I consider my politics left-leaning and not libertarian.
I'm making an engineering argument about risk and blame, not a political argument about freedom. I am not arguing that we shouldn't have speed limits. Speed limits are like democracy. It's a terrible system... except for all of the others.
Ideally we'd have a better measure of unsafe movement -- We could much better measure risk if the speed limit was set to an equation based on the difference in momentum vectors between vehicles, the capabilities of the drivers and vehicles involved, the weather conditions, etc... but that has a much larger weakness in that we don't have a way to effectively measure/calculate/communicate those expectations to drivers.
I am all in favor of a utilitarian solution to the problem, but I'm under no illusion that it is a rigorous benchmark of risk.
The libertarian argument is that we shouldn't penalize risk at all. I am saying we should penalize risk, but that speed limits do a mediocre job of measuring it.
Fair enough, I was just adding to the parent's comment about different cultural viewpoints, but I failed to consider your own perspective on its own. I think your point of view is valid.
That said, to get back to one of your original examples: at least where I live, even if there is a general speed limit of, say, 80km/h, you could still get in trouble for driving that speed under adverse condition, like ice, heavy rain, heavy fog or darkness. I think the rule is that you have to guarantee to be able to stop within half of the visible distance So it's not like the law is completely static either.
I'm making an engineering argument about risk and blame, not a political argument about freedom. I am not arguing that we shouldn't have speed limits. Speed limits are like democracy. It's a terrible system... except for all of the others.
Ideally we'd have a better measure of unsafe movement -- We could much better measure risk if the speed limit was set to an equation based on the difference in momentum vectors between vehicles, the capabilities of the drivers and vehicles involved, the weather conditions, etc... but that has a much larger weakness in that we don't have a way to effectively measure/calculate/communicate those expectations to drivers.
I am all in favor of a utilitarian solution to the problem, but I'm under no illusion that it is a rigorous benchmark of risk.
The libertarian argument is that we shouldn't penalize risk at all. I am saying we should penalize risk, but that speed limits do a mediocre job of measuring it.