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And even at the historic lows, numerous studies suggest fatality rates would be even lower if we'd stuck to the national 55/65 speed limits.

by kej 10y ago

paulcole 10y ago
55? That's ridiculous! Sure, it'll save a few lives, but millions will be late!
- zeroer 10y ago
  You jest, but given that the average lifespan is about 622k hours, I think you can have a serious moral argument about whether it's better to kill one person or make a million people late by an hour.
  - Neliquat 10y ago
    Ooo, this will be a good one for the ethics panel. How many of those million people could have saved, or ended a life in that time? Its a juicy one.
    - zeroer 10y ago
      I think the argument rests on the fact that on net, people generally do positive things with their time. If the break-even point isn't 1 million people, where is it? 622k? 100 billion? 3^^^3? This is Eliezer Yudkowski's dust speck argument all over again. http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/
falcolas 10y ago
In my experience, all this does is create a dangerous speed differential between the people who go 80 regardless of the posted speed limits, and the people who follow the speed limits with room to spare. And it's the large differentials in speed which create the most dangerous conditions and accidents. Even rigorous enforcement can't catch everyone, and the high speeds quickly become the norm; with people going 65 the dangerous exceptions.
- kej 10y ago
  Your experience is directly contradicted by what people studying this observed as the national limit was relaxed and then removed completely.
eridius 10y ago
Rates would be lower if we all drove at the same speed, no matter what that speed is. Setting the speed limit at 55/65 doesn't make everyone drive at 55/65.
- kej 10y ago
  That may be true, but doesn't change the fact that we've done this experiment nationally, and adjusted for other factors that are known to affect speed, there were fewer fatalities when the limit was lower. Setting the limit at 80 doesn't make everyone drive 80, either.
  - eridius 10y ago
    That's why you set it to the 85th percentile speed, as the article explains, rather than picking some arbitrary speed and expecting everyone to go at that speed.
bsder 10y ago
> And even at the historic lows, numerous studies suggest fatality rates would be even lower if we'd stuck to the national 55/65 speed limits. Evidence, please. We did this experiment and the evidence is against you. Fatalities did not significantly increase for any of the states that increased their limits after the 55mph thing ended and there was some weak evidence that they went down.
- kej 10y ago
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724439/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724439/ https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/13/speed-limits-reduce-number-road-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/13/speed-... http://www.livescience.com/33202-higher-speed-limits-cause-more-accidents.html http://www.livescience.com/33202-higher-speed-limits-cause-m... http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2016/09/23/crashes-spike-after-70-mph-speed-limit/90416108/ http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2016/09/23/crashes-spike-... http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/speed-limit-increases-cause-33-000-deaths-in-20-years http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/speed-limit-increa...
  - bsder 10y ago
    Did you even read the report, or did you simply pull a summary? The numbers are all over the map and the P values look hacked to generate a paper. In addition, if you look at the fatality and injury numbers for urban interstate they went down for 65MPH and up for 55mph and 75mph. That makes no sense. Basically, the statistics are sufficiently close to a wash that the confounding factors (like texting or rerouting due to more convenience) matter more than the speed limit.
    - u801e 10y ago
      Not only that, but there is a study [1] that shows that traffic speeds do not change significantly even if the speed limit dies have a significant change. [1] http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel/ http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel/

And even at the historic lows, numerous studies suggest fatality rates would be even lower if we'd stuck to the national 55/65 speed limits.

by kej 10y ago

And even at the historic lows, numerous studies suggest fatality rates would be even lower if we'd stuck to the national 55/65 speed limits.

paulcole 10y ago

55? That's ridiculous! Sure, it'll save a few lives, but millions will be late!

zeroer 10y ago
You jest, but given that the average lifespan is about 622k hours, I think you can have a serious moral argument about whether it's better to kill one person or make a million people late by an hour.
- Neliquat 10y ago
  Ooo, this will be a good one for the ethics panel. How many of those million people could have saved, or ended a life in that time? Its a juicy one.
  - zeroer 10y ago
    I think the argument rests on the fact that on net, people generally do positive things with their time. If the break-even point isn't 1 million people, where is it? 622k? 100 billion? 3^^^3? This is Eliezer Yudkowski's dust speck argument all over again. http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/

falcolas 10y ago

In my experience, all this does is create a dangerous speed differential between the people who go 80 regardless of the posted speed limits, and the people who follow the speed limits with room to spare. And it's the large differentials in speed which create the most dangerous conditions and accidents. Even rigorous enforcement can't catch everyone, and the high speeds quickly become the norm; with people going 65 the dangerous exceptions.

kej 10y ago
Your experience is directly contradicted by what people studying this observed as the national limit was relaxed and then removed completely.

eridius 10y ago

Rates would be lower if we all drove at the same speed, no matter what that speed is. Setting the speed limit at 55/65 doesn't make everyone drive at 55/65.

kej 10y ago
That may be true, but doesn't change the fact that we've done this experiment nationally, and adjusted for other factors that are known to affect speed, there were fewer fatalities when the limit was lower. Setting the limit at 80 doesn't make everyone drive 80, either.
- eridius 10y ago
  That's why you set it to the 85th percentile speed, as the article explains, rather than picking some arbitrary speed and expecting everyone to go at that speed.

bsder 10y ago

> And even at the historic lows, numerous studies suggest fatality rates would be even lower if we'd stuck to the national 55/65 speed limits. Evidence, please. We did this experiment and the evidence is against you. Fatalities did not significantly increase for any of the states that increased their limits after the 55mph thing ended and there was some weak evidence that they went down.

kej 10y ago
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724439/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724439/ https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/13/speed-limits-reduce-number-road-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/13/speed-... http://www.livescience.com/33202-higher-speed-limits-cause-more-accidents.html http://www.livescience.com/33202-higher-speed-limits-cause-m... http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2016/09/23/crashes-spike-after-70-mph-speed-limit/90416108/ http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2016/09/23/crashes-spike-... http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/speed-limit-increases-cause-33-000-deaths-in-20-years http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/speed-limit-increa...
- bsder 10y ago
  Did you even read the report, or did you simply pull a summary? The numbers are all over the map and the P values look hacked to generate a paper. In addition, if you look at the fatality and injury numbers for urban interstate they went down for 65MPH and up for 55mph and 75mph. That makes no sense. Basically, the statistics are sufficiently close to a wash that the confounding factors (like texting or rerouting due to more convenience) matter more than the speed limit.
  - u801e 10y ago
    Not only that, but there is a study [1] that shows that traffic speeds do not change significantly even if the speed limit dies have a significant change. [1] http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel/ http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel/