Discussion: 75 is the de facto limit

Thanks for stopping by.

In most states in the northeast, stick to 75mph or below on interstates and you'll be fine. The 75mph recommendation is close to independent of the posted limit. Be more careful in Vermont and in urban areas, where the speed limits are closer to meaningful.

nb, not a lawyer, not legal advice, etc.

I've noticed the independence of the 70-75 number from the posted limit in a number of places today.

Haha feet that last sentence says you've been in the US for too long.

Ohio is a notable exception. 10-over is the basic rule, especially in cities where the interstate limit drops to 55. It's mostly small municipalities that are known for speedtraps, but the cities participate too. The State of Ohio also has something like 14 Cessna aircraft for aerial enforcement, and they fly them as much as they can.

... and Ohio is not in the northeast.

(For me, the 'northeast' boundary north-to-south runs Rochester, NY-Williamsport, PA-along the Appalachian crest to somewhere around Charlottesville, VA, then east to the coast. Buffalo, State College, Pittsburgh, and Richmond are not in the northeast. Rochester is a difficult case.)

I find that 75 is almost a constant on interstates in most places in America. Even north of Denver on I-25, posted at 80, seemed to have most cars going about 75. (I only have one data point for that trip---the return was 40-55 due to snow and ice.)

The difference in Ohio, in my opinion, is that you can be going the same speed as traffic and still have a significant chance of getting a ticket. There are lots of places with known speedtraps. Richmond, Virginia comes to mind. South on I-95 crossing from North Carolina into South Carolina is known for 10-20 police car, aircraft-supported speedtraps, at least during spring break. But I maintain that Ohio is in a class by itself when it comes to ludicrous random ticketing of people driving the same speed as everyone else. It's gotten much worse everywhere since the economic crisis in 2007-2008. My entire commute is essentially a continuous speedtrap.

Sounds like I need to go to Australia for a whole new level of traffic enforcement...

I drive scared in Ontario. They have a "50-km/hr over" law that allows your car to be seized. It sounds reasonable enough, but their highways have a lot of places where the limit is 100, but drops to 80 at intersections. So if you're going at an "upper-sort-of-normal-in-America" 130 (80.7mph), and you fail to notice the 80km/hr signs...

They don't just seize your car; they leave you at the side of the road. (At least that's what they say they will do.) They keep your car for 7 days, suspend your licence for 7 days and fine you $2,000+. One of my friends got caught just after entering a construction zone with a very low temporary limit.

Given how strapped most state governments are for cash, I'm surprised more haven't followed Ohio's lead for an easy source of revenue.

Bash - most (all?) states in Australia have similar laws (in local parlance, known as "hoon" laws), though used as often as not for things like street racing and doing burnouts. Lewis Hamilton famously had his rental car impounded for doing a burnout outside the entrance to the track on Melbourne F1 Grand Prix weekend a few years ago.

I noticed immediately the traffic in Perth area hovered at the speed limit very precisely. And saw a couple radar installations to help enforce the limit. Coming from the NE, it was an interesting change of driving tactic.

The radar cameras lurk on suburban roads too, waiting for people to go above 50kph.

@jenny did you help our struggling local economy in a radar trap? The mining boom is over and we need all the cash we can get!

Undy helped both Mudgee's and Dubbo's economies during the QB3 weekend. Given it was a double demerit point weekend he's now sitting pretty on 12 points and planning strategies to keep the remaining one point in tact for the next three years.

I wonder how much of the difference in enforcement is due to incentives. Here in CT, the reason there is little speed enforcement except on interstates is said to be that local police forces keep only a small percentage of the revenue from the ticket; most goes to the state. (Whereas non-moving violations are all kept by the town.) Thus, we see aggressive enforcement locally of parking violations but the usual speed on our local streets (25mph limit) exceeds 40mph in straight stretches; and nobody is ever ticketed for speeding. Likewise, running red lights (in the sense of continuing to accelerate when the light turns orange/amber) is common, and the 'no right turn on red' signs are almost universally ignored.

Whereas, in the small towns in upstate NY I know of that write a lot of traffic tickets, it seems to be anecdotally that most of the revenue is kept by the town.

In Australia, who gets the revenue from a speeding fine? The state in which the offense occurs? How about Ohio, cedarcreek?

(There are additional weirdnesses in CT that are probably not known in Australia. For example, our town is unable to install red light cameras (which would make enforcing red light running worthwhile by reducing the required number of police person-hours per conviction) because the required enabling legislation does not seem able to pass the state legislature. The reason appears to be concern about racial disparities in the result: since cities skew black and would be the ones to bother with red light cameras, the racial skew in who receives resulting tickets would, it is argued, be a violation of civil rights. A fascinating argument.)

In Australia, speeding fines and those for other 'moving violations' (in US parlance) go to the state, parking fines generally to local government.

I'd love to know what good civic works Adelaide City Council is going to do with the $46 garnered when I overstayed my welcome last week (a meeting ran overtime and I hadn't put enough in the parking meter to cover this contingency).

And Richard, no, I've never had a speeding fine!
*touches medium-density particle board*

Neither have I, although I contributed $42 to the Shire of Mudgee (or whatever it was called) in 1991.

Tsk tsk; you neglected to angle-park with your tail to the kerb?

Indeed.

Pretty steep @1991 prices in a smallish country town? They must have a magnificent shire hall by now! Perhaps the bricks in it each have the names of the 'contributors' stamped thereon :)

I got told off in Orange last year for parking wrong, corrected it but put it at 45 deg facing the wrong way from the kerb. Day after getting in from the UK and a quick introduction to Australian rules. Amusingly the guy who told me couldn't cope with me having come straight from the UK and asked if I was from Dubbo...

My other NSW fines anecdote (apart from witnessing undy's two speeding fines), is the guys giving me a lift to a rogaine stopping for a piss by the side of the road...and duly getting fined $500 each.

In Ohio it's pretty weird. The law enforcement agency (the officers) only get fines. The municipality or municipal court can levy court costs. There is a marginally legal practice in Ohio called "Mayor's Courts". I'm not really sure what the legal issue is, but Mayor's Courts universally suck. You can, I believe, make a request that the matter be handled in a true municipal court, which tend to be run by counties---I think. Now, the weirdest thing in Ohio speeding law is that the fine for 0-10 over is zero dollars. (I can't find a legal reference, so this may not be correct.) So the police have no incentive to ticket you for 0-10 over, unless it's also a Mayor's Court, because their "little town" will be able to pocket the court costs.

I'm going from memory here, but typical fines are $20-$80. But, court costs are a minimum of $80---that's the least I've ever paid. Typical is $160. I've heard of $240.

One thing about Ohio law is that there is no reasonableness defense in Ohio as there is in places like California. In Ohio, the officer basically has to witness you speeding. There is no "I was going with traffic" defense. In some states, they can't ticket you unless you are going above a statistically-determined percentile. Even in states with those laws, I suspect the agencies know when the studies are being done and put out a lot of officers to artificially depress traffic speeds so they can game the statistics.

Ohio has an ongoing legal battle over red-light cameras and unattended, automatic speed trap cameras. These are trying to exploit a loophole in the law. In the US, typically, we have a right to confront the accuser. So if the officer fails to show up in court, the judge has to dismiss it. This rarely happens in my experience. But the red-light cameras and speeding cameras have no one to testify in court who was there (a "witness"), and that *might be* an infringement of the right to due process. The fourth amendment says that property (which includes cash) cannot be taken without due process, and "Due Process", some claim, absolutely must involve a court. The red-light/speeding cameras try to get around this by calling it a civil infraction rather than a criminal infraction. That way they can have a kangaroo hearing (mine was run by an actual judge, but not acting as a judge, if you can believe that), introduce a swore affidavit by an officer who watched the video, and find you guilty of the civil infraction. Normally a swore affidavit could not be introduced as evidence because you can't cross examine a piece of paper. I'm not an attorney, but I do try to take tickets to court where I represent myself ("pro se") in speeding ticket cases. One loss, one victory. I was so disgusted in a Mayor's Court last year that I plead guilty to save $100 in court costs.

I saw people get sent to jail for not being able to pay court fees, which is almost certainly unconstitutional and certainly immoral. NPR did a whole series on this: http://www.npr.org/series/313986316/guilty-and-cha...

I saw the prosecutor claim repeatedly that the defendant (with no attorney) didn't need a translator because the officer (who was not there) wrote that the defendant spoke good English. The court's (i.e., the Mayor's) reaction did not inspire confidence in his skills as a judge. I held my tongue, but I honestly wish I had made a scene.

It's the "court costs racket" that entices small towns (like Norwood (!), which isn't exactly a small town) as well as entire counties (I'm talking to you, Butler County) to write as many tickets as possible. It's been really bad since the economic crisis started.

I'm not a attorney, but for my next ticket from the Ohio State Police, I'm planning, if the judge will allow it, to subpoena records from OSP regarding cell phone interception technologies (like Stingray) and direct data from cell phone providers, like Verizon, to ask the officers in court (when they're under oath) if they used products of technologies like that. (You're usually not allowed to go on a fishing expedition---You have to limit questions to the exact event that is on trial, so it might not work.) A few summers ago I got two tickets in about a month. The second was extremely suspicious. I know I'm slightly paranoid anyway, but I'm almost certain they do.

This reminds me that as I was driving home *tonight*, I planned to research if the traffic to-and-from cell phones for driving apps like Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, etc, is encrypted. I'd feel a whole lot better if it were.

There are a few good things in Ohio regarding speeding:
1. 0-10 is usually safe.
2. Unmarked cars cannot be used for speeding enforcement except in very rare cases. One loophole is that the superintendent of the state highway patrol's choice of livery for Ohio State Trooper vehicles is automatically accepted, even if it's chosen to hide those vehicles as much as possible. http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4549.13
3. There is a prima facie law that says, essentially, "Roads that appear to be (certain types of roads)... have to have speed limits that match." So perhaps you can get the transition zones (55-to-35, for example) thrown out. Section B, here: http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4511.21
4. If you're going to church, and you get pulled over, make sure you tell the officer that you're going to church. There is a law. I've read it. I'm not convinced it says what people say it says, but I've heard it works. http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2331.11

And, just to lighten this a little in case someone thinks I'm crazy: Historically, say 1993-2007, I got about one ticket every three years. I used to tell people I deserved every ticket I got. Since 2008 or so, I've gotten a ticket about every 14 months---almost three times the earlier rate. Since 2008, I have driven slower than before. It seems to me that every ticket I've gotten has been driving with traffic and being randomly chosen out of a line of cars moving about the same speed as me. So now, I don't feel like I deserve every ticket I get. I guess I should just be thankful I don't live with speeding laws like Australia or Canada.

The one exception was a ticket I got where the officer mistook my car for another. Luckily, I was driving to lunch with a co-worker who was in a separate car---He had to go to the airport immediately after eating---so I had a witness. The ticket was $150, and an attorney to fight it was just too much to risk---I figured it wasn't easily winnable. So I found a library book, "Represent Yourself in Court", and read four chapters of it (that's all the time I had). And I won. It was fun but a bit stressful. A bit of a rush. I recommend it to people. Now, when I get a ticket, if I have any hope at all of winning, I take it to court. The real problem with the random enforcement is the rules for multiple tickets in a certain period. Because I drive so much, I'm at a real risk of exceeding those thresholds.

An update: Last week Cleveland-area voters supported restrictions to red-light camera usage by local governments, essentially affirming due process rights: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/c...

An update: Last week Cleveland-area voters supported restrictions to red-light camera usage by local governments, essentially affirming due process rights: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/c...