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Nope, because people are overestimating themselves. I know a couple of people who can do 2x the speed limit relatively safely, but this is because they were rac

Nope, because people are overestimating themselves. I know a couple of people who can do 2x the speed limit relatively safely, but this is because they were race drivers in a previous life. However, not everyone (incl. me) has that reflexes and situational awareness all the time. Recently I got into an accident. A car changed into my lane completely unannounced, and I was blinded by a car in my front diagonal. The car "jumped" into my vision, I braked and hit them relatively slowly. Being slow, uphill and on a wet road helped all of us (the car took some of the damage by sliding). Consider this in a freeway at speed limit. We'd be hurt. Consider this at 1.5x speed limit, because everyone speeds, and we would be dead. Do not forget, the police found out that I had no wrongdoing and blame. It was impossible to see them, and they neglected to check their mirrors and signal a lane change, plus I had some distance to them and braked as hard as I could the moment I saw them, and I was going 50KM/h to begin with.

ysavir 2y ago
> Nope, because people are overestimating themselves. I know a couple of people who can do 2x the speed limit relatively safely, but this is because they were race drivers in a previous life. However, not everyone (incl. me) has that reflexes and situational awareness all the time. And even then, although the ex-race drivers can drive safely at high speeds, it doesn't mean other people can drive safely while other people are moving a racetrack speeds. The key to safety on the road is predictability. Any form of driving that reduces predictability, even if the unpredictable driver has the necessary skill for that form of driving, creates a dangerous situation because other drivers will react to that unpredictability in unpredictable ways, and likely lacking the skill to pull it off. What matters isn't the driving skill of the most skilled driver on the road, it's the skill level of the least skilled driver on the road.
- bayindirh 2y ago
  Exactly. This is why I used the word "relatively" there. Moreover, a prominent race driver, happened to be a friend of my dad, died because of the same unpredictability of the traffic. Another race driver, whom I forgot his name, said "A race track is where people who know what they are doing drive at high speeds, and traffic is a race track where people don't know what they are doing, yet still drive at high speeds". I always keep that in mind and cite to other people to urge them to be careful in the traffic. What caused my accident was that unpredictability. A car changed lanes in front of me, without proper signaling and precautions from a point where it was impossible for me to see them.
  - ysavir 2y ago
    > "A race track is where people who know what they are doing drive at high speeds, and traffic is a race track where people don't know what they are doing, yet still drive at high speeds". Brilliant! That's so well put.
ryao 2y ago
Explain how the German autobahn has fewer collisions than US high ways with lower than 85th percentile speed limits if the lower speed limits are such an advantage. Actual data does not support the idea of low speed limits. They are only in place as an attempt to reduce fleet fuel consumption, and hurt safety by causing big differences in vehicle speeds.
- ipsento606 2y ago
  > Explain how the German autobahn has fewer collisions than US high ways with lower than 85th percentile speed limits if the lower speed limits are such an advantage. There is no reason in the world to assume that US drivers have the same level of driving skill as German drivers.
  - ryao 2y ago
    > There is no reason in the world to assume that US drivers have the same level of driving skill as German drivers. That is a very typical response, yet the notion of Germans being intrinsically superior to others has long been debunked.
    - acdha 2y ago
      That’s a straw man. Nobody is saying Germans have some “safe driving” gene, but rather that German culture has higher standards for driver training and enforcement. I’m sure that if the United States would see incident rates decline significantly if we made drivers licenses harder to get and easier to lose before a fatality, or simply ended our effective trillion-dollar annual subsidy of driving and required people to carry insurance coverage sufficient to actually compensate the other parties.
      - ryao 2y ago
        The way he worded his reply suggested some sort of intrinsic superiority that by definition could not be replicated anywhere else. That said, if we can replicate Germany’s success in vehicle safety in the U.S., we should, yet discussion on vehicle safety seems to justify increasingly draconian bandaids on the status quo rather than just mimicking what the Germans do. It is also easy to say that they have higher standards, yet no one has stated precisely what these standards are. In NYS, we have annual mandatory vehicle inspections. Driving an uninspected vehicle is illegal and you cannot get the inspection certificate for your windshield unless your vehicle passes. The state requires a driving test to get a license and effectively forces everyone to take driver education courses every 3 years by raising insurance rates if they do not. It is unclear to me what is done in Germany that is not already done in NYS as far as driver education and vehicle road worthiness are concerned. NYS might even be ahead of Germany if Germany does not have any incentive for regular driver education. > I’m sure that if the United States would see incident rates decline significantly if we made drivers licenses harder to get and easier to lose before a fatality, or simply ended our effective trillion-dollar annual subsidy of driving and required people to carry insurance coverage sufficient to actually compensate the other parties. You just described NYS. It has some of the highest insurance coverage requirements in the U.S.: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/insurance/minimum-car-insurance-requirements https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/insurance/minimum-car-ins... Losing your license is fairly easy to do here. There is a points system. Reach 11 points, and you lose your license. Reaching 11 points is fairly easy to do. Having any points on your license increases insurance rates, so there is a strong incentive to avoid it.

ysavir 2y ago

> Nope, because people are overestimating themselves. I know a couple of people who can do 2x the speed limit relatively safely, but this is because they were race drivers in a previous life. However, not everyone (incl. me) has that reflexes and situational awareness all the time. And even then, although the ex-race drivers can drive safely at high speeds, it doesn't mean other people can drive safely while other people are moving a racetrack speeds. The key to safety on the road is predictability. Any form of driving that reduces predictability, even if the unpredictable driver has the necessary skill for that form of driving, creates a dangerous situation because other drivers will react to that unpredictability in unpredictable ways, and likely lacking the skill to pull it off. What matters isn't the driving skill of the most skilled driver on the road, it's the skill level of the least skilled driver on the road.

bayindirh 2y ago
Exactly. This is why I used the word "relatively" there. Moreover, a prominent race driver, happened to be a friend of my dad, died because of the same unpredictability of the traffic. Another race driver, whom I forgot his name, said "A race track is where people who know what they are doing drive at high speeds, and traffic is a race track where people don't know what they are doing, yet still drive at high speeds". I always keep that in mind and cite to other people to urge them to be careful in the traffic. What caused my accident was that unpredictability. A car changed lanes in front of me, without proper signaling and precautions from a point where it was impossible for me to see them.
- ysavir 2y ago
  > "A race track is where people who know what they are doing drive at high speeds, and traffic is a race track where people don't know what they are doing, yet still drive at high speeds". Brilliant! That's so well put.

ryao 2y ago

Explain how the German autobahn has fewer collisions than US high ways with lower than 85th percentile speed limits if the lower speed limits are such an advantage. Actual data does not support the idea of low speed limits. They are only in place as an attempt to reduce fleet fuel consumption, and hurt safety by causing big differences in vehicle speeds.

ipsento606 2y ago
> Explain how the German autobahn has fewer collisions than US high ways with lower than 85th percentile speed limits if the lower speed limits are such an advantage. There is no reason in the world to assume that US drivers have the same level of driving skill as German drivers.
- ryao 2y ago
  > There is no reason in the world to assume that US drivers have the same level of driving skill as German drivers. That is a very typical response, yet the notion of Germans being intrinsically superior to others has long been debunked.
  - acdha 2y ago
    That’s a straw man. Nobody is saying Germans have some “safe driving” gene, but rather that German culture has higher standards for driver training and enforcement. I’m sure that if the United States would see incident rates decline significantly if we made drivers licenses harder to get and easier to lose before a fatality, or simply ended our effective trillion-dollar annual subsidy of driving and required people to carry insurance coverage sufficient to actually compensate the other parties.
    - ryao 2y ago
      The way he worded his reply suggested some sort of intrinsic superiority that by definition could not be replicated anywhere else. That said, if we can replicate Germany’s success in vehicle safety in the U.S., we should, yet discussion on vehicle safety seems to justify increasingly draconian bandaids on the status quo rather than just mimicking what the Germans do. It is also easy to say that they have higher standards, yet no one has stated precisely what these standards are. In NYS, we have annual mandatory vehicle inspections. Driving an uninspected vehicle is illegal and you cannot get the inspection certificate for your windshield unless your vehicle passes. The state requires a driving test to get a license and effectively forces everyone to take driver education courses every 3 years by raising insurance rates if they do not. It is unclear to me what is done in Germany that is not already done in NYS as far as driver education and vehicle road worthiness are concerned. NYS might even be ahead of Germany if Germany does not have any incentive for regular driver education. > I’m sure that if the United States would see incident rates decline significantly if we made drivers licenses harder to get and easier to lose before a fatality, or simply ended our effective trillion-dollar annual subsidy of driving and required people to carry insurance coverage sufficient to actually compensate the other parties. You just described NYS. It has some of the highest insurance coverage requirements in the U.S.: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/insurance/minimum-car-insurance-requirements https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/insurance/minimum-car-ins... Losing your license is fairly easy to do here. There is a points system. Reach 11 points, and you lose your license. Reaching 11 points is fairly easy to do. Having any points on your license increases insurance rates, so there is a strong incentive to avoid it.