Was gonna cite 85th percentile speed but TIL on drawbacks
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jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks agoexactly, the engineers should never have made a road with that big of a discrepancy between safe speed and listed speed limit
brbposting@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
MisterFrog@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Engineers should absolutely include traffic calming features to get people to naturally slow down, but everyone should drive the limit.
Speed kills, kinetic energy is not linear.
Cars are tonnes of metal hurtling down the road. Thousands upon thousands die every year, and since the increased prevalence of massive US style trucks fatalities have RISEN, undoing decades of progress. (Both in the US, and elsewhere)
People driving 20 over the limit are arseholes (or have been influenced by car centric infrastructure and culture). Change my mind.
Speeding is never okay. Just that lots of people have convinced themselves it’s no big deal.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
MisterFrog@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I get this is a joke, but speed limits shouldn’t be set by politicians (which I’m hearing apparently is/was a thing?). Politicians have a role to play in getting regulations standards re-written by people who understand the decades of research on this.
Speeding is mostly a design issue, but I still expect people actually follow the rules.
Strong Towns, NotJustBikes, City Beautiful, Practical Engineering, among others have made great videos on this topic.
A lot of people justify speeding, and it’s kinda dumb, if you ask me.
Just because you “feel” it’s safe, doesn’t mean it actually is.
Plus, there’s a fantastic way to reduce road deaths, just have fewer cars, switch to public transport, but that takes a long time to implement if the political will doesn’t exist.
Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
The engineers only make the listed limit speed. Government officials make the listed limit. It used to be EXTREMELY popular for government official to knock 20-25% off the design limit of the road, ironically so they can tell everyone how safe they were.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Traffic engineers in the US make too wide roads that psychologically encourages speeding, the posted speed limit doesn’t matter unless police dedicates significant resources to enforcing it
theangryseal@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Everywhere in my town was 25mph until about 10 years ago.
A local politician got a few speeding tickets and went nuts over it, now it varies from 25-60mph. Engineers were brought in to advise on safe limits.
Him getting those tickets was one of the best things to ever happened to me. It was so miserable driving so slow on big open roads. I could probably sit down and figure up an insane amount of time I’ve saved over the last decade (if I weren’t an idiot).
teuniac_@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not so great for people walking or cycling though. Higher speeds mean more serious and fatal collisions.
Where these modes of transport mix, 20mph is becoming the default choice in western European countries, there is a global declaration on this. If roads feel like they’re made for higher streets: that’s bad infrastructure design.
fiafoundation.org/…/stockholm-declaration-focuses…
theangryseal@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
No one is traveling on a bicycle or walking here. These roads are empty, there’s nothing there. I live in one of the most rural places in the country (United States).
It was seriously 20 miles straight with no houses, wide road, 25 mph. In residential areas there are still 25 mph speed limits.
On our 4 lane road, bicycles are not allowed, yet the speed limit was only 35-40.
Where there are sidewalks, the speed limit is 25 mph. If there are buildings, 25 mph.
Empty roads with nothing but fucking trees should not be 25 mph.
In all of my years driving on those roads, I don’t even think I’ve ever seen a bicycle. A couple of those tiny, slow motorcycles, maybe. I guess they call them scooters
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
I’m seeing more cities in the US jump onto “20 is Plenty” too!