In 2013 Austroads conducted focus groups with over 150 road users to understand their attitude to speed enforcement.
Participants who said that they at least sometimes drove/rode above the speed limit tended to report that, in the absence of a clear and immediate threat of being caught, they drove/rode at a speed that ‘felt safe’. This feeling of safety was influenced mainly by their beliefs about their own skills; their sense of familiarity with their own vehicle; their perceptions of the safety of their vehicle; and their perception of the safety of the road. For these participants, speed was thought of in individual terms, as presence or absence of ‘control’.
However, the study also found that it is common for drivers/riders to think that other drivers/riders who go faster than they do are a safety threat, but they mostly see their own driving/riding as being under control and therefore ‘safe enough’.
Source: Austroads Driver Attitudes to Speed Enforcement 2013