Is it unethical to knowingly exceed the posted speed limit?
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M$9 Answers
I believe that traveling at a safe speed is far more important than traveling at the legal speed.
Now I would like you to read an excerpt from a source I found:
-Quote-
The most widely accepted method by state and local agencies is to set
the limit at or below the speed at which 85 percent of the traffic is
moving. The 85th percentile speed is how drivers “vote with their feet.”
Studies have shown crash rates are lowest at around the 85th percentiles peed. Drivers traveling significantly faster OR slower than this speed
are at a greater risk for being in a crash. It is not high speeds alone that
relate to crash risk; it is the variation of speed within the traffic stream.
-End Quote-
To Summarize:
- Safety, rather than legality, should determine how ethical a speed is.
- Studies have shown that driving the same speed as those around you is the more safe than traveling faster or slower than those around you.
- If its midnight and everyone one the interstate is going 75, the ethical speed is 75.
- If its rush hour and everyone is going 30, the ethical speed is 30.
- The government messes a lot of things up, why would you leave the safest speed for you and your family to travel up to them to decide?
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M$
Would you choose to be ethical and trundle through a 35 mph speed zone with a child or spouse in the car with a cut artery? Or would you race through as fast as possible to get them to the emergency room?
I would hope that law enforcement would take mitigating circumstances into account as often as possible. Personally I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I allowed a choice of abiding by posted speed limits to lead to the preventable death of a loved one, for example.
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M$
The hard part of the question is defining "unethical", clearly exceeding the speed limit is illegal, because it's against the law. Murder is unethical, and also against the law, so the natural assumption leads then that things that are against the law are unethical, right?
I'm not so sure... Is there something inherently wrong with going that fast? I don't think that just going fast would normally be considered a wrong thing, the wrong part is that you are going faster than a predetermined limit, so its not the action of going that speed that is wrong, just going that speed when there is a limit in place against it.
Then again, the limit was put in place by people that asserted that going faster than the limit carried a danger to yourself and or other people. So if we accept that assertion, than going faster than the limit is knowingly endangering other people, which I have no problem saying is unethical.
It's a complicated question.
I would say the act of traveling at that rate of speed is not unethical.
The act of knowingly exceeding the limit, and therefore possibly endangering others is unethical.
I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on my thought process here...
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M$
"Not conforming to approved standards of social or professional behavior; "unethical business practices" (1)
Based on this definition, yes speeding is unethical. Speeding does not conform to approved standards either socially or professionally.
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M$Not all ethics involve law, but all law has some ethical component(s).
Therefore, it's both illegal and unethical to break the speed limit.
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M$
This would imply that breaking ANY law would be illegal.
Haha yea I did mean that, sorry.
@pmacdon1: Ummm... what? Did you mean "breaking ANY law would be unethical"? THAT I would say "yes" to... there's an ethical element to breaking ANY law.
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M$
The speed limits are there because it is unsafe for people to exceed the limits. For example, I believe I am a good driver. However, the guy next to me who is driving aggressively, changing lanes left and right, and speeding over the limit also may believe he is a good driver. That's why it can't be left to each person's decision about how fast they can drive.
The limits are there for the safety of everybody. And if everybody drove the proper speed, we would have far fewer accidents.
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M$Working with municipal government
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M$
I don't have a traffic study on hand, but at-least in my state, a study is conducted before any traffic change is setup in ordinance or law, including speed limit, stop/yield/other signage, speedbumps etc. States and towns don't just make these numbers up.
Could you cite a source of such a study?
Speed laws are a grey area. It may be unethical to break the social contract agreed to by speed laws, as they represent an agreed-upon standard of conduct. However, the speed laws might be outdated for that area or violated by everyone (driving with the flow of traffic), which would make violating the law ethical.
Like all moral/ethical dilemmas, the answer is back in your court, grasshopper!
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M$
