this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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Speed limits dont work, road design determines how fast people go.
A section of the A24 was limited to 130 kmph for 20 years to reduce accidents. Because the reduction the speed limit was lifted early this year. Now there are 8% more accidents with injury and 42% more injured. Politicians call now to make it possible to limit the section again.
https://archive.ph/hPIpp
For highway lowering the speed may be effective but lowering the speed limit from 50 to 30 won't stop drivers from going 50 unless the road is designed for lower speeds. So long as lanes are wide and there are little obstructions for drivers to worry about hitting, such as bumpouts, boulevards, etc., they will go as fast as they feel comfortable unless there is a cop behind them.
Edit: 50kmh to 30kmh I don't know what that is in freedom miles
BTW: the mortality is around 50% if a car hits a pedestrian at 50km/h.
At 30km/h it's around 3%.
So yeah, speed in centre ville counts!
Damn pedestrians killing drivers for driving quickly, won't somebody do something?!
In Germany the speed limit in Cities is 50km/h and in residential zones 30km/h, strong controlled with a lot of radar traps. If you exceed this they screw up your life, in case of hitting a pedestrian even possible with jail time. It cannot be confused by the lack of speed limit on some highway sections, that traffic regulations are very strict and controlled in Germany and any violation can be very expensive.
I think that comment was meant as a joke because if a car hits a pedestrian, its obviously not the driver who gets injured...
Anyway, we do have speed radars in Germany but I have not seen one in a 30-zone and inside the city they are rather rare I'd say...
Well, respect radar control, it depends also in which city or village you are of the local administration, in some are existing only few and in others on every corner. Often also mobile radarstations in "civil" parking police cars.
Or just do like we do in the US and place an "undercover" cop every quarter mile behind street signs.
it looks like it's designed for pretty extreme speeds
Unlike the average driver.
It's not actually. It's quite an old network so it was built before cars could go as fast as they can go now. There are surprisingly sharp corners and very short off ramps. If it were built from scratch today it would be even safer. Speed limits are bs outside of particularly tricky areas.
Is the image from the article not of the highway in question?
Ah yep my bad, I was speaking generally. The image in the article is only a short section of highway but it does look like one of the 2 lane sections that are usually quite old. If they were more modern and built for higher speeds they'd have an even shallower curve and would probably be 3 lanes with a hard shoulder. If you drive on the Autobahn you'll have a few moments where you notice the difference in road layout from those which more modern highways implement - the on and off ramps in particular can be a bit scary.
Speed limits absolutely do work if there are cameras and consequences. Unfortunately everyone seems to have decided that suspending licences and siezing cars is a human rights violation.
Speed limits do work, but the road should be designed with the speed limit in mind. Just slapping a new sign up and reducing the speed limit is going to lead to non-compliance - even if the speed limit is enforced by police.
The UK recently released figures on speed limit compliance. For 20mph roads (30-35kph) they primarily measured roads that didn't have traffic calming measures recommended for 20mph roads (ie the roads don't "feel" like 20mph roads), and they found 85% of drivers exceeded the speed limit.
High gasoline prices also influence the average speed on the highways. The vast majority of people do not usually go faster than 120, many even less.
Idk, I'm seeing plenty of people here for whom gasoline is evidently not expensive enough yet
That is the problem, people with high end cars have enough money to pay an expensive fuel. Apart with an industry which mostly expensive high end E-cars, the high fuel prices only affect the people wich don't have money for such cars.
Well the funny part is that it's not even people in high-end cars that I'm seeing
I was referring to those who go 300 on the highway, difficult for those with an old Ford Fiesta.