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Mentioned this in another thread and I'm still looking for researh around this topic: A Dutch engineer once told me (back before 2004 I guess ) that they once

Mentioned this in another thread and I'm still looking for researh around this topic: A Dutch engineer once told me (back before 2004 I guess ) that they once raised the speed limit on the roads in Netherlands and found that counterintuitively, - average speed decreased. His explanation IIRC was that 1. once people break the rules it doesn't matter how much and 2. when speed limits felt more correct more people respected them. this, according to him, meant that even if some people were driving faster a lot of those who used to break the rules now followed them. I'd still love to know if anyone has any more pointers to research on this and I am fairly sure someone around here knows a whole lot. ( I got some unexpected input in the other thread already.)

peatmoss 12y ago
Interesting! Of course the Dutch are also leaders in highly designed shared streets that make the hippest of the hipster urban designers in the US swoon with envy. Unless we're talking about major highway facilities (and perhaps not even then), my hunch is that we're looking at some radically different street design.
gaius 12y ago
Let's not forget that the speed limit was never about safety. It was about saving fuel in an oil crisis.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Let's not forget that the speed limit was never about safety. It was about saving fuel in an oil crisis. The establishment of the national maximum highway speed limit of 55mph was about that. Speed limits more generally (which predate that by quite a long time), not so much. EDIT: As it has been accurately pointed out that the above response is US-centric, more generally: the establishment of reduced speed limits in many jurisdictions in the early-mid 1970s (including the US national maximum highway speed limit of 55mph) were due to the concerns of saving fuel in an oil crisis, but that is not true of speed limits more generally (either before -- stretching back to more than a century before automobiles existed -- or after the 1970s.)
  - gaius 12y ago
    You know there are cars outside America? http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/15/newsid_2559000/2559807.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/15...
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > You know there are cars outside America? Sure, that doesn't change the fact that your statement upthread is still generally wrong. But I've updated my response to it to be more general and less US-centric.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      Which countries were you referring to that reduced their speed limits due to an oil crisis?
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  It wasn't even about that. It was about appearing to do something about the oil crisis. Actually saving fuel would have involved sitting down a dozen auto manufacturers and persuasively asking them to participate in a cartel to improve vehicle fuel efficiency without disproportionately harming any individual participant's competitiveness. Instead, they ordered 250 million people to slow down. According to the article, only 10% are generally willing to do that consistently, and that just increases the collision rate. So in the end, the 55 mile per hour speed limit wasn't about anything but ignorant management doing something with a high visibility to appear wise, leaderly, and decisive. But it actually just hurt everyone else. We've seen that story so many times, the details are practically unnecessary. The sad thing is that the people that really need to learn the lessons of history are too busy trying to crank out more illustrative examples.
- tripzilch 12y ago
  I found that argument a little bit weird. Most people I hear about the most efficient speed of their car tell me it's around 110 km/h. That's 68 mi/h. Maybe European cars are different?
huuu 12y ago
Off topic but related: almost all roads in The Netherlands are provided with speed detection induction loops. The data is open and there is a nice website showing the top speeds: http://www.bestwelsnel.nl/ http://www.bestwelsnel.nl/ (best wel snel = pretty fast)
- Erwin 12y ago
  That map looks like high scores in an arcade game encouraging you to beat them. Can you beat the 276 km/h (!!) or 247 km/h on what seems to be a long tunnel or a bridge? Is there any documented effect of that data being public to people trying to "beat" the speeds?
  - easytiger 12y ago
    holy crap. that's 171mph

peatmoss 12y ago

Interesting! Of course the Dutch are also leaders in highly designed shared streets that make the hippest of the hipster urban designers in the US swoon with envy. Unless we're talking about major highway facilities (and perhaps not even then), my hunch is that we're looking at some radically different street design.

gaius 12y ago

Let's not forget that the speed limit was never about safety. It was about saving fuel in an oil crisis.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Let's not forget that the speed limit was never about safety. It was about saving fuel in an oil crisis. The establishment of the national maximum highway speed limit of 55mph was about that. Speed limits more generally (which predate that by quite a long time), not so much. EDIT: As it has been accurately pointed out that the above response is US-centric, more generally: the establishment of reduced speed limits in many jurisdictions in the early-mid 1970s (including the US national maximum highway speed limit of 55mph) were due to the concerns of saving fuel in an oil crisis, but that is not true of speed limits more generally (either before -- stretching back to more than a century before automobiles existed -- or after the 1970s.)
- gaius 12y ago
  You know there are cars outside America? http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/15/newsid_2559000/2559807.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/15...
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > You know there are cars outside America? Sure, that doesn't change the fact that your statement upthread is still generally wrong. But I've updated my response to it to be more general and less US-centric.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    Which countries were you referring to that reduced their speed limits due to an oil crisis?
logfromblammo 12y ago
It wasn't even about that. It was about appearing to do something about the oil crisis. Actually saving fuel would have involved sitting down a dozen auto manufacturers and persuasively asking them to participate in a cartel to improve vehicle fuel efficiency without disproportionately harming any individual participant's competitiveness. Instead, they ordered 250 million people to slow down. According to the article, only 10% are generally willing to do that consistently, and that just increases the collision rate. So in the end, the 55 mile per hour speed limit wasn't about anything but ignorant management doing something with a high visibility to appear wise, leaderly, and decisive. But it actually just hurt everyone else. We've seen that story so many times, the details are practically unnecessary. The sad thing is that the people that really need to learn the lessons of history are too busy trying to crank out more illustrative examples.
tripzilch 12y ago
I found that argument a little bit weird. Most people I hear about the most efficient speed of their car tell me it's around 110 km/h. That's 68 mi/h. Maybe European cars are different?

huuu 12y ago

Off topic but related: almost all roads in The Netherlands are provided with speed detection induction loops. The data is open and there is a nice website showing the top speeds: http://www.bestwelsnel.nl/ http://www.bestwelsnel.nl/ (best wel snel = pretty fast)

Erwin 12y ago
That map looks like high scores in an arcade game encouraging you to beat them. Can you beat the 276 km/h (!!) or 247 km/h on what seems to be a long tunnel or a bridge? Is there any documented effect of that data being public to people trying to "beat" the speeds?
- easytiger 12y ago
  holy crap. that's 171mph