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The point is if something happens you are less likely to be able to avoid the situation at that speed. If a kid runs out and you are going 45 in a 25 zone you have alot less chance to stop/avoid the kid.
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OK, and if I kill a kid through my own negligence I should be punished for it, I'm not arguing that point.
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The police are there to protect and serve...they want to protect your life,
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Just stop that propaganda nonsense now. The police are there to protect property and enforce policy.
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Can't you see how this argument simply doesn't hold water? The speed limits, road rules, all sorts of restrictions are there to prevent bad things from happening in the first place. The point is that we don't want people to get hit, we don't want people to get harmed in the first place.
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Again, I disagree as to why the speed limits are there in the first place. The goal of these laws is not to protect people, but rather to control people.
Certainly the government could do a better job of protecting people if everyone were put in airtight cages and monitored constantly by video cameras, yet we don't do that because we all (I hope) recognize that as being too intrusive. What you're really talking about is what level of control you are willing to be under in exchange for what level of protection.
I don't want people to be harmed, usually, but I also don't want someone telling me what to do; especially when that someone imposes arbitrary, ridiculous rules on my behaviours. The process of establishing speed limits should go like this: can you tell me how many people would die if the speed limits were removed? Once we determine that number we can compare it to other levels of risk we deem acceptable and see if the restrictions on our actions justify the control. You seem to think that the government has the right to restrict any behaviour that poses any risk to anybody else. I disagree with that contention, only when a substantial risk of harm to others is shown should the government take action.
Instead, the speed limits, and other arbitrary laws, in the US are usually established as attempts to generate revenue and/or protect corporate assets. While you may be happy to take direction from faceless authority based on suspicious reasoning, I am not.
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I'm amazed that you can think that nothing should happen until people get hurt. Isn't that too late?
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Too late for what? Perhaps if we had psychics who could predict the future then we might be able to prevent anybody from ever harming other people. Until that point, we have to rely on statistics and risk assessment. At this point in time, I do not think the risk of harm in speeding or double parking outweighs the enormous societal cost of staffing and maintaining police officers, meter maids, support personell, and all the other parts of the judicial system that deal with these low level crimes.
As a society we perform this cost benefit analysis all the time (see the cost of installing seat belts on school buses versus the risk of harm to students on school buses). I suppose my view is just skewed away from the allowing the man more access to my business.