Road Rules and jerks.....

[EgoDeath]

While I agree with your general thrust, Brian, I think, if I'm not mistaken, research has shown that it is variance which is to blame for more accidents and fatalities, not the speeding itself.  While you may feel justified in not matching the speed of the traffic around you if that traffic is going faster than the speed limit, your doing so is more likely to result in an accident or even a death.  I think in the grand scheme of things, that outweighs your concerns for the legality and possible ticket you might receive.  That being said, the appropriate thing is for faster traffic to stay to the left, and slower traffic stay to the right.  That way everybody is happy.  If you are speeding in the slow lane, or going slow in the fast lane, then you are the problem.

This reminds me of the debate about when to merge into traffic from an entry ramp.  The common intuition is to merge as early as possible, but I believe the conventional wisdom is that you should delay merging until you are required to do so.  I don't know if this rests upon any research, or instead is just convention, but again, it appears to be a case where intuition seems to suggest that deviating from the norm is the best course, when in fact it may not be.

There's no research that I know of that shows "variance is to blame for more accidents and fatalities, not the speeding itself." Speeding, however, kills almost 10,000 people per year. Speed limits are set for a reason and you can react better at 60MPH than you can at 90MPH - that's simple logic. If everyone on the road is going 65MPH and someone speeding is going 90MPH and ends up crashing, then sure, "variance" is the problem. But the real problem is that person was speeding. It's generally safer to do 60MPH than it is 90MPH.

With anything in life, I think plenty of exceptions exist to any rule. For the most part, I find the "go with the flow of traffic" argument to be bullshit, but there are certainly times when it's probably more sensible and I'm sure it depends on the context. There are probably also exceptions to the idea that speeding is always dangerous.

Usually, the "go with the flow of traffic" arguments tend to come from people who speed, tailgate and otherwise drive like complete idiots. I've often seen people in the passing lane doing 75MPH with some asshole behind them tailgating in hopes that the person will "get out of their way." That's simply not how the road works. If people "aren't going fast enough" for you, just slow down. No one is forcing you to speed. Leave your house earlier so you're not late - it isn't rocket science.