Misleading Speeding
Human losses, material damage, fatalities and injuries are not only the consequences of war. They are caused by speeding, a seemingly minor felony, which is mostly punished by penalties and fines. Since the negative consequences of speeding are much heavier than punishment, the feeling of impunity makes speeding drivers neglect the rules and brings them to more serious crimes, claiming human lives. Impunity is inspired by a false feeling of freedom. No other reasons for speeding can be the real driving force for it.
Stressful life of many employees and fast city life creates a complex social pattern that provokes speeding. Cars give a misleading impression that just by pulling gear one can become a master of time and space, a person, free from any bonds. The most frequent motivation for driving faster is an urgent need to get to some place. Drivers don’t want to be late for work, to business meetings, dates, dentist appointments and so on. Because of that they need to be free at least from binding ties of schedules and distances. Everybody knows that cars are for being faster than pedestrians. Some think that they have no limits in speed.
Also, speeding is inspired by commercial strategies of car-producers. The false feeling of freedom is often associated with special brands of cars, mostly sports and high class models. The same can be seen in my native place. This is the work of car-producers, which create advertisements for cars with the main focus on high speed. So millions of new brands speed across the screens in commercials, assuring potential buyers that only speed can bring them escape from everyday duties. These advertisements are easily related to statistics of speeding. Thus American Express magazine online names brands of cars likely to speed. The top five of them are Mercedes C-class, Mitsubishi, BMW, Audi and Volvo. Newsday.com gives similar statistics of speedy cars in USA: again BMW, Audi and GTI models. In spite of slight differences in model choice, there is a common ground for these cars as speeding champions: their advertisements are associating these models with freedom, races and speeding. Thus the owners of these cars consider it necessary to drive at high speed to fulfill the task of achieving freedom.
The third factor to provide speeding is particular age profile of speeders. To say it short, another reason for speeding is young age and lack of experience. This factor makes a speeder have an illusion of freedom from any rules and obligations. Though you can find that those, who violate speeding limits, are of different age, nevertheless the majority are evidently young people below 30. As an example, US Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration gives a statistics report on speeding, stating that in 2014 36% of speeding drivers were young adults from 15 to 20. Their dangerous driving resulted in fatal crashes. They are the most reckless social group of people at all, fond also of other adrenaline activities. Many of them go in …
