7 ms·

There it is, "speed as a factor" (or in this case, a variant). This is a classic law enforcement trope. I'm sorry but no-shit "speed" is a factor in a collisio

by zionic 4y ago

There it is, "speed as a factor" (or in this case, a variant). This is a classic law enforcement trope. I'm sorry but no-shit "speed" is a factor in a collision, so is the strong nuclear force. Stating such a thing proves nothing towards: 1) If someone was _actually_ speeding, as often the precise speed is totally unknown at the point of impact/accident. A cop that rolls up to a car impacted on a tree has no idea if they were doing 50 or 60 in a 55, but you can bet the farm they'll check the "speed as a factor" box. 2) If the accident would have happened had they been traveling 5MPH slower (speeding vs not speeding) 3) If the person would have survived at 65MPH vs 70. Remember that survivability has a cut off point, you're dead. Hitting a concrete wall head on at 65MPH is 100% lethal, 70MPH doesn't make any difference with respect to "survivability". Couple all this with speed limits being insanely low throughout the US and routinely exceeded by 10+ MPH, no-shit that it's "a factor" in the majority of collisions... everyone does it. That's garbage data.

danhor 4y ago
I mean, speed is the obvious issue with road safety. It increases stopping distance by a large amount, at 50km/h (~30mph) you're not even stopping while you already at a standstill at 30km/h (~20mph). If everyone drove at 10km/h almost no fatal accident would happen (probably mostly old people reversing into others). According to german data, reducing the speed limit from 50km/h (~30mph) to 30km/h (~20mph) reduces heavy injuries and deaths by 60-70% (https://www.vsf.de/fileadmin/inhalte/public/06_Engagement/tempo30/Maria_Limbourg_Tempo30.pdf https://www.vsf.de/fileadmin/inhalte/public/06_Engagement/te...) and decreases fatalities after a collision with a pedestrian from 80% to 30%. That's not quite mad max, but still very bad. We know that even for interstates speed limits have an large effect (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000145759900010X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000145759...), with deaths rising by ~15% after the speed limit was increased from 55mph (afaict, for urban interstates it was mostly raised by 10mph, with average travel speed only changing slightly). So even at those speeds there is a very noticable effect on deaths. If these numbers apply to speed limits, it's obvious that they should also apply to speeding. Even more so, it makes it clear that setting the speed limit higher has an pretty large effect on safety, so people do use the speed limit as a guide (with, as you said, often some amount of additional speed), so raising the speed limit seems like a very bad idea. All the figures I've seen for US speed limits seem in line with most of the speed limits commonly used in Germany, which are more on the high side for the EU. I don't know how you come to the conclusion that they're amazingly low.
- chrismcb 4y ago
  Yes, the faster you drive the more likely an accident will occur and the more deadly it might be... That is a separate issue than "speeding"
  - danhor 4y ago
    Why? The issue with speeding is that ... you're driving faster. And as I've laid (at least somewhat) the speed limits the US commonly employs are sane as a choice and also very common in other countries. A huge issue is that american residential roads are way overbuilt, further encouraging speeding. A lot of residential roads in Central Europe have specific provisions encouraging and forcing drivers to slow down. The residential streets in America sometimes look like a small, two-lane, highway regarding their width and straightnes.
- zionic 4y ago
  The problem with most of this data is that it is preposterous on its face. Really, 30mph car impacts with pedestrians had an 80% fatality rate? What about 45, 75, and 150 MPH? Should we analyze those as well, or should we realize how silly this all is? The solution has always been to physically isolate pedestrian traffic from vehicles at anything above trivial speeds. 30-45mph car traffic on a flat plane with joggers and moms pushing strollers is stupid. These aren’t hard problems to solve, we’d just rather spend $15 Billion on our 14th aircraft carrier instead of pedestrian bridges/walkways/tunnels/elevated roadways etc. No one is suggesting obvious interface points like airport drop off/pickup lanes allow 75mph traffic. The point is that for the VAST majority of roads in the US pedestrian traffic is nonexistent and speed limits are 20-30% too low. So low even the cops don’t really enforce them (unless you’re black or the officer has a quota to meet). We have huge stretches of flat, controlled access, well maintained super highways stuck at 1950’s speed limits (65MPH). Yet when we talk about fixing this all we hear about is how someone killed a bus full of nuns doing 70 in a 25mph school zone. Otherwise rational people seem entirely incapable of nuance when it comes to the speed discussion.
  - danhor 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
standardUser 4y ago
More speed equals less stopping power and control and more injury and death. Period. I agree speed should not be our only focus regarding road safety and speed limits should be increased. But let's not play make-believe about the dangers of driving faster.
- zionic 4y ago
  >less stopping power True, but I think it’s better said as longer stopping distance. This is fine though. The speed limit should be the speed that no reasonable person would exceed, but what we have in the US is in fact the speed no reasonable person would drive. Again, the cops don’t even enforce the posted limits until +10 because they’re so low. That’s not ok. >more death Not really. Death clips the risk function. You can’t go above 1.0. An airliner nose diving into the ground (like that one recent case) is equally fatal at 300, 400, and 500MPH. No one is suggesting slowing planes to save lives. Similarly, a concrete wall teleporting to 150ft in front of you is going to kill you on a highway at 60, 70, and 90 MPH. The goal therefore is to prevent spontaneous debris from entering the roadway, and of course keep relative speeds among motorists as low as possible. Impacts with stationary objects should always be sloped, for example a guard rail and not a bridge support column. That’s how you actually save lives, not something ridiculous like capping all transit to 25mph.

by zionic 4y ago

danhor 4y ago

I mean, speed is the obvious issue with road safety. It increases stopping distance by a large amount, at 50km/h (~30mph) you're not even stopping while you already at a standstill at 30km/h (~20mph). If everyone drove at 10km/h almost no fatal accident would happen (probably mostly old people reversing into others). According to german data, reducing the speed limit from 50km/h (~30mph) to 30km/h (~20mph) reduces heavy injuries and deaths by 60-70% (https://www.vsf.de/fileadmin/inhalte/public/06_Engagement/tempo30/Maria_Limbourg_Tempo30.pdf https://www.vsf.de/fileadmin/inhalte/public/06_Engagement/te...) and decreases fatalities after a collision with a pedestrian from 80% to 30%. That's not quite mad max, but still very bad. We know that even for interstates speed limits have an large effect (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000145759900010X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000145759...), with deaths rising by ~15% after the speed limit was increased from 55mph (afaict, for urban interstates it was mostly raised by 10mph, with average travel speed only changing slightly). So even at those speeds there is a very noticable effect on deaths. If these numbers apply to speed limits, it's obvious that they should also apply to speeding. Even more so, it makes it clear that setting the speed limit higher has an pretty large effect on safety, so people do use the speed limit as a guide (with, as you said, often some amount of additional speed), so raising the speed limit seems like a very bad idea. All the figures I've seen for US speed limits seem in line with most of the speed limits commonly used in Germany, which are more on the high side for the EU. I don't know how you come to the conclusion that they're amazingly low.

chrismcb 4y ago
Yes, the faster you drive the more likely an accident will occur and the more deadly it might be... That is a separate issue than "speeding"
- danhor 4y ago
  Why? The issue with speeding is that ... you're driving faster. And as I've laid (at least somewhat) the speed limits the US commonly employs are sane as a choice and also very common in other countries. A huge issue is that american residential roads are way overbuilt, further encouraging speeding. A lot of residential roads in Central Europe have specific provisions encouraging and forcing drivers to slow down. The residential streets in America sometimes look like a small, two-lane, highway regarding their width and straightnes.
zionic 4y ago
The problem with most of this data is that it is preposterous on its face. Really, 30mph car impacts with pedestrians had an 80% fatality rate? What about 45, 75, and 150 MPH? Should we analyze those as well, or should we realize how silly this all is? The solution has always been to physically isolate pedestrian traffic from vehicles at anything above trivial speeds. 30-45mph car traffic on a flat plane with joggers and moms pushing strollers is stupid. These aren’t hard problems to solve, we’d just rather spend $15 Billion on our 14th aircraft carrier instead of pedestrian bridges/walkways/tunnels/elevated roadways etc. No one is suggesting obvious interface points like airport drop off/pickup lanes allow 75mph traffic. The point is that for the VAST majority of roads in the US pedestrian traffic is nonexistent and speed limits are 20-30% too low. So low even the cops don’t really enforce them (unless you’re black or the officer has a quota to meet). We have huge stretches of flat, controlled access, well maintained super highways stuck at 1950’s speed limits (65MPH). Yet when we talk about fixing this all we hear about is how someone killed a bus full of nuns doing 70 in a 25mph school zone. Otherwise rational people seem entirely incapable of nuance when it comes to the speed discussion.
- danhor 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

standardUser 4y ago

More speed equals less stopping power and control and more injury and death. Period. I agree speed should not be our only focus regarding road safety and speed limits should be increased. But let's not play make-believe about the dangers of driving faster.

zionic 4y ago
>less stopping power True, but I think it’s better said as longer stopping distance. This is fine though. The speed limit should be the speed that no reasonable person would exceed, but what we have in the US is in fact the speed no reasonable person would drive. Again, the cops don’t even enforce the posted limits until +10 because they’re so low. That’s not ok. >more death Not really. Death clips the risk function. You can’t go above 1.0. An airliner nose diving into the ground (like that one recent case) is equally fatal at 300, 400, and 500MPH. No one is suggesting slowing planes to save lives. Similarly, a concrete wall teleporting to 150ft in front of you is going to kill you on a highway at 60, 70, and 90 MPH. The goal therefore is to prevent spontaneous debris from entering the roadway, and of course keep relative speeds among motorists as low as possible. Impacts with stationary objects should always be sloped, for example a guard rail and not a bridge support column. That’s how you actually save lives, not something ridiculous like capping all transit to 25mph.