Do you speed? I don't mean drive recklessly or weave through traffic. I'm talking about the ordinary five or ten miles per hour over the limit.

Of course you speed. Everyone does.

We see the speed limit signs and know we're supposed to obey them. Yet we speed anyway. Why?

Why We Speed

I have a few theories about this. First, I think we decide it's safe to exercise our own judgment. If I'm driving down a wide, straight highway with great visibility, dry conditions, and barely anyone else around, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that I'm endangering my life or the life of others by going 70 mph instead of the posted 60 mph limit.

Add to that the fact that I've been driving for over 30 years. I feel like I'm reasonably experienced. I have a good traffic record, my vehicle is well-maintained, and I know how it handles. My brain tells me that I'm better than everyone else. I'm not. It's just a quirk of psychology that afflicts most of us.

Then consider the fact that traffic enforcement across the U.S. tends to be lax. People speed all the time without getting a ticket.

When I lived in Australia, they used automated speed cameras. It was weird to get on the highway and rarely see anyone go more than 2-3 kph over the limit. They even had sneaky speed traps where they would take a picture of you at both ends of a long stretch of highway. If the timestamp showed you got to the second camera too fast, they sent you an automatic ticket.

It's a different story in the U.S. Many states have passed laws requiring an officer to witness the speeding in order to write a ticket. That kind of laissez-faire approach can make it hard to take speeding seriously.

I think weak penalties contribute to this mindset, too. A ticket is inconvenient and maybe expensive, but it probably will not end your career. You might never get a ticket. Low likelihood of getting ticketed combined with limited consequences makes speed limit compliance feel like an option.

My last theory is probably the simplest: everybody else is doing it. Driving the speed limit while traffic is flying past you is arguably more dangerous than speeding within reason. Thus does speeding become the norm – and what you have to do to survive.

Speed Limits Save Lives

The crazy thing is that the whole point of speed limits is to save lives. Excessive speed increases the likelihood and severity of crashes. Speed limits are supposed to protect you, your passengers, pedestrians, and others who have no part in deciding how you drive. When we speed, we use personal judgment to relax a life-safety requirement.

That sounds uncomfortably familiar...

Fire Alarm Rules Can Look Like Suggestions

It's easy to bring the speed limit mentality to the life-safety industry. That's wrong.

Industry experience creates the same confidence you have behind the wheel. You have installed systems and solved difficult problems. You want to use your own judgment when a rule seems like overkill or is difficult to comply with.

Add the fact that fire alarm regulations aren't always enforced well. Not every jurisdiction is going to conduct a rough-in inspection to verify that your wire complies with code. You might be able to lay that wire on top of the ceiling or T-tap a device and get away with it. The system technically operates – as long as nothing goes wrong.

And if you do get caught, what's the worst that's going to happen? You'll probably just have to fix it and call for another inspection. Aside from that, there are often no other consequences.

Everybody appears to be doing it, too. If you have serviced systems installed by other companies, you have seen enough cut corners to believe shortcuts are the industry standard. Repetition starts to look like permission. Worse, you have to compete day-in-day-out with folks whose cost is lower because they're not following all the rules.

The Stakes Are Higher

People are depending on those systems to notify them to evacuate and to summon first responders. If you work in the fire alarm industry, you have a duty that is far higher than going the speed limit.

If you own a company or manage people performing fire alarm work, your employees will learn whether to take fire alarm rules seriously from your cues. Commend people who take the time to do their job right. Make compliance part of the culture. Educate yourself, your employees, and the AHJs in your community. Overconfidence, inconvenience, and weak enforcement are real – and life safety deserves better than a suggestion.

Fire alarm rules are not speed limits.