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Yes. Many speed limits are set lower than they need to be. On many roads, including freeways, the average speed of traffic is higher than the speed limit. Dr

Yes. Many speed limits are set lower than they need to be. On many roads, including freeways, the average speed of traffic is higher than the speed limit. Driving the speed limit on these freeways is dangerous. Additionally, many speedometers read slightly higher than the actual speed. Driving the exact speed limit on many roads as shown by your speedometer means you are actually driving quite slow. Repecting the speed limit as a strict rule is dangerous.

throw10920 3y ago
> Many speed limits are set lower than they need to be. ...the only correct response to which is to contact the state government and complain while continuing to respect the law. Breaking the law while remaining silent is diametrically opposed to the democratic system that the US, at least, aspires to. > need to be ...oh, and vehicle inefficiency increases superlinearly with speed[1]. Until the majority of the vehicles on the road are electric, lower speed limits help fight climate change. Speed limits don't "need to be" anything, and picking lower limits when there's a good reason is good. > On many roads, including freeways, the average speed of traffic is higher than the speed limit. Because drivers follow this flawed line of thought en masse - which doesn't excuse it. > Driving the speed limit on these freeways is dangerous. I guess we need more enforcement, then. Plus, I've never encountered a dangerous situation while driving in the right lane. I suspect that there's an implicit "...in the left lane" on your claim. > Driving the exact speed limit on many roads as shown by your speedometer means you are actually driving quite slow. Citation needed for the claim that you're "driving quite slow". I've never seen a speedometer that was off by more than 4 MPH (measured as the difference between that and GPS), and a difference of 4 MPH when you're going 55 is not "quite slow". > Repecting the speed limit as a strict rule is dangerous. It's called a "limit" for a reason, and the only reason it's non-trivially dangerous is because of other drivers significantly breaking the speed limit, too. This has inspired me to contact my local state's transportation department and request that they step up enforcement of speed limits. [1] https://www.mpgforspeed.com/ https://www.mpgforspeed.com/
- genman 3y ago
  Actually not accepting the given speed limit is a form of voting against said speed limit (especially when done en masse). Yes, it is not formal, but it is voting nonetheless. If the system was really democratic and not tyrannical then it would take it into account and would not resort to more control and punishment.
  - nickpeterson 3y ago
    I guess I’ve always viewed it from the standpoint of, at what speed are crashes rarer and most survivable (do those even coincide?) I think a lot of people really overestimate the difference highway speed makes in their overall transit time. If everyone going 55 led to far fewer fatalities, better fuel economy, and less delays because of accidents, I’d imagine we’d do it already.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      > better fuel economy that is, btw, the history of why we have a 55 speed limit. In 1973 there was a gas crisis, so in 1974 President Nixon drafted the National Maximum Speed Limit (NMSL), ostensibly to conserve gasoline. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law
    - Kamq 3y ago
      > I guess I’ve always viewed it from the standpoint of, at what speed are crashes rarer and most survivable They're most rare at 0 mph. In fact, they're so rare to be impossible. Once you've accepted non-zero speeds (including walking), you've also accepted some level of risk. We're just arguing about what level of risk is acceptable.
  - survirtual 3y ago
    You are correct. The users of the roads -- drivers -- are the ones who should decide what the speed limits are. The current system is a type of tyranny because the users are subject to rules without input nor representation. People seem to have a distorted view on what freedom means. If the majority of users say the speed limit is 80mph, then that is the just speed limit. Localities which decide -- for what ever reason -- that they know better have the seeds of tyranny inside them. History is filled with people who "knew better" for the populace. We have the technology to measure in realtime what the mass consensus for things like speed limits are. This type of voting is implicit, automated, and accurately captures the will of the people without friction. Right now, this technology has been hijacked by creepy advertising vermin to sell us things we don't need. I think that a time is coming soon when it is reclaimed and put to proper use.
grecy 3y ago
> Many speed limits are set lower than they need to be. Sounds like you are a qualified expert and know more about road design, traffic flow and pedestrian safety than those doing the job now. Clearly you need to apply for a position so you can right these so obvious wrongs. Please, don’t pretend you can do the job better than qualified experts
- genman 3y ago
  In many cases those experts are quite dumb and speed limits are arbitrary. You can see it most clearly in Europe where different countries have set different speed limits for similar road conditions. For example in one country the speed limit in highway tunnels is 80 km/h, but in others 90 km/h while the width of the road is similar, or even mostly wider where the limit is lower. The same kind of highway can have 30 km/h limit difference over countries. Some countries recognize higher variance of speeds in the cities than 30 or 50 km/h others don't.
  - d-lisp 3y ago
    In France, some *départements* adopted the 80km/h limitation while some other kept the 90km/h one, this has to deal with a compromise between safety, co2 emissions and current road behavior and population requirements. The decision to transition from 90 to 80 has been backed by some test which tended to show a reduction of mortality by 12%. Initially, most of the places where 90km/h is kept are huge countryside regions in which the traffic is low and the population has to drive actually quite some time in order to reach any city. The difference may seem insignificant in terms of travel time, but it felt like it was a huge topic back in 2018-2019 where the new limitations appeared. Now, more and more départements are asking for derogations to fall back to the 90km/h limitation, the main reason for this being 58% of the population in france doesn't follow the 80km/h limitation and doesn't consider 90 more dangerous than 80 (no test implied this time, 58% of france population is "optimistic"). So maybe for each country, before experts gave roads their current speed limitations, the way the population drove was taken into account by those experts or was taken into account *in place* of experts analysis, in order for the limitations to be a negotiation/compromise between current habits and experts analysis, in the best cases, and only an affirmation of the population *sentiment* in the worst cases. Some départements opted for another solution by putting some 70km/h limitation on dangerous sections of a road mainly limited to 90. The problem is that often, when I drive at 70km/h in these sections, some deadly stupid person is stuck full speed right behind me, nearly kissing the back of my car, flashing me with a stroboscopic lights-on lights-off motion because they do probably think that 90 is not less safe than 70 (ability to judge if a situation is safe : eternally damaged). The problem is not the road experts analysis in EU, but the political decision to apply or not the analysis, and the population refus to follow the limitations.

throw10920 3y ago

> Many speed limits are set lower than they need to be. ...the only correct response to which is to contact the state government and complain while continuing to respect the law. Breaking the law while remaining silent is diametrically opposed to the democratic system that the US, at least, aspires to. > need to be ...oh, and vehicle inefficiency increases superlinearly with speed[1]. Until the majority of the vehicles on the road are electric, lower speed limits help fight climate change. Speed limits don't "need to be" anything, and picking lower limits when there's a good reason is good. > On many roads, including freeways, the average speed of traffic is higher than the speed limit. Because drivers follow this flawed line of thought en masse - which doesn't excuse it. > Driving the speed limit on these freeways is dangerous. I guess we need more enforcement, then. Plus, I've never encountered a dangerous situation while driving in the right lane. I suspect that there's an implicit "...in the left lane" on your claim. > Driving the exact speed limit on many roads as shown by your speedometer means you are actually driving quite slow. Citation needed for the claim that you're "driving quite slow". I've never seen a speedometer that was off by more than 4 MPH (measured as the difference between that and GPS), and a difference of 4 MPH when you're going 55 is not "quite slow". > Repecting the speed limit as a strict rule is dangerous. It's called a "limit" for a reason, and the only reason it's non-trivially dangerous is because of other drivers significantly breaking the speed limit, too. This has inspired me to contact my local state's transportation department and request that they step up enforcement of speed limits. [1] https://www.mpgforspeed.com/ https://www.mpgforspeed.com/

genman 3y ago
Actually not accepting the given speed limit is a form of voting against said speed limit (especially when done en masse). Yes, it is not formal, but it is voting nonetheless. If the system was really democratic and not tyrannical then it would take it into account and would not resort to more control and punishment.
- nickpeterson 3y ago
  I guess I’ve always viewed it from the standpoint of, at what speed are crashes rarer and most survivable (do those even coincide?) I think a lot of people really overestimate the difference highway speed makes in their overall transit time. If everyone going 55 led to far fewer fatalities, better fuel economy, and less delays because of accidents, I’d imagine we’d do it already.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    > better fuel economy that is, btw, the history of why we have a 55 speed limit. In 1973 there was a gas crisis, so in 1974 President Nixon drafted the National Maximum Speed Limit (NMSL), ostensibly to conserve gasoline. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law
  - Kamq 3y ago
    > I guess I’ve always viewed it from the standpoint of, at what speed are crashes rarer and most survivable They're most rare at 0 mph. In fact, they're so rare to be impossible. Once you've accepted non-zero speeds (including walking), you've also accepted some level of risk. We're just arguing about what level of risk is acceptable.
- survirtual 3y ago
  You are correct. The users of the roads -- drivers -- are the ones who should decide what the speed limits are. The current system is a type of tyranny because the users are subject to rules without input nor representation. People seem to have a distorted view on what freedom means. If the majority of users say the speed limit is 80mph, then that is the just speed limit. Localities which decide -- for what ever reason -- that they know better have the seeds of tyranny inside them. History is filled with people who "knew better" for the populace. We have the technology to measure in realtime what the mass consensus for things like speed limits are. This type of voting is implicit, automated, and accurately captures the will of the people without friction. Right now, this technology has been hijacked by creepy advertising vermin to sell us things we don't need. I think that a time is coming soon when it is reclaimed and put to proper use.

grecy 3y ago

> Many speed limits are set lower than they need to be. Sounds like you are a qualified expert and know more about road design, traffic flow and pedestrian safety than those doing the job now. Clearly you need to apply for a position so you can right these so obvious wrongs. Please, don’t pretend you can do the job better than qualified experts

genman 3y ago
In many cases those experts are quite dumb and speed limits are arbitrary. You can see it most clearly in Europe where different countries have set different speed limits for similar road conditions. For example in one country the speed limit in highway tunnels is 80 km/h, but in others 90 km/h while the width of the road is similar, or even mostly wider where the limit is lower. The same kind of highway can have 30 km/h limit difference over countries. Some countries recognize higher variance of speeds in the cities than 30 or 50 km/h others don't.
- d-lisp 3y ago
  In France, some *départements* adopted the 80km/h limitation while some other kept the 90km/h one, this has to deal with a compromise between safety, co2 emissions and current road behavior and population requirements. The decision to transition from 90 to 80 has been backed by some test which tended to show a reduction of mortality by 12%. Initially, most of the places where 90km/h is kept are huge countryside regions in which the traffic is low and the population has to drive actually quite some time in order to reach any city. The difference may seem insignificant in terms of travel time, but it felt like it was a huge topic back in 2018-2019 where the new limitations appeared. Now, more and more départements are asking for derogations to fall back to the 90km/h limitation, the main reason for this being 58% of the population in france doesn't follow the 80km/h limitation and doesn't consider 90 more dangerous than 80 (no test implied this time, 58% of france population is "optimistic"). So maybe for each country, before experts gave roads their current speed limitations, the way the population drove was taken into account by those experts or was taken into account *in place* of experts analysis, in order for the limitations to be a negotiation/compromise between current habits and experts analysis, in the best cases, and only an affirmation of the population *sentiment* in the worst cases. Some départements opted for another solution by putting some 70km/h limitation on dangerous sections of a road mainly limited to 90. The problem is that often, when I drive at 70km/h in these sections, some deadly stupid person is stuck full speed right behind me, nearly kissing the back of my car, flashing me with a stroboscopic lights-on lights-off motion because they do probably think that 90 is not less safe than 70 (ability to judge if a situation is safe : eternally damaged). The problem is not the road experts analysis in EU, but the political decision to apply or not the analysis, and the population refus to follow the limitations.