Aside from selective enforcement, some laws (like traffic laws) are there for your protection AND to establish liability if something goes wrong.

If the government sets the limit at 30 and everyone goes 50, when an incident occurs, nobody can sue the city for bad roads because everyone was going faster than the intended speed.

When minor things are against the rules which are selectively enforced, it means the authorities get to pick and choose who to punish based on whatever criteria they feel like, which gives them power.

So you can selectively punish.

True, but traffic not following "the algorithm" is more dangerous than moderate speeding.

Everyone always exceed the speed limit on highways.

Is this some kind of American thing?

What is a speed limit on highways?

Confused greetings from Germany.

Anecdotally, I’ve almost never get pulled over in traffic, but the one time I was pulled over, I was doing 76 in a 65 at 5 AM with no other cars on the road and otherwise driving completely fine.

I guess he was bored. Or an asshole. Or both.

Edit: Fixed my paradox

On the highways here, the original speed limit of 55 was to save our nation's resources, not just "55 to stay alive" but also it was an efficient speed to maintain and still pretty fast.

Inside the city it works much better to make drivers feel unsafe going fast. Narrower lanes, speed bumps, roundabouts, etc.

In answer to your actual question - some laws are just old and haven't been unwound yet and others are used as pretext for profiling, police (or, more properly whoever is running them) like to be able to stop people for no reason but that can be seen as illegitimate, so they keep laws that everyone breaks, jaywalking, etc to have an excuse.

I don't think there is any one law everybody breaks really but also no person who has lived perfectly law abiding life.

Traffic speed? If you know where all the speed cameras are, you could dodge them and hope there are no other police checking you.

People exceed the speed limit on highways, but usually not by a lot. If they exceed it by a lot, it is usually enforced, e.g. by speed cameras; but of course some people still sometimes get away with it, no enforcement of any law is perfect.

You seem to be assuming that people would keep driving as they currently do if we removed speed limits entirely. I'd be willing to bet that this is not the case. Most drivers have a number in mind on how much they're willing to exceed the speed limit. For me that is 5 - 10kph, so if the limit is 60kph, then you're not going to catch me going 80. Without speed limits I probably would.

So why do we have such laws? Because they work. Not perfectly but to some extent.

Bureaucracy is a nightmare. There's national laws, local laws, technical laws, practical laws, petty laws, incompetent laws, minority laws, old laws nobody bothered to get rid of, potential laws for possible situations that might happen at some point in an imaginary future.. and so on.

Basically, it depends on who writes the law and why. All laws are subjective to humans, by humans and against anything that annoys the specific humans in charge at any given point in time.

This sounds like a distinctly cultural problem where the word 'limit' clearly doesn't mean very much to the population in question.

It's a limit, not a target, and certainly not a floor as some USAsians seem to treat it.

Here in Australia you can be fined for exceeding the limit by less than 10km/h. Yes, even if you are 1km/h over, and whilst this would probably get thrown out in court you'd still have to take time off to attend court.

In general speed limits are enforced IMO, just within a certain level. IE yes everyone exceeds the speed limit... but typically by set amounts. IE I know myself I generally go 9 over the speed limit. I expect to get a ticket if I go 11-20 over the speed limit.

That being said, yeah the social construct is probably intentionally encouraged by cops, so that say when they are pulling over random minorities for an excuse to search the car, they have an automatic excuse for why they pulled them over.

You're not expected to break them. For your example, you're not supposed to go over the speed limit. And it is, in fact, extremely easy to do so. Most people are fine with it. And, no, it's not impossible to do so. There is nothing forcing you to go faster for little to no gain and increased risk for you and other.

You expecting to go over tells something about you.

They exist just in case they need to crack down on you.

I always think of dog leash laws this way. In many places they aren’t enforced and the majority of dog owners let their dogs off leash. However, if the owner loses control of their dog and it gets into trouble, like biting someone or another dog, then the law can always say, you’re liable because your dog was supposed to be on leash.

I think the same goes for speeding and other laws. It basically puts liability on the lawbreaker if they take a certain risk. If nothing bad happens, fine. But, if something does, then it’s your fault.

How do you expect constant enforcement? I'll go over the speed limit on the motorway when it's quiet and the lane is empty. Police generally don't care if you're doing 75 or 80 in a 70, as long as you're not driving like an ass. The most important thing is keeping pace with traffic.

Because it can be enforced selectively, and if everyone is guilty of something, anyone in particular can be harassed under the cover of a legal justification.

Well, tell that to my local traffic authorities. My wife basically has a subscription with them, we get home a monthly invoice for 30€ because she was driving 55-60 km/h in a 50 zone... Complete with a picture of her face and the car's license plate :)

expected ... traffic speed

You're not supposed to be speeding you know?