They have speed cameras all over Europe too, but the speed limit is often 130 km/h (about 80 mph). Most of the population of the US lives in states where the speed limit is 70 mph or lower.
Obviously this is an oversimplification, Switzerland and Spain are 120 km/h (75 mph), Germany often has no upper limit, a few places are 140 or higher. But in general it seems like most of Europe sets the limit at the speed Americans actually drive.
And int he uk the highest speed limit is 70, and in busy areas it’s usually 60 or 50 on highways from average speed camera enforcement of variable speed limits.
In towns it’s 30 and there’s plenty of cameras, for speed, red lights, bus lanes etc.
I know from experience that raising the speed will immediately raise the speed speedsters are willing to go. When the highway in my country went from 100 to 130km/h, people who drove 120 then started to drive 150.
The UK has the best system for speeding prevention I've seen.
The cameras are established to clock you at position X1 at time Y1. Then the next cameras a handful or more miles down the road clock you at position X2 at time Y2. You get a ticket if (X2 - X1) / (Y2 - Y1) > Limit + e.
You can speed all you'd like between those cameras, but unless you're exiting before the next set, you'll have to pull over and wait the amount of time necessary to bring you back to the speed limit for that area, achieving zero reduction in total trip time.
This would be an improvement for sure. The locals in my town are all familiar with the highway speed cameras now, so they just slam on their brakes before the camera and speed up again after. The is combined with the fact that they put these cameras right at a speed limit change from 65 down to 55. Driving that section of the highway is a cluster fuck.
This also doesn't really touch on the perverse incentives when implementing automated fines. Want to make a stop light intersection safer? Increase the yellow light time. It's been proven to work, over and over and over again. Sometimes we see cities shorten yellow lights, increasing accident risk in an effort to get more revenue.
We know we can better control driver speed through road design. That's been effectively demonstrated through studies. Yet our "solution" to speeding is to make the roads as straight and wide and clear as possible and then give you a fine for using them as they have clearly been designed.
