Pretty good article on speed limits

Jason · Only in cartoons

Pretty good article on speed limits

MATHSEX · MASTER BATOR

"His study of 988 drivers, published in next month's Transportation Research Part F (subscription), found 21 percent of them think it's perfectly safe to exceed the speed limit by 5 mph. Forty-three percent saw no risk in going 10 mph over and 36 percent say there's no harm driving 20 mph over the speed limit."

assuming no respondent claimed that there is harm in going over the speed limit, 100% of respondents are complete retards. this claim is made based on the fact that reaction times is inversely proportional to speed. while around other drivers, those who want to go 20 mph above the speed limit inevitably will tailgate any motorist going more slowly than s/he is, effectively cutting the reaction time even further. in addition to that, aggressive driving habits set oneself up for a lack of ability to respond to variable driving conditions, such as lower visibility or lower traction.

if one wishes to turn off the part of the brain that has evolved to understand and respect mortality, fine. just don't drive anywhere near me or crash during rush hour.

Jason · Only in cartoons

Going 10 mph over the speed limit is not dangerous when 1) the road was designed for higher speeds and 2) everyone on the road is travelling 10 mph over the speed limit (which I find is usually the case on freeways). Following distance is a large factor in safety, but it is a different matter from speed. If the speed limit is 55mph, and everyone goes 65-70mph, then if they maintain safe following distance all drivers remain reasonably safe -- more safe than they would if most drivers were going 55mph and a few impatient drivers were going 65-70mph.

Also, you seem to be assuming a certain level of congestion when you say drivers who travel faster will "inevitably tailgate any motorist going more slowly than s/he is". If there is virtually no one on the road, and the road is designed to be safely travelled in good weather at 80mph, then it is safe to travel up to 80mph on that road even if other motorists are travelling slower.

Speed limits usually do not represent the maximum safe speed on the road, even if that is what law enforcers claim. Most people realize this and ignore the posted speed limit. If you are claiming that you do not speed, then you are very likely a liar.

MATHSEX · MASTER BATOR

Jason wrote:

Going 10 mph over the speed limit is not dangerous when 1) the road was designed for higher speeds and 2) everyone on the road is travelling 10 mph over the speed limit (which I find is usually the case on freeways). Following distance is a large factor in safety, but it is a different matter from speed. If the speed limit is 55mph, and everyone goes 65-70mph, then if they maintain safe following distance all drivers remain reasonably safe -- more safe than they would if most drivers were going 55mph and a few impatient drivers were going 65-70mph.

Also, you seem to be assuming a certain level of congestion when you say drivers who travel faster will "inevitably tailgate any motorist going more slowly than s/he is". If there is virtually no one on the road, and the road is designed to be safely travelled in good weather at 80mph, then it is safe to travel up to 80mph on that road even if other motorists are travelling slower.

Speed limits usually do not represent the maximum safe speed on the road, even if that is what law enforcers claim. Most people realize this and ignore the posted speed limit. If you are claiming that you do not speed, then you are very likely a liar.

the faster you drive, the more prone you are to death or serious injury WHEN an accident happens. it's not the speed that kills, it's the sudden change in momentum. even if roads were designed based on speed, any speed is not safe.

yes, following distance and speed are important, independent factors, but when more than one car is involved, both factors matter. for any nonzero level of congestion, this matters. that is to say unless you are the only driver on the road, you WILL encounter another motorist (moving in the same direction as you) over a nontrivial time interval if the following car moves faster than the other. say the expectation value of any car's speed on the road is 5 mph over the speed limit; any deviance from that will undoubtedly require that cars approach each other.

if a speeder who approaches a car going the speed limit wishes to maintain his initial speed, he most likely will put the other's life at risk by tailgating, passing, or any combination of the two. even in the case of passing, the larger the relative speed between the cars is, the less time the driver must be able to react to the other. period. human error and recklessness exist. neither can completely be prevented, but the latter is a choice.

and no, i do observe all posted speed limits, much to the dismay of all cocksuckers who feel that saving three minutes is worth putting others' lives at risk

-- Edited by MATHSEX at 00:30, 2008-11-16

Jason · Only in cartoons

Andy001 · Spaghetti

I've come to accept that speed limits is one of those issues where you're never going to convince someone on the other side of the question.

MATHSEX · MASTER BATOR

Jason wrote:

1) the law can't enforce their own laws, so why should they?

2) how dare you obey the law!
3) nobody obeys the law, so you shouldn't either

i completely support the notion that the decriminalization/descheduling of drugs is a necessity for freedom insofar as it does not infringe on another's right to life, liberty, persuit of happiness, etc.

i completely support the notion that consenting adults should be able to duel to the death so that america becomes a nation that does not restrict freedoms

i completely detest the notion that speed limits should not be enforced as a result of their difficult enforcement. speeding should not be above prosecution -- it is a reckless habit that puts others' lives at higher risk than it would be if everyone drove (at most) the speed limit. why should some reckless cocksmoker have the right to turn his human error from a injurious accident into a lethal accident (or at least fuck over everyone's insurance rates)?

Jason · Only in cartoons

What do you say if someone is driving 45mph in a 60mph zone? Isn't that in principle the same reckless endangerment of the other motorists as driving 70mph in a 55mph zone?

I'm not arguing that speeding is not dangerous. I am, however, using a richer definition of "speeding" in that I will only call it speeding when it is actually reckless. If everyone on a 65mph road is travelling 70mph, and if the road is designed for traffic up to 80mph, then those motorists are not speeding under my view. They are just making a collective decision to safely ignore the posted speed limit, effectively changing the speed limit to 70mph.

I'm am saying that politically expedient laws will tend to be ignored and that this is a dangerous habit. If people (rightly) ignore the speed limit on one road, they'll start disregarding the speed limit on every road, even if speeding on those roads constitutes any speed over the posted speed limit.

Your earlier point about congestion needing to be zero only works for a one-lane road. Most highways have passing lanes, and highways are mostly where people break the speed limit.

Also, this is not a libertarian argument. I could be a statist and still hold these views. It has nothing to do with personal freedom but everything to do with more efficient transportation that is just as safe if not safer than following the posted speed limit. People will collectively decided to travel at roughly the same speed; this is why other highways in other parts of the world, which do not have speed limits, are not fiery death traps but are just as safe if not safer than American interstates.

MATHSEX · MASTER BATOR

Jason wrote:

What do you say if someone is driving 45mph in a 60mph zone? Isn't that in principle the same reckless endangerment of the other motorists as driving 70mph in a 55mph zone?

I'm not arguing that speeding is not dangerous. I am, however, using a richer definition of "speeding" in that I will only call it speeding when it is actually reckless. If everyone on a 65mph road is travelling 70mph, and if the road is designed for traffic up to 80mph, then those motorists are not speeding under my view. They are just making a collective decision to safely ignore the posted speed limit, effectively changing the speed limit to 70mph.

I'm am saying that politically expedient laws will tend to be ignored and that this is a dangerous habit. If people (rightly) ignore the speed limit on one road, they'll start disregarding the speed limit on every road, even if speeding on those roads constitutes any speed over the posted speed limit.

Your earlier point about congestion needing to be zero only works for a one-lane road. Most highways have passing lanes, and highways are mostly where people break the speed limit.

Also, this is not a libertarian argument. I could be a statist and still hold these views. It has nothing to do with personal freedom but everything to do with more efficient transportation that is just as safe if not safer than following the posted speed limit. People will collectively decided to travel at roughly the same speed; this is why other highways in other parts of the world, which do not have speed limits, are not fiery death traps but are just as safe if not safer than American interstates.

the fact is simple: danger is proportional to speed. ignoring posted speed limits is not a safe practice, regardless of whether a road were designed for higher speeds than the posted limit. if anything, disregard for any speed limit promotes a disregard for all speed limits. speed limits exist for the same reason that any traffic signs exist. a disregard for speed limits is like a disregard for "stop" signs, "no passing zone" signs, "one way" signs, or "do not enter" signs. any personal choice to decrease the safety for other motorists is reckless, self-centered, and should not go unpunished.

passing, like any driving activity, is intrinsically unsafe, but the chance of a successful pass increases as the difference in speeds of the vehicles decreases. and no, this doesn't mean that speeding is safe.

read this and then refute the utility of speed limits

Jason · Only in cartoons

Hey, if it's reckless to increase danger to oneself and others by going faster, why don't we just stay still? Post "0mph" at all roads. Danger is proportional to speed, right?

Speed limits are arbitrary. This is made obvious when politicians decide to increase the posted speed limit on pre-existing road. It's the same road, now with a different speed limit. Let's say they change a 55mph zone to a 65mph zone. If the vast majority of motorists were travelling 65mph on that road the day before the posted speed limit was changed, are you going to tell me that they were recklessly endangering themselves and others? And, on the day the posted limits change, are you telling me they are not being reckless by travelling the same speed on the same road that they were before the change?

Andy001 · Spaghetti

It's hard to take Mathsex's arguments seriously when I can't help imagining them being spoken by his avatar.

MATHSEX · MASTER BATOR

Jason wrote:

Hey, if it's reckless to increase danger to oneself and others by going faster, why don't we just stay still? Post "0mph" at all roads. Danger is proportional to speed, right?

Speed limits are arbitrary. This is made obvious when politicians decide to increase the posted speed limit on pre-existing road. It's the same road, now with a different speed limit. Let's say they change a 55mph zone to a 65mph zone. If the vast majority of motorists were travelling 65mph on that road the day before the posted speed limit was changed, are you going to tell me that they were recklessly endangering themselves and others? And, on the day the posted limits change, are you telling me they are not being reckless by travelling the same speed on the same road that they were before the change?

0 mph is as safe as you can get. efficiency, however, cannot exist when nobody gets shit done -- there has to be some common ground, but the common ground is not arbitrary. a table in the source i posted indicates that the mean speed on sampled roads doesn't deviate more than ~5 mph from the posted limit. there is no way people would not exceed the new limit if given the opportunity: "21 percent of them think it's perfectly safe to exceed the speed limit by 5 mph. Forty-three percent saw no risk in going 10 mph over and 36 percent say there's no harm driving 20 mph over the speed limit."

increasing or eliminating the limits would effectively increase the risks associated with driving and could very well tip highway transportation into a regime of inefficiency.

i would have no opinion as to whether speed limits should or shouldn't exist if others' actions had no consequence on fellow motorists. but they do. reckless behavior kills innocent motorists. i don't know about you, but i sure as fuck don't want to increase my chances of death at the hand of some yahoo who is of the mindset "i don't value my own safety and i don't value yours either"

-- Edited by MATHSEX at 04:58, 2008-11-17

Ozpunker · Senior Member

Being a surveyor and having delt with road design before I can say that a pretty much agree with everything that MATHsex has to say. There is a fair amount of work that goes into determining speed limits and it's way more than the average Joe realises. I think that Jason makes the point that if everyone travelling on the road thinks that it is safe to speed, then it makes it safe to do so. Just by using observations by driving along a stretch of road there is absolutely no way to make a proper assessment on if it is safe to exceed the limit.

I would like one question to be answered by someone.... What is the point of speeding anyways? (I'm talking about exceeding the posted speed limit by say 15km/h or 10mph)

Jason · Only in cartoons

Getting somewhere faster. On longer roadtrips, even a small increase in speed can cut half and hour or more off your time. That's half a hour more to be where you want to be and not spent getting there.

-- Edited by Jason at 15:08, 2008-11-17

Ozpunker · Senior Member

Granted if you were going on a long trip speeding could save some time, but how often do you travel distances where it would make a difference?
If you were on a journey that was 100km and the posted speed limit was 100km/h it would take 1 hour to get there.
If you were to travel at 110km/h you would save roughly 5.5 minutes over the whole time.

You'd have to be traveling alot faster than that to make any significant difference in your overall time and even you should be able to agree that excessive speeding over such a long distance is extremely dangerous.

Jason · Only in cartoons

100 km is not very far...

If you're going on a 200 mile trip (which isn't that big a deal -- I drive one at least four times a year), then if you go 70 mph rather than 60 mph you will save yourself somewhere like 40 minutes.

MATHSEX · MASTER BATOR

40 minutes! four times in a year? if you saved that much time during such trips over the span of 100 years, that's a time savings of just over three percent of a year!

Jason · Only in cartoons

I can't put a price on time spent with cheese....

Ozpunker · Senior Member

More like about 28 minutes if you can stay that speed the whole way. Depending on what sort of roads you are driving on sometimes it's impossible to do those speeds or very unsafe to do so.

One thing that I don't think has been addressed is that you said something along the lines of if everyone speeds the same amount then it can be safe.
If one car (say grandmother or someone towing a trailer) chooses to go the posted limit because they don't feel comfortable going faster should all the other cars behind them go slower or overtake so they can go at their own speed?
The way I see it is, I can see your point of if everyone's going 10mph over then it can be safe (even though I don't agree) however if one person chooses to go slower for what ever reason the other people don't say to themselves "oh it's now dangerous to speed" they just get pissed off and do stupid things like in the video.

Jason · Only in cartoons

The situation you describe is no different from a person travelling below the speed limit on a road where most motorists are driving at the posted limit, which is perfectly legal on most roads.