Speed Limits - Yea or Nay?

[Borachio]

Well. As an ex-truck driver myself, I think the existence of speed limiters are not relevant to the issue of truck driving reasonableness.

I do know that without speed limiters truck drivers would be obliged to go as fast as possible, with or without speed limits.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

All I'm arguing about is road safety. And the attitude of the average driver seems to be that he should be able to go just as fast as he likes. And that he is the final arbiter of safe driving. (Hint: he usually is not.)

 

[Zelig]

Speed limiters are already fitted to trucks. What's the big deal?

I guess you could set up the limiter so that if you hit the limit, it drops your speed by 10 km/h for 30 seconds, that should condition people to stay under the limit.

 

[metatron]

I guess you could set up the limiter so that if you hit the limit, it drops your speed by 10 km/h for 30 seconds, that should condition people to stay under the limit.

I'm trying to imagine rush hour while people were still in the "learning phase"...

 

[Verarde]

Personally, I drive at the speed limit or a bit under. I thought Zelig's idea sounded marvelous.

 

[Borachio]

I don't think you need to drop the speed by 10 km/hr. It would, and does, work quite well with a max limit.

I've heard it said that accelerating madly beyond the speed limit can get you out of trouble. And in some very rare cases this may be true. But I think it's true only in cases where driving too fast has got you into trouble in the first place.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't think that removing speed limits in North America would work with the car/driving culture that exists here.

There are several problems with speed limits, one of them being is that when you're on a highway, you have two laws to abide by:

1. The law of the land - 100km/h max
2. The law of the road - The traffic is moving at 115km/h and everyone else on the road expect you to as well

Opportunistic cops pull people over from time to time for driving over the limit, ignoring the law of the road.

So that has to be resolved somehow.. How? I have no idea.

To the bolded part: Automated self driving cars are the solution.

It will take a while for the technology to become adopted widespread, but it will start with freight trucks. This alone will help reduce a lot of deaths as these lumbering brutes of the road will act more rationally while automated. (A bonus for shipping companies: they won't have to pay drivers)

It will take a really long time to see full adoption in the consumer market (and will never be 100% as some people will never give up piloted cars). But the more automated cars on the road, the safer the roads will be. Travel times will also drop as the automated systems will be able of maintaining faster speeds safely.


For the meantime:

I am torn on speed limits. (Unlike seatbelts - which should be mandatory)

For the one, they reduce fuel consumption.

But AFAIK the research doesn't support the notion that they reduce fatalities.

And they are routinely ignored in the US, which does lead to selective enforcement as the cops cannot and will not pull over every speeder.


Lastly, I agree with the notion that speed traps create more problems than they solve. It would be one thing if speed traps lead to cops consistently pulling over speeders, but in my experience, they don't. They won't go after a car passing at 85 when the flow of traffic is 80.

But then sometimes they will. It's extremely selective and because of this they do cause major slowdowns in their vicinity as others have noted. So I don't know, it's a safety versus liberty issue and I don't have enough information to judge it either way.

Speed limiters are already fitted to trucks. What's the big deal?

Do they do this in the US? I don't think they do but I know Canada does, which caused a backlash amongst the frieght companies as they felt they wouldn't be able to compete with US truck companies when they crossed the border. So unless there has been a major law passed recently trucks do not have limiters in the US.

I know this is terribly America-Centric, but hey, this is where most of the cars are at.

Also, IIRC, the Canadian law was passed to reduce greenhouse gas emition and fuel consumption.

 

[Borachio]

Lastly, I agree with the notion that speed traps create more problems than they solve. It would be one thing if speed traps lead to cops consistently pulling over speeders, but in my experience, they don't. They won't go after a car passing at 85 when the flow of traffic is 80.

But then sometimes they will. It's extremely selective and because of this they do cause major slowdowns in their vicinity as others have noted. So I don't know, it's a safety versus liberty issue and I don't have enough information to judge it either way.

Oh, don't you have cameras and number plate recognition? So you get a friendly fixed penalty notice through the post.

 

[sophie]

Oh, don't you have cameras and number plate recognition? So you get a friendly fixed penalty notice through the post.

Not everywhere. Some counties have contested cameras as an infringement of rights. Moreover they're used at traffic lights to stop red light infractions, not to stop speeders. I guarantee you if they implemented a camera/plate recognition system for the US and ticketed every speeder the public backlash would be unparalleled.

 

[Borachio]

Yes. How dare the authorities penalize me for breaking the law! The outrage of it!

I understand there would be a backlash. I just don't think it's justified.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yes. How dare the authorities penalize me for breaking the law! The outrage of it!

I understand there would be a backlash. I just don't think it's justified.

Well, it is justifiable IMO on the grounds that we currently have selective enforcement. To suddenly enforce the law 100% of the time would be a major jolt to the entire society.

 

[Borachio]

So how is that fair to the people who get prosecuted now? While most get away scot-free?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

So how is that fair to the people who get prosecuted now? While most get away scot-free?

It's not fair at all.

However, in many cases the speeders are driving too fast and are reckless, which are two different things, though they can and do overlap.

I'm mainly just saying I wouldn't look down on people for whinning about a sudden jump to 100% enforcement. Their whines would be justified not on any real moral grounds, but simply because it would be a huge change overnight that would instantly negatively effect everyone's wallet. Everyone who drives, anywhoo.

 

[sophie]

So how is that fair to the people who get prosecuted now? While most get away scot-free?

Because it's largely controllable. If you don't drive recklessly (over 85 on the freeway, or weave through traffic), and you keep a reasonable awareness of where the cops are, you won't get a ticket.

It's a cultural thing. Most Californians are conditioned to the game the cops make us play. One reason we hate speed traps so much is that they aren't controllable. When you get a ticket, short of slamming on the brakes there is very little you can actually do to avoid it. Likewise red lights. (And don't give me crap like "don't speed then" because this is California, that is simply not going to happen.)

To be honest I think you are really just having difficulty grasping what car culture in California is like. It's difficult to understand even for out-of-state Americans, but for us speeding is the norm. A 65 sign means 70-80, and a 40 sign means 45-55. Try going the speed limit in California and see what happens. I guarantee you in my state you are more likely to cause an accident by going the speed limit than you are by participating in accepted speeding practices.

 

[Deaths Advocate]

Until it becomes a vote winner, it ain't gonna happen. Right now it would merely be infringing on our rights.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The US has an abundance of citydwellers who have to maneuvre city traffic skillfully on a daily basis and who, once they find themselves on a deserted highway (cue: Nevada), overestimate their competence.

It doesn't require a vastly larger amount of competence to operate a motor vehicle at 100 mph compared to 80. And much of the US population drives at that speed on the interstates a regular basis without anything terrible occurring. And that is even without being sufficiently alert much of the time.

Here I need to worry about people in day dreams simply expecting their adherence and those of others to the rules to get them to their destination safely. Over there, it's like everybody knows that their lives are at stake, in their hands, and they act accordingly. As soon as they get out on the road, they switch on and focus. Young and old alike.

Exactly. It is really a matter of staying sufficiently alert. Most accidents are caused by that no matter the speed.

It is really quite easy to operate motor vehicles safely at any speed given the conditions are appropriate. Slower traffic keep right, use your turn indicators when switching lanes, and most of all simply pay sufficient attention.

 

[Deaths Advocate]

Considering as a percentage of traffic, in town has a lot more fatal accidents than motorways, talking of the dangers of speed on the motorway is anecdotal at best. You are safer zipping along in a straight line than being t boned at a crossroads.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It doesn't require a vastly larger amount of competence to operate a motor vehicle at 100 mph compared to 80.

But it does require a significantly higher amount of engineered to allow people to survive an impact at 100 mph than it does at 80 because Kinetic energy = .5*mass*velocity^2.

The faster you are going, the deadlier the accidents get.

I'm not really arguing what you said, I just wanted to point it out that stuff happens (Deer!) regardless of how good or alert of a driver you are and it's very hard to build a car that can protect someone going that fast in most plausible impact scenarios. That's why cars aren't crash test above 60mph or so.

It's pointless because most everyone dies at that speed.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

That's what ambulances are for.

I dont know about elsewhere but in Nova Scotia you have to pay a rather steep fee to use the ambulance.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The faster you are going, the deadlier the accidents get.

A vehicle which strikes another vehicle in the rear when one is doing 145 mph and the other is doing 135 imparts very little energy.

OTOH a vehicle striking another vehicle head-on when both are traveling at 45 mph does.

The interstate system in the US is designed to allow safe vehicular traffic at essentially any speed.

It's pointless because most everyone dies at that speed.

That is simply not true. If it were, nobody would be regularly travelling at 80 mph on the interstates, and even 90+ in LA.

 

[Zelig]

I don't think you need to drop the speed by 10 km/hr. It would, and does, work quite well with a max limit.

But then like I said, people would just floor the gas pedal on every single road, and rely on the limiter to control their speed.

To be honest I think you are really just having difficulty grasping what car culture in California is like. It's difficult to understand even for out-of-state Americans, but for us speeding is the norm. A 65 sign means 70-80, and a 40 sign means 45-55. Try going the speed limit in California and see what happens. I guarantee you in my state you are more likely to cause an accident by going the speed limit than you are by participating in accepted speeding practices.

It's my experience that people who speed overestimate the average speed of traffic.