4 ms·
The NEV standard would be great if people followed speed limits. Unfortunately, the fact that it is 25 mph it does not mean people will drive anywhere close to
by hristov 5y ago
The NEV standard would be great if people followed speed limits. Unfortunately, the fact that it is 25 mph it does not mean people will drive anywhere close to that. But it is a good start.
- Johnny555 5y agoThere's a pretty easy fix for that... speed cameras.
- xmprt 5y agoEven easier fix for that which is much cheaper to enforce... narrower roads, raised crosswalks, separated bike lanes. Cars will naturally drive slower on those roads and they are more friendly to other modalities.
- Johnny555 5y agoThe argument against strict traffic calming is always "How will an emergency vehicle get through?" There are some solutions that can slow cars but still allow emergency vehicles through, but they aren't perfect, and still need sign off from the fire department. And that signoff can be hard to get, years ago, my neighborhood wanted to install speed humps to slow traffic -- the fire department vetoed it since the road was the main access from the neighhood firestation.
- jeofken 5y agoAnyone from NL here? How does that work there?
- bobthepanda 5y agoAmerican fire trucks are absolutely massive compared to their European and Asian peers.
- oblio 5y agoYou can actually speed over speed bumps, it's just uncomfortable... The main thing is: how bad are speed bumps for vehicle maintenance, really? Fire trucks, for example, only need to go full throttle when they leave the fire station. When they come back they can just go over the speed bump slowly, like everyone else. Why would going over 1 speed bump every bunch of days be such a major issue? Does that mean that a fire truck going over a pothole will do a barrel roll? :-p
- twobitshifter 5y agoI had a family member with broken ribs make a trip to the hospital in the back of an ambulance, I think it’s the medical vehicles which are most likely to have trouble on speed bumps.
- oblio 5y agoAmbulances are a potential problem, true. But even for ambulances, if you couple traffic calming measures with bike lanes, better public transport, etc, car traffic goes way down, which means that ambulances aren't stuck in traffic. So even ambulances can slow down a bit before speed bumps and they would still arrive faster than otherwise.
- agumonkey 5y agoAnother is the complexity of city traffic, the more red lights, the more people are frustrated and will try to push faster. When you ensure fluid flow, 25mph is fast enough to go where you want without noticing it, if things are smooth the driver might even enjoy the scene instead of trying to 'get before the green light is over'.
- adrianN 5y agoMaking streets narrower, raising crosswalks and building separate bike lanes is a much larger up front expense than installing speed cameras.
- xmprt 5y agoThis is literally the sunk cost fallacy
- noveltyaccount 5y agoI don't know where I read this, but narrow streets cause people to slow down too. Nearby my home is a very roomy 30mph 5-lane road where the flow of traffic is usually 45mph. Plenty of room to speed up!
- torginus 5y agoThere's a solution for this, that's know to work - one way streets. Set them up in a fashion that you have no reason to enter these slow streets unless you're going to a direct destination there. That way you can avoid passthrough traffic.
- sbierwagen 5y agoNEVs have governors that electronically limit them 25mph.
- maccard 5y agoI live in a city with a 20mph speed limit in the city and for the most part it's adhered to. This sort of tech would be a game changer here.