4 ms·

That's pretty much what speed limits are.

brian-armstrong 10y ago
I don't think that's a fair comparison, no. A car is a multiton killing machine if used improperly. Speeding is substantially more dangerous than jaywalking, and it moves the risk to other people.
- mcbits 10y ago
  Speeding is a chicken-and-egg problem due to the culture of driving 10-15 over whatever the speed limit is. It's generally safe (weather permitting) because the speed limits are low enough to offset it, but it creates an atmosphere where police can pick and choose who to pull over. If the speed limits were raised to a level where speeders were genuinely unsafe without a major attitude adjustment among drivers, the roads would be considerably more dangerous.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    To offer one example - in Poland, the motorway limit is very high, 140km/h(90mph), highest in Europe I believe if we ignore the unrestricted sections of the Autobahn. That leads to two things: 1) most people actually drive slightly below the limit, since vast majority of cars are not comfortable cruisers at 90mph, sure you can get to 90mph in your 1.4 Polo but it will be very loud inside and uncomfortable. 2) Even less people drive significantly above the speed limit, so the police does not see patrolling motorways as worth their time - even if you were doing an otherwise crazy 120mph(200kmh) the largest ticket they could give you would be like ~$100 and a few points on your licence(you need 21 to lose it). So it's not worth their time. As a result, when I drive there I don't have to worry about constantly being 5-10mph over the limit, since 90mph is fast enough. Setting the speed limit on a 4-5 lane highway to 50mph like in some places in the States is just asking for trouble,and I'm sure it's an excellent source of revenue for the local law enforcement.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      Before we rush to the Polish model: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/06/20/road-safety-in-poland http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/06/20/road-saf... > Poland has one of the highest death rates for traffic accidents in the European Union, with 93 deaths per million persons per year, compared with the EU average of 55. EDIT: hang on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... Road fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year Poland: 10.3 US: 10.6
      - dredmorbius 10y ago
        Fatalities/km corrects for differrences in per person driving habits.
      - saint_fiasco 10y ago
        Maybe people in Poland use mass transportation a lot. That would reduce the death rate for traffic accidents regardless of the speed limits.
        superuser2 10y ago
        The right way to reason about traffic safety is to put "miles driven" in the denominator, not population.
      - willvarfar 10y ago
        Are the numbers of on-motorway deaths particularly high? The non-motorway roads may be death traps.
- mjevans 10y ago
  It actually is. In Washington state there are signs along parts of the freeway reminding motorists to 'Keep right except to pass'; this is a friendly re-wording of state law. I have -never- seen a police officer pull someone over for violating this law. I also agree with the sibling poster that points out that the speed limits on roadways seem low. I know of a few residential areas where the roads are improperly not arterial (but should be due to traffic volume) leading to lower speed limits than they would otherwise appear to support. Highways should also have condition based speed limits; but really I'd prefer the HOV lanes are replaced with 'self driving car' lanes that have a speed limit in law, but based on the evaluation of the automated vehicles. Probably carpools should be given a kick-back based on occupancy volume.
- superuser2 10y ago
  In the US on major roads, "everyone" drives 10-15mph over most of the time. Some roads that are physically identical to interstate highways marked 55-70, are actually marked 35-45, so people are generally speeding by quite a bit. Actually driving the speed limit would be quite dangerous - the speed differential between lanes, coupled with the impetus for those behind you to do a lot of lane-changing, is not pleasant. If we genuinely believed the speed limits mattered, we could enforce them uniformly against everyone using ANPR cameras and timestamps. Instead, squad cars pick a few random unlucky souls (out of the hundreds of people going roughly the same speed in their vicinity) to be slapped with a fine. They are more likely to do this at the end of the month, when ticket quotas are due. In some random jurisdictions you may pass through on a road trip, they are more likely to ticket travelers passing through, who aren't voting on the next sheriff. And yes, in some cases they are more likely to pick you if you're black (particularly if also driving a nice car). I'm not objecting to ticketing of drivers who are going substantially faster than traffic, weaving through lanes, etc. I am objecting to the fact that the normal daily driving behavior required to not cause an accident (i.e. go with the flow, 10-15mph over the speed limit) is criminal and enforcement is "random" with some opportunity for bias against people the local cops don't like.
- ethbro 10y ago
  If speeding were really a problem the US government wanted to solve, then they could compel Google to hand over Maps location data, effectively identifying 100% of speeders.
  - drumdance 10y ago
    Thinking out loud here... In a world of self-driving cars, maybe speeding will be less like a fine and more like a toll. So if you want to go over the speed limit, you pay a toll to the local municipality for the right to do so.

I don't think that's a fair comparison, no. A car is a multiton killing machine if used improperly. Speeding is substantially more dangerous than jaywalking, and it moves the risk to other people.

mcbits 10y ago
Speeding is a chicken-and-egg problem due to the culture of driving 10-15 over whatever the speed limit is. It's generally safe (weather permitting) because the speed limits are low enough to offset it, but it creates an atmosphere where police can pick and choose who to pull over. If the speed limits were raised to a level where speeders were genuinely unsafe without a major attitude adjustment among drivers, the roads would be considerably more dangerous.
- gambiting 10y ago
  To offer one example - in Poland, the motorway limit is very high, 140km/h(90mph), highest in Europe I believe if we ignore the unrestricted sections of the Autobahn. That leads to two things: 1) most people actually drive slightly below the limit, since vast majority of cars are not comfortable cruisers at 90mph, sure you can get to 90mph in your 1.4 Polo but it will be very loud inside and uncomfortable. 2) Even less people drive significantly above the speed limit, so the police does not see patrolling motorways as worth their time - even if you were doing an otherwise crazy 120mph(200kmh) the largest ticket they could give you would be like ~$100 and a few points on your licence(you need 21 to lose it). So it's not worth their time. As a result, when I drive there I don't have to worry about constantly being 5-10mph over the limit, since 90mph is fast enough. Setting the speed limit on a 4-5 lane highway to 50mph like in some places in the States is just asking for trouble,and I'm sure it's an excellent source of revenue for the local law enforcement.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    Before we rush to the Polish model: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/06/20/road-safety-in-poland http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/06/20/road-saf... > Poland has one of the highest death rates for traffic accidents in the European Union, with 93 deaths per million persons per year, compared with the EU average of 55. EDIT: hang on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... Road fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year Poland: 10.3 US: 10.6
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Fatalities/km corrects for differrences in per person driving habits.
    - saint_fiasco 10y ago
      Maybe people in Poland use mass transportation a lot. That would reduce the death rate for traffic accidents regardless of the speed limits.
      - superuser2 10y ago
        The right way to reason about traffic safety is to put "miles driven" in the denominator, not population.
    - willvarfar 10y ago
      Are the numbers of on-motorway deaths particularly high? The non-motorway roads may be death traps.
mjevans 10y ago
It actually is. In Washington state there are signs along parts of the freeway reminding motorists to 'Keep right except to pass'; this is a friendly re-wording of state law. I have -never- seen a police officer pull someone over for violating this law. I also agree with the sibling poster that points out that the speed limits on roadways seem low. I know of a few residential areas where the roads are improperly not arterial (but should be due to traffic volume) leading to lower speed limits than they would otherwise appear to support. Highways should also have condition based speed limits; but really I'd prefer the HOV lanes are replaced with 'self driving car' lanes that have a speed limit in law, but based on the evaluation of the automated vehicles. Probably carpools should be given a kick-back based on occupancy volume.
superuser2 10y ago
In the US on major roads, "everyone" drives 10-15mph over most of the time. Some roads that are physically identical to interstate highways marked 55-70, are actually marked 35-45, so people are generally speeding by quite a bit. Actually driving the speed limit would be quite dangerous - the speed differential between lanes, coupled with the impetus for those behind you to do a lot of lane-changing, is not pleasant. If we genuinely believed the speed limits mattered, we could enforce them uniformly against everyone using ANPR cameras and timestamps. Instead, squad cars pick a few random unlucky souls (out of the hundreds of people going roughly the same speed in their vicinity) to be slapped with a fine. They are more likely to do this at the end of the month, when ticket quotas are due. In some random jurisdictions you may pass through on a road trip, they are more likely to ticket travelers passing through, who aren't voting on the next sheriff. And yes, in some cases they are more likely to pick you if you're black (particularly if also driving a nice car). I'm not objecting to ticketing of drivers who are going substantially faster than traffic, weaving through lanes, etc. I am objecting to the fact that the normal daily driving behavior required to not cause an accident (i.e. go with the flow, 10-15mph over the speed limit) is criminal and enforcement is "random" with some opportunity for bias against people the local cops don't like.
ethbro 10y ago
If speeding were really a problem the US government wanted to solve, then they could compel Google to hand over Maps location data, effectively identifying 100% of speeders.
- drumdance 10y ago
  Thinking out loud here... In a world of self-driving cars, maybe speeding will be less like a fine and more like a toll. So if you want to go over the speed limit, you pay a toll to the local municipality for the right to do so.