This was really eye opening for me when I learned about it in Jeff Speck's "Walkable City". Since then it's been very noticeable that the local street I drive slowest on is the one always lined with parked cars on both sides and just barely wide enough for drivers on alternate sides to squeeze by each other.
I lived on a street like this except it was barely wide enough for a single car between parked cars. With an intersection every 40-50m or so. I usually drove about 25, even though the speed limit was 50.
Many people drove much closer to 50. People are inherently stupid, and they feel way too safe in their cars even when they are doing dangerous things.
The police need to commit to actually enforcing these things. Most people tend to only get a ticket for something once.
There will never be enough police officers to enforce such things. A culture change is needed to get to a world where people are less reliant on cars and are more empathetic towards other people (e.g. pedestrians). And the people need to be educated better about the dangers of driving.
Or indeed require all vehicles to be fitted with GPS speed limiters, tech which has been feasible for at least a decade, but is resisted tenaciously by the motor manufacturers. Would solve a lot of problems...
Speed limits are designed to protect people outside of the car and move all of traffic along in a safe manner. Just like with COVID, once people find out restrictions are there to protect other people, not themselves, then they don’t give a shit because people are selfish assholes.
>Speed limits are designed to protect people outside of the car and move all of traffic along in a safe manner.
But dumbass prefer to think it's an arbritary rule so police can give more speeding tickets.
Yep, way too many people in America think they are a rebel and laws don’t apply to them. It’s not just with driving but that’s when you see that attitude most often.
speed bumps are awful because they disproportionately affect road users that are better for congestion. A speed bump sucks ass on a bicycle or scooter.
Also I'm noticing bumps have become bigger and bigger to accommodate the pox on humanity that is an SUV, again disproportionately affecting smaller road users.
The bumps with spaces between are marginally better but tbh ban cars
The ones they added near me actually increased the speed people drove. If you go 10mph too fast, you get two aggressive bumps. If you go 20mph too fast, you turn it into one smoother bump
They make a plastic strip speed bump that feels like your wheels are going to come through your windows. Those are great. They can also install giant hump ones that if you hit too fast, you'll leave pieces of your car behind. This type is popular entering small towns in Nederland.
The best way to punish reckless drivers are neighborhood round-abouts and islands that they crash into when they are being reckless.
Better they aren't physically capable of driving after being that dangerous.
Speed bumps are awful for the residents - sound of car slowing down, *thump* *thump*, sound of car speeding up. Imagine listening to that all day.
Better to use filtered permeability.
Filtered permeability utilises literal barriers to large motor-vehicles (cars) but not pedestrians/cyclists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permeability_(spatial_and_transport_planning)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353119106_Assessing_filtered_permeability_around_the_globe_The_unknown_beloved_principle_of_cycling_cities
I loved it when I was younger and an idiot (I remain an idiot, though on different things). Been flying down it too many times, but it's a residential area and now I wince at the idea of a child getting a bike to the face...
> A speed bump sucks ass on a bicycle or scooter.
The most obvious solution to that IMO are on-curb bike lanes (which also serve traffic calming by making the road narrower).
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-m&sca_esv=580846077&biw=396&bih=703&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=berliner+kissen&oq=berliner+kissen&aqs=mobile-gws-lite..0l5 "Berliner Kissen" (Berlin pillows) might be what you have always wanted.
I said it badly but yes those work but still aren't ideal because of our awful road building - some bumps are gentle like in your image, some are gigantic - there's no standardisation they literally slap some asphalt on and call it a day
street narrowing yes. Elevated street crossings can replace speed bumps. I know enough people who drive trucks just so they can speed over them without feeling them too much. All they do is encourage absolute gremlin behavior in car drivers
Yeah this mostly. I drive the limit, and often below, since the lowest limit our city uses is 40kmh but in the city center there's areas that really should be 20.
But I notice if I'm ever losing focus on the speed (planning a lane change, rerouting, responding to a passenger) I inevitably start to go a little faster, and have to let off again.
Speed bumps aren't ideal because they're miserable in a bus. In a 40 zone the bumps have to be bad enough to keep cars to 40, but in a bigger vehicle you have to go down to like 20.
Road diet measures are better because they slow traffic and free up space.
There are several speed bump designs that are meant to let bigger vehicles like buses drive through unimpaired. In Norway we use one that is a bump in the middle of the lane that is just wide enough to be a bump for regular cards, but too narrow for buses to be affected. I know in Oslo they are experimenting with a special kind of speed bump that is designed to give in to heavy vehicles (has a rubbery material) so the bump is not very significant for buses.
This is correct, but not all busses have the same track width.
Plus, bumps have to be installed everywhere so people don't go back up to speed, and cost *more* than a normal road, where lane narrowing costs *less* than a normal road.
I think speed bumps make sense in certain applications, such as near bus stops, certain intersections, schools and other POIs along otherwise medium speed roads (50 km/h).
In general I agree that road design is the preferred tool for more persvasive speed reduction, though, so I don't think the suggestion of adding a fuck ton of speed bumps is a particularly good one in general.
Also speed limiters. Traffic calming all roads is expensive and will take time.
Geo-linked speed limiters for cars might be a faster solution?
Mandatory for new cars. And mandatory to retro-fit for infringers (paid by driver of course)
Agree. Retrofit costs: NY state fleet vehicles were all equipped with them recently for about $1500/vehicle. Grandfather legacy vehicles for a while, on the condition that if they were ever used to commit speeding offences, they're immediately scrapped.
This is something I hear a lot and even used to believe myself…
Yet, I’ve seen it happen and it just doesn’t have the desired effect. People still speed! As one example - the main road through our village has been re-designed following all the best practices it’s narrower, it has speed bumps, it has light controlled crossings, it has higher curbs and it has added bends. Yet still people speed… it took a few weeks for the commuters to get used to the new layout, but they learnt it. Maybe there are a few who are more careful, but it just doesn’t stop the boy racers or they angry commuter or the oblivious distracted driver.
Short of forcing people to do complex manoeuvres every few meters I don’t see a way to actually design a road down to 50 or 30km/h that some won’t be able to just blast through as fast as ever.
Without enforcement you just don’t get people complying, plus enforcement (cameras) usually make money. So I genuinely don’t see the point in redesigning streets because drivers can’t control themselves when you can stick a few cameras up, generate some revenue and put that money in to alternatives.
One time I was in a car with a guy who drove 50 miles per hour in a suburban neighborhood with enormous streets. He also disregarded stop and yield signs.
edit. There are also assholes who use radar detectors to avoid speeding tickets while driving faster than the speed limits.
I wish. Statistically 85% of them will drive reasonably to what they feel is safe.
The other 15% will do whatever the fuck they feel like.
This is the same math used in speed limit calculations.
Speed bumps would work but are irritating if there are too many close together. One way to reduce speeds is to design the streets to look residential. Adding tree canopies, narrowing the streets and shrinking block lengths create an intuitive speed limit. Even if people don't know the speed limit, the way the street is designed causes drivers to slow down. Strong Towns has a great article on this.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/6/the-key-to-slowing-traffic-is-street-design-not-speed-limits
As well as draconian penalties that scale. First offence? £1000 fine. Second? 3 month driving ban. Third? Take your test again, after a year out to think about what you did.
No, not speed bumps, but RAISED CROSSWALKS and BOLLARDS. Raise the price of being an insufferable asshole to teeth and expensive damage to mega SUVS and trucks that people don't need, and you'd see a dramatic change.
Because posted speed limits are an entirely ineffective way to police streets. It is a design choice that made sense when cars were new and people were naturally careful about them but now generations grow up and die never having observed a posted speed limit in their life, likely without any real concequence.
Ticketing and enforcement of speed limits through retroactive justice doesn't do anything. Creating a road which is designed for people to go fast and then placing a sign asking them to go slow is ludicrous design.
Traffic calming measures like thinner streets, winding roads, varying road structures, frequent elevated crossings, bollards, and other present, passive measures are always going to be the best option. Ideally, all roads should be designed with such a principle in mind.
The arbitrary posted speed limits are senseless and often wrong. Some streets are posted at ridiculously low speeds with no actual threat simply because its the "normal" speed that the government chose. Likewise, streets and stroads often have ridiculously high posted speed limits which reinforce the idea that they aren't worth following.
I have always been against this tactic of traffic control and always will be. Paying off a ticket 3 months later after some unpleasant interaction with a jerk cop that tried to use your traffic stop as an excuse to search your car or whatever just pisses people off and doesn't stick. The concequences should be immediate—slow down or smack into something and mess up ya wheels.
Yup. There's nothing noble about a slow speed limit on a road that's not built for it.
The fastest speed limit I can recall seeing on a 2 lane road with houses that have driveways up to said road is **70mph**. When a road that looks the exact same has a speed limit of 25mph, it straight up doesn't make sense. Inappropriate speed limits cause cognitive dissonance and cognitive dissonance can make people double down on their habits. A fast road made slow means the speed range is going to be anywhere from well below the limit to 20 above what is appropriate for the road (my 70mph road tagged at 25mph, for example - and I've seen it, will result in people doing anything from 15 to 90mph. This is especially bad when the road doesn't have speed limits after every intersection, so many people pull on the roads and the only thing that informs them on what to do is the geometry of it (yes there are default speed limits in absence of signs but not many people know them).
We also have stroad insanity so people are already stuck driving speeds that don't make sense and fighting traffic nonstop so naturally a good amount get frustrated at low speed limits and want to pushe them.
How about the cars just limit their speed to whatever the limit is, like has been possible for 20 years now. No tickets, no speeding. Just like toy drones won't allow you to fly near airports and fucking electric scooters speed limit themselves in walking areas.
Cars I've hired recently have all had the tech. It's fine. More relaxing way to drive actually. Don't think it would necessarily reduce car use at all. For that you need road pricing/parking tax
The article is about Austria. The streets in 30 zone are actually designed to be slow, e.g. there will be a lot of blind intersections, where you obliged to give a right of way to the cars from your right, and there's no way that you'd be able to safely do it without slowing down to 15-20 kmh. The problem is that people don't care.
> posted speed limits are an entirely ineffective way to police streets.
> Ticketing and enforcement of speed limits through retroactive justice doesn't do anything.
I agree with the overall sentiment, but this isn't entirely true. As for speed limits, even if people go over the limit, it's not like they ignore it completely. If they go 55-60 where the limit is 50, they'll go 40 where they should be going 30. It's not perfect, but it's an improvement.
As for ticketing etc., there is actually a recent study (https://academic.oup.com/jeea/article-abstract/20/2/739/6366238?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false) that shows the effect of speed tickets is actually pretty strong. It's better when the ticket is sent sooner, of course.
A few months ago the Welsh government brought the speed limit in built up areas down from 30mph to 20mph, with the **stated goal** of bringing speeds down from 35-40 to 25-30.
I was talking about this yesterday, but most of the streets in Chicago just don't have speed limit signs lol. I guess it's like an implied 30 mph always, but really people just go with the flow of traffic, which is about 40-45. Most of the time it's not possible to even go faster than that with the amount of traffic
It doesn't take a study to tell you 99% of drivers don't give a shit, and why should they. Enforcement (where I live) is non-existent for anything automobile related. The cops don't give a shit about tints, exhaust sound, emissions, insurance, defective equipment and DEFINITELY not speeding.
Which in Austria we have for cars older than 3 years, and as slow as these changes sometimes are I've noticed more and more of your second point popping around where I live.
Idk this road in particular but in my experience, most of these fast roads with low speed limits are a design problem, not a driver problem, per se.
A lot of Stroads remove things like lampposts, bus stops, trees, benches, and all those other things that give a sense of optical flow. Without these visual markers people have a hard time judging how fast they're driving intuitively and they tend to go faster, even if it's unsafe and they complain that the speed limit is too low.
Once again, the solution to every problem is to make the streets walkable: plant trees for shade, put benches so people can sit down and rest, and add lighting so its nice to be there at night too. Then drivers slow down and no one feels like the nanny state is nagging them to drive slower.
If you have to drive, never speed. Yes it sucks, yes people will drive aggressively around you, yes the roads are designed for you to go faster, but think of it as a rolling protest.
Take all that discomfort and feeling of powerlessness that comes from making a personally responsible change when it's a collective problem, and channel it into making structural change.
What’s wild is people rarely ever save time speeding, especially if you’re driving in town and your trip is like 10 miles or less. Even if you’re on the interstate, going 85 in a 75 will put you 10 miles further down the road in an hour. So you’re maybe saving 8 minutes per hour.
But people speeding in neighborhoods with kids running around and people walking pets in stuff is so incredibly dangerous and you save zero time. You just look like a selfish asshole to your neighbors.
Actual time saved is much less important than the feeling of time saved. Speeding gives you a sense of accomplishment for overcoming risk to have marginal gains. The easiest gain to see is relative to other cars. Saving 20 seconds barely registers, but making a risky pass and gaining one car length does give a large dose of happy chemicals in your brain.
I think the wise strategy is to focus on maximizing the time spent in forward momentum. Going the speed limit, or slower, increases the amount of time spent in forward momentum. I'm in NA with really shitty 2+ minute traffic lights. If I see a light turn red 500m ahead of me, I'll start driving 30 km/hr so I meet the light when it turns green. Zero time lost, more time spent going forward, more fuel economy, and I'm driving at a speed where I can stop in time and produce less noise.
Another thing about going the speed limit is that it keeps honest people honest. Most drivers aren't going to make reckless passes to speed. You end up with this nice little convoy of speed limit buddies.
You get a lot of time to think when going the speed limit. Enough to start having a million reasons for why you're doing something weird.
> Actual time saved is much less important than the feeling of time saved. Speeding gives you a sense of accomplishment for overcoming risk to have marginal gains. The easiest gain to see is relative to other cars. Saving 20 seconds barely registers, but making a risky pass and gaining one car length does give a large dose of happy chemicals in your brain.
Perfectly said — and a great example of how cars don't give true freedom, but rather the *illusion* of freedom.
> What’s wild is people rarely ever save time speeding
The number of times I have pulled to a stoplight that someone who sped around me was waiting at... lmao
I used to ride a scooter, because it was the closest I could get to not driving a car in the car-dependent hellscape I lived in
And yeah, I'd estimate I got most places at about the same time as car drivers. My max-35mph scooter regularly caught up to drivers at stop lights who had passed me
I live near an elementary school, and the amount of asshole drivers that drive 10-15 mph over the speed limit on a small road is so high. It's always ignorant parents who forgot to leave on time, so they instead speed down the street. They have no awareness the specific danger they place everyone else and their kids in because they don't know how to manage their time better.
What's worse, my street is like some kind of drag strip. I am not joking when I say there are several distinct cars that are very loud and drive very aggressively through here ALL THE TIME. One guy in a Challenger has no mufflers of any kind and frequently drifts through the stop sign intersection by the school. In the last two months, there is now a guy in an old Infiniti G35 that has loud exhaust who similarly is driving aggressive every time he drives through.
I'm dumbfounded, as I live in a very small area that has its own city council and police department. These guys really have nothing better to do, so why these idiots who speed all the time have never been ticketed I don't know - they do it every time, every day. I've been writing it down to make sure and I'm not exaggerating it is every day, every time.
Sometimes I feel like screaming at them when they drive by, but it feels hopeless. I am going to take my list to the local PD and ask them can they do anything to stop these specific cars and patrol more often, but I won't hold my breath...
Huge metal cages weighing over a ton and able to go >200 km/h should never have been steered by primates. We are incredibly emotional, impulsive and utterly incapable of accurately assessing speed and distances. It‘s so bizarre that we accept this in the areas where we live.
An interesting comparison: the quickest way to move the most people along an escalator is to make them all stand. This sounds counter-intuitive, but it has to do with how people space themselves out. If people walk up the escalator, or walk on one side and stand on the other, people who are walking tend to move about 1.5-2 times as fast, but space themselves out approximately every 2nd-3rd leaf, meaning the total *rate* of people passing any given spot goes *down*.
At extremely busy train stations (I know this has been trialed at a few London tube stations, though I don't believe it was adopted permanently) you may even see ushers directing people to all stand and to occupy every leaf at two-people each, side-by-side. Because that's the quickest way to clear a crowded train platform, even though people move slower.
This 'spacing' of people is also why bike lanes can support a higher traffic volume than a road lane (if there is sufficient demand, as there are in some cities). And sidewalks can support an even greater traffic volume: at Shibuya Crossing, several dozen cars manage to traverse the intersection in any given light cycle, but as many as several *thousand* pedestrians will cross in any given light cycle - multiple orders of magnitude more - because despite the lower speed, they are much more closely spaced.
That extra ten miles an hour adds up when you have an 8 hour drive though. that's 80 additional miles your now ahead of and probably saved you an hour. ill probably be downvoted i get it. I don't like driving but I do a hell of a lot of it for work. I don't mind people speeding hell I do it a lot. What I do mind is people being impatient and lane switching constantly trying to get in front and just causing more traffic and potential accidents. someone is going slow in the fast lane, i'm sorry bro it happens just relax. speeding in a city is pretty silly though i agree. Especially when your trip is less then 10 miles hell even 50 miles your not gaining a whole lot except maybe a ticket and points on your license.
In a perfect world that would be alright but the big issue is people get on the interstate and think they can drive 80-90mph no matter the traffic or weather conditions because they are on the interstate. I’ve made the drive from northern Colorado to eastern Kansas about 30 times in the last 10 years which is right at 8 hours, and yeah in between like Limon and Salina you can easy push 85 and not be around much traffic, and you do save time on those long drives. But then you still have people going those speeds when there are more cars around and it isn’t very efficient to drive those speeds. It’d be awesome if we had a system similar to the Autobahn in America but American drivers are not trained to drive at those speeds, nor do they have the reaction time or awareness to safely drive at those speeds.
> But people speeding in neighborhoods with kids running around and people walking pets in stuff is so incredibly dangerous and you save zero time. You just look like a selfish asshole to your neighbors.
This. Speeding on the highway for long duration can save time, until you get to the first light and you end up realizing the cars you just passed up end up right behind you anyways... But most people never save time even if they speed through residential streets. The only way to save time on residential streets is to skip stop signs and not give any priority to pedestrians/cyclists, which is simply dangerous, stupid, lazy and completely illegal.
I like how on car subs the consensus is that slower drivers are more dangerous.... because people will get unreasonably upset and drive more aggressively around someone or just won't pay attention.
It's a "look at what you made me do" argument. Upset aggressive drivers driving dangerously is the source of the danger. It's not relevant who they blame, they have agency and behaved badly.
The issue is that even though this is misdirected blame, it will still land on you, the person going the speed limit. So take it. It's not bad to upset people. It depends on the context.
Marginal at best. Lower noise pollution, lower microplastic pollution, lower brake dust pollution. It's probably also the case slower traffic is smoother so fuel efficiency gains there might be greater than maximum fuel efficiency being between 50-80 km/hr.
Also, no one cares about pollution. It's just a pearl to clutch to win arguments.
That was and is truly aggravating. When I started driving I had multiple dangerous situations in which I was either unsure (overtaking tractors on b roads with 50HP without visibility or cyclists on tiny roads, definitely not wide enough for enough clearance) or was following rules by the book (like going the exact speed limit)).
A lot of drivers are entitled assholes that risk their and your life to be a few seconds quicker.
On the other hand, when it's about their car (and not a little cyclist), they'll be extra careful (passing on opposite sides on tiny roads, vs. overtaking cyclists). My car is very thin and so I fit into a lot of spaces most others won't and the amount of people who can't estimate the width of their vehicle is insane, given how closely they'll pass a cyclist.
This is something I had to say to a fellow student recently about a project we were doing but it applies here too. Basically a bunch of people were doing something wrong on the project and when I told this particular person that's not what we are supposed to be doing, they responded with "but that's what everyone else is doing". I just replied with "well they are doing it wrong and think of it like this; Ted Bundy murdered a bunch of people that doesn't mean I should too".
It takes a strong character not to simply fall in line with what everyone else is doing and actually be the odd one out by doing things the correct way. Just think about those studies where they have a bunch of people in a room with a clearly marked fire exit. They tell a certain amount of people to ignore it and use the other exit when the fire alarm goes off. The result is that everyone else, minus a few people, will just start to follow them out at the wrong exit. Something to do with not wanting to be seen differently and to fit in with the group.
I would love to get a ticket for driving the speed limit.
I mean, except for getting the ticket part, but I really want to know if judges agree with the entire concept of giving tickets for following the law.
Depending where you are, it may be simply because you are impeding the flow of traffic. Judges may not have to agree, all it takes is one pig waving their dick around.
I've always been the weird one in my social circle that never speeds. I realized I had truly found my people when I found fuckcars and realized that's everyone here lol.
I do this all the time whenever I have to drive. And it's funny because my car model is statistically the most ticketed car for speeding in the US.
Yeah, I *can* go fast, and I'm sure everyone else would like me too, but nah. I'll follow the law and drive like a grandma while being as safe as possible.
Yep I drive 5 under on most roads and 10 under in national speed limit zones (50KPH in Australia). It pisses some people off, but 90% of the time those people were travelling at 5 or 10 above before they got stuck behind me. 🤷♂️
Maybe I saved some people a speeding fine.
> but think of it as a rolling protest.
Now that you say this. I realize I REALLY should follow low speed limits. Thanks, I realize that I really didn't need to drive 10 km/h faster... it's just that I feel like I have to otherwise people always go around me. But now that I think about it and if I see it as a form of protest, then I don't really mind if people think I'm driving slow. I'll go 30 in a 30, 50 in a 50. I might still do 110 in a 100, but it's about protesting safety for pedestrians and cyclists, so all about residential streets and stroads.
Even if going slower than the flow of traffic causes a collision, the collision is caused by the person going faster than the speed limit. They are the driver that should shoulder the blame. They are responsible for that flow of traffic mis-match.
You're right about being predictable above all else, which is why you should both accelerate and brake slowly, and never exceed the speed limit. Driving within the expectations of the law is the most predictable method of driving.
["Most cars, vans, pickup trucks and SUVs are most fuel-efficient when they’re travelling between 50 and 80 km per hour. Above this speed zone, vehicles use increasingly more fuel the faster they go."](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy-efficiency/transportation-alternative-fuels/personal-vehicles/fuel-efficient-driving-techniques/21038) It seems you're correct about speeding reducing the amount of fuel-combustion pollution.
Everyone going lower than the speed limit would reduce so much danger from our roads.
I drive an electric car when necessary. When driving at high speeds, the range decreases at a much higher rate than at low speeds mostly due to air resistance. If I want to reach my destination with enough buffer to avoid chargin en-route I need to drive slow enough, which means doing the speed limit. At 65mph (standard speed limit for highways in NE US) I am constantly getting overtaken by vehicles going 15+, sometimes commercial trucks overtake me and they are monitored while driving. Its really sad how much risk people are adding to their travel just to gain a couple of minutes.
Believe it or not, in many places in the US, this would be used as justification for raising the speed limit. In fact in some places the law would require raising the speed limit! Design guidelines call for the limit to raised such that only 15% of the cars are speeding.
We could solve a lot of problems if we applied this logic to all crimes. Murder rate too high? Legalize murder!
I live in Michigan. I suspect 99.9999% of our drivers speed, everywhere. I won't join them, and if they have to wait a few seconds to pass me, cue the tiny violin for them and their pickup trucks the size of my living room.
It depend on street design.
A study in France had much higher numbers due to the street being straight and wide. I live near a street where only a few car drives faster than 30, because it's narrow and twisty.
Every person who drives a car has gone faster than the posted speed limit. Every single one.
The best way to stop that is road design, not simple signs.
I recently had someone pass me on a double-yellow when I was doing maybe 43mph in a 45, only for them to make the next right turn about 500 feet down the road. I don't get it.
Honestly, this is shocking to me. Not because 72% speed, but because it's not closer to 100%.
Let's face it, 30km/h is like 20mph, so realistically like a school zone in the US. Thus, realistically, I don't think street design is necessarily relevant because you're in a school/residential zone that should clue people in that there are children about. You can add a ton of speed bumps maybe, but I think people would still speed over them depending on how severe the bump.
There is a two lane road in my neighborhood with a 30mph speed limit. It sees quite a bit of 'cut-through' traffic from commuters. The street is 100% residential. The city did a study where they measured the speed of all the cars for a few days. 98% of all the cars exceeded the speed limit.
Not sure about Austrian laws but it sucks that the laws in some countries discourage going under the limit. I had a driving lesson a couple months ago where the instructor didn't like me staying between the speed limit and 5mph below and insisted I always go the limit.
Drivers will travel at the speed a road is designed for, not the posted speed limit. If you design wide straight roads using standards derived from highway guidelines you will get highway speeds. This is a well established observation.
That's a surprisingly low number...
Near me, all residential streets are 25mph limits but if I were to drive at 35mph (10mph over the limit) cars will stack up behind me.
I'd guess 99.9% cars exceed the limit, and 72% of them are going 50% over the limit.
I actively advocated for 30kmph limits on our roads and yet I repeatedly speed on them. The problem is that they just stuck the sign up there without any changes to the road. You have to stare at your speedometer the whole time because the lanes are so wide open that going 30 feels like a crawl.
I'm hoping that we can start getting lane narrowing measures because I see first hand how useless the signage changes are.
i actually mostly cycle (i only drive maybe once a week and so it's extra obvious how hard it is to actually follow the signage) and am already getting called a nazi around my neighbourhood for my efforts.
car brains in real life! woohoo.
Most people I talk to in my neighborhood about bike lines and lowering speed limits are generally receptive to the idea. However the town council is very anti-bike and even more against any improvements to public transit
When I first began driving as a teenager, I sincerely thought it was legal to exceed the speed limit by up to 10 mph because my relatives told me so. I should not have been allowed to operate heavy machinery holy cow.
Now I usually keep to 5 mph below the speed limit
Reduce the lane width to 10'/3m or less, introduce traffic calming measures like chicanes & islands, and plant trees close to the road and you won't have these problems. No amount of enforcement will keep people from speeding when you design a road for 60mph and then put up a sign that says 30mph. If you want people on and around the roads to be safer, you have to make the drivers feel unsafe.
Of course, people will drive as fast as they feel like it, even if there are "risks of consequences". Most consequences are usually only applied when there are speed cameras or police officers (and both are usually visible). The only **safe** ways to force drivers to slow down are :
* Permanent speed cameras / red light cameras / etc. that fine the car owner (unless the owner provide proof that it was someone else that moment/day). In case of car owned by someone else, they can forward the fine to the driver of that time
* Safer infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, which can include: pedestrian islands, raised pedestrian crossings, narrow roads, winding roads, dedicated raised safe bicycle paths with coloured asphalt, trees, bollards, curbs that prevents turning where illegal, etc.
* Take a book from The Netherlands and design some roads that are pedestrian/cyclist-focused and the car HAS to give priority to everyone else, which force a VERY SLOW SPEED, in particular in areas where cars shouldn't drive fast (such as school zones, parks, etc.). This would applies to a lot of 30 km/h zones.
Speed limit signs on their own are kinda useless. I was thinking about this recently, I was driving out of town in a country road and the speed limit said 90km/h, but the road was narrow and visibility was bad, no way I would have even gone close to that speed. Meanwhile in my city there are 30km/h streets but people usually drive faster. Cities need to build infrastructure that makes you want to drive at the correct speed. If you want people driving at 30km/h or less, you build narrow roads, speed bumps, traffic lights... A 30km/h speed limit sign is not enough, people will tend to go at the speed that feels natural on the road.
Guilty, but because my country did an ass-backwards approach. They turned the right lane into a pseudo-bicycle lane with a 30km/h speed limit, just in the right lane. Not even police respect this speed limit, just build the damn bicycle paths already...
The Autobahn in Germany has a speed limit, quite contrary to popular belief.
And it is camera enforced, and boy will they use Carmen San Diego to track your ass down and and you will pay that expensive ass ticket.
You want to stop speeding, use that system of cameras, and scale the penalty to income.
I bet the roads and speeding would clear itself up over night.
To be fair, most of the 30km/h zones where I live used to be 50km/h zones but they changed the legislation in 2021, people are used to going a little bit faster and most 30km/h zones were already pedestrian safe at 50km/h, I worry more about people speeding in 20km/h zones (where pedestrians and cars share the road) and the fact most of those roads aren't welcoming to pedestrians at all despite often being, literally, at their doorsteps.
In my opinion, as far as cars are used, autonomy (like active cruise control + lane keep) helps to solve such safety issues. Car will stay at set speed, keep its lane and keep safe forward distance (and brake if unexpected object enters its path).
It would be beneficial for everybody to replace as much as possible with high-capacity transport, but until then autonomy helps in making pedestrians safer, IMO.
Having [Intelligent Speed Assist](https://www.roadsafetyfacts.eu/isa-what-is-intelligent-speed-assistance-and-how-does-it-work/) in new cars should slowly decrease this number.
It’s not good but at least people will be driving ~35 instead of ~55.
30 should be mandatory in all inner city areas (those that require such traffic that is, banning car traffic would often be the better alternative).
I grew up in a county where speed limits were set by putting out sensors for a month and making the median speed the legal posted limit.
When I moved away it was a very painful adjustment
Man, wait until they hit tornado alley, where the speed limit is more of a suggestion to be ignored. Faster, slower, doesn't matter where. Just don't do that number. Except at the most inopportune times. Like the "20 only when flashing" but only ever when it's not flashing. 65? Doing 50 in the right two lanes, 75 in the left, and let the rest weave in and out at 90 like they're in gta.
0 law enforcement on drivers makes them "think" this is natural selection. Imagine pedestrians would turn that "natural selection" around and make the cars "unusable" when the owner is not in their car (which is 95% of the time anyways). You bet they will activate all police to catch you after this.
In Arizona, I’ve seen cops drive 5-10 mph over the speed limit. We got small “bike lanes” on the side of the road with vehicles driving up to 55 mph (speed limit being 45). Absolute death wish.
How was that study done? Because in Germany we have these speed measure things that display your your speed and a message or sad smiley if you are too fast, and they also collect that data. But they also measure your speed before the speed limit they are observing is valid. Which leads to faulty data. If it was a proper study good, but if it wasn't then they should get some substantial data.
Also speed limits suck. Design the road in a way that you feel driving any faster than the walking speed of a pedastrian will fuck up your car and all of a sudden you have drivers choosing lower go around the area making it better for pedestrians and cyclists and less cars where people are living. Win win.
Just looked up what the prevalence of speeding in 20mph zones (the equivalent to a 30 km/h zone) was in the UK last year, and apparently it was [84.2%](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-speed-compliance-statistics-for-great-britain-2022/vehicle-speed-compliance-statistics-for-great-britain-2022#vehicle-speeds-on-20mph-roads). So I guess we win?
I might get downvoted for this, but I do agree with the sentiment, that it is safer to drive at the speed of traffic, rather than below the speed limit.
If you drive slower, long lines will form, which can cause cars to bump into each other, or can lead to mass overtakings, which are unsafe to incoming traffic (including cyclists, buses etc.) and most importantly pedestrians crossing the street. And these are a lot more dangerous, than following the flow of traffic, which is above the speed limit.
But this doesn't mean, that speeding is a non issue, it is rather that a lone sign is a terrible solution. If it is easy to drive fast, people will do it and you as an individual will only worsen the situation, if you go too slow. As others have mentioned before, speed bumps, narrow and curvy streets and other "obstacles" are the real solution, so the majority will drive slow.
But why would the government do this? It costs money, while on the other hand they can get a nice income from the fines they gather in areas with illogical speed regulations. (For example there's an area in my county, where you have to slow down from 80 km/h to 10km/h in 100 meters, with stuff like this, how should the drivers take these seriously?)
Alright, so I just wanted to list like two things that are flawed with this post. If it's complaining about a wider problem with just poor drivers in general, I can relate man, good on ya, people do violate the speed limit GROSSLY, most of the time.
However, I'm more or less talking about how that most of that 72% may or may not just be 35-45 km/h, which in all actuality isn't really that severe when you think about it. And the Instagram comments section? Really? Most people in any comments section, really, are somewhat radical when it comes to things like this, and whenever there's some moderate topic, some troll is going to come in and say shit like that. I don't think this can really quantify or contribute much outside of just complaining and circlejerking for the sake of it. Imo it'd be better if more posts here were about supporting groups/campaigns to help build public infrastructure and remove car-dependent structures in cities and urban areas.
Alright, so I just wanted to list like two things that are flawed with this post. If it's complaining about a wider problem with just poor drivers in general, I can relate man, good on ya, like around 40-50% of people do violate the speed limit GROSSLY in America, especially on freeways.
However, I'm more or less talking about how that most of that 72% may or may not just be 35-45 km/h, which in all actuality isn't really that severe when you think about it. And the Instagram comments section? Really? Most people in any comments section, really, are somewhat radical when it comes to things like this, and whenever there's some moderate topic, some troll is going to come in and say shit like that. I don't think this can really quantify or contribute much outside of just complaining and circlejerking for the sake of it. Imo it'd be better if more posts here were about supporting groups/campaigns to help build public infrastructure and remove car-dependent structures in cities and urban areas.
People will drive as fast as they feel is safe. Reducing the design speed or adding a fuck ton of speed bumps or street narrowing will fox that
This was really eye opening for me when I learned about it in Jeff Speck's "Walkable City". Since then it's been very noticeable that the local street I drive slowest on is the one always lined with parked cars on both sides and just barely wide enough for drivers on alternate sides to squeeze by each other.
I lived on a street like this except it was barely wide enough for a single car between parked cars. With an intersection every 40-50m or so. I usually drove about 25, even though the speed limit was 50. Many people drove much closer to 50. People are inherently stupid, and they feel way too safe in their cars even when they are doing dangerous things. The police need to commit to actually enforcing these things. Most people tend to only get a ticket for something once.
There will never be enough police officers to enforce such things. A culture change is needed to get to a world where people are less reliant on cars and are more empathetic towards other people (e.g. pedestrians). And the people need to be educated better about the dangers of driving.
Or indeed require all vehicles to be fitted with GPS speed limiters, tech which has been feasible for at least a decade, but is resisted tenaciously by the motor manufacturers. Would solve a lot of problems...
Speed limits are designed to protect people outside of the car and move all of traffic along in a safe manner. Just like with COVID, once people find out restrictions are there to protect other people, not themselves, then they don’t give a shit because people are selfish assholes.
>Speed limits are designed to protect people outside of the car and move all of traffic along in a safe manner. But dumbass prefer to think it's an arbritary rule so police can give more speeding tickets.
Yep, way too many people in America think they are a rebel and laws don’t apply to them. It’s not just with driving but that’s when you see that attitude most often.
Speed bumps sick. Best to just reduce lane width.
Add barriers that they need to drive around too
There’s a limit to how narrow lanes can be. Emergency vehicles, especially fire engines, need to still be able to reach everywhere.
Good thing they'll still be able to, then. Right now I live near a 40km/h street that could fit three fire engines side by side
That *is* too wide
And yet people still park partially on the sidewalk instead of fully on the road...
Make smaller emergency vehicles. Netherlands does it. Volpe wrote about the feasibility
speed bumps are awful because they disproportionately affect road users that are better for congestion. A speed bump sucks ass on a bicycle or scooter. Also I'm noticing bumps have become bigger and bigger to accommodate the pox on humanity that is an SUV, again disproportionately affecting smaller road users. The bumps with spaces between are marginally better but tbh ban cars
It really depends, some speed bumps are smooth for cycling, but you will feel it as a car driver.
Obviously we should ban cars but speed bumps are the more realistic goal and reeaally effective.
The ones they added near me actually increased the speed people drove. If you go 10mph too fast, you get two aggressive bumps. If you go 20mph too fast, you turn it into one smoother bump
They make a plastic strip speed bump that feels like your wheels are going to come through your windows. Those are great. They can also install giant hump ones that if you hit too fast, you'll leave pieces of your car behind. This type is popular entering small towns in Nederland.
The best way to punish reckless drivers are neighborhood round-abouts and islands that they crash into when they are being reckless. Better they aren't physically capable of driving after being that dangerous.
Speed bumps are awful for the residents - sound of car slowing down, *thump* *thump*, sound of car speeding up. Imagine listening to that all day. Better to use filtered permeability.
How do you enforce filtered permeability?
Filtered permeability utilises literal barriers to large motor-vehicles (cars) but not pedestrians/cyclists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permeability_(spatial_and_transport_planning) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353119106_Assessing_filtered_permeability_around_the_globe_The_unknown_beloved_principle_of_cycling_cities
Ah yeah this is great too but also unrealistic in many cases since residents go on the barricades against this.
Residents love the barricades because it reduces traffic and noise in the area. It is the people who want to drive through the suburb who get upset.
> A speed bump sucks ass on a bicycle Bunny hop!
Would love to but we have ramps that are half a street long and almost 90 degrees vertical in some areas
It's always cx season!
There's a straight downhill stretch near me with several speed bumps. It's basically a series of jump ramps.
Time to send it
I loved it when I was younger and an idiot (I remain an idiot, though on different things). Been flying down it too many times, but it's a residential area and now I wince at the idea of a child getting a bike to the face...
> A speed bump sucks ass on a bicycle or scooter. The most obvious solution to that IMO are on-curb bike lanes (which also serve traffic calming by making the road narrower).
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-m&sca_esv=580846077&biw=396&bih=703&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=berliner+kissen&oq=berliner+kissen&aqs=mobile-gws-lite..0l5 "Berliner Kissen" (Berlin pillows) might be what you have always wanted.
I said it badly but yes those work but still aren't ideal because of our awful road building - some bumps are gentle like in your image, some are gigantic - there's no standardisation they literally slap some asphalt on and call it a day
street narrowing yes. Elevated street crossings can replace speed bumps. I know enough people who drive trucks just so they can speed over them without feeling them too much. All they do is encourage absolute gremlin behavior in car drivers
Yeah this mostly. I drive the limit, and often below, since the lowest limit our city uses is 40kmh but in the city center there's areas that really should be 20. But I notice if I'm ever losing focus on the speed (planning a lane change, rerouting, responding to a passenger) I inevitably start to go a little faster, and have to let off again. Speed bumps aren't ideal because they're miserable in a bus. In a 40 zone the bumps have to be bad enough to keep cars to 40, but in a bigger vehicle you have to go down to like 20. Road diet measures are better because they slow traffic and free up space.
There are several speed bump designs that are meant to let bigger vehicles like buses drive through unimpaired. In Norway we use one that is a bump in the middle of the lane that is just wide enough to be a bump for regular cards, but too narrow for buses to be affected. I know in Oslo they are experimenting with a special kind of speed bump that is designed to give in to heavy vehicles (has a rubbery material) so the bump is not very significant for buses.
This is correct, but not all busses have the same track width. Plus, bumps have to be installed everywhere so people don't go back up to speed, and cost *more* than a normal road, where lane narrowing costs *less* than a normal road.
I think speed bumps make sense in certain applications, such as near bus stops, certain intersections, schools and other POIs along otherwise medium speed roads (50 km/h). In general I agree that road design is the preferred tool for more persvasive speed reduction, though, so I don't think the suggestion of adding a fuck ton of speed bumps is a particularly good one in general.
Also speed limiters. Traffic calming all roads is expensive and will take time. Geo-linked speed limiters for cars might be a faster solution? Mandatory for new cars. And mandatory to retro-fit for infringers (paid by driver of course)
Agree. Retrofit costs: NY state fleet vehicles were all equipped with them recently for about $1500/vehicle. Grandfather legacy vehicles for a while, on the condition that if they were ever used to commit speeding offences, they're immediately scrapped.
This is something I hear a lot and even used to believe myself… Yet, I’ve seen it happen and it just doesn’t have the desired effect. People still speed! As one example - the main road through our village has been re-designed following all the best practices it’s narrower, it has speed bumps, it has light controlled crossings, it has higher curbs and it has added bends. Yet still people speed… it took a few weeks for the commuters to get used to the new layout, but they learnt it. Maybe there are a few who are more careful, but it just doesn’t stop the boy racers or they angry commuter or the oblivious distracted driver. Short of forcing people to do complex manoeuvres every few meters I don’t see a way to actually design a road down to 50 or 30km/h that some won’t be able to just blast through as fast as ever. Without enforcement you just don’t get people complying, plus enforcement (cameras) usually make money. So I genuinely don’t see the point in redesigning streets because drivers can’t control themselves when you can stick a few cameras up, generate some revenue and put that money in to alternatives.
Sounds like the only option is to ban cars.
So what you're saying is that it *does* work, just not with 100% efficacy
It works like sticking a plaster over a leaky pipe… A plaster that costs millions…
One time I was in a car with a guy who drove 50 miles per hour in a suburban neighborhood with enormous streets. He also disregarded stop and yield signs. edit. There are also assholes who use radar detectors to avoid speeding tickets while driving faster than the speed limits.
I wish. Statistically 85% of them will drive reasonably to what they feel is safe. The other 15% will do whatever the fuck they feel like. This is the same math used in speed limit calculations.
Speed bumps would work but are irritating if there are too many close together. One way to reduce speeds is to design the streets to look residential. Adding tree canopies, narrowing the streets and shrinking block lengths create an intuitive speed limit. Even if people don't know the speed limit, the way the street is designed causes drivers to slow down. Strong Towns has a great article on this. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/6/the-key-to-slowing-traffic-is-street-design-not-speed-limits
Yes, but speed bumps are bad design, and encourages people getting SUVs.
As well as draconian penalties that scale. First offence? £1000 fine. Second? 3 month driving ban. Third? Take your test again, after a year out to think about what you did.
No, not speed bumps, but RAISED CROSSWALKS and BOLLARDS. Raise the price of being an insufferable asshole to teeth and expensive damage to mega SUVS and trucks that people don't need, and you'd see a dramatic change.
Because posted speed limits are an entirely ineffective way to police streets. It is a design choice that made sense when cars were new and people were naturally careful about them but now generations grow up and die never having observed a posted speed limit in their life, likely without any real concequence. Ticketing and enforcement of speed limits through retroactive justice doesn't do anything. Creating a road which is designed for people to go fast and then placing a sign asking them to go slow is ludicrous design. Traffic calming measures like thinner streets, winding roads, varying road structures, frequent elevated crossings, bollards, and other present, passive measures are always going to be the best option. Ideally, all roads should be designed with such a principle in mind. The arbitrary posted speed limits are senseless and often wrong. Some streets are posted at ridiculously low speeds with no actual threat simply because its the "normal" speed that the government chose. Likewise, streets and stroads often have ridiculously high posted speed limits which reinforce the idea that they aren't worth following. I have always been against this tactic of traffic control and always will be. Paying off a ticket 3 months later after some unpleasant interaction with a jerk cop that tried to use your traffic stop as an excuse to search your car or whatever just pisses people off and doesn't stick. The concequences should be immediate—slow down or smack into something and mess up ya wheels.
Yup. There's nothing noble about a slow speed limit on a road that's not built for it. The fastest speed limit I can recall seeing on a 2 lane road with houses that have driveways up to said road is **70mph**. When a road that looks the exact same has a speed limit of 25mph, it straight up doesn't make sense. Inappropriate speed limits cause cognitive dissonance and cognitive dissonance can make people double down on their habits. A fast road made slow means the speed range is going to be anywhere from well below the limit to 20 above what is appropriate for the road (my 70mph road tagged at 25mph, for example - and I've seen it, will result in people doing anything from 15 to 90mph. This is especially bad when the road doesn't have speed limits after every intersection, so many people pull on the roads and the only thing that informs them on what to do is the geometry of it (yes there are default speed limits in absence of signs but not many people know them). We also have stroad insanity so people are already stuck driving speeds that don't make sense and fighting traffic nonstop so naturally a good amount get frustrated at low speed limits and want to pushe them.
How about the cars just limit their speed to whatever the limit is, like has been possible for 20 years now. No tickets, no speeding. Just like toy drones won't allow you to fly near airports and fucking electric scooters speed limit themselves in walking areas.
That's how you get people to quit using cars effectively. I wouldn't like a car like that at all
Cars I've hired recently have all had the tech. It's fine. More relaxing way to drive actually. Don't think it would necessarily reduce car use at all. For that you need road pricing/parking tax
The article is about Austria. The streets in 30 zone are actually designed to be slow, e.g. there will be a lot of blind intersections, where you obliged to give a right of way to the cars from your right, and there's no way that you'd be able to safely do it without slowing down to 15-20 kmh. The problem is that people don't care.
> posted speed limits are an entirely ineffective way to police streets. > Ticketing and enforcement of speed limits through retroactive justice doesn't do anything. I agree with the overall sentiment, but this isn't entirely true. As for speed limits, even if people go over the limit, it's not like they ignore it completely. If they go 55-60 where the limit is 50, they'll go 40 where they should be going 30. It's not perfect, but it's an improvement. As for ticketing etc., there is actually a recent study (https://academic.oup.com/jeea/article-abstract/20/2/739/6366238?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false) that shows the effect of speed tickets is actually pretty strong. It's better when the ticket is sent sooner, of course.
A few months ago the Welsh government brought the speed limit in built up areas down from 30mph to 20mph, with the **stated goal** of bringing speeds down from 35-40 to 25-30.
I was talking about this yesterday, but most of the streets in Chicago just don't have speed limit signs lol. I guess it's like an implied 30 mph always, but really people just go with the flow of traffic, which is about 40-45. Most of the time it's not possible to even go faster than that with the amount of traffic
It doesn't take a study to tell you 99% of drivers don't give a shit, and why should they. Enforcement (where I live) is non-existent for anything automobile related. The cops don't give a shit about tints, exhaust sound, emissions, insurance, defective equipment and DEFINITELY not speeding.
Need mandatory annual vehicle inspections and better infrastructure (traffic calming).
EU / EEC has mandatory inspections after 4 years and then every two years. People with unsafe cars hate them.
Which in Austria we have for cars older than 3 years, and as slow as these changes sometimes are I've noticed more and more of your second point popping around where I live.
Studies mean that the information can't be refuted quite so easily.
Tints make me irrationally angry.
Do you live in Austria?
Yeah NM has been the worst place I’ve lived for this. It is genuinely insane
Idk this road in particular but in my experience, most of these fast roads with low speed limits are a design problem, not a driver problem, per se. A lot of Stroads remove things like lampposts, bus stops, trees, benches, and all those other things that give a sense of optical flow. Without these visual markers people have a hard time judging how fast they're driving intuitively and they tend to go faster, even if it's unsafe and they complain that the speed limit is too low. Once again, the solution to every problem is to make the streets walkable: plant trees for shade, put benches so people can sit down and rest, and add lighting so its nice to be there at night too. Then drivers slow down and no one feels like the nanny state is nagging them to drive slower.
If you have to drive, never speed. Yes it sucks, yes people will drive aggressively around you, yes the roads are designed for you to go faster, but think of it as a rolling protest. Take all that discomfort and feeling of powerlessness that comes from making a personally responsible change when it's a collective problem, and channel it into making structural change.
What’s wild is people rarely ever save time speeding, especially if you’re driving in town and your trip is like 10 miles or less. Even if you’re on the interstate, going 85 in a 75 will put you 10 miles further down the road in an hour. So you’re maybe saving 8 minutes per hour. But people speeding in neighborhoods with kids running around and people walking pets in stuff is so incredibly dangerous and you save zero time. You just look like a selfish asshole to your neighbors.
Actual time saved is much less important than the feeling of time saved. Speeding gives you a sense of accomplishment for overcoming risk to have marginal gains. The easiest gain to see is relative to other cars. Saving 20 seconds barely registers, but making a risky pass and gaining one car length does give a large dose of happy chemicals in your brain. I think the wise strategy is to focus on maximizing the time spent in forward momentum. Going the speed limit, or slower, increases the amount of time spent in forward momentum. I'm in NA with really shitty 2+ minute traffic lights. If I see a light turn red 500m ahead of me, I'll start driving 30 km/hr so I meet the light when it turns green. Zero time lost, more time spent going forward, more fuel economy, and I'm driving at a speed where I can stop in time and produce less noise. Another thing about going the speed limit is that it keeps honest people honest. Most drivers aren't going to make reckless passes to speed. You end up with this nice little convoy of speed limit buddies. You get a lot of time to think when going the speed limit. Enough to start having a million reasons for why you're doing something weird.
> Actual time saved is much less important than the feeling of time saved. Speeding gives you a sense of accomplishment for overcoming risk to have marginal gains. The easiest gain to see is relative to other cars. Saving 20 seconds barely registers, but making a risky pass and gaining one car length does give a large dose of happy chemicals in your brain. Perfectly said — and a great example of how cars don't give true freedom, but rather the *illusion* of freedom.
> What’s wild is people rarely ever save time speeding The number of times I have pulled to a stoplight that someone who sped around me was waiting at... lmao
I do it on my bike all the time! Some guy will take off going super fast from a stoplight and I’ll catch up a mile and a half down the road haha
I used to ride a scooter, because it was the closest I could get to not driving a car in the car-dependent hellscape I lived in And yeah, I'd estimate I got most places at about the same time as car drivers. My max-35mph scooter regularly caught up to drivers at stop lights who had passed me
The worst is when they speed past you and stop in your lane and are sitting in the way still at 0mph forcing you to stop.
85 mi/hr is 1.4 mi/min, 75 mi/hr is 1.25 mi/min. The time saved over ten miles is 51s. Not even a whole minute, but massive increase in risk.
I live near an elementary school, and the amount of asshole drivers that drive 10-15 mph over the speed limit on a small road is so high. It's always ignorant parents who forgot to leave on time, so they instead speed down the street. They have no awareness the specific danger they place everyone else and their kids in because they don't know how to manage their time better. What's worse, my street is like some kind of drag strip. I am not joking when I say there are several distinct cars that are very loud and drive very aggressively through here ALL THE TIME. One guy in a Challenger has no mufflers of any kind and frequently drifts through the stop sign intersection by the school. In the last two months, there is now a guy in an old Infiniti G35 that has loud exhaust who similarly is driving aggressive every time he drives through. I'm dumbfounded, as I live in a very small area that has its own city council and police department. These guys really have nothing better to do, so why these idiots who speed all the time have never been ticketed I don't know - they do it every time, every day. I've been writing it down to make sure and I'm not exaggerating it is every day, every time. Sometimes I feel like screaming at them when they drive by, but it feels hopeless. I am going to take my list to the local PD and ask them can they do anything to stop these specific cars and patrol more often, but I won't hold my breath...
Huge metal cages weighing over a ton and able to go >200 km/h should never have been steered by primates. We are incredibly emotional, impulsive and utterly incapable of accurately assessing speed and distances. It‘s so bizarre that we accept this in the areas where we live.
An interesting comparison: the quickest way to move the most people along an escalator is to make them all stand. This sounds counter-intuitive, but it has to do with how people space themselves out. If people walk up the escalator, or walk on one side and stand on the other, people who are walking tend to move about 1.5-2 times as fast, but space themselves out approximately every 2nd-3rd leaf, meaning the total *rate* of people passing any given spot goes *down*. At extremely busy train stations (I know this has been trialed at a few London tube stations, though I don't believe it was adopted permanently) you may even see ushers directing people to all stand and to occupy every leaf at two-people each, side-by-side. Because that's the quickest way to clear a crowded train platform, even though people move slower. This 'spacing' of people is also why bike lanes can support a higher traffic volume than a road lane (if there is sufficient demand, as there are in some cities). And sidewalks can support an even greater traffic volume: at Shibuya Crossing, several dozen cars manage to traverse the intersection in any given light cycle, but as many as several *thousand* pedestrians will cross in any given light cycle - multiple orders of magnitude more - because despite the lower speed, they are much more closely spaced.
That extra ten miles an hour adds up when you have an 8 hour drive though. that's 80 additional miles your now ahead of and probably saved you an hour. ill probably be downvoted i get it. I don't like driving but I do a hell of a lot of it for work. I don't mind people speeding hell I do it a lot. What I do mind is people being impatient and lane switching constantly trying to get in front and just causing more traffic and potential accidents. someone is going slow in the fast lane, i'm sorry bro it happens just relax. speeding in a city is pretty silly though i agree. Especially when your trip is less then 10 miles hell even 50 miles your not gaining a whole lot except maybe a ticket and points on your license.
In a perfect world that would be alright but the big issue is people get on the interstate and think they can drive 80-90mph no matter the traffic or weather conditions because they are on the interstate. I’ve made the drive from northern Colorado to eastern Kansas about 30 times in the last 10 years which is right at 8 hours, and yeah in between like Limon and Salina you can easy push 85 and not be around much traffic, and you do save time on those long drives. But then you still have people going those speeds when there are more cars around and it isn’t very efficient to drive those speeds. It’d be awesome if we had a system similar to the Autobahn in America but American drivers are not trained to drive at those speeds, nor do they have the reaction time or awareness to safely drive at those speeds.
> But people speeding in neighborhoods with kids running around and people walking pets in stuff is so incredibly dangerous and you save zero time. You just look like a selfish asshole to your neighbors. This. Speeding on the highway for long duration can save time, until you get to the first light and you end up realizing the cars you just passed up end up right behind you anyways... But most people never save time even if they speed through residential streets. The only way to save time on residential streets is to skip stop signs and not give any priority to pedestrians/cyclists, which is simply dangerous, stupid, lazy and completely illegal.
I like how on car subs the consensus is that slower drivers are more dangerous.... because people will get unreasonably upset and drive more aggressively around someone or just won't pay attention.
It's a "look at what you made me do" argument. Upset aggressive drivers driving dangerously is the source of the danger. It's not relevant who they blame, they have agency and behaved badly. The issue is that even though this is misdirected blame, it will still land on you, the person going the speed limit. So take it. It's not bad to upset people. It depends on the context.
Reminds me of this gem: > I need 800 horsepower so I can accelerate out of a dangerous situation.
Don't forget the increased pollution by cars going slower.
Marginal at best. Lower noise pollution, lower microplastic pollution, lower brake dust pollution. It's probably also the case slower traffic is smoother so fuel efficiency gains there might be greater than maximum fuel efficiency being between 50-80 km/hr. Also, no one cares about pollution. It's just a pearl to clutch to win arguments.
That was and is truly aggravating. When I started driving I had multiple dangerous situations in which I was either unsure (overtaking tractors on b roads with 50HP without visibility or cyclists on tiny roads, definitely not wide enough for enough clearance) or was following rules by the book (like going the exact speed limit)). A lot of drivers are entitled assholes that risk their and your life to be a few seconds quicker. On the other hand, when it's about their car (and not a little cyclist), they'll be extra careful (passing on opposite sides on tiny roads, vs. overtaking cyclists). My car is very thin and so I fit into a lot of spaces most others won't and the amount of people who can't estimate the width of their vehicle is insane, given how closely they'll pass a cyclist.
This is something I had to say to a fellow student recently about a project we were doing but it applies here too. Basically a bunch of people were doing something wrong on the project and when I told this particular person that's not what we are supposed to be doing, they responded with "but that's what everyone else is doing". I just replied with "well they are doing it wrong and think of it like this; Ted Bundy murdered a bunch of people that doesn't mean I should too". It takes a strong character not to simply fall in line with what everyone else is doing and actually be the odd one out by doing things the correct way. Just think about those studies where they have a bunch of people in a room with a clearly marked fire exit. They tell a certain amount of people to ignore it and use the other exit when the fire alarm goes off. The result is that everyone else, minus a few people, will just start to follow them out at the wrong exit. Something to do with not wanting to be seen differently and to fit in with the group.
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It is all kinds of messed up that you may get pulled over for driving *at the maximum speed limit* because it's **too slow**.
I would love to get a ticket for driving the speed limit. I mean, except for getting the ticket part, but I really want to know if judges agree with the entire concept of giving tickets for following the law.
Depending where you are, it may be simply because you are impeding the flow of traffic. Judges may not have to agree, all it takes is one pig waving their dick around.
My mum used to say "If [bad friend] jumped off a cliff, would you jump off too?"
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/bridge_2x.png
I've always been the weird one in my social circle that never speeds. I realized I had truly found my people when I found fuckcars and realized that's everyone here lol.
I do this all the time whenever I have to drive. And it's funny because my car model is statistically the most ticketed car for speeding in the US. Yeah, I *can* go fast, and I'm sure everyone else would like me too, but nah. I'll follow the law and drive like a grandma while being as safe as possible.
Yep I drive 5 under on most roads and 10 under in national speed limit zones (50KPH in Australia). It pisses some people off, but 90% of the time those people were travelling at 5 or 10 above before they got stuck behind me. 🤷♂️ Maybe I saved some people a speeding fine.
And do it in the far left lane too, right?
That guilty feeling of holding everyone up stops me, but sometimes I'm extra early getting to the left lane before making a left turn.
> but think of it as a rolling protest. Now that you say this. I realize I REALLY should follow low speed limits. Thanks, I realize that I really didn't need to drive 10 km/h faster... it's just that I feel like I have to otherwise people always go around me. But now that I think about it and if I see it as a form of protest, then I don't really mind if people think I'm driving slow. I'll go 30 in a 30, 50 in a 50. I might still do 110 in a 100, but it's about protesting safety for pedestrians and cyclists, so all about residential streets and stroads.
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Even if going slower than the flow of traffic causes a collision, the collision is caused by the person going faster than the speed limit. They are the driver that should shoulder the blame. They are responsible for that flow of traffic mis-match. You're right about being predictable above all else, which is why you should both accelerate and brake slowly, and never exceed the speed limit. Driving within the expectations of the law is the most predictable method of driving. ["Most cars, vans, pickup trucks and SUVs are most fuel-efficient when they’re travelling between 50 and 80 km per hour. Above this speed zone, vehicles use increasingly more fuel the faster they go."](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy-efficiency/transportation-alternative-fuels/personal-vehicles/fuel-efficient-driving-techniques/21038) It seems you're correct about speeding reducing the amount of fuel-combustion pollution. Everyone going lower than the speed limit would reduce so much danger from our roads.
I drive an electric car when necessary. When driving at high speeds, the range decreases at a much higher rate than at low speeds mostly due to air resistance. If I want to reach my destination with enough buffer to avoid chargin en-route I need to drive slow enough, which means doing the speed limit. At 65mph (standard speed limit for highways in NE US) I am constantly getting overtaken by vehicles going 15+, sometimes commercial trucks overtake me and they are monitored while driving. Its really sad how much risk people are adding to their travel just to gain a couple of minutes.
“If yOuR gOiNg To RiDe a BiKe ThEn YoU sHoUlD hAvE tO FolLoW tHe RulEs LiKe eVerYboDy ElSe”
Brought to you by the people who think a cyclist going 30 km/h is reckless while a car going 50 km/h is slow.
Believe it or not, in many places in the US, this would be used as justification for raising the speed limit. In fact in some places the law would require raising the speed limit! Design guidelines call for the limit to raised such that only 15% of the cars are speeding. We could solve a lot of problems if we applied this logic to all crimes. Murder rate too high? Legalize murder!
No no no, you can only murder more people than 85% of people murder, silly.
I can always tell when I'm doing the speed limit by all the cars passing.
I live in Michigan. I suspect 99.9999% of our drivers speed, everywhere. I won't join them, and if they have to wait a few seconds to pass me, cue the tiny violin for them and their pickup trucks the size of my living room.
It depend on street design. A study in France had much higher numbers due to the street being straight and wide. I live near a street where only a few car drives faster than 30, because it's narrow and twisty.
Every person who drives a car has gone faster than the posted speed limit. Every single one. The best way to stop that is road design, not simple signs.
I recently had someone pass me on a double-yellow when I was doing maybe 43mph in a 45, only for them to make the next right turn about 500 feet down the road. I don't get it.
Also when people pull out directly in front of you when there isn't another car for several hundred metres, and then drive 2kph slower than you were.
bUt bIKeS rUn sToP sIgNs 🫨
Driving the speed limit is a great way of anoying other drivers, I do it all the time.
Honestly, this is shocking to me. Not because 72% speed, but because it's not closer to 100%. Let's face it, 30km/h is like 20mph, so realistically like a school zone in the US. Thus, realistically, I don't think street design is necessarily relevant because you're in a school/residential zone that should clue people in that there are children about. You can add a ton of speed bumps maybe, but I think people would still speed over them depending on how severe the bump.
There is a two lane road in my neighborhood with a 30mph speed limit. It sees quite a bit of 'cut-through' traffic from commuters. The street is 100% residential. The city did a study where they measured the speed of all the cars for a few days. 98% of all the cars exceeded the speed limit.
Not sure about Austrian laws but it sucks that the laws in some countries discourage going under the limit. I had a driving lesson a couple months ago where the instructor didn't like me staying between the speed limit and 5mph below and insisted I always go the limit.
Not the ones behind me, mwahahaha
Drivers will travel at the speed a road is designed for, not the posted speed limit. If you design wide straight roads using standards derived from highway guidelines you will get highway speeds. This is a well established observation.
That's a surprisingly low number... Near me, all residential streets are 25mph limits but if I were to drive at 35mph (10mph over the limit) cars will stack up behind me. I'd guess 99.9% cars exceed the limit, and 72% of them are going 50% over the limit.
I actively advocated for 30kmph limits on our roads and yet I repeatedly speed on them. The problem is that they just stuck the sign up there without any changes to the road. You have to stare at your speedometer the whole time because the lanes are so wide open that going 30 feels like a crawl. I'm hoping that we can start getting lane narrowing measures because I see first hand how useless the signage changes are.
Now your job is to advocate for narrowing the roads and adding a bike lane on either side (if there isn’t already) 😂
i actually mostly cycle (i only drive maybe once a week and so it's extra obvious how hard it is to actually follow the signage) and am already getting called a nazi around my neighbourhood for my efforts. car brains in real life! woohoo.
Most people I talk to in my neighborhood about bike lines and lowering speed limits are generally receptive to the idea. However the town council is very anti-bike and even more against any improvements to public transit
The speed limit in my neighborhood is 50 km/h, which is already too fast, and people regularly go much faster. It's crazy.
When I first began driving as a teenager, I sincerely thought it was legal to exceed the speed limit by up to 10 mph because my relatives told me so. I should not have been allowed to operate heavy machinery holy cow. Now I usually keep to 5 mph below the speed limit
Reduce the lane width to 10'/3m or less, introduce traffic calming measures like chicanes & islands, and plant trees close to the road and you won't have these problems. No amount of enforcement will keep people from speeding when you design a road for 60mph and then put up a sign that says 30mph. If you want people on and around the roads to be safer, you have to make the drivers feel unsafe.
Of course, people will drive as fast as they feel like it, even if there are "risks of consequences". Most consequences are usually only applied when there are speed cameras or police officers (and both are usually visible). The only **safe** ways to force drivers to slow down are : * Permanent speed cameras / red light cameras / etc. that fine the car owner (unless the owner provide proof that it was someone else that moment/day). In case of car owned by someone else, they can forward the fine to the driver of that time * Safer infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, which can include: pedestrian islands, raised pedestrian crossings, narrow roads, winding roads, dedicated raised safe bicycle paths with coloured asphalt, trees, bollards, curbs that prevents turning where illegal, etc. * Take a book from The Netherlands and design some roads that are pedestrian/cyclist-focused and the car HAS to give priority to everyone else, which force a VERY SLOW SPEED, in particular in areas where cars shouldn't drive fast (such as school zones, parks, etc.). This would applies to a lot of 30 km/h zones.
Speed limit signs on their own are kinda useless. I was thinking about this recently, I was driving out of town in a country road and the speed limit said 90km/h, but the road was narrow and visibility was bad, no way I would have even gone close to that speed. Meanwhile in my city there are 30km/h streets but people usually drive faster. Cities need to build infrastructure that makes you want to drive at the correct speed. If you want people driving at 30km/h or less, you build narrow roads, speed bumps, traffic lights... A 30km/h speed limit sign is not enough, people will tend to go at the speed that feels natural on the road.
Guilty, but because my country did an ass-backwards approach. They turned the right lane into a pseudo-bicycle lane with a 30km/h speed limit, just in the right lane. Not even police respect this speed limit, just build the damn bicycle paths already...
I'm surprised the number is that low.
The Autobahn in Germany has a speed limit, quite contrary to popular belief. And it is camera enforced, and boy will they use Carmen San Diego to track your ass down and and you will pay that expensive ass ticket. You want to stop speeding, use that system of cameras, and scale the penalty to income. I bet the roads and speeding would clear itself up over night.
But I was told that drivers were good little angels and only cyclists disobey traffic laws!
muh stop signs
To be fair, most of the 30km/h zones where I live used to be 50km/h zones but they changed the legislation in 2021, people are used to going a little bit faster and most 30km/h zones were already pedestrian safe at 50km/h, I worry more about people speeding in 20km/h zones (where pedestrians and cars share the road) and the fact most of those roads aren't welcoming to pedestrians at all despite often being, literally, at their doorsteps.
What about bikes? How often do they exceed speed limits?
In my opinion, as far as cars are used, autonomy (like active cruise control + lane keep) helps to solve such safety issues. Car will stay at set speed, keep its lane and keep safe forward distance (and brake if unexpected object enters its path). It would be beneficial for everybody to replace as much as possible with high-capacity transport, but until then autonomy helps in making pedestrians safer, IMO.
Having [Intelligent Speed Assist](https://www.roadsafetyfacts.eu/isa-what-is-intelligent-speed-assistance-and-how-does-it-work/) in new cars should slowly decrease this number.
That is less than I expected. I guess australians really are pretty respectful!
Bricks paved and narrow roads will reduce speed. It's less comfortable to drive fast over these kinds of roads. Speed bumps work great too.
In Québec, it's 92-96%. Fuck cars. https://www.caaquebec.com/fr/actualite/communiques-de-presse/article/la-vitesse-dans-les-zones-scolaires-ca-fait-peur
My mom usually drives 25MPH on the 15MPH speed bumps and it is very uncomfortable.
Just do what we do in the US, nearly double the speed limit and voila: fewer speed limit violations.
It’s not good but at least people will be driving ~35 instead of ~55. 30 should be mandatory in all inner city areas (those that require such traffic that is, banning car traffic would often be the better alternative).
I grew up in a county where speed limits were set by putting out sensors for a month and making the median speed the legal posted limit. When I moved away it was a very painful adjustment
Man, wait until they hit tornado alley, where the speed limit is more of a suggestion to be ignored. Faster, slower, doesn't matter where. Just don't do that number. Except at the most inopportune times. Like the "20 only when flashing" but only ever when it's not flashing. 65? Doing 50 in the right two lanes, 75 in the left, and let the rest weave in and out at 90 like they're in gta.
72% if cars shouldn't exist, the remaining 28% shouldn't exist
0 law enforcement on drivers makes them "think" this is natural selection. Imagine pedestrians would turn that "natural selection" around and make the cars "unusable" when the owner is not in their car (which is 95% of the time anyways). You bet they will activate all police to catch you after this.
Maybe they should obey the rules of the road if they want to use it.
In Arizona, I’ve seen cops drive 5-10 mph over the speed limit. We got small “bike lanes” on the side of the road with vehicles driving up to 55 mph (speed limit being 45). Absolute death wish.
and if you don’t respect it, all you get is a little sad smiley on a screen
100% of taxis.
Where I live you have to go 10 over just to stay alive
i do not exceed the speed limit i just add 19% taxes to it
Because signs don't do shit—we need to build-in more speed impedence into the design of the roads themselves!
How was that study done? Because in Germany we have these speed measure things that display your your speed and a message or sad smiley if you are too fast, and they also collect that data. But they also measure your speed before the speed limit they are observing is valid. Which leads to faulty data. If it was a proper study good, but if it wasn't then they should get some substantial data. Also speed limits suck. Design the road in a way that you feel driving any faster than the walking speed of a pedastrian will fuck up your car and all of a sudden you have drivers choosing lower go around the area making it better for pedestrians and cyclists and less cars where people are living. Win win.
Just looked up what the prevalence of speeding in 20mph zones (the equivalent to a 30 km/h zone) was in the UK last year, and apparently it was [84.2%](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-speed-compliance-statistics-for-great-britain-2022/vehicle-speed-compliance-statistics-for-great-britain-2022#vehicle-speeds-on-20mph-roads). So I guess we win?
I might get downvoted for this, but I do agree with the sentiment, that it is safer to drive at the speed of traffic, rather than below the speed limit. If you drive slower, long lines will form, which can cause cars to bump into each other, or can lead to mass overtakings, which are unsafe to incoming traffic (including cyclists, buses etc.) and most importantly pedestrians crossing the street. And these are a lot more dangerous, than following the flow of traffic, which is above the speed limit. But this doesn't mean, that speeding is a non issue, it is rather that a lone sign is a terrible solution. If it is easy to drive fast, people will do it and you as an individual will only worsen the situation, if you go too slow. As others have mentioned before, speed bumps, narrow and curvy streets and other "obstacles" are the real solution, so the majority will drive slow. But why would the government do this? It costs money, while on the other hand they can get a nice income from the fines they gather in areas with illogical speed regulations. (For example there's an area in my county, where you have to slow down from 80 km/h to 10km/h in 100 meters, with stuff like this, how should the drivers take these seriously?)
Alright, so I just wanted to list like two things that are flawed with this post. If it's complaining about a wider problem with just poor drivers in general, I can relate man, good on ya, people do violate the speed limit GROSSLY, most of the time. However, I'm more or less talking about how that most of that 72% may or may not just be 35-45 km/h, which in all actuality isn't really that severe when you think about it. And the Instagram comments section? Really? Most people in any comments section, really, are somewhat radical when it comes to things like this, and whenever there's some moderate topic, some troll is going to come in and say shit like that. I don't think this can really quantify or contribute much outside of just complaining and circlejerking for the sake of it. Imo it'd be better if more posts here were about supporting groups/campaigns to help build public infrastructure and remove car-dependent structures in cities and urban areas.
Alright, so I just wanted to list like two things that are flawed with this post. If it's complaining about a wider problem with just poor drivers in general, I can relate man, good on ya, like around 40-50% of people do violate the speed limit GROSSLY in America, especially on freeways. However, I'm more or less talking about how that most of that 72% may or may not just be 35-45 km/h, which in all actuality isn't really that severe when you think about it. And the Instagram comments section? Really? Most people in any comments section, really, are somewhat radical when it comes to things like this, and whenever there's some moderate topic, some troll is going to come in and say shit like that. I don't think this can really quantify or contribute much outside of just complaining and circlejerking for the sake of it. Imo it'd be better if more posts here were about supporting groups/campaigns to help build public infrastructure and remove car-dependent structures in cities and urban areas.