If anything, American highways are wider and straighter than the Autobahn.

The energy (damage) of a crash is proportional to the square of the speed. Therefore a crash at 80 units per hour has over 1 and a half times the amount of energy, and thus one and a half times the damage, as one at 65 units per hour.

In my town you don't get a ticket unless you are going 10mph over, and this is on surface streets. They might be stricter in the 20mph school zones though.

> No cop is going to ticket you for going 70-75 on the turnpike

Unless it's the end of the month and they have to meet quota and blah blah blah... Australia seems to get away with ruthlessly enforcing ridiculously low speed limits. The correct speed limit, by your own comment, seems to be 75 (120 km/h) at least.

There was a rule at some point that the way to set a speed limit was to measure the speed of cars using that road, and set the limit so that 85% were under and 15% were over. I don't know how much this is actually used any more.

From a safety point of view the proper way to do it is to decide up front what speed limit you want on that road, and then design it so that drivers feel unsafe going over that speed. If you have to have a sign telling drivers to slow down, you designed the road wrong.

In the places where it’s like that, enforcement is lax and you’ll never need a radar detector.

In the other places, it’s very simple to sit in the right lane and you won’t be going wildly slower than the rest of traffic. There are always trucks and governed vehicles on the road that are going the speed limit that you can swim through the stream with.

I used to be in the camp of defending the legality of radar detectors, and really I don’t think they need to be legal, but at the same time the only people buying them are dangerous assholes who treat public roads like their personal race track.

It takes at least one ticket to pay off the investment which means radar detector owners intend to be repeat offenders.

> LIDAR can't be used in motion

To be clear, the reason for this is because the width of the beam requires aiming it like a sniper rifle, not because we can't compensate for operator motion.

This is why I don't see LIDAR used much in the western US. Cops are lazy like everybody else and they'd rather fish with a net. Radar is a net. LIDAR is a speargun. It's too much work.

We're all living in Amerika https://deflock.me/

You're sure it wasn't largely to milk fines from people going slightly over? What was the initial threshold for fines? What is it now?

Also apparently ICE agents in the US.

Then society should do something about the invasion of privacy happening everywhere. Take Flock camera systems in Colorado as an example, Colorado has been trying to limit access to ALPR data to only municipalities within the state for immigration related cases. The state has even went as far as creating a law. Loveland police department gave federal officials (ICE, DEA, ATF) access to states ALPR data, completely bypassing the law on the books. Data like this has been weaponized and if you can't see it, not sure how I can help you.

It doesn't.

It just means that they've not gone at a speed sufficiently egregious for a detective to be handed the packet to work out the vehicle's true identity.

Hiding your license plate will almost always be considered an offense, but is it one cops actively care about? Luckily in my state I vary rarely see cops on the road making my risk much lower. In the case of getting pulled over, its a $75 dollar fee in Colorado that I am happy to pay, it won't change my behavior.

You can also leave your cell phone at home. Disable anything broadcasting from your vehicle, like bluetooth, wifi, and onboard cell connectivity for telematics. Remove the RFID chips on your car rims (assuming you have a recent model vehicle). Remove TPM sensors from your wheels (A lot of them have part of your vehicle VIN in the packets). Tint your car windows... and remove anything that is unique, like stickers off your vehicle. Partially are completely block your license plate from being read by ALPR's.

Do all of those and you're not as trackable as you are not doing them today.

At least in WA state there’s a “it wasn’t me” option to contest and the thing will just disappear.

Civil infractions are a giant end run around people's rights when you're talking about these size fines. They can't push it because if they do that risks ending the gravy train.

Do you actually live in Seattle, or are you just drive-by commenting?

Seattle is very vocal in one direction while often voting in the other. The idea of cameras for catching speeding/etc is not a new concept here and is seemingly one the public is letting police do more of.