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Non-compliance: Why do people speed?

Posted on Sep 29, 2023, jshell55

Today’s project is to look into the question: Why do People Speed? . The practice of speeding, in the car sense happens at a rate of about 90% despite it being counter-indicated in the car SOP.

This is a pretty common situation in which there is a set of rules, and a certain fraction of the population typically doesn’t follow them. Speeding, in the car sense, is considered bad from a car maintenance and safety point of view. A large infrastructure of effort is invested in keeping you from doing it.

I suppose we are going to talk about speeding, in the drug sense, a little later. That’s probably not a good practice either.

Your Job as a Driver

According to the driving manual, you have two jobs as a driver: don’t speed, and don’t crash your car. However, as we are about to see, a lot the public speeds anyway. According to one survey, 50% of drivers admit to having exceeded the speed limit on the freeway by 15 mph in the last month.

Why do People Speed?: Why should you care about this?

If you are a manager that is in charge of getting people to do their jobs, it is important information. You need to know what fraction of the population is non compliant. That way, you’ll know what to expect when you try to install some kind of standard operating procedure in your place.

Who am I to be telling you this?

Well in addition to deriving a revenue stream from people not following rules, I have a long history in quality systems. I’ve been an ISO9001 quality systems auditor for more time than I care to remember, which has made me intimate with human failure. I get the hard job of helping organizations recognize and deal with their screwups.

(Link)

Speeding as a General Practice

The source below will tell you that up to 50% of drivers admit to speeding more than 15 mph on the freeway, and 40% more than 10 mph in a residential area. This is despite the statistics showing that the chance of death in a car accident increases by 2% for every 1% increase in speed. Also, speeding is a factor in nearly ⅓ of the driving fatalities.

The police and other law enforcement effort do a lot of work to keep people from doing this, as we all know.

But does this work? Apparently not.

When a new highway is constructed, the engineers set the speed limit with the underlying expectation that 15% of the people will operate their cars unsafely. Therein is a built-in low expectation of people following standard operating procedure only 85% of the time

Speeding vs. Rule Breaking

There is a bit of cognitive dissonance as it applies to peoples’ attitudes toward violation of the speeding laws. Despite it breaking the law, 23% of the people think it is OK to speed on the freeway, and 14% think it is OK to speed in residential areas.

What that means is that there is a fraction of the population that knows it’s wrong, but does it anyway.

There are surveys of one type or another and they return a variety of lame excuses: Men are more likely to speed than women, and younger and older men are more likely to speed than the “average man.”

Here are some reasons from a variety of the references on this issue:

I’m Running late.
I wasn’t paying attention to the speed limit.
The speed limit is set too slow (They know better than the engineer what the correct speed should be)
It doesn’t feel risky, especially in an over-engineered car (My car is immune to speed-related wrecking)
It’s fun.
I want to test/show off my fancy car/other vehicle.

Preventive Measures

The most fun thing on this front is the GPS software which will now warn you if a speed trap is detected in your area. There is a consistent ongoing game of cat and mouse between enforcement officials and the general public. There is general acceptance of the idea of warning people where the cops are hiding.

All of this has gone on for a long time, at least as far back as the invention of speed limits and thus, the invention of speeding.

Like a lot of other things, this may have reached its peak of social acceptance in the 1970’s when one of the most famous movie stars of the day produced a lot of comedy films with speeding as the main premise:

The Cannonball Run:

The cops actually understand that one of the ways to manage the problem is to do “deterrence” namely have cars parked along side the road with flashing lights. People will slow down if they think there are actually cops around to keep you from doing it.

Speeding Elsewhere

In the otherwise respectful nation of Japan, which is known for people doing their jobs, speeding appears to be one of the guilty pleasures. In the similarly responsible nation of Germany, where some roads are considered so well engineered that they don’t have a speed limit, the attitude is a little more conservative, according to the reference.

Side point: A little industry has developed help get around some of these rules, Use of radar detectors, namely gadgets that tell you that a cop is nearby measuring your speed, is legal in 48 states.If you, a quality manager in the workplace, came up on some of your employees getting out of their jobs by use of some gadget, you’d be mad, if not a little impressed at their ingenuity.

Speed Cameras

I have to say something about this. A system developed a few years ago about a system of speed cameras that are affixed to speed-detecting devices. If you are found speeding, the authorities are supposedly empowered to send you a ticket in the mail.

In the US this makes people furious, so much so that these devices are banned in 8 states, and can be challenged in many others. They’re thought not to work. They only catch you if you are actually speeding, which means that you are speeding. Also, once you learn where they are, you can get around it..

There is an article below to the effect that speed cameras are considered racist. The cities supposedly set them up in areas where there is a high minority population, thus targeting enforcement in those areas.

In Australia, where these cameras are most widely accepted, it is still estimated that up to 10% of the drivers still speed. This means that it reduces the problem but does not eliminate it.

Cops Giving Up

It is a bit of a political issue but for awhile last year it was the openly stated policy in some parts of the country that the cops wouldn’t do “non-serious” traffic stops. This means that unless they felt you were impaired, or otherwise dangerous, they wouldn’t chase you down for “merely speeding.” All you had to do if they tried to pull you over is keep going.

The underlying “rationale” for that was the further idea we suggested above that enforcement of the standard operating procedure is considered “racist” somehow. Do I need to tell you how bad that is for establishing controlled conditions in manufacturing? We may talk more about this later.

Attitude of Professional Drivers

There is a group of people whose job it is to not speed. We’re talking about truckers, cab drivers and the like.

Well, in the article I’ve linked below, the attitude of truck drivers is similarly schizophrenic. 83% of these people think that speeding is unsafe, but 64% of the people do it anyway. As a side point, the people who speed more than 10 mph are 266% more likely to use a handheld phone while driving, which is well known to be just as bad as drinking. Also these same employees are 171% more likely to do their paperwork while rolling.

A recent law was proposed to the effect that a gadget be installed in some of these trucks to keep the driver from speeding. This is being opposed by both the “trucking industry” and the drivers, presumably because it is “too boring.”

So what I am saying is, despite good intentions, there’s an ongoing need for speed, in the vehicle sense.

So where are we on all of this?

From a quality systems standpoint: First of all, people will speed. They will go through a lot of effort to continue to do so, even if you tell them not to.

This has gone on for a long time, and is continuing irrespective of fines and license suspensions for people that do it.

A little industry and activity has sprung up for avoiding detection of this.

This seems to be fairly universal, but has different levels of acceptance depending on age, gender, and whether or not you have a fancy car.

The practice is so widespread that it is considered “manageable” rather than enforceable. There is an underlying low expectation on the basis of the cops that people are going to speed.

It appears to be common to all cultures to some extent, and gender and youth biased.

So what does all of this have to do with you?

Or me, for that matter?

Well, assuming you’re responsible for getting people to do their jobs, this is of immense importance. After having been around a bit, it has been my observation that the tendency for people to not do their jobs, like other forms of human failure, is endemic. It is fundamental to the human condition.

You can set up an operating procedure, and a certain fraction of the workforce is not going to follow it.

You can do abundant training (Driver’s Education) but even at that, a certain fraction of the workforce is going to think that they are smarter than you. A certain fraction of the workforce will, unfortunately, be stupid.

If this is part of the human condition, maybe you can keep out the riff raff. If you, the hiring manager in some job that requires people to pay attention might be able to use this as a test. Maybe there is a correlation between irresponsible driving and irresponsible behavior of other types.

Well in most states driving records are considered in the public domain. In some other states, such as Georgia, you need the applicant’s permission to access their driving records.

Besides, this may be considered illegal in certain places because it is only considered “relevant” if your job involves a motor vehicle. Your 18-to 25 year old male is going to complain since his female counterparts are less likely to be pulled over and ticketed for speeding.

Why Do People Speed? Recurrent Patterns

As we go through a few of these ideas, we’re going to see some recurrent patterns. The first one is, there are various reasons for people not doing their jobs properly.

Some of these are deeply culturally rooted.

The second is that there are very often some underlying reasons why you can’t screen these people out of the work force, a lot of them having to do with rules and laws of one kind or another.

There are some more. Detection and enforcement mechanisms which may or may not work. Opportunities for automation would reduce, but not completely eliminate the problem. There are ways to engineer lack of compliance out of the system. There are training methods.

But at the end of the day, some fraction of the workforce is not going to do their jobs. Your first lesson in Quality is to understand this, and deal with it constructively.

Or not. You could be like me, and try to derive a revenue stream from it.

PS: Side point about the 1970’s and early 1980’s

At one point, during this era, due to a shortage of energy, the government imposed a 55 mph. Speed limit throughout the nation.

Did people obey that speed limit to any extent? This was so widely hated that despite the saving of many thousands of lives per year, and much energy, it was never again attempted.

This has been one of those issues that is a political thing now. One side has data that says it did nothing but slow people down and cost them money. Another said that it cost X number of lives per year in the decade after it was repealed, mostly in 1987.

Go figure.

Here is my link to Udemy course, “How Not to Fail at ISO9001”

https://www.udemy.com/course/how-not-to-fail-at-iso9001/learn/lecture/34733460#content

Here’s the link to my Quality Systems Training. You can hire me to give this training in person, complete with questions and answers, and along with a few decades worth of horror stories about product quality, dangerous products, and why people don’t do their jobs.

Quality Systems Training

And, here’s the link to my book “How Not to Fail at ISO9001” available at Amazon.

The Spanish version is also available.

Links and References

Percent of Drivers who Speed

https://www.iihs.org/topics/speed#:~:text=In%20a%202021%20national%20telephone,for%20Traffic%20Safety%2C%202022).

29 percent of all highway fatalities

Traffic Calming Stats

23% of drivers think speeding is okay on a freeway

14% of drivers think speeding is okay in a residential area

People speeding in Japan

https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/180721/is-speeding-tolerated-in-japan

Reasons for Speeding

https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/speeding

Traffic. Traffic congestion is one of the most frequently mentioned contributing factors to aggressive driving, such as speeding. …
Running Late. …
Anonymity. …
Disregard for Others and For the Law.

More reasons for speeding

https://beckerlaw.com/blog/speed-top-three-reasons/

Apathy. The public’s general perception regarding speeding is somewhat apathetic. In today’s fast paced world, people are in a rush and want to get to where they are going in a hurry. They are more willing to “take the chance” of getting a speeding ticket. Smart? No. Reality? Yes. Some states are actually seeking to increase speed limits.
Mixed Messages. Police use speed enforcement tools such as radar and laser detection devices to identify speeders. However, most states also allow drivers to use the very same technology – only in reverse – to detect police enforcement tools. It’s easy to see how many drivers are simply getting mixed messages on the issue.
Lack Of Automated Technology.

https://www.erieinsurance.com/blog/speeding-survey

66%: The roads were not congested, so I felt it was safe to drive faster than posted speed limit.
46%: I’m a good driver, so I felt I could drive safely, even at high speeds.
34%: It seemed like there was far less law enforcement out, so I felt I could speed without getting a ticket.
25%: In general, I think posted speed limits are slower than necessary and I prefer to drive faster.
17%: The empty roads were a good opportunity to see how fast my car could go

Speed limits assume that 85% of drivers will operate their vehicles safely

https://www.progressive.com/lifelanes/on-the-road/how-are-speed-limits-set/

Speeding tolerance of 8%

https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/januaryfebruary-2003/managing-speed

Speed Cameras are Racist

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-automated-speed-cameras-disproportionately-affect-black-and-brown-drivers

Speed Cameras

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46552

Speed cameras reduce speeding to “only” 10%

Speed cameras still allow you to speed

Fixed cameras are easy to avoid