alt Hacker NewsThat is not sane, it is dumb. With such a system, you have signs that say "100" but the actual speed limit is "110" and everyone knows the actual speed limit is "110" but they all have to do mental math to reach that conclusion. Just make the sign say the real speed limit instead of lying to you. It's like Spinal Tap wrote your laws.
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> That is not sane, it is dumb.
I understand where you’re coming from, but it’s perfectly sane if your legal system recognizes and accepts that speed detection methodologies have a defined margin of error; every ticket issued for speeding within that MoE would likely be (correctly) rejected by a court if challenged.
The buffer means, among other things, that you don’t have to bog down your traffic courts with thousands of cases that will be immediately thrown out.
It’s not dumb, it’s accounting for real world variance in car speedometer accuracy and possible inaccuracies in the measurement process, just because your car is telling you you went 98 or the speed camera is telling you you went 101 doesn’t mean that was the actual speed of your car at the moment.