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04/05/2004 Entry: "The Need for Speed"

Instapundit picks up the bizarre and disturbing story that police officers in Suffolk County, Long Island are being encouraged by their union to make exceptions for police officers and their families when it comes to handing out speeding tickets.

Police Benevolent Association president Jeff Frayler said Thursday it has been union policy to discourage Suffolk police officers from issuing tickets to fellow officers, regardless of where they work.
"Police officers have discretion whenever they stop anyone, but they should particularly extend that courtesy in the case of other police officers and their families," Frayler said in a brief telephone interview Thursday. "It is a professional courtesy."

Of course, this won't affect me at all. South Wales is a fair step from Long Island, and as far as I know the policies of the constabulary here are not influenced by those of their counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic.

However, the implications of this are taken further than they should be:

While this is outrageous in itself, it would seemingly put the lie to the notion that the purpose of such laws is for public safety, since it's no "safer" for a police officer's wife to speed than it is for anyone else. It's a tacit admission that it's all about revenue generation, and just as government workers shouldn't necessarily have to pay taxes (since they're paid from taxes), they shouldn't be subject to this revenue device either. Remember this the next time you hear a lecture from a cop about how dangerous it is to exceed the speed limit.

The irrefutable proven facts are these: higher speeds mean more crashes and more deaths. A pedestrian struck by a car going 20mph has a 90% chance of survival. At 30mph, that chance of surviving drops to 50%, and at every mph over that it drops very rapidly, reaching just a 10% life chance at 40mph. Has every driver in the land speeded at some time? Yes, probably. Should we? No. Is it bang to rights if we get caught? Of course.