5 ms·

Speeding is one of the most obvious examples of government overreach. 1) The speed limit obviously an arbitrary choice - the chance of death is decent at 50k/h

by tomp 6y ago

Speeding is one of the most obvious examples of government overreach. 1) The speed limit obviously an arbitrary choice - the chance of death is decent at 50k/h (standard "town" speed limit in Slovenia) (so why not 40hm/k or 30km/h), and e.g. Germany has no speed limit on the highways (in some places) so there's really no good reason to set a limit of 130km/h (why not 110km/h or 150km/h)? 2) The easiest objection to (1) is "society has jointly decided about acceptable risk limits" but that clearly isn't true. Speed limits are simply a bad idea. A much better idea is speed constraints - roundabouts, speed bumps, chicanes [0] - i.e. actually forcing people to drive slower or else they ruin their cars. The fact that governments default to traffic cameras etc. is proof (revealed preference) that they don't actually care about safety and people driving slowly, but what they want most is making their citizens live in fear, punishing them and extracting money from them. This is particularly obvious when there's a hidden police / traffic control on some section of the road where it's obviously safe to drive fast, but it's just technically within city limits so it has a low speed limit. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicane#/media/File:One-lane_chicane_1.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicane#/media/File:One-lane_c...

mschuetz 6y ago
Speed limits are important for non-cars. As a cyclist, I don't want people overtaking me 100km/h with a 1m gap. As a pedestrian trying to cross a small city or town street without dedicated crossing, I don't want drivers to suddenly appear with 100km/h from a small curve. I'd argue that 50km/h in a city is still too much. 30km/h should be the limit.
- ptr2voidStar 6y ago
  This should be obvious. It's surprising you have to state this for those who only think about themselves and their fast cars. Not all road users are car drivers!
  - t-writescode 6y ago
    Not all roads have multiple kinds of traffic!
- tomp 6y ago
  As a pedestrian, I'm not ok with someone overtaking me at 30km/h with a 0.5m gap. See? It's all discretionary. As should speed limits be (at the discretion of the driver, based on the current road conditions). The problems you mention have other, better, actual solutions (e.g. cycling lanes, speed bumps before road crossings, ...).
  - mschuetz 6y ago
    In my city, cycling lanes are never going to happen. And even if they were to happen, I would never ever want cars driving 100km/h through cities.
    - bradlys 6y ago
      Cars drive through cities at that speed regularly. They use highways. That’s what the people are saying. With better strategies for putting cars and non-cars at decent distances, we can allow for cars to go faster with the same or lower risk. The issue right now is that people in cars want higher speeds and pedestrians/cyclists want to go all over the road like cars don’t exist. These two things don’t work and thus we have to go with whatever is the slowest of the equation here (people jumping into the street). The annoying part is when there are low speed limits but almost no pedestrian or cycling traffic on such roads. Highways are frequently an example of that in the US. (Literally no pedestrians or cyclists anywhere near but speed limits are frequently 55mph in some places but 80+ in others - no reasoning for the difference)
  - jfk13 6y ago
    > at the discretion of the driver Doesn't the cyclist get a say? Or the pedestrian? Why should just the driver get to decide how much risk to impose on everyone else?
- cortic 6y ago
  Have you ever consider that 1m gap is a product of speed limits? If we didn't have such limits, dedicated cycle lanes set apart from roads would become the norm imo. Its not uncommon for cheap inadequate safety measures to supplant real ones.
  - mschuetz 6y ago
    > Have you ever consider that 1m gap is a product of speed limits? It's hardly better on rural streets with 100km/h limit and lots of space to overtake. It's not a speed limit issue, it's an issue with car drivers not giving a damn about cyclists and pedestrians because they have no concept of how dangerous this is. Speed limits are essential in a city, and bumps are needed in addition to them.
- t-writescode 6y ago
  I think this is a reasonable stance. Personally, I don't have a problem with the in-city, shared roads having very low limits. I have a huge problem with enormous super-highways having 60mph limits or lower. Some of the roads out where I live were engineered with going 90+ in mind. In fact, there's a tale of an engineer going such speeds and getting out of a ticket by explaining that to the judge out here. What was the speed limit? When you're over 15 miles from the city, it's 60, but pass a turn in the road and it's 70.
BonnieBrown 6y ago
Gosh isn't that the truth. I remember reading on reddit years ago about a "study" where college students drove on freeways in a wall, one in each lane, going exactly the speed limit no faster and no slower. It backed up traffic for miles. Where I am in Southern California the freeway speed limit in most places is 65 MPH. EVERYONE drives over 65 MPH on the freeways. I think you are more likely to get pulled over on the freeway if you are in the left lane actually going 65 than if you are going 75-80 in one of the middle lanes (the speed everyone else is going so it looks normal). This just creates a situation where basically everyone is "breaking the law" and gives cops a reason to arbitrarily pull anyone over that they want. I fully agree with you that speed limits are not about safety they are about instilling fear in citizens that at any moment you could be pulled over and harassed (even worse for colored people) and about being a source of revenue to find this tyranny
- BonnieBrown 6y ago
  fund, since I can't figure out how to edit and correct that typo
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Up near the timestamp in the post (right of your username), you have an edit link there for two hours after the initial post.
rootsofallevil 6y ago
> 1) The speed limit obviously an arbitrary choice - the chance of death is decent at 50k/h (standard "town" speed limit in Slovenia) (so why not 40hm/k or 30km/h), and e.g. Germany has no speed limit on the highways (in some places) so there's really no good reason to set a limit of 130km/h (why not 110km/h or 150km/h)? As are most limits. I get that driving on a motorway at say 85 mph is probably not that much dangerous than the speed limit (70 mph) but 100? 120? 140? I know about Germany, but would you say that Britain's or Slovenia's road are designed and kept to the same standard? > 2) The easiest objection to (1) is "society has jointly decided about acceptable risk limits" but that clearly isn't true. Speed limits are simply a bad idea. A much better idea is speed constraints - roundabouts, speed bumps, chicanes [0] - i.e. actually forcing people to drive slower or else they ruin their cars. how do you constrain speed on a motorway? > The fact that governments default to traffic cameras etc. is proof (revealed preference) that they don't actually care about safety and people driving slowly, but what they want most is making their citizens live in fear, punishing them and extracting money from them. This is particularly obvious when there's a hidden police / traffic control on some section of the road where it's obviously safe to drive fast, but it's just technically within city limits so it has a low speed limit. In this country (UK) there is this myth that the cameras are money making devices, when during the 2008 crisis they were turned off to save money for some constabularies, this is the same type of argument.
ta988 6y ago
Putting limits on toxic compound X in food would also be an overreach according to your views. At some point we have curves of accident rate and estimated speeds of accident and a decision is made. For food, we have an estimated exposure (plus other factors such as lab tests on animals etc) plotted against chances to develop a disease later... Roundabouts are not always a good solution, in US I kept seeing people taking them the wrong way going directly left.. Also what is your proof that cameras don't slow down traffic? Just talking about me it make me more conscious of my speed in the city to avoid getting fined. So I guess I'm the kind of people it is directed at.
tim333 6y ago
Not really. If limits are overreach why does every country have them? Ask some people with kids if they want yobs to be able to race at 120 mph in their neighborhoods. Speed bumps are ok on side streets but not so much other roads.

by tomp 6y ago

mschuetz 6y ago

Speed limits are important for non-cars. As a cyclist, I don't want people overtaking me 100km/h with a 1m gap. As a pedestrian trying to cross a small city or town street without dedicated crossing, I don't want drivers to suddenly appear with 100km/h from a small curve. I'd argue that 50km/h in a city is still too much. 30km/h should be the limit.

ptr2voidStar 6y ago
This should be obvious. It's surprising you have to state this for those who only think about themselves and their fast cars. Not all road users are car drivers!
- t-writescode 6y ago
  Not all roads have multiple kinds of traffic!
tomp 6y ago
As a pedestrian, I'm not ok with someone overtaking me at 30km/h with a 0.5m gap. See? It's all discretionary. As should speed limits be (at the discretion of the driver, based on the current road conditions). The problems you mention have other, better, actual solutions (e.g. cycling lanes, speed bumps before road crossings, ...).
- mschuetz 6y ago
  In my city, cycling lanes are never going to happen. And even if they were to happen, I would never ever want cars driving 100km/h through cities.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    Cars drive through cities at that speed regularly. They use highways. That’s what the people are saying. With better strategies for putting cars and non-cars at decent distances, we can allow for cars to go faster with the same or lower risk. The issue right now is that people in cars want higher speeds and pedestrians/cyclists want to go all over the road like cars don’t exist. These two things don’t work and thus we have to go with whatever is the slowest of the equation here (people jumping into the street). The annoying part is when there are low speed limits but almost no pedestrian or cycling traffic on such roads. Highways are frequently an example of that in the US. (Literally no pedestrians or cyclists anywhere near but speed limits are frequently 55mph in some places but 80+ in others - no reasoning for the difference)
- jfk13 6y ago
  > at the discretion of the driver Doesn't the cyclist get a say? Or the pedestrian? Why should just the driver get to decide how much risk to impose on everyone else?
cortic 6y ago
Have you ever consider that 1m gap is a product of speed limits? If we didn't have such limits, dedicated cycle lanes set apart from roads would become the norm imo. Its not uncommon for cheap inadequate safety measures to supplant real ones.
- mschuetz 6y ago
  > Have you ever consider that 1m gap is a product of speed limits? It's hardly better on rural streets with 100km/h limit and lots of space to overtake. It's not a speed limit issue, it's an issue with car drivers not giving a damn about cyclists and pedestrians because they have no concept of how dangerous this is. Speed limits are essential in a city, and bumps are needed in addition to them.
t-writescode 6y ago
I think this is a reasonable stance. Personally, I don't have a problem with the in-city, shared roads having very low limits. I have a huge problem with enormous super-highways having 60mph limits or lower. Some of the roads out where I live were engineered with going 90+ in mind. In fact, there's a tale of an engineer going such speeds and getting out of a ticket by explaining that to the judge out here. What was the speed limit? When you're over 15 miles from the city, it's 60, but pass a turn in the road and it's 70.

BonnieBrown 6y ago

Gosh isn't that the truth. I remember reading on reddit years ago about a "study" where college students drove on freeways in a wall, one in each lane, going exactly the speed limit no faster and no slower. It backed up traffic for miles. Where I am in Southern California the freeway speed limit in most places is 65 MPH. EVERYONE drives over 65 MPH on the freeways. I think you are more likely to get pulled over on the freeway if you are in the left lane actually going 65 than if you are going 75-80 in one of the middle lanes (the speed everyone else is going so it looks normal). This just creates a situation where basically everyone is "breaking the law" and gives cops a reason to arbitrarily pull anyone over that they want. I fully agree with you that speed limits are not about safety they are about instilling fear in citizens that at any moment you could be pulled over and harassed (even worse for colored people) and about being a source of revenue to find this tyranny

BonnieBrown 6y ago
fund, since I can't figure out how to edit and correct that typo
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Up near the timestamp in the post (right of your username), you have an edit link there for two hours after the initial post.

rootsofallevil 6y ago

> 1) The speed limit obviously an arbitrary choice - the chance of death is decent at 50k/h (standard "town" speed limit in Slovenia) (so why not 40hm/k or 30km/h), and e.g. Germany has no speed limit on the highways (in some places) so there's really no good reason to set a limit of 130km/h (why not 110km/h or 150km/h)? As are most limits. I get that driving on a motorway at say 85 mph is probably not that much dangerous than the speed limit (70 mph) but 100? 120? 140? I know about Germany, but would you say that Britain's or Slovenia's road are designed and kept to the same standard? > 2) The easiest objection to (1) is "society has jointly decided about acceptable risk limits" but that clearly isn't true. Speed limits are simply a bad idea. A much better idea is speed constraints - roundabouts, speed bumps, chicanes [0] - i.e. actually forcing people to drive slower or else they ruin their cars. how do you constrain speed on a motorway? > The fact that governments default to traffic cameras etc. is proof (revealed preference) that they don't actually care about safety and people driving slowly, but what they want most is making their citizens live in fear, punishing them and extracting money from them. This is particularly obvious when there's a hidden police / traffic control on some section of the road where it's obviously safe to drive fast, but it's just technically within city limits so it has a low speed limit. In this country (UK) there is this myth that the cameras are money making devices, when during the 2008 crisis they were turned off to save money for some constabularies, this is the same type of argument.

ta988 6y ago

Putting limits on toxic compound X in food would also be an overreach according to your views. At some point we have curves of accident rate and estimated speeds of accident and a decision is made. For food, we have an estimated exposure (plus other factors such as lab tests on animals etc) plotted against chances to develop a disease later... Roundabouts are not always a good solution, in US I kept seeing people taking them the wrong way going directly left.. Also what is your proof that cameras don't slow down traffic? Just talking about me it make me more conscious of my speed in the city to avoid getting fined. So I guess I'm the kind of people it is directed at.

tim333 6y ago

Not really. If limits are overreach why does every country have them? Ask some people with kids if they want yobs to be able to race at 120 mph in their neighborhoods. Speed bumps are ok on side streets but not so much other roads.