> Among the questions he would not answer was: “While driving the RAM 1500, have you been involved in a collision with a car, pedestrian or cyclist?” (We can’t independently find that out because license plates are not in the city database of crashes for some reason.)

Would you apply the same reason to drunk driving? If not, why?

Reminds me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqYyxvM85zU

Nobody knows. He was driving too fast to get his plate.

If he hasn't, then why would he refuse to say so?

It's not so much whether someone has hit anyone - speeding laws exist for a good reason to protect other drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, etc. There's a good reason that school zones are 25 mph for survivability in the case of a car hitting a pedestrian (especially for small children).

There's certainly issues with speeding laws and enforcement, but at the end of the day the US is so car-centric that removing someone's license for dangerous driving can severely impact their ability to get to work, etc.

I am of two minds about it. On one hand, speeding alone when done by a mature highly-attentive driver isn't really dangerous no matter the limit, because the driver has enough expertise to know what his personal limit ought to be. The residual risk is more from immature drivers, the mistakes of other cars, cyclists, and pedestrians.

I have been on both sides of it. I have been the speeder who can drive very safely, and much earlier than that I have been the one to get hit by a car on a street. If the car had been going faster, or if it had been an SUV or a truck, I could have been less than lucky.

I settle for a middle position, which is that the speed limit should be no less than 35 mph on most streets, with heavy mandated use of automated collision avoidance systems. Moreover, I think that all pedestrian collisions, no matter how small, must be investigated thoroughly, with a hard action taken to minimize such an incident. School zones and other low-speed zones are a complete moneygrubbing racket because we already use schoolbuses which have protections.

Bicyclists must be mandated to wear light-colored high-visibility clothing, reflective gear, and a helmet, otherwise their bicycle should be confiscated.

When I go faster than usual, I always slow down around other traffic. So if the law accounted for that, that would be nice. It seems silly to be pulled over if you're the only one on the road.

However I can understand that slower speeds can reduce catastrophic results if a tire blows.

I suppose it's akin to wearing seatbelts: As long as you're driving reasonably around other traffic and only speeding when you're by yourself, then the law primarily is there to protect the one person.