
Almost every speed limit is too low (2017) - dsfyu404ed
https://qz.com/969885/almost-every-speed-limit-is-too-low/
======
cm2012
“I don’t want to lie to people,” lieutenant Megge tells us. It may make
parents feel better if the speed limit on their street is 25 mph instead of 35
mph, but that sign won’t make people drive any slower. Megge prefers speed
limits that both allow people to drive at a safe speed legally, and that
realistically reflect traffic speeds. People shouldn’t have a false sense of
safety around roads, he says."

This is likely false.

NYC changed the speed limit to 25 mph in Nov 2014. Pedestrian deaths have been
sharply reduced:

1) [https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/8/16863408/nyc-vision-zero-
traf...](https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/8/16863408/nyc-vision-zero-traffic-
pedestrian-fatalities-statistics)

2) [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/nyregion/nyc-
pedestrian-d...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/nyregion/nyc-pedestrian-
deaths.html?module=inline)

At the same time pedestrian deaths in the US as a whole have increased:

[https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/01/pedestrian-deaths-
rea...](https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/01/pedestrian-deaths-reach-
another-high-drivers-entirely-to-blame/)

The data is clear that lower speeds means accidents are less dangerous:
[https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/05/31/3-graphs-that-
explain...](https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/05/31/3-graphs-that-explain-
why-20-mph-should-be-the-limit-on-city-streets/)

~~~
CoolGuySteve
You can see the Vision Zero data here:
[http://www.nycvzv.info/](http://www.nycvzv.info/)

I don't think your interpretation about speed limits is correct compared to
other factors mentioned in the nytimes article:

> more stringent enforcement of moving violations, revamping hundreds of
> street corners to slow down turning cars and rejiggering crossing signals to
> give pedestrians a head start.

For one, traffic in NYC just doesn't move that fast, especially on the streets
where most of the accidents happened. It's not really appropriate to
extrapolate NYC data to the rest of the United States unless you focus only on
urban centers.

Second, almost all of the fatalities seem to happen around intersections. I'd
expect to see more jay walking deaths in the years before the speed limit
change if your interpretation was correct.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>revamping hundreds of street corners to slow down turning cars

This is probably the biggest one. Lots of pedestrians and get hit by people
turning right who can't see them until the last second because of other things
on the street corner (like people waiting to cross in the other direction).

~~~
mikepurvis
Also drivers who roll through a right-turn-on-red while looking the other way
for cars. By the time they see the person walking, they've already slammed on
the gas so they don't miss their opening.

There are a few intersections in my city that are notorious for this; I have
an extremely loud airhorn on my bike that I use to blast drivers who allow
their vehicle to move forward without looking where it's going.

I no longer believe RTOR can be performed safely by the majority of drivers—
it should be banned.

~~~
lutorm
I was almost hit when jogging through a crosswalk from this, but I saw the
driver was looking left as he came rolling through the stop sign ... in his
police cruiser.

~~~
mikepurvis
That's so enraging. Honestly if I caught that on video, I would absolutely go
to war to get that cop disciplined or fired, along with anyone else in
uniformed who tried to defend them or pat me on the head with the usual "Hey
man, relax— at least no one was hurt. Can't you let this go?"

------
xvedejas
There are many counter-intuitive effects in traffic engineering. Widening
lanes has often been done in the name of safety, but the effect is that
drivers feel safer driving faster, and the rates of deadly crashes rise.

This suggests to me that to make roads safer, we might want to design them so
that drivers feel they need to drive slower and more safely. Narrow the lanes
where they are too wide, add roundabouts instead of multi-level exchanges,
allow tighter curves. Especially useful for cities, since these changes would
give back land for non-highway uses.

~~~
wycy
On the subject of counter-intuitive effects in traffic engineering, it also
seems that adding more lanes to a highway actually makes traffic flow worse.
Whenever a car changes lanes on a highway, a small traffic "shockwave"
propagates backwards some distance, and more lanes -> more cars crossing more
lanes -> more traffic.

Anecdata: I live in DC with its notoriously bad traffic. The highways 395 and
495 have 4-6 lanes each and tons of traffic. On the other hand, the George
Washington Parkway has just 2 lanes and carries a large volume of vehicles
between 395 and 495, but has very little in the way of its _own_ traffic
(except in the event of an accident, of course). Traffic only really occurs on
the GW at the junctions with 395 and 495 since the X95s don't have the
capacity to receive all of the GW cars at-speed. Whereas the X95s will get
random backups for seemingly no reason, and at all hours of the day, backups
on the GW generally only occur at the ends.

~~~
snarf21
You are absolutely right about the shockwaves. It is also weird that going
fast and tailgating actually create slowdowns and make traffic go slower. By
not leaving room to slow down, any minor lane change can cause a huge ripple
of hard braking and now there is a backlog until everything accordions forward
again. I wish newer cars had a constant beeping when you are 10 feet from the
person in front of them at 65 mph. We'd actually see better traffic flow.

As for parkways, the better flow is because they don't allow trucks. Variance
in the speed of cars is what causes traffic. Obviously this is true at on/off
ramps. There is no way X95 can take two lanes of high-speed flow of cars into
their already packed flow. For parkways with a lot more hills, you can still
get slowdowns but these happen almost exclusively just before big hills and at
exits to bigger highways (and occasionally at busy on ramps with short merge
areas).

~~~
joshuak
People always talk about driving with gaps[1], but I've yet to see a simulator
show how detrimental/beneficial these strategies are to individual drivers.

It feels like a hawks and doves style ESS (evolutionary stable strategy)
problem. It appears to me that the strategy that eliminates the overall
negative affect for the group (avoid creating phantom stop signs, by gapping
or "always in the middle" strategies) is necessarily unstable.

The benefit to any single driver who does not follow that rule becomes
increasingly high as more and more others do follow the rule. Even to the
point of ignoring a beeping car I should think. I certainly feel the negative
effect driving behind someone who creates a gap as more and more cars merge in
front of them. In the pathological case the driver who insists on a safe
interval between cars will make no progress at all.

1: (CGP Grey) [https://youtu.be/iHzzSao6ypE](https://youtu.be/iHzzSao6ypE)

~~~
Noumenon72
You say you've observed it, but it doesn't make any sense. If you go 5mph
slower than the speed of traffic, you will continuously open up a gap. You
never need to slow down farther than that. The cars merging into the gap
wouldn't be merging if your lane wasn't faster than their lane, so there's no
reason you would have to slow down even farther. What you perceive as repeated
slowing down will only happen if you sped back up to match the speed of the
car in front of you after opening the gap.

~~~
joshuak
I don't think you've considered what you are saying. You're not describing a
gapping strategy, you're just describing a slower driver (i.e. slower
traffic). There is no question that a car consistently driving slower than
ambient traffic speed is a net drag on overall throughput. In any single lain
of traffic all cars are bound by the slowest car. If you drive 5 mph slower
than the car in front of you then the car behind you must drive 5 mph slower
still to continually produce gaps behind you. As the video illustrates
introducing a slower driver is one of the things that creates phantom stop
signs.

Of course you must maintain speed. The point of a gap is to allow for
adjustments without the hard breaking that would create a phantom stop sign.
That is the overall intent of the system. Move the most people as expediently
as is safe from point a to point b. The best way to do this is to avoid speed
differentials, being slower then ambient traffic speed _creates_ a speed
differential.

~~~
Noumenon72
That's not true about the second driver behind me, because people are not
pulling into his gap, because his lane is going 5 mph slower than the other
lanes. So he establishes it once and is fine.

This is more of a thought experiment to show that you never have to _keep_
slowing down to zero even if for some reason people continually enter your
gap. I barely observe people entering my gap at all in practice, because all
lanes are generally going the same speed so there's no benefit to it.

------
telotortium
Given this article's argument (the speed of traffic is largely independent of
the speed limit, and depends more on the road itself), the logical path to
decreasing road speeds is
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_calming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_calming).
In my experience, California residential streets are especially egregiously
bad in road design, having wide streets (often approaching 2 full lanes per
direction, although the outer "lane" is unmarked and used for street parking)
that suggest a speed 15 mph or so greater than the speed limit.

~~~
notatoad
traffic calming measures in residential streets have so many benefits. bulb-
outs not only slow traffic, they reduce pedestrian crossing distances. street
trees slow traffic by making the street seem visually narrower to drivers
without actually narrowing the street, and also create shade, improve property
values, and regulate temperature.

~~~
mzs
Until the ladder truck can't negotiate the corner.

~~~
masonic
People downvoting this need to learn from history. The Oakland Hills fire[0]
was made far more lethal than it should have been because the narrow, vehicle-
clogged roads prevented fire trucks from ascending the hills.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991)

~~~
bobthepanda
It‘s worth noting that Europe has lots of small winding roads and is not
noticeably more dangerous in terms of fire safety.

In fact, what has happened is that average fire truck size in the US is much
larger than in Europe, and that is what drives the requirement for wider
streets. [https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/12/fire-
trucks-e...](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/12/fire-trucks-
engines-emergency-vehicles-too-big-for-cities/577735/)

------
choeger
Interesting to read about that percentile design. Here in Germany we have (as
you probably know) a few hundreds of kms of unlimited Autobahn (advised is
130kph). These roads are way better and safer than the US highways and
freeways I experienced, btw.. So it is not a fair comparison.

Nevertheless we have a heated debate were many very loud votes in the media
_demand_ a speed limit of 120 or even 100kph. Because that is _obviously
necessary_ and everything else is _stupid_.

Now, while there are certainly many more or less valid arguments for a speed
limit, I have never heard anyone arguing about the number. The verocity of the
debate is contrasted by a total lack of arguments for or against a specific
limit. Why 120 and not 130 or 90. What about 160?

To me it looks like there are many people either offended by or incapable of
dealing with other people making different choices. The whole debate seems to
be a way to force others into coercion and the actual limit is chosen to
coerce _as many people as possible_.

So in Germany the debate _seems_ to target at the complete opposite to define
a speed limit at the 15th percentile. That's an intriguing observation. And
rather typical for us, tbh.

~~~
Severian
Germany also has much higher standards for driver education, stiffer fines for
infractions, and a safety first approach towards operating heavy machinery. In
the US, you can get a license by answering 25 questions, driving around a
block, and doing some sort of parallel parking exercise. They pretty much hand
them out regardless of actual driving ability.

One thing that would reduce the number of crashes in the US is making
tailgating and passing lane camping a heavy infraction. To drive safely is to
anticipate conditions and expectations.

I would also support 10 year renewal testing before age 65, as bad habits
quickly become routine. Shorter intervals thereafter.

~~~
zacharytelschow
Also of note is that it's illegal to pass on the right in Germany, making
traffic more predictable and orderly.

~~~
vonmoltke
It's illegal in the US as well, just hardly ever enforced here.

~~~
frosted-flakes
It depends on which US state you're in.

------
clairity
> "This is why getting slow drivers to stick to the right lane is so important
> to roadway safety; we generally focus on joyriders’ ability to cause
> accidents—and rightly so—but a car driving under the speed limit in the left
> (passing) lane of a highway is almost as dangerous."

i really wish people would heed this rule about slower cars staying to the
right (regadless of speed). if you are not passing the car to your right, you
should move to the right until you are, but many people scoot to the left lane
and set their cruise control so they can zone out (and possibly occupy their
brains with something else like talking to other people).

this would not only minimize speed deltas and reduce accidents, but it would
also improve throughput as speedier traffic clears out faster. and drivers
should never just zone out while operating a machine capable of killing
people.

in any case, i both agree with the article--i actually think speed limits
should be accurately set at the 85th percentile, called "suggested speed" or
the like, and decriminalized--and support traffic calming measures in urban
areas like narrowing lanes, adding more trees/curves, and making commercial
streets mixed use by default.

~~~
dreamcompiler
I think the "Slower Traffic Keep Right" signs may encourage noncompliance
because nobody wants to think of themselves as "Slower." Perhaps a better sign
would be "If a car passes you on the right, YOU get the ticket."

~~~
graywh
some drivers think it's their right to drive the speed limit in the far inside
lane and want others to obey the law

~~~
dreamcompiler
Sometimes I ride with those people and ask them "Are you a cop?" They are
always shocked to discover that without a badge they have no legal right to
enforce speed limits.

------
furyofantares
I wonder if there's an unfortunate thing going on where it's not really about
the number posted, it's about going faster than the people around you.

Driving is a lot easier and less stressful if you're going faster than
everyone else. You really only have to worry about the stuff in front of you
that you see all the time, and as soon as you pass someone they are no longer
a concern.

Similarly it takes a lot more attention if everyone is going faster than you.
So there's always an incentive for each individual to speed up a little.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I think you're giving people way too much credit. Most people aren't paying
attention to traffic behind and beside them even when they're the slow car.

------
cfmcdonald
Is this whole article premised on this one guy's intuition that speeding must
be safe because we aren't all dead?

There are actual studies on this stuff based on the changes in U.S. federal
speed limit rules in the 70s and then again in the 90s. They are not
conclusive but do suggest that higher speed limits lead to more fatalities:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law#Saf...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law#Safety_impact)

~~~
aaomidi
Those studies are useless when compared to literal death rates in roads with
higher speed limits.

More people died in Montana after they were forced to put real speed limits on
the roads, with police enforcement: [https://www.motorists.org/press/montana-
no-speed-limit-safet...](https://www.motorists.org/press/montana-no-speed-
limit-safety-paradox/)

The German autobahns are extremely safe compared to their other roads. The US
interstate system can easily support "Reasonable speed limits" on most of
their roads - its flat and straight.

These studies don't take into consideration what actually happens when some
people decide to follow the law and some people decide to travel at the road's
natural speed. That delta is the cause of so many accidents.

------
jcoffland
Today's cars are much safer than the cars of the 70s at higher speeds. Not
only do they better protect the occupants in an impact but they steer better,
break better and are far more stable. Add to that better fuel efficiencies and
it's hard to argue that we need the same speed limits.

55 was a response to the oil crisis but it also reflected automobile
engineering of the time.

~~~
javagram
I have a 2010 model car and I still seem to get significantly better gas
mileage around 55-65 mph than I do around 70-75, although I haven’t measured
it scientifically.

Isn’t this a function of wind resistance physics that can’t be solved, just
mitigated?

As driving automation increases and the threat of climate change and CO2
emissions looms larger, automated cars could drive at current speed limits
without getting impatient like a human driver, improving both efficiency and
safety.

~~~
ska

       Isn’t this a function of wind resistance physics that can’t be solved, just mitigated?
    

Yes, this is fundamental; roughly power required is proportional to cubed
velocity. Improved coeff of friction helps, but you can't get away from this.

Eventually air friction is the completely dominant force. So at highway
speeds, absent some rare gearing issues causing inefficient fueling, faster
means less efficient.

This is also why the fastest "hypercars" are pushing on order of 1000 hp.

At lower speeds, all sorts of other issues kick in (and idling is its own
issue)

~~~
mywittyname
A demonstration of this fact can be found in a list of fastest production cars
in the world:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_car_speed_record](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_car_speed_record)

The RUF (Porsche) needs 460hp to break 213mph. The next record breaker needs
618hp to break 221mph. The 241mph record is made with 806hp. This continues
incrementally until the current record holder, which needs 1350hp to hit
278mph.

It took three times as much power and three decades of computational
advancement to build a car that could go a mere 65mph faster than the 1983
record breaker.

Side note: the listed horsepower numbers before 1980s are basically made up.
You can safely assume SAE J2723 horsepower (what cars use today) is ~60-75% of
published value for cars older than 1980 (and about ~80-95% for cars between
1980 and 2005).

------
robrtsql
I am all for raising the speed limit if the speed limit is lower than what is
safe, but I have an issue with the way the article blames drivers who drive at
the speed limit for the delta in speeds. If we all need to agree on a speed to
drive, why not choose the one that we can drive at without risking being
pulled over and ticketed?

~~~
wolrah
Because a road has a natural speed, and that's what most people will drive at
when they're not actively thinking about it.

If the speed limit is below that natural speed, you end up with most drivers
going faster while the few follow the absurd rule.

~~~
bryanlarsen
The problem is that the "natural speed" for a road is based on a human brain's
subconscious calculation. And the human brain is very bad at doing that for
any speed faster than a good runner can go.

~~~
bluGill
Actually the human brain is good at finding the natural speed. Many roads have
a natural speed that is higher than the safe speed and this is a problem. When
the road itself says drive some speed the human brain is not good at reading
that the road is tricking it and the safe speed is slower.

The above is a failure of engineering. It has been well studied in academics,
but few actually account for it.

------
hawski
In Berlin (I don't know if it's different in other parts of Germany) and in
Poland the default speed limit in cities is 50kph (~30mph). In Berlin most
drivers match speed limits. In Poland most drivers ride at 70kph (~45mph) in
cities. But Berlin drivers will drive above speed limits when there is a short
section with construction, when nothing apparent is happening on it. Maybe
they will take the feet out of gas. But most are not riding with 30kph
(~20mph) speed limit in this case.

Reasons for the discrepancy between Berlin and Poland is in mentality for
sure. But I think that more roads are really set for the speed limit in Berlin
than in Polish cities I know. So you can drive faster, but you will just be
first on the red light. As they say: slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

It certainly helps that the Autobahn network have nice stretches without speed
limits. I feel that car in Berlin is really just to go to the highway and not
to move through the city itself. The limits just picture the priority of
public transport and bicycles in city planning.

What's funny is that I like to drive more in Berlin than in Poland. It's
smoother and drivers seem more used to interruptions. Even though I still
drive more in Poland and don't really need a car in Berlin. However parking is
pain in whichever country I am.

------
bryanlarsen
"It may make parents feel better if the speed limit on their street is 25 mph
instead of 35 mph, but that sign won’t make people drive any slower"

Just changing the sign doesn't make people drive slower, but if you actually
enforced those speed limits people would slow down and pedestrians would stop
dying. Traffic calming may be a cheaper way of slowing people down than
enforcement.

------
thinkling
The article mentions that the 55mph speed limit was pushed by the Federal
Government during the 1973 oil crisis to reduce gas consumption...

...but doesn't take the next step to point out that in our era of reducing
climate emissions it might make sense to drive a little slower if you're not
in a hurry to get there.

Owning an electric car makes it very obvious how much smaller your range is
when you drive 70-75mph than it is when you drive 50-55mph.

I'm sure people will respond to point out that these kinds of individual
choices about behavior are noise in the fight against climate change. But
maybe you're arguing for a renewed 55mph speed limit, then?

~~~
vonmoltke
> Owning an electric car makes it very obvious how much smaller your range is
> when you drive 70-75mph than it is when you drive 50-55mph.

I got optimal fuel consumption in my Acura CL at an average speed of about 65
MPH. That maximal efficiency point varies from vehicle to vehicle,
particularly across different vehicle classes.

~~~
thinkling
I've heard that idea for a long time and have wondered about it: drag (air
resistance) is dependent on the square of the velocity and in highway cruising
where you're not accelerating, overcoming drag is a huge part of energy
expended. How can the engine be tuned to be so inefficient at lower speeds
that it somehow gets better fuel efficiency at higher speeds? And if that was
ever a thing with older engines, is it still a thing with modern fuel-injected
engines that sense performance and adjust fuel injection to optimize?

------
psoots
There are more reasons to control speed than safety. As the article mentions,
Nixon lowered speeds to reduce fuel consumption in the US. Considering the
climate crisis, I think that's a motivating reason to have lower speed limits.

But as others have mentioned the means of getting people to drive slower or
more safely or more efficiently may not be limited to the numbers on the sign.

------
speeder
I am from Brazil, that for some reason unknown to me went along USA speed
limits.

I started driving more or less recently and my town has several speedtraps,
and they make me unsafer, becuase I am not used to driving a lot yet, I tend
to respect speed limit all times, because I don't know where the speedtraps
are, this has some consequences:

1\. LOTS of honking when I am 5kph slower than the limit...

2\. Because of the point 1, I tend to stick to the limit, this mean I am often
looking at my speedometer instead of the road, and almost crashed because of
this more than once.

3\. Often I am overtaken in ridiculously crazy ways, like people overtaking in
the opposite direction lane, or during corners, or more than once motorbikes
overtaking me using the gutter, passing between my car and the sidewalk.

4\. Also a couple times I almost crashed on the rear of experienced drivers
that were speeding and I don't noticed, andwent along with the flow, only for
them to suddenly slam on brakes right before the speedtraps (only to just as
suddenly accelerate again right after them).

5\. Often lanes end with strange speed discrepancies, sometimes in unsafe
situations, for example there is a one-way road in my town that is in a steep
hill that has a curve toward the right, often the left lane is full of people
trying to overtake the entire right lane that is following speed limit, and
the railings on the outer side of that curve are full of marks of people
grinding on them.

I've seen once a group of 10 or so cars that were speeding slightly try to
overtake a car that was following speed limit only for the first one of the
group to crash on the rear of a bus that was on a bus stop when he tried to
overtake from the right side (the other 9 or so cars squeezed themselves
between the crash and the cars that stopped on the left lane while braking...
lots of screeching).

------
okket
Previous discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14196812](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14196812)
(2 years ago, 725 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8133103](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8133103)
(5 years ago, 207 comments)

------
moron4hire
Speed limits in pedestrian-heavy urban areas and children-heavy residential
areas absolutely _have_ to be no more than 25mph. The difference in
survivability stats for pedestrians struck at 25 vs 35 are stark. What we need
are narrower roads, pedestrian islands at intersections, and harsh
enforcement.

On highways, it doesn't matter. Survivability between 65 and 75 or even 85 is
not that much different. You're going to have a really bad day regardless of
speed. Far more important is longer ramps, higher vehicle inspection
standards, and higher licensing standards. We also need to get long-haul
shipping off the roads and back on the rails.

~~~
bluGill
It isn't speed limits, it is road design. A well designed road would ensure
residential streets wouldn't be driven at faster than 25mph, no enforcement
needed.

------
commandlinefan
Speed limits are set deliberately low so that police departments can collect
fines whenever they need to buy a new cruiser.

~~~
xfitm3
This. Speeding kills, your pocketbook.

[https://youtu.be/2BKdbxX1pDw](https://youtu.be/2BKdbxX1pDw)

------
jld
Part of the issue is that the speed limit often times dictates how the street
is designed.

In my city, the default speed limit for city streets was 30mph. Safety
advocates lobbied for and achieved lowering that limit to 25mph.

The goal was not that cars would immediately all start driving 5mph slower,
but rather to direct the city's traffic engineers to start designing the
street layout to lower the 85th percentile speed by about from 30mph to 25mph.

------
rhacker
Ten years ago I would find articles and blog posts about how awful the
speeders and tailgaters are in portland. The blog would effectively blame the
influx of Californians.

Today (and this started about 4 years ago) you do the same search in google
and you only find articles about how slow some people drive in Portland and
that they are a nuisance to be removed.

~~~
rdiddly
Former Californians now outnumber everybody else I guess.

------
dgzl
I'm certain that in at least some cases, speed limits are kept artificially
low so officers have an easy reason to pull someone over. This is done to give
officers an opportunity to inspect you for other violations.

I'm also certain that if one day every driver made nothing but legal driving
maneuvers, the world would shut down before lunch.

------
lm28469
"Speeding and traffic safety have a small correlation."

You know what doesn't have a _small_ correlation? Speeding and efficiency.
Above 60mph almost any car lose an insane amount of efficiency due to
aerodynamic drag.

I'm all for raising the speed limit but we should get rid of ICE before doing
so.

------
SOLAR_FIELDS
I live in Texas near SH 130 which is (in)famous for having the highest speed
limit posted in the nation (85mph) I think only on the Autobahn can you
legally go faster anywhere in the world. In the end you have the normal rabble
rousing in the news cycle whenever there is a fatal crash (anecdotally
uncommon) but would love to see some statistics comparing SH130 Crashes and
fatality rates to other roads in US or world. Some cursory googling does not
reveal any studies of this caliber unfortunately.

------
pergadad
Thats is an odd article seemingly based on an informal rule applied when
revising limits and the officer's personal perception/experience. It even
cites scientific evidence to the contrary but simply dismisses it by pointing
to the personal experience of the expert.

Here's a personal experience: driving in Belgium, the Netherlands or any other
country with limits is much more pleasant than driving on German motorways,
where you have 40-50% of roads with no limit whatsoever. The high limit means
even as drivers tend to be much better trained than in most other countries
I've driven, German traffic is unpredictable. You'll overtake a truck driving
90kmh, while yourself driving 130kmh (advised speed) and someone comes up
behind you with >170kmh. Changing lanes is much more stressful than eg Belgium
which has pretty bad drivers, but they all stick close to the limit of 120kmh,
meaning flow of motorway traffic is much more steady.

If the issue really were that drivers don't stick to the limit - enforcement
is the answer. Increasing limits does not improve safety on its own.

~~~
pry86
What exactly is unpleasant in Germany? If you have a guy suddenly behind you
then most likely you didn't check properly in the mirror, and estimated speed
of approaching car wrongly. You could also perform overtaking manoeuvre more
dynamically, just increase the speed when overtaking and reduce after.

Last few months I drive to work on the Germany motorway, and what I can see so
far is terrifying. Not fast drivers are the problem but the poor and ashole
drivers: \- Poor drivers: Me 140/160 km/h, other 120 km/h, and suddenly he/she
is changing the lane (to overtake another car ofc), no blinker (you honk at
them and they show you the middle finger), nothing! Or switching the lane when
when there is not enough space. Jeeez, no! Because you annoyed to drive 117
km/h behind the truck, don't put others in danger. Not everybody in Germany
drives 170 km/h or more. So there will be place for you as well, just wait
some seconds. Or predict, you see the slow truck in advance, change lane a bit
earlier, or show blinker earlier (I always slow down I you give me enough
time). Ah, and damn left lane lovers. You overtake them from the right
(although you shouldn't) and then they realise "oh shit, I should be in the
right one". \- Ashole drivers: Driving bumper to bumper even with high speeds,
or swaying left to right just to how "hey, I'm behind you" and make a pressure
on you.

To summarise, after driving in Germany for 8 years, I love it. I like the
discipline although on the motorways is getting worse imho. I'm assuming
because of immigration from other countries which don't have good driving
habits.

For me unpleasant was driving on motorways in San Francisco area (madness, and
not just because of number of lanes), but I was there only for a few days, so
maybe my impression is wrong.

------
francisofascii
What is needed is consistent enforcement. People speed because, most of the
time, there are no repercussions. Speed traps feel unfair because they are so
rare and arbitrary. A simple solution, blanket our roads with camera speed
enforcement everywhere making it consistent and objective. Equip cars with
warning lights giving people a chance to slow down before getting the ticket.

~~~
topspin
"A simple solution, blanket our roads with camera speed enforcement
everywhere"

I can't think of any problem with our traffic system that is bad enough to
make your solution desirable. Not traffic deaths, arbitrary enforcement,
efficiency... nothing.

~~~
francisofascii
For me, speeding vehicles and distracted drivers represent the greatest threat
to me and my family on a day to day basis. Why not mitigate it? Why it is not
desirable to you? What are your concerns?

~~~
topspin
> Why not mitigate it?

I encourage you to mitigate it. Drive less; that's a great way to mitigate
your risk.

------
hcho
Not a word about carrying capacity of junctions, exits, etc... Safety is a
secondary concern when it comes to speed limits.

~~~
DeRock
The premise of the article is that the speed limit is uncorrelated with the
speed of traffic, other than a small (10%) group of drivers. Therefore
reducing the speed limit to eg. Reduce flow into a junction, doesn’t work,
people will continue to drive the speed they are comfortable with.

------
unilynx
As the article says, people will drive at the speeds that feel safe... in the
Netherlands, more and more roads are redesigned for that.

Bumps, parked spots, narrowings and removal of (dividing) lines/road markings
are used to bring the traffic back to its intended speed.

------
jonstewart
Generally when drivers "feel" that a speed limit is too low, it's because the
street/road has been over-built. It urban environments, it's inarguable that
lower speeds result in fewer fatalities. There's a hockeystick increase in the
rate of fatality with pedestrian crashes as vehicle speed increases from
~30mph to ~40mph. See
[https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_...](https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_fatal_injury_pedestrians_and_car_occupants_richards.pdf)
[PDF]

------
pnutjam
Speed limits should be set fast enough that nobody should reasonably break
them, and then strictly enforced.

In town, 40 mph, if your caught speeding your car is impounded. Highway, speed
limit, 120mph. If your speeding, your car is impounded.

~~~
wolrah
I like your basic thought process, but as shown by Germany the correct answer
for straight, flat rural highways is to not have a speed limit at all.

120 MPH is pretty reasonable for most interstate-class highways outside of
cities though.

~~~
linuxftw
120 MPH probably exceeds the the speed of reaction time for most drivers. A
not-that-tightly packed group of cars going 120 MPH with a single blowout
could have devastating effects. There simply isn't enough road to having a
following distance big enough. Not to mention there would be entire classes of
vehicles not able to safely travel (or travel at all) at such a speed such as
semi-trucks.

~~~
pnutjam
It is probably on the edge of too fast. That's why it's a speed LIMIT. We've
grown accustomed to assuming that the speed limit the speed we should drive
at, and going faster is no big deal. I think it contributes to a general
disdain for rules. Setting it high enough that there should be no reasonable
excuse to break it, should change this.

------
TheCoelacanth
Absolutely false. Increased speeds have a direct causal link to increased
severity of injuries and likelihood of fatalities.

The speed limits aren't too low, the roads are improperly designed for the
speed limits that they have.

------
rhinoceraptor
I love the higher speed limits in northern Michigan (75 for freeways, 65 for
highways). There's no reason for a highway to be so slow when there's miles
between driveways and intersections.

------
Noumenon72
I can easily believe only 10% of drivers look at the speed limit and drive
that speed. But I would have thought that 70% of drivers look at the speed
limit and drive some safe margin over -- either +7 mph, or +15 mph. This
behavior would be driven by the size of the speeding ticket. Hard for me to
believe that none of those people speed up when the speed limit goes up 10
mph.

------
Causality1
"Excessive speed" is often cited as a factor in vehicle crashes, but I wonder
how much of that factor can be chalked up to speeders trying to spot police
instead of keeping their eyes on the road.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
It's circular logic. They're basically saying that there exists a low enough
speed that could have theoretically prevented this. Whether any reasonable
person would have been going that speed is another story. Crashes would be a
lot less common if vehicles couldn't travel faster than 20mph. Car crashes
would cease to exist if vehicles couldn't move at all.

