Don't defend a point by plucking figures out of thin air and applying your subjective interpretation as a conclusion. Here we're not talking "everyone goes 5 over the limit" but rather double the limit. I've also heard "everyone drinks and drives" being used to justify the same kind of recklessness. But "everyone" might have half a watered down beer. Some will have a whole bottle of hard liquor. "But it's fine, at this hour the roads are empty".

> especially when no other cars are around.

Until there are. This is quite literally how accidents happen, people get used to following their own rules, based on assumed numbers and their safety, and it works a lot of times until it doesn't. Nobody goes out and says "today I want to speed until I kill a family of 5". They just go out and do what they always do, go past any limit, because it worked so far.

But this is not Schrodinger's cat, to assume that all behavior is the same until someone gets hurt and only then can we classify it as dangerous.

And finally remember that ideally a government would also try to protect you from your own recklessness because otherwise they either lose a member of society (you die) or they gain a weight around its neck (you live to be a burden).

No? That is just not true. My mother for example would _never_ speed up. Thats just an argument you made out of your mind.

> Driving very fast in a more or less straight line is not very dangerous

This is also not true at all. Especially on a bike going to fast with no experience could end up very badly.