery slope. How much should someone break the law? Is there a limit to the speed at which they should follow? This becomes another task that the driver must juggle.

Each time a driver keeps up with the speeding flow of traffic, they are taking a huge risk. There is a chance that the next police officer won’t agree with the “keep with the flow” opinion, as they are “by the book”. What kind of world is this to live in, where we are told that we must break the law of speed limit, or be in danger of getting a ticket for inhibiting traffic when you were going to legal speed? We are in a world where the breakers of law seem to have the most benefits and rights. This is a mindset that we must change, if not to provide physical safety for our children, then at least to help them have less anxiety producing conditions to which they must walk the tightrope of compliance.

How can we get on the same mindset, if we do not agree on the law? How can we allow a law to be so lax at some times and yet so strict at others? When we allow such confusion with laws, it opens up the door for discrimination and profiling. The law needs to mean something, and that is a mindset that our nation needs to get back to. Don’t we desire a world where are are known consequences? Our nation needs the mindset of truth, if we are to pull ourselves out of this predicament.