autobahn at night?

On Friday night I was driving down I-80 at 12:30am going slightly faster than the speed limit towards Davis. Up ahead about 800m away I suddenly see flashes of red and blue as a fellow motorist gets taken down by the sometimes elusive CHP. I immediately slow down a bit and drive by, feeling a slight tinge of guilt as I realize that that poor bloke will be paying the price for a faux-pas that both he and I shared. After passing the scene, I started thinking, this late at night, when the motorway is clear (seriously we were the only three cars on the road), why should we adhere to the same speed limit as rush hour traffic when there are way more cars on the road?

The roadways in Germany have, contrary to popular belief, speed limits in the more densely populate areas during peak times. The speed restrictions are lifted during off-peak hours, so one can drive however fast they prefer to go. This seems a more practical approach, where we can have a tiered speed system that allows for safe driving during the hours where there are more people on the roads, and much more relaxed speed guidelines during hours (esp. in the wee hours of the morning) when few cars, if any, are on the road. This would, of course, apply to local roads in addition to freeways. The concerns we use for limiting our speeds on the roads don’t necessarily apply late at night or early in the morning. If there are children playing on the street at 2am, then I’d be inclined to say that my driving is sort of the least of their worries. There’s no need to maintain a 65mph speed limit after hours, especially with barely anyone on the motorways.