Miles: 1967 Gas bill: 149.27

I’ve always wondered how well thought-out speed limits are. Clearly the point of a speed limit is safety. So what, then, is the point of building roads on which it is considered safe to travel at higher speeds, and how do we determine just what ‘safe’ is? The social and economic benefits of driving fast are clear; time to market is not just important for perishable agricultural goods – the ability to reduce stockpiling and quickly respond to changes in demand is a big deal. Socially, a high level of mobility is good for integrating dispersed areas, opening labor markets, etc. etc. Anyone who has traveled in Asia and compared the road systems in India with those of South Korea or Japan, or even just seen the immediate and obvious effects of China’s recent frenzy of expressway-building, will surely have a very concrete understanding of what driving fast can do for a society.

With this in mind, a rational society might decide that its goal should be to maximize the social and economic benefits of fast roads while minimizing the costs of danger. Quantifying both would be difficult, but not impossible, surely. This is, however, not done I am sure. Not only are speed limits fairly arbitrarily set state-by-state, but as anyone who as driven around this great county can attest, the observed speed limit and the posted speed limit are entirely different things according to local culture. Just compare Interstate 5 in rural Oregon versus Los Angeles. Out in Oregon, the speed limit can be posted as 75 and people will be driving 55 and just taking their sweet time thinking about trees and rain, or whatever it is people in Oregon think about. In Los Angeles, in those rare moments that there is no traffic, the posted 65 is completely meaningless, the flow of traffic is 85 at the very least. Go slower and evoke the wrath of Angelinos who aren’t even in a rush, but instead are just offended at the idea of not driving fast when you get a chance.

Amid all this arbitrariness, there are times that, I suspect, speed limits are quite intentionally set. And that is when you hit a little rural town off a highway and the speed drops in about ten 5 mph hour gradations, because each sign is another zone to get you. And I really do wonder, for many rural towns, just how much of the local police department’s budget comes form speeding tickets.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, this discussion is instigated by my having gotten a speeding ticket. It was 20 miles or so into New Mexico on Interstate 10 and, apparently, they like to lower the speed limit from 75 to 65 for a mile or two around major junctions. This phenomenon is new to me and I sure did not notice any signs. But I do not doubt to coincidence of the sheriff waiting at the first junction into the state, ready to raise $86 for his county.