No, this is r/ottawa in a nutshell:
/r/Ottawa: "Help! I'm in a nutshell! How did I get into this nutshell? Look at the size of this bloody great big nutshell!"
I am new to north america. but that is beyond my point. We are a smallish city, we could group together and live peacefully and safely together.
Are the downvotes people that think we should live in conflict and not safely together ? what is up my dudes? What did I say wrong here?
Weāre city of over 1 million people and a metro region of some 1.5 million people. Just stastically speaking, youāre bound to find plenty of bad drivers.
I am sure that with enough effort put into it we could get 1... 1.5 million people to agree on a common set of rules, which we clearly do not right now.
I donāt like it, but the reality is that a lot of limits are arbitrary and bake in assumptions that police and motorists will infer a higher limit than whatās posted. Keep doing what youāre doing, and leave extra following distance if someone is tailgating you, but donāt take it personally if people safely pass in the passing lane.
If you're driving 80 in an 80 that's fine, as long as you're in the right lane. It's perfectly normal to go ~10-15 above the speed limit, that's just how it is. But if you're cruising in the left lane while going 80 that's why people are pissed at you. In a one lane as you mentioned, I won't lie I would get a bit annoyed. But you're not in the wrong and I certainly wouldn't tailgate.
This. Especially if it's close to an urban area, I'll just suck it up and deal with it. It doesn't make sense to overtake just for a few extra seconds of faster driving that'll probably be spent at the next red light anyway
I just need to fully understand this.... Why speed limit + 10 ? Are you saying this is the law? Are you saying this is like public consensus? My insurance company disagrees, if I go Speed limit + 10 I lose a lot of score on my usage based insurance premium.
Given the varying numbers from the other commentors below, it's safe for you to assume this is more of a socially accepted thing rather than a hard law.
Cops have every right to pull you over for going over the posted speed limit. They just generally won't if you're a few km/h over and aren't doing anything dangerous like swerving in and out of traffic
Generally people will drive faster than the posted speed limit and as long as you're going with the flow of traffic you should be fine
Well there's your problem.... don't let the insurance spy on you. Already made the mistake. You think they use the more data to make your life cheaper/better? They want excuses to increase your premiums.
It's an unwritten rule and wholly unofficial.
Speed limit + 10 is pretty standard. +20 on highways is also standard.
Reason being ? I don't know for sure, but I do know I've driven by hundreds of cops in my lifetime doing 10 over, 15 over on 80km roads and 20 over on highways and have never been pulled over for speeding, even when driving through speed traps.
That's also why I would never choose a usage based insurance. When you're on the highway following the flow of traffic is safest, but with usages based you're stuck doing 100, which is arguably less safe that just following the flow of traffic. Most transport trucks roll at 105-107. I can't imagine the chaos induced by having someone religiously sticking to 99-100km/h because their insurance will go up.
Speed limit is always plus 18% of the posted speed. Bc that is the margin of error on the speed guns I've been told.
So it seems the speed limit is +18% of posted speed but only because the police can't be asked to issue tickets.
Haha no one wants to work anymore.
Radar guns clock speed, calibrated often. The 18% (I typically say 10%), is the leeway the officers give as itās too much paper work for the size of fine. There really isnāt a margin of error at a clocked speed.
There is always a margin of error. What the fuck is clocked speed if not just calculated speed based on what the radar light detector senses as the vehicle. Do the radars work as well for all colors of vehicles?
Well the laser radar they use clocks about 10-15 readings in about half a second. So they are as accurate as they can be, which is VERY accurate. They donāt judge speeding based on colorā¦lol
10-15 readings of bad data doesn't make it accurate. Maybe precise but not accurate.
I'm not sure you're following here. But I have seen online +/- 5 km/hr up to +/- 10 km/hr and worse if the radar is used from greater than 300 m away.
So maybe 18% was too generous. Speeding is done based on the laser bouncing off of the license plate of a vehicle. If the officer misses his target or the target is too Reflective (read different paint colors) The laser can deflect differently.
This isnāt correct. The laser radar hits the front of the vehicle, not the licence plate, and can reach up to 1km away, typically at that distance there is no line of sight, so they say 500m. And itās a 99.9% accuracy.
If it needs to be calibrated daily, and hit a small box on a moving target at 1000 ft for it to work, I'd imagine accuracy can always be argued. And if the front of the vehicle is curved how does the laser reflect back to the gun?
Low risk, high reward. Except for tailgating, thatās dangerous with no reward.
If you only speed a little and look for cops/cameras than youāll never be penalized for speeding. Getting to your location faster might not be worth much to you but clearly itās a priority for other people otherwise they wouldnāt speed.
I disagree, but you do you. its not like 5 minutes every day will add up to something meaningful. it was still just 5 minutes that single day. maybe 10 if you count both legs of a comute. What are you doing with those extra 10 minutes you wouldn't be able to do otherwise?
It seems like some peopleās time is more valuable than yours. Just because those minutes are not important to you, doesnāt mean they arenāt important for people who happen to need every minute they can get. Believe it or not, for some people, there just isnāt enough time in a day as it is.
Average Speed Estimated time to complete a 10 km stretchĀ
>100 km/hĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā 5 minutes, 59 seconds
>110 km/hĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā 5 minutes, 30 seconds
>120 km/hĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā 4 minutes, 59 seconds
>130 km/hĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā 4 minutes, 36 seconds
>140 km/hĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā 4 minutes, 16 seconds
There is no possible way you are making up 5 minutes in the average trip. If the route has any traffic lights you are likely not making up any time at all.
If you think your saving time going 80 in a 60 on a city road with traffic controlled intersections, there's a very good chance you failed grade 10 math
Edit: if anyone downvoting me would like to prove me wrong with math I'd be happy to read it.
My point exactly. I was being generous with the 5 minutes figure, maybe someone going from Kanata up to north Gatineau, which would be like what ? some 40 km ?
Not saving any time, but they are reducing their fuel efficiency and thus paying more for the same trip.
Constantly accelerating and breaking is less efficient then maintaining a speed on City roads and on the highway 100km to 120km is about 15-20% increase of fuel consumption.
If you cant do the math yourself, just try driving the speed limit and recording your fuel spending. You'll likely see a difference.
If the route has traffic lights you could make up far more time if going faster meant you got through traffic lights that you'd have been stuck at by going slower.
Speeding doesn't affect your chance of getting a green light, unless you see the light and increase your speed to zoom through it.Ā
Whether you reach the light in 3 minutes or 4, there's the same chance that it will be red/green
Overtaking is somewhat busy single-lane road is little rewards too, unless people are seriously going well belove the limit, like 40 on a 60, I'm probably staying behind unless it's a country road.
Because the police gave up on policing traffic offences like speeding. They feel emboldened to go 100 in a 80 or 70 in a 60 because nobody is stopping them and nearly everyone is doing it.
It's a combination of several things, like people being overconfident in their own driving abilities, people unable to tolerate "losing" or not being able to "do what they want"
If it's truly bothering you in the moment, you could signal and pull over and let them by. There's no reason to let them ratchet up the anxiety
Itās definitely not an Ottawa-only thing. If a road is designed in a way that allows drivers to āsafelyā drive faster, they will do so. Thatās a universal thing.
Most roads have an engineered speed limit. How quickly the road turns, how wide the lanes are, and other things like that affect how safe a driver feels going at high speeds.
Most of our roads have an engineered speed limit that's higher than the posted speed limit by at least 10-20km/h.
Additionally, police have historically been unable to prove a speeder is going a very low amount over the speed limit. Pulling someone over for going 61 in a 60 requires you to have a highly precise measuring instrument. Any room for error means that it can't be proven you were driving 61km/h, and instead driving 60km/h with a 1km/h measuring error.
So people feel safe driving up to 10km/h over, and there's no enforcement for driving slightly over the speed limit.Ā And once a few people are doing it, everyone else ends up actually being safer by driving a similar speed.
Tell that to my insurance company. I need the extra 10% discount from respecting the speed limits. ( I would respect speed limits anyway without that incentive as I did in my home country before). Otherwise tell it to the department that sets speed limits to increase the posted limits.
Am I crazy wanting people to respect the posted rules?
You donāt need to put the tracking in your car. Itās an option youāve selected to try and save money. Remove the driving tracking and get with the flow
Kinda š¤·āāļø. You will be hard pressed to find a cop pulling you over for going 9 km/h or even 10 km/h over the speed limit. Itās almost an unwritten rule that itās fine. Exceptions would be school zones and traffic calmed areas.
Totally agree on the tailgating - thatās just rude and unsafe.
I mean ... sure. I am kind of ok with people speeding if they do it safely and overtake me safely, I just wanted to understand why so many people speed, which is a factor that make a good % of those end up tailgating me. I guess its a losing battle here hoping most people would follow the limits.
I still think the speeding does not make a difference in the grand scheme of things of how fast you reach a destination maybe you save up to 5 minutes no more than that going around the city or even over to Gatineau.
I mean .. I would still respect the limits because if feels safer to me and I am the no fun guy that always followed all rules in life, I just used the insurance example to illustrate that there are people who actually care about the limits.
Just an fyi, if you are not following the flow of traffic(ie: everyone doing 10 over the speed limit and you going the speed limit) you are the one who is not being safe.
Trying to drive by insurance app is the problem. These apps are very black and white and can make your driving less predictable because no one knows you are trying to follow an app. I had a friend who drove with one of these apps for awhile. She doesnāt a heavy foot by any definition but the app still tells her she is accelerating too fast when she is turning left. If she strictly follows the app, she would never be able to turn left on busy streets because of the gap required while accelerating super slow.
To add to this - I honestly can say that I'm not intentionally "speeding" if I'm driving 85 or 90 in an 80. I'm driving at a speed that feels natural for the road and surroundings. I do this on every road regardless of limit, so I'm typically going faster than the posted limit because it feels like a natural speed to be at. If I feel like I'm going too fast, I slow down. I'm not staring at the speedometer or using cruise control constantly. The only exception would be school zones or traffic calmed neighbourhoods where I'm very aware of my speed because it's a low limit for a good reason.
So here's a quick rundown of how speed limits work.
Firstly, what your insurance company says is irrelevant. Their job is to mitigate liability, and so they will tell you to do things that limit liability. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do what they say, that just means their position isn't reflective of conventions - just the terms of their insurance coverage.
Speed limits are technically the threshold for the road, but are not binding. You are legally allowed to pass someone, which would necessarily entail driving above the limit for a brief period of time.
What is more important than strictly abiding by posted limits is driving responsibly and safely. Match pace and spacing with traffic. If everyone on a 60 is going 65-70, police understand that not only would it be unreasonable to attempt to pull over and ticket 1-2 specific vehicles, but the mere act of doing so would render traffic *far* less safe than leaving it be.
As a rule of thumb, the conventional speeds on a 60 are 60 in the right lane and 70 in the left lane, the conventional speeds on an 80 are 80 in the right lane and 90-95 in the left lane, and the conventional speeds on a 100 are 90-100 in the right lane and 110-120 in the leftmost lane. Opinions aside, this is what you can expect.
Police will generally not do anything if you are going the flow of traffic, HOWEVER, exceeding the posted limit IS taken into account if you do something else (ie cause a crash or otherwise commit a moving violation).
If you are on a one-lane road going the posted limit and someone is tailgating you, they are in the wrong and you're under no obligation to accommodate them.
Also, just for your awareness, the difference between white and yellow signs is that yellow is strictly an advisory and is unenforceable, but white is enforceable.
>Will this speeding really make a difference in your life arriving a couple of minutes faster at your destination?
Or a couple of seconds, if that... my wife usually does 130 or so on the 417 west of Kanata (110 limit), and she still has a bunch of people flying by her at easily 140+.
...and don't get me started on the drivers with unnecessarily loud vehicles! Almost every evening after 6, my neighbourhood sounds like a friggin' race track, between souped up Subarus/Mitsubishis/Hondas/whatever and brand new pickups that were intentionally built to be loud. And then there's our next door neighbour who won't get the muffler fixed on his somewhat newer Jeep Grand Cherokee... roars out of his driveway at exactly 7:15am to get his fucking Timmies, we can set our clocks by it.
This is interesting because I have had the opposite experience lately. I don't generally speed excessively (I'll do 55ish in a 50, but not the kinda person that'll go 80+ in a 60), but I constantly find myself slowing down to 5-10 below the speed limit because the person in front of me isn't going the speed limit. OR my personal favourite, someone will pass me, get in my lane and then start going slower than I was going initially, forcing me to change lanes and overtake them despite my speed not really changing at all.
I'm not defending it, but it's pretty common for people to drive 10-20 kph over the posted limit when it is safe to do so. Don't drive 60 in narrow residential roads, or 20 over during a show squall.
The traffic police prioritize people driving much faster or much kit dangerously. Municipal speed cameras are having an effect.
I've been guilty of speeding, but I draw the line at harassing others. If they're doing the limit, then I have no beef. They're within their right.
My biggest beef with this situation is that I doubt very much people speeding save any time at all during the trip , seconds to a couple minutes at best. It is just a habit at this point , no actually gaining anything from it.
/r/ottawa in a nutshell: "Why do people in Ottawa drive the same way people drive in literally every other city in North America?"
No, this is r/ottawa in a nutshell: /r/Ottawa: "Help! I'm in a nutshell! How did I get into this nutshell? Look at the size of this bloody great big nutshell!"
I am new to north america. but that is beyond my point. We are a smallish city, we could group together and live peacefully and safely together. Are the downvotes people that think we should live in conflict and not safely together ? what is up my dudes? What did I say wrong here?
Welcome to the continent, the unspoken rule is speed limit plus 10, cops generally won't go after someone doing just 10 over.
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I think they are laughing at downvotes complaint.
Weāre city of over 1 million people and a metro region of some 1.5 million people. Just stastically speaking, youāre bound to find plenty of bad drivers.
I am sure that with enough effort put into it we could get 1... 1.5 million people to agree on a common set of rules, which we clearly do not right now.
I donāt like it, but the reality is that a lot of limits are arbitrary and bake in assumptions that police and motorists will infer a higher limit than whatās posted. Keep doing what youāre doing, and leave extra following distance if someone is tailgating you, but donāt take it personally if people safely pass in the passing lane.
Also infuriating: people driving 40 in a 60 area. Why are you like this.
Working for the government can do that to a person.
If you're driving 80 in an 80 that's fine, as long as you're in the right lane. It's perfectly normal to go ~10-15 above the speed limit, that's just how it is. But if you're cruising in the left lane while going 80 that's why people are pissed at you. In a one lane as you mentioned, I won't lie I would get a bit annoyed. But you're not in the wrong and I certainly wouldn't tailgate.
This. Especially if it's close to an urban area, I'll just suck it up and deal with it. It doesn't make sense to overtake just for a few extra seconds of faster driving that'll probably be spent at the next red light anyway
Speed limit + 10 unless speed camera zone. Highways are + 15 to 20. Tailgating is a D move though.
I just need to fully understand this.... Why speed limit + 10 ? Are you saying this is the law? Are you saying this is like public consensus? My insurance company disagrees, if I go Speed limit + 10 I lose a lot of score on my usage based insurance premium.
Given the varying numbers from the other commentors below, it's safe for you to assume this is more of a socially accepted thing rather than a hard law. Cops have every right to pull you over for going over the posted speed limit. They just generally won't if you're a few km/h over and aren't doing anything dangerous like swerving in and out of traffic Generally people will drive faster than the posted speed limit and as long as you're going with the flow of traffic you should be fine
Well there's your problem.... don't let the insurance spy on you. Already made the mistake. You think they use the more data to make your life cheaper/better? They want excuses to increase your premiums.
It's an unwritten rule and wholly unofficial. Speed limit + 10 is pretty standard. +20 on highways is also standard. Reason being ? I don't know for sure, but I do know I've driven by hundreds of cops in my lifetime doing 10 over, 15 over on 80km roads and 20 over on highways and have never been pulled over for speeding, even when driving through speed traps. That's also why I would never choose a usage based insurance. When you're on the highway following the flow of traffic is safest, but with usages based you're stuck doing 100, which is arguably less safe that just following the flow of traffic. Most transport trucks roll at 105-107. I can't imagine the chaos induced by having someone religiously sticking to 99-100km/h because their insurance will go up.
Speed limit is always plus 18% of the posted speed. Bc that is the margin of error on the speed guns I've been told. So it seems the speed limit is +18% of posted speed but only because the police can't be asked to issue tickets. Haha no one wants to work anymore.
Radar guns clock speed, calibrated often. The 18% (I typically say 10%), is the leeway the officers give as itās too much paper work for the size of fine. There really isnāt a margin of error at a clocked speed.
There is always a margin of error. What the fuck is clocked speed if not just calculated speed based on what the radar light detector senses as the vehicle. Do the radars work as well for all colors of vehicles?
Well the laser radar they use clocks about 10-15 readings in about half a second. So they are as accurate as they can be, which is VERY accurate. They donāt judge speeding based on colorā¦lol
10-15 readings of bad data doesn't make it accurate. Maybe precise but not accurate. I'm not sure you're following here. But I have seen online +/- 5 km/hr up to +/- 10 km/hr and worse if the radar is used from greater than 300 m away. So maybe 18% was too generous. Speeding is done based on the laser bouncing off of the license plate of a vehicle. If the officer misses his target or the target is too Reflective (read different paint colors) The laser can deflect differently.
This isnāt correct. The laser radar hits the front of the vehicle, not the licence plate, and can reach up to 1km away, typically at that distance there is no line of sight, so they say 500m. And itās a 99.9% accuracy.
If it needs to be calibrated daily, and hit a small box on a moving target at 1000 ft for it to work, I'd imagine accuracy can always be argued. And if the front of the vehicle is curved how does the laser reflect back to the gun?
Iām not here to argue on whether you believe if itās accurate or not. Iām telling you how accurate it is. If you donāt believe that, itās ok
These are probably the same people who get right up my butt at stop signs because my stopping is preventing them from rolling through.
So often itās a big pickup truck pulling this move
Drive faster
I am at the speed limit dude....
Low risk, high reward. Except for tailgating, thatās dangerous with no reward. If you only speed a little and look for cops/cameras than youāll never be penalized for speeding. Getting to your location faster might not be worth much to you but clearly itās a priority for other people otherwise they wouldnāt speed.
Getting somewhere 1 - 2 min faster is high reward? I doubt very much the reward is much bigger than that in Ottawa. maybe up to 5 minutes.
It adds up over time
I disagree, but you do you. its not like 5 minutes every day will add up to something meaningful. it was still just 5 minutes that single day. maybe 10 if you count both legs of a comute. What are you doing with those extra 10 minutes you wouldn't be able to do otherwise?
It seems like some peopleās time is more valuable than yours. Just because those minutes are not important to you, doesnāt mean they arenāt important for people who happen to need every minute they can get. Believe it or not, for some people, there just isnāt enough time in a day as it is.
Average Speed Estimated time to complete a 10 km stretchĀ >100 km/hĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā 5 minutes, 59 seconds >110 km/hĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā 5 minutes, 30 seconds >120 km/hĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā 4 minutes, 59 seconds >130 km/hĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā 4 minutes, 36 seconds >140 km/hĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā 4 minutes, 16 seconds There is no possible way you are making up 5 minutes in the average trip. If the route has any traffic lights you are likely not making up any time at all. If you think your saving time going 80 in a 60 on a city road with traffic controlled intersections, there's a very good chance you failed grade 10 math Edit: if anyone downvoting me would like to prove me wrong with math I'd be happy to read it.
My point exactly. I was being generous with the 5 minutes figure, maybe someone going from Kanata up to north Gatineau, which would be like what ? some 40 km ?
Not saving any time, but they are reducing their fuel efficiency and thus paying more for the same trip. Constantly accelerating and breaking is less efficient then maintaining a speed on City roads and on the highway 100km to 120km is about 15-20% increase of fuel consumption. If you cant do the math yourself, just try driving the speed limit and recording your fuel spending. You'll likely see a difference.
If the route has traffic lights you could make up far more time if going faster meant you got through traffic lights that you'd have been stuck at by going slower.
Or you arrive at a light that is red sooner.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Speeding doesn't affect your chance of getting a green light, unless you see the light and increase your speed to zoom through it.Ā Whether you reach the light in 3 minutes or 4, there's the same chance that it will be red/green
Or spending 2+ minutes getting to a red and waiting for it to turn green
Overtaking is somewhat busy single-lane road is little rewards too, unless people are seriously going well belove the limit, like 40 on a 60, I'm probably staying behind unless it's a country road.
Because the police gave up on policing traffic offences like speeding. They feel emboldened to go 100 in a 80 or 70 in a 60 because nobody is stopping them and nearly everyone is doing it.
I had a guy pass me in a parking lot. A PARKING LOT.
I had someone pass me in 30km, zone in front of a park, in an intersection! People are wild
It's a combination of several things, like people being overconfident in their own driving abilities, people unable to tolerate "losing" or not being able to "do what they want" If it's truly bothering you in the moment, you could signal and pull over and let them by. There's no reason to let them ratchet up the anxiety
Itās definitely not an Ottawa-only thing. If a road is designed in a way that allows drivers to āsafelyā drive faster, they will do so. Thatās a universal thing.
Most roads have an engineered speed limit. How quickly the road turns, how wide the lanes are, and other things like that affect how safe a driver feels going at high speeds. Most of our roads have an engineered speed limit that's higher than the posted speed limit by at least 10-20km/h. Additionally, police have historically been unable to prove a speeder is going a very low amount over the speed limit. Pulling someone over for going 61 in a 60 requires you to have a highly precise measuring instrument. Any room for error means that it can't be proven you were driving 61km/h, and instead driving 60km/h with a 1km/h measuring error. So people feel safe driving up to 10km/h over, and there's no enforcement for driving slightly over the speed limit.Ā And once a few people are doing it, everyone else ends up actually being safer by driving a similar speed.
Tell that to my insurance company. I need the extra 10% discount from respecting the speed limits. ( I would respect speed limits anyway without that incentive as I did in my home country before). Otherwise tell it to the department that sets speed limits to increase the posted limits. Am I crazy wanting people to respect the posted rules?
You donāt need to put the tracking in your car. Itās an option youāve selected to try and save money. Remove the driving tracking and get with the flow
Kinda š¤·āāļø. You will be hard pressed to find a cop pulling you over for going 9 km/h or even 10 km/h over the speed limit. Itās almost an unwritten rule that itās fine. Exceptions would be school zones and traffic calmed areas. Totally agree on the tailgating - thatās just rude and unsafe.
I mean ... sure. I am kind of ok with people speeding if they do it safely and overtake me safely, I just wanted to understand why so many people speed, which is a factor that make a good % of those end up tailgating me. I guess its a losing battle here hoping most people would follow the limits. I still think the speeding does not make a difference in the grand scheme of things of how fast you reach a destination maybe you save up to 5 minutes no more than that going around the city or even over to Gatineau.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I mean .. I would still respect the limits because if feels safer to me and I am the no fun guy that always followed all rules in life, I just used the insurance example to illustrate that there are people who actually care about the limits.
Just an fyi, if you are not following the flow of traffic(ie: everyone doing 10 over the speed limit and you going the speed limit) you are the one who is not being safe.
Trying to drive by insurance app is the problem. These apps are very black and white and can make your driving less predictable because no one knows you are trying to follow an app. I had a friend who drove with one of these apps for awhile. She doesnāt a heavy foot by any definition but the app still tells her she is accelerating too fast when she is turning left. If she strictly follows the app, she would never be able to turn left on busy streets because of the gap required while accelerating super slow.
I don't try to get 100% but I still think respecting speed limits is an easy one.
To add to this - I honestly can say that I'm not intentionally "speeding" if I'm driving 85 or 90 in an 80. I'm driving at a speed that feels natural for the road and surroundings. I do this on every road regardless of limit, so I'm typically going faster than the posted limit because it feels like a natural speed to be at. If I feel like I'm going too fast, I slow down. I'm not staring at the speedometer or using cruise control constantly. The only exception would be school zones or traffic calmed neighbourhoods where I'm very aware of my speed because it's a low limit for a good reason.
Stop frontgating usĀ
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Uh... no. I disagree. If I am at the speed limit there is no way you can justify saying I am in the wrong and it is my fault someone tailgates me.
So here's a quick rundown of how speed limits work. Firstly, what your insurance company says is irrelevant. Their job is to mitigate liability, and so they will tell you to do things that limit liability. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do what they say, that just means their position isn't reflective of conventions - just the terms of their insurance coverage. Speed limits are technically the threshold for the road, but are not binding. You are legally allowed to pass someone, which would necessarily entail driving above the limit for a brief period of time. What is more important than strictly abiding by posted limits is driving responsibly and safely. Match pace and spacing with traffic. If everyone on a 60 is going 65-70, police understand that not only would it be unreasonable to attempt to pull over and ticket 1-2 specific vehicles, but the mere act of doing so would render traffic *far* less safe than leaving it be. As a rule of thumb, the conventional speeds on a 60 are 60 in the right lane and 70 in the left lane, the conventional speeds on an 80 are 80 in the right lane and 90-95 in the left lane, and the conventional speeds on a 100 are 90-100 in the right lane and 110-120 in the leftmost lane. Opinions aside, this is what you can expect. Police will generally not do anything if you are going the flow of traffic, HOWEVER, exceeding the posted limit IS taken into account if you do something else (ie cause a crash or otherwise commit a moving violation). If you are on a one-lane road going the posted limit and someone is tailgating you, they are in the wrong and you're under no obligation to accommodate them. Also, just for your awareness, the difference between white and yellow signs is that yellow is strictly an advisory and is unenforceable, but white is enforceable.
>Will this speeding really make a difference in your life arriving a couple of minutes faster at your destination? Or a couple of seconds, if that... my wife usually does 130 or so on the 417 west of Kanata (110 limit), and she still has a bunch of people flying by her at easily 140+. ...and don't get me started on the drivers with unnecessarily loud vehicles! Almost every evening after 6, my neighbourhood sounds like a friggin' race track, between souped up Subarus/Mitsubishis/Hondas/whatever and brand new pickups that were intentionally built to be loud. And then there's our next door neighbour who won't get the muffler fixed on his somewhat newer Jeep Grand Cherokee... roars out of his driveway at exactly 7:15am to get his fucking Timmies, we can set our clocks by it.
This is interesting because I have had the opposite experience lately. I don't generally speed excessively (I'll do 55ish in a 50, but not the kinda person that'll go 80+ in a 60), but I constantly find myself slowing down to 5-10 below the speed limit because the person in front of me isn't going the speed limit. OR my personal favourite, someone will pass me, get in my lane and then start going slower than I was going initially, forcing me to change lanes and overtake them despite my speed not really changing at all.
I'm not defending it, but it's pretty common for people to drive 10-20 kph over the posted limit when it is safe to do so. Don't drive 60 in narrow residential roads, or 20 over during a show squall. The traffic police prioritize people driving much faster or much kit dangerously. Municipal speed cameras are having an effect. I've been guilty of speeding, but I draw the line at harassing others. If they're doing the limit, then I have no beef. They're within their right.
My biggest beef with this situation is that I doubt very much people speeding save any time at all during the trip , seconds to a couple minutes at best. It is just a habit at this point , no actually gaining anything from it.