I suppose because America is the "Land of the Free", its citizens don't take kindly to attempts to curtail the personal freedom that the car bestows upon them, writes Conor Twomey in Texas
Road safety and traffic control is an uphill battle for US authorities, with many people simply disregarding both urban and open-road speed limits, the only exception being in 20mph school zones which are rigorously monitored by police and where speeders face stiff penalties.
Deadly driving habits, such as tail-gating, lane-hopping, drinking-and-driving and talking-on-mobile-phones are all common practice in the US, although the last is a traffic violation only in certain states.
Incredibly, some states don't even require seatbelts be worn, yet. Trying to police the millions of cars thundering defiantly along America's highways is like trying to keep order in a swarm of bees.
You'd think with all the high-tech gadgetry that modern police have, they would employ the latest speed-trap technology to catch speeding drivers but most police forces use nothing more than the old radar gun mounted on their patrol car's dashboard.
Fixed "Gatso" cameras, mobile roadside speed cameras, and lasers speed detectors are very, very rare. Radar detectors, perfectly legal in 46 of the 50 states, give motorists ample warning of nearby police cars and their use is widespread.
Even if a patrol car is in your vicinity, you really have to draw attention to yourself, by driving erratically or speeding excessively, to get pulled over.
A good excuse might get you off if you are courteous and polite, but even if you are given a ticket it's still no disaster. Penalty points are not even on the American horizon because the idea of having your licence taken away for something as trivial as speeding is unthinkable.
So, attitudes to speed are incredibly relaxed compared to the hysteria we're used to in Ireland.
If you do get caught speeding, your wallet takes the brunt. My first run-in with a state trooper - a hatted, tobacco-chewing, hard-ass, old-fashioned Texas lawman - was a real eye-opener for me. The press vehicle I was driving had Michigan plates, but he used his in-car computer to trawl a nationwide database and pull up its particulars in a matter of seconds.
The car wasn't the problem, but who 'n heck was I and what was this long pink thing I called a licence? In the end, probably to avoid a lot of paperwork, I only had to pay the fine - $88.50, court costs and $3 per mph over the limit after that. He handed me the ticket and let me work it out.
I had been caught doing 51mph in a 30 zone, so as they say in the US: You do the math! If I'd been doing 25 mph over the limit, it would be a $288.50 fine automatically. Strong deterrent indeed.
Similar sanctions are in place all over the US, though they vary from county to county. In this particular county there's a list of offences ranging from driving on the wrong side of the road ($121) to having a suspended driver's licence ($255). Racing another car nets you a $174 fine, a fake number plate will cost you $186 and "an exhibition of acceleration" is a $129 ticket. The list goes on and on, but even so it's still unusual to see anyone ticketed for anything except speeding unless you get into an accident. As I say, you won't really get pulled over unless you draw attention to yourself.
A ticket on your record will push your insurance premiums up, but rather than penalise most law-abiding (but occasionally naughty) drivers unnecessarily, as penalty points do, the system offers drivers a way of wiping the slate clean. All you have to do is complete a driver safety course, at a cost of $40 - this will clear your record and prevent your premiums from rising. In fact, some insurance companies offer a discount after completing the course, so the fine eventually pays for itself. Bizarre.
Driver safety classes take a full day, though you get lunch, but more and more people are avoiding the torturously boring classroom sessions by completing the course online. It takes between six and eight hours of solid drudgery but you can log out and return to it as you please.
I know what you're thinking - no, there's no way of hitting the "next" button three hundred times while watching TV. There are timed quizzes, video clips and reading sections all the way through, plus the test at the end, but at least you're in the comfort of your own home.
Drivers are allowed to do one course a year, so the occasional slip-up is acceptable. But, if you are caught a second time in a year, the ticket remains on your record for three years, similar to the points system in Ireland.
Of course, the best way of keeping your record clean and your insurance low is the same the world over: Slow down and drive safely.