Alt text:
Description: 3 panel comic of someone interacting with a cop during traffic stop
Conversation: Cop says “Do you know why I stopped you?” Driver responds “Because you’re a class traitor?” Cop is too stunned to speak.
Alt text:
Description: 3 panel comic of someone interacting with a cop during traffic stop
Conversation: Cop says “Do you know why I stopped you?” Driver responds “Because you’re a class traitor?” Cop is too stunned to speak.
The safest speed to drive is the speed of traffic, because the thing that’s most likely to cause accidents is changing lanes or speed. Traffic is almost always moving faster than the speed limit, so the speed limit actually reduces safety. If they were designed based on the speed people feel comfortable driving then they’d be reasonable and safe, but that’s not how they were decided. Speed limits are bad.
The reason traffic moves at above the speed limit is that people see the speed limit and go slightly above it because it feels fine.
Speed limits are absolutely necessary in residential areas, and still a good thing on highways. High speeds are insanely fuel inefficient and they do also endanger people more.
My country has been debating putting a speed limit on highways that previously didn’t have one so I’ve heard quite a lot about this topic.
Sure, residential areas need them low, and highways need them but they should be based on data. The ones in the US are totally made up, and people go faster than them because they’re too low. They should be set to the speed people feel comfortable going.
Also, changing speed is more inefficient than going fast. As long as things are flowing well, it’s going to be better than traffic with speed fluctuations because some people are going slowly. The limit should be the speed of traffic.
Can definitely agree they need to be context based, dunno how the situation there is in the US precisely.
I can also say from experience though that no speed limit doesn’t mean there aren’t tons of overtakes, and speed changes when overtaking isn’t possible. Not everyone is comfortable with the same speed. If you have a 6 lane highway without speed limit here, you have trucks going 80 km/h on the rightmost lane, some cars following them at the same speed and other cars going around 100 that often use the rightmost lane too and then overtake every truck. Then cars going around 120 in the middle lane except some go 130 and others 110 so lots of overtakes happen. Then you have the leftmost lane where everything from 140-220 tends to be (def skews to the lower end though) and you can guess the result.
How bad it is I’m America: I’ve got a highway nearby with a speed limit of 45. It actually dips to 35 in places (specifically for speed traps).
Highway 1 does that in California but it actually makes sense because it’s overlooking literal cliffs and there are often homes on the side of the road.
But there’s also a cost benefit here … people may feel comfortable driving at speeds that are more likely to cause deadly accidents. Even if you can drive that fast, the outcome is so bad if you make a mistake, that you shouldn’t.
So again, why are people seemingly unable to follow the speed limits?
Because the speed limit was set arbitrarily low. It should be set by data, or even preferably be dynamic. If the speed limit is there to keep people safe (that’s supposed to be the reason, though it’s often to raise money through tickets), then it should not be set by arbitrary guesses. It’s not the fault of drivers. It’s the fault of law makers.
Speed limits usually have been set by data, it’s just bad data or badly used data. Like one of the actual ways they determined speed limits was to see how fast people actually drive through an area and then set it so 15%of them are above it.
Of course, much of this was done a half century ago or more. Now most roads have speed limits set by simply choosing one of the ‘standard’ numbers.
But the real main issue that some studies have shown is poor road design. A road needs to be designed to make the driver adjust to the appropriate speed. A wide road with wide clearance on either side encourages higher speed. A road with trees very close to the road and narrow shoulders encourages you to slow down.
Design roads to encourage the speed you want, a d you’ll mostly get it.