The Morality of Speeding

That's just not true. If I had my finger on the trigger of a gun and ran around waving it at people, an argument can be made that my actions were just as immoral if someone died as if they didn't. The fact the gun went off (or not), was just an accident. The fact that someone died (or not) was due to me being a dangerous idiot.The faster you go, the greater the chances of losing control.
The faster you go, the less time you have to make correct decisions about risks.
The faster you go, the greater the chances of catastrophic mechanical failure.
The faster you go, the worse any accident will be if one were to happen.Losing control of the vehicle is not immoral, its an accident. Behaving in a way that maximises the chances of losing control can be seen as immoral - even if control is maintained. If you lose control at 10mph, the chances your accident will be fatal are near zero. There is a greater chance of getting into a fatal accident by running at 10mph.If you lose control at 100mph, the chances of it being fatal or causing serious injury are much much much higher. It depends on whether the speed limit correctly reflects the maximum acceptable safe speed on that road in the best of conditions. It might be considered immoral for an individual to make a decision that runs counter the consensus of expertise in road management/safety.The word 'certainly' does not apply either way here. Assuming there are good reasons for each limit, then I'd imagine there would be a stronger argument against the 25% over the speed limit than the 10% Intrinsic? There is no intrinsic morality. I don't think so. It is seen that the government should protect the health and safety of its citizens, and that the speed of vehicles has an affect on said health and safety, so one could say that the government has a moral obligation to create and enforce speed limits.

The question is, "Why is 30 MPH in a 30 MPH zone moral and 31 MPH in a 30 MPH immoral?"

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

There were lots of questions in the OP, and some that have been put forward in later discussion. This particular line of questioning, I answered in Message 11

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Well, I agree that changing your speed by only one part in 50 does not generally significantly alter these factors. That is why most people agree that if you change your speed by a factor of 1 in ten, things do start to change significantly. Remember your kinetic energy equations?

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The question I have predominantly been focussed on is

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Certainly there is a certain speed on any surface, in a vehicle of one's choice, where exceeding it is reckless and dangerous, but is it immoral to behave in a reckless and dangerous manner?

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and to take issue with this absolute statement:

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It is certainly not immoral to drive at whatever speed one chooses along some surface where there are no speed limits

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I have not been arguing an absolute morality, black or white issue here. I have been saying that the faster you travel, the stronger an argument becomes for the judgement that you are acting immorally. The question you ask is a bit like someone asking:Why is it immoral to have sex with a girl who is 15 years 364 days old, but not a girl who is 16 years old?The answer is the same. It isn't inherently immoral in any way. The younger the person is, the stronger the grounds for it being immoral become. The law is set to an arbitrary and usually conservative value. Whether or not that is the best way, is a different debate. Yet another question is that of enforcement -and the best way to do it, but right now they are entirely out of scope for my position.

So where is your line?Is driving 45 in a 30MPH zone immoral?If you are driving 45 MPH in a 30 MPH zone to rush someone to the hospital is it immoral?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

A strong argument could be made for the reasons why driving 45 in a 30 zone is immoral. There may be situations that exist wherein it isn't immoral, I could imagine a few, there may be more.As to the emergency clause? Once again it depends. If it is perceived to be life or death, and the decision becomes potentially risking more lives to stand a chance to save another - then it is tricky stuff, but I would not say that someone in that situation is acting immorally necessarily. Obviously if they were doing 200mph past a school at kicking out time - the situation might warrant thinking that person was immoral for putting the lives of so many children in clear danger...it had better be a damned big emergency to justify that kind of action. Maybe they had a ticking nuke in their boot and the only safe thing to do was to try drive it as far out of the city as possible as quickly as possible, and the person driving was an expert driver, he had added audible and visual cues to warn people of his speed etc etc etc.You ask for my line? There is no line. Each scenario has its own merits. However, most drivers, in most locations, in most situations are best sticking either to the conservative speed limit for the area or the speed they judge to be safe, whichever is lower. Clearly any simple system will have exceptions, and each of them should be weighed according to its merits and flaws.

See Romans 13:

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1LET EVERY person be loyally subject to the governing (civil) authorities. For there is no authority except from God [by His permission, His sanction], and those that exist do so by God's appointment.
2Therefore he who resists and sets himself up against the authorities resists what God has appointed and arranged [in divine order]. And those who resist will bring down judgment upon themselves [receiving the penalty due them].
3For civil authorities are not a terror to [people of] good conduct, but to [those of] bad behavior. Would you have no dread of him who is in authority? Then do what is right and you will receive his approval and commendation.
4For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, [you should dread him and] be afraid, for he does not bear and wear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant to execute His wrath (punishment, vengeance) on the wrongdoer.
5Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God's wrath and escape punishment, but also as a matter of principle and for the sake of conscience.
6For this same reason you pay taxes, for [the civil authorities] are official servants under God, devoting themselves to attending to this very service.
7Render to all men their dues. [Pay] taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, and honor to whom honor is due.

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Breaking the speed limit is an affront to God. That sounds pretty immoral to me.

Too bad Hovind never read that. LOL

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

So you would agree that government laws have nothing to do with morality per se? Or intrinsic immorality to speeding. Yet if all roads are designed with a 10mph safety factor then this doesn't apply -- in both cases it is safe to travel at 10mph over the posted limit.In driver's ed (many years ago) the instructor told my son that police won't pull over drivers for speeding up to 10mph over the posted limits -- does this make it moral to do so? But you can be traveling on two identical roads, one with a posted limit of 50 mph and one with a posted limit of 40 mph -- so you can travel at 50mph and have the same probability of lethal result, involving speeding on the one hand and not on the other. Why assume loss of control is maximized by the level of speeding involved? The argument is not based on traveling at whatever is the maximum possible speed for the surface, driver and vehicle. This is true regardless of what the speed limit is. And what you seem to ignore is traveling at a speed below the reckless and dangerous level while still operating above some posted speed limit. You seem focussed on maximum rather than excessive (jars 31/30). Such as at 5mph in the back 40 of some farm?Enjoy.

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I would think so, yes. The problem, I believe, is that the word "immoral" is a bit ambiguous now or days. Most people only think of that word in the context of religion. But that certainly isn't the case.The dictionary describes it as: violating moral principles; not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics.When someone goes tearing through your neighborhood, which is usually no more than a 30 mph zone, in a Corvette, what will most people's reaction be? Probably, expletive, expletive, that guy is gonna kill some one. Even if he doesn't kill or hurt a soul, we all sort of intrinsically agree that the potential is great.I think most of us revert to the Golden Rule on this. They may find themselves subconsciously thinking how tragic it would be for some little girl to be playing outside, and this idiot just might kill an innocent girl. How unjust, we probably would think.Then you have to consider why it is against the law to begin with. If nothing comes of it, then why is it against the law? Answer: For the very same moral reason we find it immoral.That's why I think, yes, it is immoral. Again, I think the problem is that we tend to associate that word in religious terms, when really, its a lot broader than that.

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

I understand what you are saying, and on paper probably sounds real nice. In a hypothetical situation, would you place your son or daughter next to a road with a speeding car?I'm guessing you wouldn't, and I'm certainly not suggesting that you actually test the theory. Just test in your mind.Would you not find yourself compelled to knock that person out when they got out of their vehicle?Where do you think that feeling derives? Why do we feel it is justified?To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the feeling alone always arbitrates the morality or immorality of it. But it is a good place to start, since guilt, anger, empathy and sympathy is like a moral gauge.But saying that since the action didn't end in total catastrophe, it must be okay from a moral outlook is begging the question. Could we say that an attempted murderer should be freed because they didn't complete the action? Would that attempted murderer be any less immoral for it?

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

In at least some cases, their purpose seems to be little more than lining the pockets of the relevant local authorities with the fines they collect. I've seen some roads (and I'm speaking purely about Sydney here, not sure about the rest of the world) where the limit is clearly and obviously less than what would be a safe speed. Long, straight and wide roads with no real hazards, where you actually have to concentrate on driving slow enough to keep to the limit because it seems so slow in relation to the road conditions. interestingly enough, the police often seem to show up on these roads with their radar guns....hmmmm.In those cases I'd say that driving over the limit is not immoral, just expensive.

Most corvettes I have seen driven have been a relatively staid and legal speeds, well within the bound of normal driving behavior. Why would this result in such a reaction? And again -- in my experience MOST people speed between 5 and 15 mph over the speed limit ... in every place I have lived. So by this measure it would be moral for others to do the same? But you haven't found it immoral. You seems to have concluded that it is immoral because it is against the law and it is against the law because it is immoral ... notice any problem with that reasoning? Given that morality is derived independently of religion it is reasonable to conclude that the relationship to religion is false from the start. Morality -- in spite of the bible?. Given that they grew up walking along roads by themselves - alone - while people were habitually speeding between 5 and 15 mph faster than the speed limits, the point is mute. How bizarre. And I thought it was from rational consideration of consequences. No, it is separating the issue of speeding per se as normally experienced by the majority of people from the issue of causing total catastrophe which occurs rarely and can equally occur going the speed limit. But we are not talking about murder or intended harm to others, just speeding.Enjoy.

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Pick whatever car you'd like. I just used a sports car known for its speed as an illustration. The make and model is not the critical aspect. The critical aspect is figuring out why most people would be beside themselves when a driver was recklessly endangering lives. Morality isn't always measured in linear terms. With the law, they come up with a maximum speed that the average driver should be able to both handle, and will still allow for a reaction time. The point is that obeying the limit is virtuous for all the reasons I've listed.Again, the legality of something stems from a moral framework. If it didn't, laws would be completely arbitrary, like the prohibition of petting lizards between the hours 3:12 pm and 6:36 am. In other words, there is always a moral to a law.However, the reverse is not always true. Did you know that you have no legal obligation to help someone drowning? You can sit there and watch them die without the least bit of reprisal. If someone is choking on a piece of steak in a resturant, you can look them square in the face, with their eyes screaming for help and watch them die. Nothing can happen to you from a legal perspective.But, is it moral to sit their and watch someone die without trying to help them? Golden Rule, perhaps...Its also not illegal to try and save someone by using CPR, even if you don't know how to perform CPR. You are covered by the Good Samaritans Act. Because even though you did not have the technical know how, out of the obligatory moral of the situation, you tried to save their life, even if your attempts injure them more in the process.

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Then you have to consider why it is against the law to begin with. If nothing comes of it, then why is it against the law? Answer: For the very same moral reason we find it immoral.

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No, because you are misrepresenting what I am saying. Laws are only laws because of their moral implications, not the other way around. Its moral to pay your bills because not paying them constitutes theft (i.e. getting something for nothing), and theft is immoral. Yes, morals are independent of an institutionalized religion. The greater question is whether or not its independent of God. But that's a whole other thread in and of itself. Just because you let your kids walk along roads by themselves where people are speeding 5, 10, 15, 20 , 25, 30 miles an hour over the speed limit doesn't make it moot. Saying that its only 5 miles over the speed limit is immaterial and is like saying to the judge, "Well, your Honor, I only killed 5 people, not 10 or 15." Its minimizing what it is.

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To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the feeling alone always arbitrates the morality or immorality of it. But it is a good place to start, since guilt, anger, empathy and sympathy is like a moral gauge.

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Does that mean you discount feelings entirely as a refusal to factor them in to the equation? Then there is a definitive measurement which makes it immoral once you go over a certain speed? Sounds arbitrary. I would say, try not to think of it from a third person observation. Think of it in a personal situation, because personalizing it always brings in the question of morals.Think of someone falling asleep behind the wheel. Well, what do we know about sleep and humans? We know that all humans need to sleep. Is sleeping then, immoral? No. Is it a moral question? No. Knowing that you are tired but decide to try and fight it for a few extra miles, is it immoral not to stop? I think it is. And apparently the courts see it that way too. The problem is, its hard to prove.Think of your wife being decimated by a semi-truck because of operator negligence. Sure, you may be willing to forgive in the long run, which is wonderful in its own right. But you are entitled to be angry about it. Not just angry because you lost your wife in a senseless accident, but because that person deliberately placed themselves in a position that increased the likelihood of a catastrophe. Fair enough. The scenario above is not intended to harm either. Edited by Nemesis Juggernaut, : typosEdited by Nemesis Juggernaut, : edit to addEdited by Nemesis Juggernaut, : added a link

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

Or, say, the prohibition of dominoes-playing on Sundays?What on Earth makes you think that laws aren't completely arbitrary, NJ?Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Did you ever consider why? There is always a "why," with laws. If that's true, then it can't be arbitrary.As for why no domino's on Sunday is likely a reflective law of the 4th Commandment, only its Christianized. Instead of Saturday, its now Sunday.There is a silly law on the books in the city I grew up in that is still on the books, albeit enforced. It was illegal, (scratch that), it still is illegal in Miami for more than three non-related, single women to live in the same domicile. Sounds arbitrary. But it isn't. There is a "why" attached to it.Turns out its on the books because it was initially to curb brothels in Miami. Edited by Nemesis Juggernaut, : No reason given.Edited by Nemesis Juggernaut, : No reason given.

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake