6 ms·

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

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.

greedo 7y ago
In a residential area? You come through my neighborhood at 40 and I'll go all Garp on you.
- wolrah 7y ago
  If your neighborhood has roads built for a natural speed of 40 MPH, take it up with whoever built the roads. If you want slow traffic, build slow roads. If you build fast roads, you get fast traffic. No silly sign changes that.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    Residential roads should be built so ambulances and fire trucks can go fast. Everybody else should drive slow because they don't want to kill a child.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      Ambulances and fire trucks don't need to go fast on residential streets. The difference between fast and slow for those short distances isn't significant even when second count. Of course residential streets should connect to faster highways quickly for that to work.
  - aidenn0 7y ago
    My neighborhood has such a road. It's a road that is a collector road between two highways and a residential road outside of those two highways. However the total width of the road is approximately the same, despite there being more lanes in the collector portion. I've actually seen cars slow-down when moving from the 25MPH zone to the 45MPH zone due to the greatly reduced shoulder area in the 45MPH zone, but most cars go about 35-40MPH on both sections.
- pnutjam 7y ago
  It's a limit, my point is most people should be going slower then the speed limit and we should let drivers decide up to a point where it becomes unsafe. That's the point where we should enforce with draconian zeal. Make roads safer, make rules less arbitrary and more respected.
smileysteve 7y ago
120mph maximum and a 40mph minimum are too disparate. And there are other deleterious effects of 120mph. > 100 and most consumer tires are at their brink. Similarly, there is a lack of the average vehicle to accelerate quickly beyond 80.
- wolrah 7y ago
  > 120mph maximum and a 40mph minimum are too disparate. Agreed. The minimum speed for interstate-class highways should be 60 MPH. If you can't do 60, take the country roads. > And there are other deleterious effects of 120mph. > 100 and most consumer tires are at their brink. Similarly, there is a lack of the average vehicle to accelerate quickly beyond 80. This is why highways have multiple lanes. Slower traffic to the outside, faster traffic to the inside. If your vehicle isn't capable of keeping up with the fastest traffic, stay to the outside. Unfortunately Americans in particular are horrible at lane discipline, something I believe is aggravated by speed limits being too low so there's a subset of idiots who take it upon themselves to be speed enforcement and drive slowly in the passing lane.
  - zten 7y ago
    I don't think it's speed enforcement in most cases. It's usually people not wanting to deal with changing lanes to deal with the slowest traffic. For a while I would come up across a large number of vehicles inexplicably stacked in the left lane, with a huge gap on the right lane. Younger me would zoom up the gap and inevitably find a semi truck and someone passing it very slowly, and the left lane would close ranks because they thought I was a dick. Older me just stays in the left lane. edit: I'll move to the right when it's so obviously clear that I won't have to move back to the left. But it's really tedious to be weaving across the road with regularity to maintain a strict adherence to the keep right law.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Oh come on. My 90s shitboxes are all perfectly driveable around 100. Sure they won't get there as fast as a modern car but the only time you find yourself trying to gain 50+mph really quickly is when you happen to be caught on an on-ramp behind someone who has no business driving. I agree that an 80mph delta is a little much though.
wolrah 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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.
- cameldrv 7y ago
  Driving on four lane Autobahn can be very stressful, because you have trucks in the right lane going 80 kph (50mph) to save fuel, and the fast guys going 200kph+ (125mph) in the left lane. If you're going some reasonable speed like 130kph, you're endlessly passing the trucks, but you have to watch way back before you pull out for the car or motorcycle going 225. Although it's fun to go fast, I don't think it's a great idea to have more than a 2x difference between minimum and maximum speed on a road.

greedo 7y ago

In a residential area? You come through my neighborhood at 40 and I'll go all Garp on you.

wolrah 7y ago
If your neighborhood has roads built for a natural speed of 40 MPH, take it up with whoever built the roads. If you want slow traffic, build slow roads. If you build fast roads, you get fast traffic. No silly sign changes that.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  Residential roads should be built so ambulances and fire trucks can go fast. Everybody else should drive slow because they don't want to kill a child.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Ambulances and fire trucks don't need to go fast on residential streets. The difference between fast and slow for those short distances isn't significant even when second count. Of course residential streets should connect to faster highways quickly for that to work.
- aidenn0 7y ago
  My neighborhood has such a road. It's a road that is a collector road between two highways and a residential road outside of those two highways. However the total width of the road is approximately the same, despite there being more lanes in the collector portion. I've actually seen cars slow-down when moving from the 25MPH zone to the 45MPH zone due to the greatly reduced shoulder area in the 45MPH zone, but most cars go about 35-40MPH on both sections.
pnutjam 7y ago
It's a limit, my point is most people should be going slower then the speed limit and we should let drivers decide up to a point where it becomes unsafe. That's the point where we should enforce with draconian zeal. Make roads safer, make rules less arbitrary and more respected.

smileysteve 7y ago

120mph maximum and a 40mph minimum are too disparate. And there are other deleterious effects of 120mph. > 100 and most consumer tires are at their brink. Similarly, there is a lack of the average vehicle to accelerate quickly beyond 80.

wolrah 7y ago
> 120mph maximum and a 40mph minimum are too disparate. Agreed. The minimum speed for interstate-class highways should be 60 MPH. If you can't do 60, take the country roads. > And there are other deleterious effects of 120mph. > 100 and most consumer tires are at their brink. Similarly, there is a lack of the average vehicle to accelerate quickly beyond 80. This is why highways have multiple lanes. Slower traffic to the outside, faster traffic to the inside. If your vehicle isn't capable of keeping up with the fastest traffic, stay to the outside. Unfortunately Americans in particular are horrible at lane discipline, something I believe is aggravated by speed limits being too low so there's a subset of idiots who take it upon themselves to be speed enforcement and drive slowly in the passing lane.
- zten 7y ago
  I don't think it's speed enforcement in most cases. It's usually people not wanting to deal with changing lanes to deal with the slowest traffic. For a while I would come up across a large number of vehicles inexplicably stacked in the left lane, with a huge gap on the right lane. Younger me would zoom up the gap and inevitably find a semi truck and someone passing it very slowly, and the left lane would close ranks because they thought I was a dick. Older me just stays in the left lane. edit: I'll move to the right when it's so obviously clear that I won't have to move back to the left. But it's really tedious to be weaving across the road with regularity to maintain a strict adherence to the keep right law.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Oh come on. My 90s shitboxes are all perfectly driveable around 100. Sure they won't get there as fast as a modern car but the only time you find yourself trying to gain 50+mph really quickly is when you happen to be caught on an on-ramp behind someone who has no business driving. I agree that an 80mph delta is a little much though.

wolrah 7y ago

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 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.
cameldrv 7y ago
Driving on four lane Autobahn can be very stressful, because you have trucks in the right lane going 80 kph (50mph) to save fuel, and the fast guys going 200kph+ (125mph) in the left lane. If you're going some reasonable speed like 130kph, you're endlessly passing the trucks, but you have to watch way back before you pull out for the car or motorcycle going 225. Although it's fun to go fast, I don't think it's a great idea to have more than a 2x difference between minimum and maximum speed on a road.