Affluence also factors in significantly both on a community level and personal level.
Driving 80mph through a small town with significant environmental debris on the roads where everyone is driving trucks from the 60s? That should be a felony.
Driving 80mph on a clean, straight highway where everyone is driving a relatively modern car? There should be _no problem_.
Separately, IMO, vehicle should factor in at the judgement level of law enforcement. My car can stop from 60mph in <100ft, will pull >1g on skidpad, has a full bevvy of features to alert me of surrounding conditions and will intervene in certain dangerous scenarios. The idea that such a vehicle should be equally treated as a 1992 unmaintained civic is ridiculous. Yes, the laws should be consistent in a given area, but the application of those laws should be just not blindly applied. There's clearly a boundary to be crossed, but my car going 10mph over is SIGNIFICANTLY less dangerous to the public than that hoopty going the speed limit.
To the driving public, specifically. Pedestrians and cyclists will still be goop on your windshield 50 feet into your 100 foot braking.
1. Expressways, where pedestrians and cyclists are not allowed. They are walled off with specific entrances and exits.
2. Country highways, where pedestrians and cyclists are nearly unheard of, and are typically very easy to spot from a distance and adjust accordingly.
There is a third area where these speeds are sometimes reached in urban areas that Strong Towns calls "stroads", and these have a whole host of problems. Going 10mph over the speed limit in these areas probably doesn't make a huge difference, because the are already so pedestrian and cyclist unfriendly to begin with. Not Just Bikes has a great video about them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM
An old pickup trick will still be going 35mph at 100ft. I will be completely stopped.
The severity of injury at 80ft for the two is quite different as well.
Of course... I'd never be driving at 60mph if there was a chance of pedestrians. However, the 30-0 difference is even more staggering between older mass market vehicles and modern sportscars.
There should be punishments for exceeding reasonable limits. There should not be punishments for "these speeds" as they exist in Virgina compared to another location. Heck, even just across virginia it doesn't make sense to have a single set of speed limits.
My one hope for self driving vehicles is that it normalizes efficient traffic flow.
So it doesn't really seem like Virginia's insanely restricting laws are actually helping.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/fatal-car-a...
