People usually speed because of road design
Posted by -Wobblier@reddit | driving | View on Reddit | 403 comments
It kind of blew my mind when I learned that typical (American) roads are designed for much higher speeds than what is posted. It's called "forgiving design". It's no wonder that so many people drive way past the limit, and why American roads are so deadly.
JoeCensored@reddit
In my opinion it was the national 55 mph speed limit which created a culture of speeding. It ended in 1995, partly because everyone routinely ignored it.
When speed limits were raised generally to 65-70, did people start suddenly respecting them? No, it just meant go 10+ mph faster, so 75-80.
Seriously, on Sunday I was going 75 mph in a 65 in Livermore CA on the freeway on Sunday. A highway patrol officer pulls up close behind me. I wasn't even the slightest concerned. He was just irritated that I wasn't going at least 80 mph. So I switch lanes to let him pass. Pretty typical.
luger718@reddit
I've only been driving a year but it amazed me taking a trip from NJ to PA the speeds people go. 85-90mph in a 65 was not a rare site. Even saw folks hitting 100 on the slight downhill bits.
mdramsey@reddit
CHP has its moments, but by and large their mandate is maintaining the flow of traffic. 10-over in the East Bay isn't worth their effort a lot of the time...LOL. Up here in the Sacramento area, once you're out of the metro area and it opens up, it's pretty much a "reasonable and prudent" environment. I remember during covid lockdowns, reports of catching speeders exceeding 100MPH was up some astronomical amount. The roads were virtually empty...of course people were going to fly.
I remember when they dropped the double-nickel and Montana opted for "reasonable and prudent" until a couple folks creamed themselves after driving insane speeds, then the insurers chimed in. So, it's 80 in most areas. Of course, people exceed that too.
I'd like to see CHP Motorcycle officers start enforcing impeding the flow more, and looking for clowns holding their phones...
Mammoth_Pack_6442@reddit
Definitely agree with you. They should be citing the left lane cruisers for aggressive driving. People need to keep right except to pass. Also, the phones need to be more aggressively enforced. Speeding isn't by itself necessarily a safety hazard.
Hybrid072@reddit
Bro, keep right except to pass is not the rule of the road in California. It's not the rule because it actually creates traffic (every lane change generally adds three seconds to the drive time behind the new lane). If they're going faster than most drivers in the right lane, they belong in the left. Sack up and pass on the right.
What should, in fact, be criminal, is passing at a speed differential less than 2 mph or sitting in the blindspot. The act of gridlock, as my sister calls it. If you have that reasonable speed for the left lane, but you come up on someone driving about your speed in the right, you should speed up at least 5 mph until you pass.
Shatophiliac@reddit
That’s only the case because everyone tailgates. So any lane change mean basically cutting someone off to get over because nobody leaves space anymore.
If everyone drove properly, and assuming it’s not rush hour traffic, changing lanes absolutely does not increase congestion.
Hybrid072@reddit
It is not only because of tailgaters, people who do not tailgate use their brakes more than tailgaters (who are more likely to change lanes or even swerve onto the shoulder to avoid collision), and it is the brake lights that trigger a chain reaction behind that leads to systemwide slowing.
If, however, it were because of tailgaters, it would not change the fact that it is It is fact. Whining about 'if onlies' can't change the fact that it is so, and must be dealt with as it exists, not as we would like it to be.
Assuredly, changing lanes causes congestion. You don't have to like it.
Shatophiliac@reddit
Source: “trust me bro”
Hybrid072@reddit
Actually cited my source, dipshit. Unlike someone full of more misplaced anger at tailgaters than facts.
"Hey guys, maybe if we wish really hard, we can have no traffic because everyone follows at 3 seconds!!"
Shatophiliac@reddit
I don’t see a source cited, just you calling everyone “dumbass” and “dipshit” like a petulant child.
Hybrid072@reddit
Well it's there quite clearly, so those epithets seem pretty accurate.
Is it more childish to say insulting things while pretending to be civil, or to just come right out and call a person what they are?
You legit tried to wish me into a made-up-facts box because you made up an explanation for my information and it didn't hold water. If that does not describe 'dipshit' perfectly, no one ever will.
Shatophiliac@reddit
🥱 Still waiting on a source. You can squeal and cry and name call all you want but nobody is taking you seriously on this thread because you sound like a 16 year old who just got his drivers license and is pissed off at the world.
Hybrid072@reddit
Bro, if you're too stupid to find it, I'm sure af not helping.
SpecialTable9722@reddit
If I’m inching up on someone with my cruise set I’ll put on some speed to get around then let it settle down when I get by. And I’ll wind her up to do it if there’s a gigantic line coming on the left so I don’t have to wait 10 minutes to pass.
Mr_MegaAfroMan@reddit
I've gotten dinged on that twice now, and as such I don't risk it anymore.
Both times the police had to literally cut off the cars behind me who were matching my speed, just to pull me over.
So now, if I'm in cruise and I'm going faster than the right lane, I feel bad but I won't speed up just to appease the driver behind me. I'll get over as soon as an opening presents itself, but sometimes that takes a bit.
This is of course already going like 10 over. I'll push 10. Any faster and the ticket severity changes where I am.
Hybrid072@reddit
If that happened in California, those cops were flat wrong. The speed limit is the posted number OR the speed of the flow of traffic, whichever is faster, by law. That you were supposedly 'setting' that flow speed is immaterial, if the other cars were pacing you, you were in the right.
Now, alone on the road, same speed, light you up and good night.
Only place where that doesn't apply is in the 15 miles of the 101 north and south of King City, where the CHP station depends on the shriveling ghost town for existence and the local judges are known to be complicit in the municipal-funding-by-speed-trap budget plan. Anywhere civilized along the 1, 101 or 5 corridors, or any of the even numbered freeways and you'd have had a case to make.
Mr_MegaAfroMan@reddit
Not California. Midwest. Best as I can tell, speed limit is the limit, no legal exceptions. Although there is still vague laws about not impeding the flow of traffic, they don't seem to supercede the posted speed limits.
Hybrid072@reddit
Literally every single state has different laws. That's how the 10th amendment works, bud. In California, as I said, the speed limit is whatever speed multiple people are driving on the same piece of road OR the posted number, whichever is higher.
Mr_MegaAfroMan@reddit
Yes. I am aware every state has different laws.
I am not in California bud. As such your rant, and weird aggression here are irrelevant to my comment.
Not everyone in the US gives a shit about what the law in California is.
Shatophiliac@reddit
Dude probably drives like he comments. Aggressive af, mad at anyone who dares to get into his left hand lane. Ignore him.
SpecialTable9722@reddit
Well if the line is too fast I have to wait. It’s only a 1.4 after all. I and it don’t like when we have to go 85+ lol
BurnedLaser@reddit
Shiiiiii. My 1.4 LOVES hitting the triples! I bought a uniden R7 a while back and put a speed minder on it so when things open up I don't get felonious!
SpecialTable9722@reddit
Mine’s in an Encore lol
BurnedLaser@reddit
Lol, fair enough, mine is in a Fiat Spider :p
SpecialTable9722@reddit
You win, I’d fly in that too
Hybrid072@reddit
This is exactly the way. You wanna set the cruise control? Respect. But it's not a set of cement blocks for your pedals, you still need to navigate traffic.
Robie_John@reddit
Passing on the right is so dangerous.
Hybrid072@reddit
It's...actually not tho...?
Getting really shocked and indignant because someone used an available stretch of lane to drive the speed they're comfortable at is super control-freaky tho...that person would probably be really dangerous on the road. Especially since they'd be the type to blame any consequence on the perfectly legal other driver rather than take responsibility for shitting themselves when something they ought to have been prepared for happened.
Cuz definitely driving like no one is ever going to be approaching through your passenger side blind spot IS super dangerous on a road where that's perfectly legal.
Robie_John@reddit
It is so dangerous that some countries outlaw it.
Hybrid072@reddit
Correlation and causation friend.
Robie_John@reddit
Not your friend. You are clueless.
Hybrid072@reddit
I'm definitely not. But I really am heartbroken you don't wanna be friends! 💔😭
supern8ural@reddit
https://www.mit.edu/\~jfc/right.html
Also, not passing in the left lane is just rude even where it's not illegal.
Hybrid072@reddit
No, no, please, state with a hundred-factor fewer miles of roadway, and an even smaller fraction of banked, multi-lane and 5+ lane roads, do tell the state where the freeway was invented and more than 3/4 of the paved miles were built after the invention of the automobile what the rules 'should' be.
Might as well take traffic engineering advice from Portugal. s/
supern8ural@reddit
Just pointing out what the law actually says, since you can't be arsed to be factually correct.
Also if you're going to defer to the originators, keep right except to pass is also the law in Germany and Pennsylvania...
Hybrid072@reddit
Dumbass.
Slower than the normal speed of traffic. If you are going 'faster than most cars in the right lane,' do you have a duty to move right just because someone driving 85 mph in a 65 zone, or even 70 comes up behind you...?
The ACTUAL rule in California is, of course, in the rule booklet some of us actually read when we have business in the DMV. It clearly states that pass-on-the-left is NOT a rule, and that fastlanes are a recommendation.
Like, it goes out of its way to say it.
Dumbass.
Also, if you're going to go to the originators...what the FLYING FU@& are you talking about?!?
The first FREEWAY, anywhere in the universe, runs between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena.
Dumbass.
supern8ural@reddit
The first superhighways were the German Autobahn system and the Pennsylvania Turnpike. And they're both more pleasant to drive on than any highway in Maryland where KRETP is not the law nor common practice.
If you don't recognize the superiority of German driving practice both in lack of frustration and statistical safety, there's nothing to talk about.
Hybrid072@reddit
FREEWAY, dumbass. I'm a Penn State grade, I know what the Pennsylvania Turnpike is. It is, today, mostly a free flowing traffic regime, with no cross-traffic or intersections, but that was not even an imagined possibility when it was built.
supern8ural@reddit
You call me a dumbass when you're making an irrelevant distiction between an Interstate highway (which actually didn't exist before the Eisenhower administration, but for which the Turnpike and the Autobahnen were essentially the prototypes) and a freeway, and then you hold up CALIFORNIA as a model for pleasant, polite driving?
Pretty sure either PA or Germany are WAY more pleasant to drive in than your beloved "first freeway". Oh, and stop waving your dick - I got my engineering degree from a far better school than Penn State. People who pull that shit come across as insecure little boys.
Hybrid072@reddit
Good GODS you're stupid. A HIGHWAY HAS TRAFFIC ENTERING FROM PERPENDICULAR INTERSECTIONS, BEGINNING FROM A FULL STOP. It even has traffic entering from private driveways. A FREEWAY only has traffic merging or diverging from parallel lanes (entrance and exit ramps). The distinction only SEEMS irrelevant to you because you come from a place where the roads were all built for horse carts.
Guarantee you that the legendary freeways of California are far more pleasant to drive than the Turnpike.
supern8ural@reddit
You call me a dumbass when you assert that it's more pleasant to drive in notoriously congested California than a mostly rural Interstate highway or the German Autobahnen? And then assert that it's OK top not keep right except to pass? Neither one of those things are true in any way, shape, or form and in fact strict enforcement of and compliance with KRETP is exactly why Germany is pretty much the driving standard of the world despite the Autobahnen actually originally being narrower, having tighter curves allowed, etc. than what became the American Interstates. It's both the roads *and the drivers* that make driving more pleasant.
All you've done in this thread is made me convinced that a) you haven't a clue what the fuck you're talking about b) you're a shining example of the Dunning-Kruger effect and c) if I continue engaging with you, my brain cells are going to begin committing seppuku.
Good day, sir.
supern8ural@reddit
Also, just to show you how wrong you are
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsautobahn
"The specifications for the autobahns were based on those developed by HAFRABA. They were designed as four-lane limited-access highways, with a central median, road surfaces in each direction normally 24 m (79 ft) wide (widened on some major segments immediately before the war), surfaced in concrete. There were no shoulders. In addition to having no intersections, the route was to limit grades as much as possible, to no more than 8%, and curves were to fall within a range of 600 m (660 yd) and 1,800 m (2,000 yd) in radius.^([70]) One segment just south of Dessau of roughly 10 km in length was designed for speed record attempts (the Dessauer Rennstrecke) and had six lanes in each direction.^([71])"
so, other than not having shoulders, how is that different from your definition of "freeway"?
from https://www.paturnpike.com/about-us/turnpike-history/interactive-timeline click on the second picture ("The 1940s: Construction")
"In a span of 23 months 160-miles of pavement was poured to construct the original Turnpike. The roadway also consisted of:
200 feet of right-a-way
12 foot-wide concrete traffic lanes
10 feet of median strip
A total roadway width of 78 feet
A maximum grade of 3 percent and curvature of 6 degrees
Limited access with 1,200 foot long entrance and exit ramps
You cannot find cross streets, driveways, traffic signals or railroad crossings anywhere on the PA Turnpike."
Oddly that statement is not true anymore as it is somewhat notoriously duplexed with US 30 in Breezewood for a short stretch and there were at least two traffic lights the last time I drove that way (I usually prefer to take I-68 through Morgantown instead even though it's longer to get to Pittsburgh) but that's an anomaly.
So again, how is that different from your definition of "freeway"?
Don't bother replying.
TheTightEnd@reddit
That would indicate they are changing lanes incorrectly. A properly executed lane change should not require anyone to change speed.
Hybrid072@reddit
Sorry, thought you were replying to a different point.
Answer to yours is "No, even someone changing lanes in front of another person at faster speed and proper leading distance causes the average driver to reduce speed." That's not legal or theoretical, it's statistical. Three seconds slowing average, not probable. For the vacated lane, the speed increase does not fully offset, so while the slowing is not three seconds across the entire roadway, it causes net slowing. i.e., 'traffic'
Regardless whether you believe a statistic I read a decade ago (LA Times), the rules of the road are simple fact. Left lane faster is suggested practice, but not legally binding in California. The quoted statistic is at least one of the reasons why, though I understand if your brain rebels at the idea.
Doesn't change the law.
Hybrid072@reddit
Yeah, it would indicate that. How many times have you seen three cars make a left pass then a slower car from the right cut off the fourth car approaching at the same speed as the first three because they're impatient for 'their turn?' If you drive fast but still keep a halfway reasonable following distance (we exist!) the answer is "All the time!"
Secondhand-Drunk@reddit
I fucking wish cops would cite people going slow in the passing lane. Shit just irks me. Then there's the assholes that take 20 seconds to get up to 40. Like.. give it some gas! Goddamn.
GemGuy56@reddit
Those people who go 40 all the way down the entrance ramp until they get to the actual freeway. 🤬
Ralph_Nacho@reddit
Also annoying is when people slow down to 40 before the exit instead of on the exit.
Mammoth-Access-1181@reddit
Pisses me off even more when there's a semi doing 55 in right-most lane, but they have to slow down otherwise they'll hit the dumb fucktard thats creeping along to get on the freeway.
Secondhand-Drunk@reddit
Dude, covid roads ruled. It was so eerie seeing not even a dozen cars on my way to work when there's usually thousands.
Unusual-Thing-7149@reddit
My interstate was so empty I was often the only car on it. Hit 135 mph one day on a stretch I could see for miles
Dependent_Candy8728@reddit
South Dakota?
Unusual-Thing-7149@reddit
Kentucky
thatG_evanP@reddit
I used to work a weird 3rd shift where I would get off work around 5 am, interstate all the way home, and I'd rarely see another driver. One time an undercover cop car happened to come up the entrance ramp as I blew by. He pulled me over, jumped out of his car and made it to my car before I even had my window all the way down. I'm quoting him pretty much exactly here: ”Are you aware that you were doing one-hundred-and-fucking-nineteen miles an hour?!!! You are so god-damn lucky that I'm exhausted and on my way home or you'd be in cuffs right now!!!" Then he just stormed back to his car and blew right past me. I was indeed god-damn lucky that morning.
Skirra08@reddit
I got pulled over once in high school for 70 in a 30. Luckily a guy towing a boat was also doing 70 in that same 30 mph zone right behind me. The cop motioned for both of us to pull over and we did. Then when the cop got out and got to me the guy towing the boat decided he was good to go. The cop had just enough time to say "it's your lucky day" before running back to his patrol vehicle and chasing down the guy with the boat.
verminkween@reddit
what makes a guy with a boat hooked up think he’s going to outrun a patrol vehicle 😭
Skirra08@reddit
I'm guessing beer and lots of it lol.
Unusual-Thing-7149@reddit
That's awesome!
Not as good as your story but In the UK a cop once stopped me and said if I'd been a boy racer he'd have given me a ticket but he let me off with a warning!
thatG_evanP@reddit
What's a boy racer?
Unusual-Thing-7149@reddit
A kid driving a powerful car or generally acting like he's in a racing car
thatG_evanP@reddit
Got it. Just never heard the term before. I'm in the US.
Plus_Platform_2149@reddit
Didn't happen
thatG_evanP@reddit
I can promise you that it did. I'm in my fucking 40s and have zero reason to lie about something so trivial. But it really doesn't matter to me what you believe. I'm definitely not recommending anyone else do it!
Q7017@reddit
I drive semis for a living and a vast majority of us abhor California because it's one of the few states left with a split truck limit AND it's extremely low in comparison to the car speed.
Covid was awesome because a lot of us realized quick that the CHP and CalTrans were too terrified of us being carriers of the virus to risk pulling us over. I went by one sitting on the median while going 70 on I-5 and he didn't even budge from his spot.
mdramsey@reddit
Yep, I had regular drives up 99 into Sacramento that were awsome. Now everything is RTO and everyone forgot how to drive and I want them all to stay at home...
IcyAdvantage2530@reddit
True.. just see this driving video: https://youtu.be/b4jXnznXvvo?si=mxy0DPb5jmaTlzLY
iamnotyourhotdog@reddit
Wtf is your deal with this video and why are you posting it so much...will not click ever
nonsensecaddy@reddit
Is this your official make covid great again campaign? When are you running?
Secondhand-Drunk@reddit
Rn I guess. Vote Secondhand Drunk
Shatophiliac@reddit
I don’t really understand the “drive as fast as you can” mentality, personally. Anything above like 60mph absolutely tanks your MPG in most vehicles. In my car, going 90+ takes my MPG from about 38 to about 22 lol. Just not worth the hit imo.
The only way I’m going that fast is in a dire emergency.
mdramsey@reddit
Fine, drive to your MPG preferences and stay out of the left lane.
But if you go that slow in the open country of Wyoming and Montana, you're putting yourself at grave risk.
Shatophiliac@reddit
I’ve driven plenty through every state and most people drive like sane individuals. Especially rural, they tend to not always be in an extreme hurry. The worst speeders I’ve seen by far have been in cities during Covid when the highway was empty.
SomethingClever42068@reddit
I live in NYS.... Had to work all through COVID and would routinely pass cops sitting in the highway turnarounds while going 85-90 and didn't have a problem.
Got pulled over in late 2021-early 2022 for going 72 in a 55 and I was grumpy with the cop.... "That's only like 7 mph over the limit!!!!"
That's when I knew the good times were coming to an end.
Court was still all remote so the DA just sent out a letter saying "check this box if you want it reduced to failure to obey a traffic device and pay 150 bucks"
I really miss only passing 1 or 2 cars on my half hour commute.
Aendn@reddit
72 in a 55 is 17 over....
SomethingClever42068@reddit
COVID etiquette dictated every speed limit actually meant 10 over what was posted.
I realized it was 17 over after I thought about it, but I was just so accustomed to 45 means 55, 55 means 65, and 65 means 85 during lockdowns.
Early lockdown nobody knew just how bad it could be, so cops wouldn't pull you over unless you did something absurdly dumb directly in front of them and even then it was a 50/50 chance.
I also planned on hiding any masks I had and coughing a ton while they were walking on the off chance they were worried about it.
moto_everything@reddit
Man I miss those days. I made it everywhere so much faster. For like 3 years you could do 100+ on the highways in most of the US and it worked great. (Or 150+ on a bike) Speed limits are too low for modern cars.
SomethingClever42068@reddit
For what the cars are capable of yeah, but every year the drivers get noticeably worse and worse.
More electronic nannies to save the stupid people.
Way more phone usage than 5-10 years ago. Especially with the stupid vent phone mounts that have it right up near your line of sight. "I'm not holding it so I can't get a ticket" despite taking 5-10 seconds to realize the light turned green while scrolling.
The toasterfication of cars and crossovers. Everyone just wants a boring, reliable car that gets them back and forth from work....
They've become just another appliance people have to have. It's something people want to be good enough at to use, but don't care about being great at.
Also, do you know how much fucking money speeding tickets bring in? I'm honestly surprised the states aren't trying to lower them everywhere to leave us with less free time and less disposable income.
My state just started using the speed camera systems in construction zones and it's a joke.
150 bucks you have to send to a private company out of state. No points on your license, no increase in penalties, pretty sure it says it's not even counted as a moving violation.
It's just cheap enough that people won't fight the legality of it. Send this company some money or the state will void your registration on the car you need to use to get to work.
Rant over, thank you for coming to my ted talk.
Impossible_Tonight81@reddit
I'm really curious if they had a typo or legit did the math wrong.
SomethingClever42068@reddit
During that period I had gotten so accustomed to the very little traffic there was always doing at least 10 over and drawing no interest whatsoever from cops
Early on during the lockdowns I would pass cops doing 20 over (out in the country or on the highway, I always keep it at 35-37 max in 30 mph zones) and they just didn't care.
I was legitimately upset that he pulled me over for a measley 72 when six months before that you could cruise by at 80 and get a have.
After I thought about it for a second I realized it was indeed a good amount over but my first thought was "I was barely even speeding"
Morak73@reddit
Sounds like an attempt to Jedi Mind Trick the cop.
You'd be amazed how many people would have to pull out the calculator app
Awesome_hospital@reddit
Driving in Montana is still an experience
mdramsey@reddit
It really is. One time I was flying along and couldn't believe it when I missed an exit. It was 20 miles to the next one, and the center median was muddy with spring snow at the time...never made that mistake again...LOL
Mr_MegaAfroMan@reddit
I bet that exit sign was completely blank except for a number too. Montana is absolutely wild, can dozens of miles without even a gas station.
pdub091@reddit
I’m on the other side of the country, but as a rule you won’t get pulled for <15 over unless it’s a residential/school area or you’re otherwise driving recklessly.
the_lamou@reddit
One important caveat, though, is that relative to vehicle capability (that is, how fast a car can go while feeling safe,) speeds didn't increase by the same proportion as they were during the 55 limit days. People drove faster, but they didn't speed by the same percentage as they did on old 55 roads (again, accounting for cars just getting more capable and safer-feeling.)
The truth about speed limits is that people will always generally drive as fast as they feel comfortable driving. If a road is designed so that going 90+ feels totally fine (looking at you, Alligator Alley, Florida,) people will drive 90+. If a road is designed so that anytime over 70 feels sketchy or unsafe, they'll max out at 70. And we've known that road design is the most important way to control the flow of traffic for decades.
But instead of doing any of the simple things we could do to (shit, just periodically constricting the shoulder with some barriers close to the lanes will do it,) we're going to continue pretending like speeding is an individual failure instead of a systemic problem.
_Nocturnalis@reddit
Speeding isn't inherently bad, though. If I'm driving at a speed that is reasonable for conditions, what's the issue?
the_lamou@reddit
That's absolutely true, but individual drivers aren't terribly good at evaluating the safe speed for themselves. So you want to generally put some kind of limits in place.
edgmnt_net@reddit
The limits don't have much to do with the roads and conditions, though, not directly anyway. There are countries which routinely lower limits on certain roads simply in an attempt to lower accident stats. There may be something inherent about that road, there may be confounding factors, there really may be no meaningful relationship.
the_lamou@reddit
I agree, and I make this point here regularly. But at the same time, I think we can all agree that the typical dingus on the road shouldn't be driving 90, or frankly even 85, ever, anywhere. At least not the ones in the US.
enchiladanada@reddit
Speed limits in Maine get up to 75. Their 90 is our 80.
Z_Clipped@reddit
The obsession with numbers here is the problem, not the solution. 90+mph is a perfectly reasonable cruising speed for a lot of US interstates.
Cars and motorcycles that are "safe" at 60mph don't suddenly become unstable, impossible-to-control death machines at 90mph. If everyone on a wide, well-maintained interstate with good visibility is obeying lane discipline, it doesn't really matter what number you make the limit, or even if you have them at all. People will self-sort and drive within their limits to keep themselves safe.
The problem with Americans and driving is that most of them have never driven in any other places where the rules are significantly different, so they just assume that the systems in place are optimal, or the only way things can be done. Some major cities in Asia function perfectly adequately with zero traffic control devices (i.e. no stop signs, no traffic lights, etc.). German highways function just fine without speed limits in many areas (i.e., where educated engineers rather than idiot lawmakers decide where they're necessary).
the_lamou@reddit
"Function perfectly" is a weird way to say "massively high road fatality rates, and that's just the public numbers that they bother reporting on."
One highway, and increasingly fewer and fewer areas. The unrestricted section of the Autobahn has been shrinking steadily as the capabilities of modern cars exceed both the capabilities of the road and of drivers.
That last part doesn't get enough attention. The human brain was not built to maintain control at 60MPH, let alone 160. Frankly, the fact that we can generally function at highway speeds just shows how absolutely stupidly over-engineered most of our senses and mental abilities are. But the reality is that processing ability drops of massively at speed — your eyes can't focus on things coming past them at 90 MPH, and your brain can't really register it, either. As long as things move at relatively the same speed, it's not a major issue. But if you have people doing whatever, shit breaks down.
Z_Clipped@reddit
I lived for a year in a city of 150,000 in the central Philippines. There was exactly one traffic accident there in the year I was there. It involved a moped getting hit by a car on a college campus while crossing a street. Nobody was seriously hurt. I know it was the only accident, because it made the local paper. The article noted that it was the first accident in 3 years.
Meanwhile, the average travel speed through that city was about the same as an American city of similar size (Bridgeport CT, Charleston, SC, or Jackson, MS for example). Here's a pic of an intersection with no lights or stop signs functioning just fine (because, as opposed to US drivers, the people recognize that there are human beings in the other vehicles, and act accordingly.) Here's another example of typical traffic density. Here's another.
I drove my own vehicle (an old Willys jeep) there several times a week, and I rode in taxis every day. Trust me. It wasn't carnage. It worked fine.
That's misleading. It's 50% of their entire national highway network, with another 20% only having limits based on conditions. So that's between 4000 and 5600 miles of roadway with no permanent speed limit. That's enough highway to go from Philadelphia to San Francisco and back again.
I race cars and motorcycles, so I'm well aware that they can be controlled at speeds over 160mph. I've spent hundreds of hours trading paint at those speeds with one knee dragging on the road, so I don't really buy this claim that we just "can't process" highway driving.
I think people are capable of far more than we give them credit for. I also think the auto industry has been working for decades on technologies that remove people's need to focus on driving in the name of making vehicles "safer", instead of designing vehicles that encourage them to pay attention to what they're doing. The word "infotainment" alone makes me want to punch faces.
I own a 6-speed manual sports car. It takes a lot of attention to operate, so I'm always hyper aware of my surroundings. I take curves too fast, and I occasionally get sideways when there's nobody around and I feel it's safe to be stupid. I've never been in an accident.
My wife's EV practically drives itself. The thing will automatically follow traffic at a set distance, keep you in your lane, warn you of obstacles, and even panic brake for you in an emergency. It has a fucking HUD, for chistssakes. The only way I can stand to drive it is by turning all of those aids off, putting it in "sport" mode (to tighten the steering and throttle response) and defeating the traction control. Otherwise, it's mind-numbingly boring. I'm not at ALL surprised that people are spending more and more time on their phones behind the wheel. Driving is FAR too easy in the US. Our lanes are too wide. Our cars are too big and too easy to drive. And our culture is broken.
the_lamou@reddit
Is it, though? It's been decreasing for years, and lately there have been multiple attempts to end the unlimited policy entirely which were only defeated thanks to the German hard right claiming that it's part of their national heritage. Largely because they recognize that the large speed differentials cause many people who would be much safer on the highway to instead take more dangerous surface streets.
Hey, me, too! Unfortunately not so much anymore as I seem to have developed some kind of age-related motion sickness that I'm trying to deal with. And cars, not bikes — somehow I skipped bikes entirely. Actually, a number of people in this sub either race cars or have raced cars.
But as you yourself accurately point out, it takes hundreds of hours of practice to get to the point where you're not a menace on the track. You should know what a totally green group at an HPDE looks like: there's one or two that do pretty well due to natural talent, a couple that do ok, and then a bunch who will run you off the track if the instructor doesn't scream at them in time because they literally can't see anything but a small patch of road in front of them.
And those are people who care about driving enough to pay hundreds of dollars to participate in a controlled driving session on a track. The kind of situational awareness required to navigate safely at speed requires training — you yourself said you've been doing it for hundreds of hours. It's not something your body was built for, but you force it into shape.
When I was in high school, I participated in the high jump — I wasn't great at it, but I managed to clear my own height and then a little bit eventually. That's not something the average person can do, but with training and basically breaking and rebuilding your leg and core muscles plus every single instinct about how to jump, it's possible to get there. But you wouldn't want to base policy on the ability to clear 6' by jumping. Because it's not something people are designed for, and it's not something most people will ever be able to do.
Roadway accidents are the leading cause of death in the Philippines for people aged 15-29, and one of the leading causes of death for children. Traffic fatalities represent almost 2% of all deaths in the Philippines, and that figure is often criticized for being massively under-reported. In the US, by comparison, where we're almost universally acknowledged as being terrible drivers relative to other developed nations, that number is about 1%.
Look, I'm not entirely in disagreement with you. I speed. Sometimes by a lot. When I was younger I used to regularly drive long distances (800-1,200 miles at a time) for various reasons, and on plenty of those trips I would average 120+ on the highways once I was sure I was away from civilization. The closest I've ever come to accidentally dying, I was trying to hit vmax on an empty stretch of flat, straight highway in rural Mississippi in a sports car and clipped a joint in the road at give or take 170, leading to the longest half second of my life trying to maintain control. And once I caught my breath, I tried again, because it was completely empty and I could see for miles and the manual said I should be able to hit 190. I drive a manual shitbox from the 70's for fun daily for three seasons of the year, and the only reason it goes away in the winter is because the salt would cause it to disintegrate in mid-drive. I get it.
I also don't trust other drivers, and I don't think there's any way to fundamentally change American car/driving culture enough to make it feasible for us to exist happily in a 120MPH world. Because you are not the typical driver, and neither am I. And even if we were, it would still be a terrible idea because of the hilariously lax car safety regulations that allow someone with three misfiring cylinders, rusted-out CV joints, and an unsecured load to share a road with someone who runs through a quick vehicle inspection every time they go out for a drive. So while that's all true, I would rather we design our roads to encourage people in clapped-out fourth-hand Altimas with parts falling off to slow the fuck down.
moto_everything@reddit
Bingo. I have a bunch of cars. One of which is an old ass beater 2007 Prius with 270k miles on it. I got it for $900 and did some simple repairs, including a fresh set of struts. I regularly drive that thing at 90-110mph and it's stable, comfortable, and easy to drive. But I also look far ahead, I anticipate other drivers, I drive in a manner that suits the environment, etc. And I have a few mil of trouble free miles of driving to my abilities. Hell I've towed a loaded 25' gooseneck trailer cross country at over 100 for hundreds of miles behind a diesel dodge truck many times. Doesnt feel remotely dangerous. But I'm not doing that in a metro area with packed traffic either.
Ataru074@reddit
I mean, in most countries you don’t have a “recommended speed” sign before every corner. You know it’s X km/h or mph on certain roads and it’s up to you to know that you can’t take a hairpin at 60mph unless you want to test the flying capabilities of your car.
The biggest issue I have, at least in TX, is that a whole lot of people drive keeping the phone in front of their face and don’t pay any attention.
Z_Clipped@reddit
I fully agree.
moto_everything@reddit
That's a ridiculous take. Most of the US interstate system can be safely traveled at 100-130 by anyone in any average modern vehicle. You need to get out of the city lol
_Nocturnalis@reddit
They actually are pretty good at it. There is a way to set speed limits using 85% of drivers' speed on a road without speed limit signs. If 85% plus the percantage going 5 mph faster all decide for themselves what a safe speed is that's an awful lot of people doing it right.
I'm not arguing for no speed limits anywhere. Although I'd bet people would drive the same speeds they currently do if we did. Just set them at where most people drive and use them to catch the truly reckless people.
lellololes@reddit
This point proves that speeding happens because of road design.
The issue is that a lot of roads are designed to a "design speed" that is not safe due to interactions.
You'll have 6 lane "stroads" that are in busy business areas that are also used as the main way to travel through a region. The road design speed is 45mph, the people drive 50ish, which "feels" right, but there are parking lots every couple hundred feet where people are pulling in to and out of, which is a pretty bad thing to combine with 50mph traffic.
_Nocturnalis@reddit
Nothing I said proved anything you said.
What does designed to a "design speed" mean? Where exactly are the roads with too high of a speed limit?
So your complaint is with how often there are stop lights? How is that related to speed limits? What difference do you think 5 mph makes in the real world?
Abject_Concert7079@reddit
More fuel consumption, which means more emissions. Even if you have an EV it still might lead to more emissions, albeit less than a gas or diesel car.
_Nocturnalis@reddit
So your solution is more people driving for more time? To decrease emissions?
Abject_Concert7079@reddit
If people are driving the same distance, but slower, that means lower emissions. The reason 55 mph was chosen as the national speed limit was to reduce fuel consumption.
_Nocturnalis@reddit
With vastly different engines. Carb vs EFI vs DFI are all pretty radically different technologies. Fuel consumption isn't the same thing as emissions. And the double nickel was a stupid response to OPEC.
Many vehicles will have lower emissions at higher speeds. It all depends on how the vehicles are designed.
Abject_Concert7079@reddit
Many vehicles will have lower emissions at high speeds compared to other vehicles, sure. But I'm pretty sure that just about any vehicle will have lower emissions at 90 km/h than the same vehicle at 120 km/h. If you know of any specific counterexamples, I'd like to see the data.
International-Ad3447@reddit
Yep tickets should be different based on volume of traffic at the time
_Nocturnalis@reddit
I think that's reasonable. A 10 lane interstate where I haven't seen another car for over 10 miles is a pretty weird place to get pulled over going 6 over. That has happened to me.
I'd add weather conditions. Fog , rain, ice, and snow certainly change what is safe. Although the law is getting a bit complex, maybe use multipliers for conditions?
Although I'd prefer setting limits at what is actually the safe max speed and ticketing based on unsafe behaviors. Speeding reasonably is at like the bottom of the list of dangerous driving behaviors.
International-Ad3447@reddit
Yep and the major speeding charges like reckless driving or stunt driving speeds should be raised to higher speeds when conditions are right and traffic is low or empty
_Nocturnalis@reddit
Stunt driving is something that absolutely should be illegal, but the law needs to be fixed at least here. Every stunt driving ticket I know of personally is just bonkers stuff to punish teens. Drifting on streets or pulling wheelies is bad. Tires squealed because you are on an incline accelerating onto a highway from a stop is not that.
I'd much rather see a serial weaver in heavy traffic get a reckless driving charge than someone going 90 on the interstate. Or tailgaters. Or dangerously slow drivers for the conditions.
One thing that a major interstate does near me that I like is having electronic speed limit signs. They change based on conditions like letting you know a wreck is ahead and traffic is stopped. They are biased to slower than ideal but it's very helpful.
International-Ad3447@reddit
Yeah I guess it's different over there cause here they put going 40kmh over or 50kmh over as stunt driving as well
_Nocturnalis@reddit
That is stunt driving in many places as well. Stunt driving laws got passed or changed post fast and furious to a pretty vague nothing I would see in the movie laws.
moto_everything@reddit
It's always and will always be 100% an individual failure. There's a reason some people can do multiples of the speed limit without issue repeatedly for years, and yet others can make it out of a parking lot without hitting something. There's a reason the Autobahn works in Germany, and it's nothing special about the highway system itself. It's that individuals are held to a much higher standard and responsibility.
Either way, making roads more dangerous on purpose to slow people down is the most asinine take imaginable.
Aendn@reddit
vehicles are way more capable now than they were in the 55 limit days.
Academic-Airline9200@reddit
Was 55 at 2500 the most efficient? Cars now do about 80-85 at 2000-2500. They didn't have much of a solution so it was just slow down and drive an underpowered pouch.
Aendn@reddit
In cars, basically 45-ish MPH is most efficient, and 55 is a reasonable blend between efficiency and actually covering ground.
Modern cars do much better at higher speeds than old ones in terms of efficiency, but the laws of physics still haven't changed and wind resistance still goes up with the square of velocity.
Academic-Airline9200@reddit
I guess we'll go back to horses, put a canopy and some windshield wipers on it and don't forget the horseshoes! The fastest horses go about 45, and aerodynamics really start becoming a problem around there.
Horses will gas itself back up. It'll do its own obstacle avoidance even if it does throw me off in the ditch somewhere. But the parking brake is going to be a problem. No where to park my horse securely. Maybe the horse club, lock the horses steering wheel?
Let's drive around with a nice big V12! 6 liters sound good?
ShrewLlama@reddit
The most efficient speed for most cars is still around 45 - 55 mph.
It's more to do with wind resistance than engine rpms.
Academic-Airline9200@reddit
A smaller engine also has to wind up more than a bigger engine at the same speed, so a lower rpm in a higher gear can be achieved lowering the fatigue on the bigger engine. So a windy day would require more power which ends up taking up the difference in requiring more power and usually higher rpms as well in a lower gear. Other than weight, and rolling resistance, wind makes up another resistance. The engine has to overcome all forces in order to get moving. A train runs on steel wheels and a steel track lowering friction than the rubber and concrete counterpart, and the wind resistance is stretched out over several rail cars instead of a short disturbance of an automobile.
the_lamou@reddit
They are. Which is why I'm not suggesting we cap roads to 55, at least not all roads. The problem happens when local roads are designed basically as interstate highways despite not being actually safe at anywhere near interstate highways speeds.
The other problem is that people are not any more capable than they were back then. In general, the ability to perceive and react to things in a timely fashion hits a point of finished capability long before you get to 65.
the_almighty_walrus@reddit
The main highway loop around my city has a 50mph limit.
Doing anything less than 15 over is straight up dangerous because everyone around you, including big rigs, is going 75
takeandtossivxx@reddit
If you were able to switch lanes to the right, you were in the wrong lane to begin with, though.
JoeCensored@reddit
California doesn't reserve the left lane for passing. It's a normal lane.
takeandtossivxx@reddit
If you're impeding traffic/driving slower than the people behind you, you're still required to move over.
JoeCensored@reddit
You're making assumptions that aren't the case, and citing laws which don't exist in California.
monta1111@reddit
Livermore to modesto always see people getting pulled over.
JoeCensored@reddit
Yeah because people are always trying to fly by at 100 :p
GearheadGamer3D@reddit
This sounds a lot like you weren’t getting over. You must only move left to pass. Sounds like you only moved over when a cop made you, and that’s what his point was.
JoeCensored@reddit
In California the left lane is specifically not reserved for passing. It is a normal lane. I was moving faster than all other lanes, and going 10 over, which is why I was in the left lane. If a left lane is only for passing, there has to be a sign specifically saying so. That's only done in rural areas for short and temporary passing lanes.
moto_everything@reddit
The fact that you had to switch lanes to let someone pass means you're in the wrong. Idk what it is about fucking Californians and driving in the left lane aimlessly but it's ridiculous. Move over.
JoeCensored@reddit
I was going faster than all the other lanes, driving 10 over the limit, and California does not treat the left lane as a passing lane.
Zandroid2008@reddit
Interstate Highways are designed and banked for 80 in most open stretches in order to support quick logistics moves by the military (also why in a lot of places there are miles long stretches without bridges to be able to be used as an impromptu runway for Jet fighters, since you'd probably not be able to get a B-52 down anywhere on a highway).
grandpa_grandpa@reddit
there's something that feels comparable about raising speed limits meaning people just speed at a higher total rate, and the idea that one more lane will fix congestion on superhighways
josh_moworld@reddit
Can confirm CHP is so chill when you’re not a-hole. I go to some mountain roads where a lot of enthusiasts drive on weekend mornings. They don’t care if you do 10, 20, 30 over. But you do one single double yellow pass, you’re gone. That’s the right way.
They sit around and hangout at the top with all the other enthusiasts too. Cool guys.
69relative@reddit
Bro admits to camping the left lane
JoeCensored@reddit
In California the left lane isn't reserved for passing, and I was moving faster than any other lane.
Sackamanjaro@reddit
Modern cars feel infinitely safer driving at high speeds as well
murphsmodels@reddit
If you had been in a semi or pulling a trailer, he would have been all over you for going over 55 though.
Melvin0827@reddit
Get out of the fast lane then?
UtegRepublic@reddit
I don't know. I'm old enough to remember a time before the national 55 mph speed limit. Limits were 65 on regular highways, 70 on the freeways. Most people back then drove about 5-10 mph over the limit. People tend to drive at a speed that feels comfortable to them.
IcyAdvantage2530@reddit
True.. just see this driving video: https://youtu.be/b4jXnznXvvo?si=mxy0DPb5jmaTlzLY
GemGuy56@reddit
I remember Nevada having no posted speed limits on the interstates.
IcyAdvantage2530@reddit
True.. just see this driving video: https://youtu.be/b4jXnznXvvo?si=mxy0DPb5jmaTlzLY
fazelenin02@reddit
Switching lanes implies you are doing 75 in the left lane with the right lane open. That is really annoying, you should be over whenever you can be
JoeCensored@reddit
Like 5 lanes, I was in the fast lane which was wide open, lane to my right was packed. I squeezed into it to let the CHP pass, then switched back to get some space back.
Throwaway8789473@reddit
There is no "fast lane". Each lane is meant for passing traffic in the lane to the right of it. If there are five lanes and you're in the fourth most left lane, but there's no traffic in the third lane for you to pass, you're in the wrong lane.
JoeCensored@reddit
That's not how it works in California.
puzer11@reddit
He was irritated because u weren't staying to the right...ur lucky he didn't light u up...
JoeCensored@reddit
In California the left lane isn't a passing lane.
fort-e-too@reddit
I was told, in florida, by a fl state trooper that I shouldn't be in the left lane on the highway if I'm not going 80. I'm like the limit is 70...
He pulled me over for driving too slow, in packed traffic. Moving at the speed of traffic but also braking cuz the biker 2 spots a head was undecided on which lane he wanted to be in... what a mess but I'm the problem cuz I'm not going 80. Oookaaaayyy
bamarad0@reddit
Sounds like you shouldn't have been in the left lane.
JoeCensored@reddit
California doesn't reserve the left lane for passing. It's a normal lane.
bamarad0@reddit
That's awful. Adding that to the "reasons California sucks" list.
themcsame@reddit
It's a mix of both plus enforcement.
Road design influencing speed isn't an unknown thing. Many road planners make use of this with traffic calming. Groups of speed bumps being the most glaringly obvious one because generally people aren't going to blast it up to 10 over the limit if they're going to have to slow back down to 15 for the bump
Social opinion dictates what is socially acceptable. People will be less likely to speed in a school zone for instance as it's not as socially acceptable.
Enforcement should be self explanatory. If limits are enforced, people will have a lower personal threashold. If it's generally understood that enforcement works on a set tolerance, that tolerance tends to be most people's limit.
mischief_ej1@reddit
Were you in the left lane and not passing ?
JoeCensored@reddit
California doesn't reserve the left lane for passing unless marked specifically, which is only done in rural areas.
embarrasing_right@reddit
Sounds like you were camping out in the left lane. That some should have gotten you a ticket.
JoeCensored@reddit
California doesn't do passing lanes on freeways. They are all regular lanes unless marked otherwise.
Medical-Effective-30@reddit
Quit camping in the passing lanes. People should always be able to pass you, without waiting for you to switch lanes.
JoeCensored@reddit
I'm going 10 over, not exactly camping, geez.
JoeCensored@reddit
I'm going 10 over, not exactly camping, geez.
WorkingDogAddict1@reddit
CA has the most lenient traffic laws. You can legally be going 99mph if you're with the flow of traffic
nimbleseaurchin@reddit
Beyond that, the interstate system was designed with a 100mph speed limit in mind, at least once you get outside of major urban areas. Many American cars of the 60's were also designed with a 100mph speed limit in mind, as well.
PlainNotToasted@reddit
If more people followed the example of that last sentence highways would be just that little bit better.
HeavensToBetsyy@reddit
I can't drive...fifty fiiiiive
bogrollin@reddit
Yeah those speed limited were designed for cars made in the 50s
teajay530@reddit
no, the cop was irritated that you were blocking the fast lane. you should move over for anybody going faster than you
FredOfMBOX@reddit
This. If PP could move over to let the officer pass, then they were in the wrong lane.
Stage_Party@reddit
Yup, my wife is American and when she was living there and I'd visit she's gunning down the interstate at 100 like it's normal.
It is normal. She still got tailgated.
Steeze_Schralper6968@reddit
I can relate to that feeling of "oh shit a cop" "oh wait I'm not going that fast" "oh shit I'm actually speeding" "oh shit I'm in the left lane in my pos and I'm not speeding enough, and he probably just wants me to move over"
Any-Arm-7017@reddit
This just happened to me on my way home, i was doing 70 in the left lane (posted limit is 55) and moved out of the way so he could pass me lmao
opaqueism@reddit
I was on i-95 down in sfl once when I spotted a marked unit from a city about 15-20 mins from where we were. He was going fasttt. I wanted to see what speed he was doing because I’m a nosey ass (and kinda hate how they pull over/fine/arrest people for doing exactly what they do themselves). So I gas it and get up to 112mph, which is where I see I’m starting to pass him. I reach 115mph and pass. I’m staring dead at him, like we locked eyes for a few seconds type shit while recording my speedometer doing 115 and panning over to him on my phone (not in a Karen ass way, my young and dumb self thought it was kinda cool and funny, for some stupid reason lmaoo).
He doesn’t do shit. I keep going anywhere between 105-120mph, somewhat weaving through cars but not at such close proximity where I’d be a dick (other than my choice of speed). He stays behind me, only passing in the right when he needed to pass someone going slower than him in the left, because you know, no one knows how to get the fuck over when they’re cruising in the left and someone, let alone a police officer, is trying to get by you (emergency or not) but I’m sure it’s because they have tunnel vision and have 0 clue what’s going on around them except for the vehicle or anything that’s within 30 feet from the hood of their car.
iBUYbrokenSUBARUS@reddit
“ roads that are not highways”
What exactly do you mean by this? Residential highways have four lanes and look just like interstates but yet they have residential driveways, traffic, lights, businesses, intersections and many other dangers that limited access interstates do not have. I agree that going faster than the speed limit on the interstate has very little impact on accidents, but this behavior carries over to residential highways (that look like in interstates) and can be extremely deadly. I live right off of Route 29 in Virginia, which stretches through many states and it is always packed full of people going 70 to 80 mph when the speed limit is 55 to 60, depending on where you’re at.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
We are on the same page. Stroads are bad.
iBUYbrokenSUBARUS@reddit
That’s not the type of road I’m talking about. I’m talking about four lane divided highways that run through rural areas. It looks like you’re on an interstate, but there are hidden driveways and homes (sometimes far and a few between and sometimes a great many of them). Road like these I’ll often camp in the left lane doing exactly the speed limit because it literally does save lives because there may be a blind hill with a driveway and a person is going to kill somebody as fast as they are going. There is never an excuse to do more than the speed limit on these roads. I’ll see people on here defending going way over the speed limit and staying out of the left lane on interstates. However, those same people will never bring up the fact that this behavior is going on on these residential highways as well. Most of them are not bright enough to tell the difference between a four-lane highway and an interstate because they are glued to their phones while they are driving.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I think you bring up a bigger issue of when towns zone residential on these dangerous high speed roads. It's again the issue of defining what a road is and what a street is. Why are we allowing homes next to where traffic is high speed? I could kind of understand when they run through farmlands, but many times these roads you're mentioning are going through really low density suburbs. Be careful out there when you're camping in the left lane, I've done the same thing and drivers can get aggressive.
iBUYbrokenSUBARUS@reddit
Because these highways have been there for over 200 years. Seminole Trail (Rt. 29)was named after the Indians who used it centuries ago. It used to just be a little dirt single lane road in the early 1900s and a lot of the houses that are there are still from back then. However, as population grew the road got widened and it’s either continue using it or build an interstate by taking tons of peoples property. It’s not like they had this big busy highway and suddenly they started building houses there.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Right I understand, it seems like a complicated problem. But the danger started when roadway engineers decided to turn those dirt paths into 2 lane highways. Versus creating a separate highway, which the DOT would have absolutely no problem with. But it’s even sadder that they continue this trend of keeping these highways near homes while spending billions on expanding and widening everywhere else.
iBUYbrokenSUBARUS@reddit
Very true
surms41@reddit
I think it's more of a culteral-societal issue that the roads are so deadly. Half of the people I drive by have a phone in their hand or doing their makeup driving 60+Mph while flying past traffic and cutting into the line of traffic at the last moment.
Covid let too many people have a licenses that didn't even take a test as well.
Harlow_1017@reddit
It was too easy to get a license before Covid. America doesn’t make it hard to get a DL at all because it needs people to go to work. So ensuring the safety of its people is not even on the priority list as we’ve seen.
surms41@reddit
I mean I had to do a computer test and a driving instructor ride along to get mine. COVID there was only a computer test.
Altruistic_Nerve_627@reddit
You do realize that the Autobahn in Germany that there is no speed limit?
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Highways are exceptions.
zacmobile@reddit
Yep, I live on a too wide street that is a school zone. They put in one of those digital speed signs but it only slows down about half of the drivers. Every morning I see people doing double the speed limit with little kids walking around. I've been on the police and city's case for 5 years but they haven't done anything. When I brought up the fact that lane width largely dictates travelling speed they were just like "Hmm, that's an interesting theory" Nobody cares until someone dies.
Okadona@reddit
They won’t do anything until a child dies. Unfortunately that is a fact because only then will enough people be outraged for something to be done.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Even after someone dies nothing changes, drivers are always blamed, and road designers are never questioned. Even if the same crashes are happening at the same exact locations.
themcsame@reddit
As always, it's a bit of column A and a bit of B.
Road design plays into it, but ultimately it is the driver who's in control of the vehicle.
And of course, some people are just fucking loonies. Went up to Scotland with a few lads from work. We get to a village just off a stretch of NSL that's part of the NC500, I and the one behind slowed down. Knob neck up in front? Ploughs on into a school zone, in the morning, on a weekday, doing at least 50 and enraged a local to the point that they jumped out into the road to get him to slow down.
Fully agree that designers should design roads to the limits to account for the idiots amongst us. But at the same time, we call them idiots for a reason.
KrustenStewart@reddit
Yeah in my town a lot of kids have died by getting hit by cars and their solution was to add crosswalks. Cars still don’t stop at the crosswalks
nonsensecaddy@reddit
this is why autopilot and fixed speed zones in vehicles is going to be superior. The ETA will always be accurate bc algorithms can keep accurate space between vehicles. No more backups or need for traffic lights or people thinking they’re able to save 10 minutes because they were late leaving l, by speeding up
H0SS_AGAINST@reddit
My kids go to school in a township surrounded by 55mph country roads. We're talking corn and soy as far as the eyes can see. I'll go 60-70 on an empty road and 55-60 when there is oncoming or when passing the sparse residences with a small setback. Inside the township is 25, because of pedestrians including children. People will cruise control 54 through the corn fields and turn off cruise as they blast past the blinking speed sign coasting down with sidewalks and almost 0 setback homes on both sides.
I can only assume they are the same people that go 30 in a straight line on ice pack and cause a train. Probably the same people that say things like "I've been driving in the snow for XX years and I never needed no snow tires".
J0b_1812@reddit
I'm in favor of speed bumps at stop signs and lights so people stop flying past them
ElectricTomatoMan@reddit
It's deadly that the roads are safer? That's nonsensical.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
It’s not that complicated. Road designers applied highway forgiving design principles to local roads and didn’t realize that there are many more conflict points. It’s also made it super easy to speed, which means crashes are more severe.
ElectricTomatoMan@reddit
That's an opinion, I guess.
Full-Respect-8261@reddit
I disagree, I think people speed because they can't plan their time wisely and don't care about anyone but themselves.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I know it can seem that way, and yes there are many that speed intentionally, but if you've ever driven on a road where everyone is going over the speed limit, then it's happening inadvertently through forgiving design.
AMSolar@reddit
"American roads are so deadly" - laughs in the USSR
Also have friends who laugh in Burmese, in Vietnam and in Indian LOL
It's like one of the safest roads in the world with infuriatingly overly polite drivers (the horror)
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I refuse to accept that 115 people dying every single day is considered "safe".
AMSolar@reddit
U.S. Share of Global Road Deaths: 3%
U.S. Share of Global Population: 4.2%
India's Share of Global Road Deaths: 22%.
India's Share of World Population: 17.9%.
Further - An individual in Russia is 1.45 times more likely to die in a road traffic accident compared to someone in the United States.
Now if you say "roads are unsafe" I'm right there with you. But my beef is primarily with the framing of the US as particularly unsafe which is not true.
For every country that has roads slightly safer than the US there are several that have things far worse.
Us immigrants often don't like certain things in the US but what almost all universally agree on is just how much safer and easier it is to drive in the US vs our home countries.
A baby can drive here. It absolutely can't in our home countries.
And a special role goes towards road design which is very forgiving. It's significantly easier to do, very obviously so.
There's a joke about it - a 3 year experience of driving in US equals 1 year of driving in Russia or two weeks in the Philippines.
Because your decision making skills, your reaction is being tested every single minute there. Where in the US you just set cruise control and you're good.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I appreciate you talking numbers, and I get it, there are countries that are far more dangerous. But many of those countries you mentioned before are developing and they don't fund their infrastructure as well as we do here. I think it's better to compare developed nations, and yes Russia seems to be way worse.
punkinhead76@reddit
If roads are forgiving and traffic is light, why not speed? (reasonably) We have places to be and people to see, the least amount of time traveling is always ideal. Nothing grinds my gears more than a person driving UNDER the speed limit and being impassible.
I think things are different overseas due to their much more historic construction, and the fact that other countries are often SO small compared to the US....imagine if we had to travel everywhere going no more than 55mph? It already takes 24 hours of driving to drive from illinois to arizona, going an average of 75mph.... the US is HUGE and higher speeds are necessary, especially on interstates/state highways.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I'm not against going fast on highways. Forgiving design works reasonably well for that application. My issue, and why I had to clarify in the post, is that the same forgiving design principles are applied to local roads. That's how you get 40,000 dead people every year in this country. For context, more people are killed by cars than guns. And of course many of these deaths are pedestrians, bicyclists, children.
I'm not telling you not to speed, because traffic enforcement/education is already doing that. What's telling you to speed is the engineering part.
punkinhead76@reddit
I think when it comes to local roads with heavy foot traffic and bicycle use people will usually be on their good driving behavior, but no not always, and there’s always distractions adding to this too. A kid stepping into the road when they shouldn’t and a person glancing at their radio or phone (even going slow) is a recipe for an accident. Of course you can’t prepare for everything and even going slow, not everyone’s reaction time is good enough to avoid (avoidable) accidents. Cyclists also blow off rules of the road often as well, and cause accidents themselves. It’s just a little bit of everything, really.
I think speed kills drivers/other drivers more than it kills pedestrians. A pedestrian can be killed when hit at such low speeds.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
You're correct you can't prepare for everything, but I think engineers should be doing way more to slow down cars where there are multiple conflict points. And they should also protect the most vulnerable road users. People on bikes should not be sharing the road with drivers going faster than 30mph. At those speeds you need physical separation.
With regard to distractions, yes it's way too easy to pick up a phone. That goes to show that driving is so easy you can multitask while doing it. And most of this ease comes from forgiving design principals.
punkinhead76@reddit
What’s a less forgiving roadway to you? Im imaging how European roads are often very very tight, made of older imperfect materials, and that’s really the only differences I can think of. Of course in those circumstances, it’s quite difficult to speed as you’re worried about hitting something by barely leaving your lane.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
European roads can be very narrow, which is good for slowing down cars naturally. Those surfaces you mentioned also help to slow drivers down. Since I'm in the US, we have some gigantic roadways that are basically highways with sometimes 10 lanes for cars. The only way to slow these down is by repurposing lanes for say buses/bikes.
UKBlue91@reddit
I was in the UK driving on the left side of the road a couple months ago. Good luck trying to speed on those roads at all without ending up in a ditch. I'm not sure if it was intentional but there is very few places other than the interstate to get past the speed limit.
eron6000ad@reddit
Kind of the same method of conditioning drivers to ignore "construction zone" reduced speed limits. I have driven through so many with absolutely no work going on for weeks or months that I no longer give a thought to slowing down unless there is equipment moving about.
ChunkThundersteel@reddit
In my state the construction signs all say "...when workers are present" It might be that the limit is only enforced in that case
kyuubixchidori@reddit
Here in Michigan it’s typically 2 speeds posted, 60 mph then 45 mph when workers present.
QuinceDaPence@reddit
They used to say that here but I havent seen one like that in a while. So I'm not sure if they'd setup a speed trap when there's nobody there, all for 14 miles of cones in the ditch.
Sarah-Who-Is-Large@reddit
Yeeees, what is up with this? I recently moved to St Louis but drive about 3 hours out once a month to visit the office I work from home for
Normal speed limit is 70 on the interstate. It’s lowered to 55 for a huge 20-30 mile stretch and I’ve only seen like one bulldozer - not moving. You will get passed by semi trucks in the no passing zones if you’re going slower than 65z
mdramsey@reddit
Speed doesn't kill. It's the sudden deceleration that's the problem.
To your point, yes, the interstate system is by and large designed to a higher-speed and that's why some state patrols enforce based on an 85th percentile rule. If the speed limit is 70, but traffic is flowing smoothly and with little congestion at 75, many state troopers will pick out the outliers doing 80+. Obviously this is totally arbitrary. I have LEO friends that will turn such tedious duty into a game - "I'll only pull over red cars going over the speed limit" type nonsense.
Part of the reason for this is because when it was built, the interstate system was designed with national defense in mind, not "forgiving" per se. About every five miles, there is a minimum one mile stretch of interstate that is straight to accommodate aircraft.
On a per-capital basis, the US isn't even in the top 100 deadliest in terms of traffic deaths.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
To clarify, I meant that forgiving design is deadly on roads other than highways. If you look at traffic deaths, the vast majority of them happen on arterials/collectors. Also, I think per capita, the US ranks pretty badly compared to developed countries.
mdramsey@reddit
We also have far more cars on the road and way more driving miles than every other country except China, so stats are skewed to that factor. To that point, China's vehicle fatality rate dwarfs that of the US.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
For further context, traffic deaths are also counted relative to miles traveled.
Raptor_197@reddit
I don’t know if they can really account for the fact some Americans drive farther to work everyday than it takes to drive across some countries.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I think that's why you can have statistics that compare miles traveled with crashes/fatalities. For example, something super interesting is that during the pandemic, Americans drove less, yet traffic fatalities increased.
Raptor_197@reddit
So you at just looking at crashes per mile while ignoring the factors that come from those miles. Being tired, being stressed, being detached from what you are doing. While also ignoring the time spans for crashes. A mileage that might take weeks to reach in another country is a day trip in the U.S.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
You're right that driving for longer periods of time probably introduces more factors that contribute to crashes, but isn't this more reason to focus on how often people are dying on roads?
Raptor_197@reddit
Yup, and you should use good data
WordWord_Numberz@reddit
Can you provide any examples of this good data?
Raptor_197@reddit
Your going to want to look for data that tries to mitigate outside variables as much as possible.
zacmobile@reddit
That's why they don't have multilane roads in the Netherlands. It does nothing to increase traffic flow, it just encourages speeding and reckless driving.
bennyyyboyyyyyyyy@reddit
The entire Netherlands barely has 2x the population of the single city i live in. Im sure nothing would cause traffic there lmfao
2358B@reddit
They also extensively use bikes for getting around. Things are different when you're not auto-dependent.
bennyyyboyyyyyyyy@reddit
Yeah I’ve been there, pretty country.
We have about forty cities with a larger metro population than their biggest city spread out over a country about 240x bigger by area. With people and goods/services constantly traveling all over the country.
just so incomparable especially from a travel standpoint its laughable.
longtimerlance@reddit
That won't work when a single area has 100K+ cars try to pass through per day.
bennyyyboyyyyyyyy@reddit
Dude they always try to apply some logic to massive cities from a place with no population. Its peak reddit brainrot
longtimerlance@reddit
By miles driven, the UK is 6x more deadly.
FreshSlide4494@reddit
Speed definitely kills. Nobody has died from a low speed collision....
WordWord_Numberz@reddit
It's not even close to as common as deaths in high speed collisions, but there's roughly 25 deaths a year in the US from low speed collisions
Driving slowly still presents real damger
flyingsinger@reddit
Fun fact: that bit about the straight stretches is not actually true - but I will admit I only learned this recently:
https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/mayjune-2000/one-mile-five-debunking-myth
mdramsey@reddit
First, wow. I have been told this since the 1970s. Second, what a God awful write-up of an article. Third, the premise is still accurate as air national guard units will plan periodic exercises leveraging interstates.
But still wow...a cold war fable died today for me... 🤣
longtimerlance@reddit
I've only heard (and seen) them use Interstates for travel.
Normal_Tree_2247@reddit
the US isn't even in the top 100 deadliest in terms of traffic deaths because most people have cars and they drive everywhere, even if it's less than a mile away.
. . . cars are much better at protecting the people inside the vehicle during collisions than they used to be, but they are getting bigger every year, and drivers are more distracted than ever
Skeptix_907@reddit
Excessive speed is a factor in 1/3 of fatal crashes in the US.
Speed does kill
deezgiorno@reddit
This dude… “Speed doesnt kill. It’s the sudden deceleration as you crash into a tree that kills.” No shit dude
Desperate_Bowler3120@reddit
It’s a paraphrased Jeremy Clarkson quote.
livetheleague@reddit
I speed sometimes because of the configuration of the traffic lights. The lights in my area are designed so that you are guarateed to hit them if you do the speed limit. If you go slightly faster than the limit as in 5 to 10 miles over and you hit it right, I can miss about 5 lights that hit if I were doing the speed limit.
I started doing this while I was working at a retail store. I got off around 9:30 and some night not until 11 and I would come off the highway only to hit every single traffic light home. All I wanted to do was go home and to bed, but no, I had to sit at every single traffic light and I always hit them as they turned red. It was so frustrating.
I don't work there anymore, may that store burn with the manager inside.
dmbdvds@reddit
It was my impression speed limits were put into place to reduce gas consumption
fitfulbrain@reddit
Amusing. What's the alternative? Should we design roads to force drivers to drive not too high above the limit or else?
Congestion is the main problem, and it directly affects the economy. If the traffic is bad, no one will go to your shop. I don't believe you can slow the traffic to the speed limit without further slowing the traffic during congestion.
There will always be criminals and drunk drivers. Do you want them dead if they drive over the limit? There are ambulances and fire engines too.
The only road design I can think of that I support is roundabouts. A rogue driver can't take the chance and just run over the intersection at high speed. But of course, it's only applicable to very limited spots.
Do you deliberately add bends to the freeway? When the rare bend occurs, when everybody is going over 80 mph while the slower ones are at over 70, many start going off the lane markers. Is a non-forgiving design a dead wish? On the other hand, I believe (with support) that American freeways are designed to be safe at over 120 mph. You can safely stay in the middle of the carpool lane all the way.
The answer I believe is technology that we already have. The speed camera is one form of it. Since everybody has a phone and radar detectors are affordable, you will get a warning and slow down.
Switching to electronic road signs is a daunting task but Europe is committed. In the meantime, turn on Waze and set it to give you a beep when you are over 10 mph. You don't need to use it for navigation and the limits are rather updated with a network of volunteers.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Actually yes, and we're already doing it... Have you ever heard of traffic calming? It's done all over the world, the US is just really far behind.
So I'm assuming you mean that in car-dependent areas no one will go to a business if there's too much traffic. I assure you that this is not the case, look at any city with gridlock traffic, I'm sure you'll find some businesses.
I'm confused by this. Through my post I'm saying 2 things, people speed naturally because of road design, and this is the root cause for deadly crashes. I don't want anyone dead, quite the opposite. If road designs were changed to move cars more slowly, less people would die. Speed with many conflict points=bad. About ambulances and fire trucks, I assume you think that they would be stuck in slower moving traffic, well 2 ideas would help this, and many cities are doing this already, bus/bike/emergency only lanes. And ironically, if you slow down vehicle speeds through infrastructure, you'll get less crashes and therefore less need for ambulances and fire trucks. Most calls in US are vehicle related!
Roundabouts good
Forgiving design works very well on freeways because there aren't a lot of conflict points. My post is about local roads where this design enables speeding and distracted driving, hence 40k dead people every year in the US.
Check out this video on speed limits and how traffic calming helps to reduce crashes/deaths:https://youtu.be/JRbnBc-97Ps?si=1CcnWI57by6jU0-u
fitfulbrain@reddit
"American roads are designed for much higher speed than the posted limit."
I looked up traffic calming before my last post. May I ask again what's the alternative. Everything on the list are not practical in America.
In CA we may still have the law that for every five years we have to do a survey and set the limit to the speed where most people drive.
The video mention pedestrian in the first 10 seconds making it irrelevant to the discussion.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
But pedestrians are very relevant to the discussions because they are the most vulnerable out on the roads. They make up a decent amount of road deaths, over 17%, that's 6,800 people, every year. Traffic calming is super effective at slowing down speeds, and many times it can be done for very low costs. The US isn't special, cities here are applying these designs right now. An excellent calming measure is repurposing car lanes for bike/bus lanes. The presence of pedestrians and bicyclists on the road (protected by barriers of course) naturally slows down drivers. It's called optical narrowing. I agree that it's tough on larger roadways like arterials and many collectors, but it can work again through lane repurposing and narrowing.
fitfulbrain@reddit
I'm not arguing but I'm scratching my head how "American roads are designed to be higher than the speed limit." I'm interested where it comes from and the exact words.
You example of optical narrowing is actually narrowing the road and in any case it's the same road and you can still drive at the same speed. Some people may drive slower but as the name goes it's an illusion.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I've read that forgiving design comes from the earlier days of the national highways system, when engineers wanted to focus on moving cars quickly. They came up with concepts that take human error into account - wide lanes, shoulders, clear zones, gradual curves. It worked amazingly on highways, but the same principles were applied to local roads, and this is where we come full circle. The forgivingness of the designs encourage higher speeds, on these local roads as if they were highways. Pair that with many conflict points and you get stroads.
Here's a super quick video of a a traffic engineer explaining it.
Here's a super interesting video on stroads
And here is a quick example of physical traffic calming, other examples might include the well known speed bump, roundabouts, delineators, curb extensions, continuous pedestrian crossings, etc.
fitfulbrain@reddit
I see this as urban design critics naming things to suit their narrative.
It's mostly history. Cities and roads evolve. European urban centers are developed way before cars and are narrow, struggling to find space to build new thoroughfares. Hong Kong has barely a 100-year history starting from a fishing village. Roads are developed for public transport needs - narrow. Then they build vertically and over the sea when things get very crowded and real estate very expensive.
In America, they build the road first with blocks around it. Hopefully people like to use the road to get somewhere and hopefully they can see some business when they pass by and hopefully they stop. And hopefully that attracts more business.
It's rare to be able to plan everything on a big scale and failure is common - Brasilia, Levasa, Masdar City, PlanIT Valley.
fitfulbrain@reddit
Thanks. Exactly what I want to read.
Electric-Sheepskin@reddit
I don't know about that. The last time I was in the Dallas Fort Worth area, there was SO much construction. Single lanes with concrete barriers on either side, winding, shifting back-and-forth, etc. People were still driving 90 mph. It blew my mind.
CumInMuhBoot@reddit
American roads are deadly because of idiot drivers that have no idea of actual road rules. Every single accident I have witnessed on the hwy usually always starts with some dip shit slowing down miles of traffic in the left lane because they feel entitled and don't want to move over, and then that usually causes a cascade of terrible decisions by several impatient drivers ultimately leading to a collision. Or you just have the insane people who do 90 mph while the rest of traffic is at 70 weaving in and out of traffic
nmmOliviaR@reddit
Actually they are aware of the rules. They just don’t care and their mentality is “if there’s a cop imma pretend to follow the rules before going back to being supasonic”.
Intrepid-Love3829@reddit
I will say i have actually seen a lot of dangerous infrastructure. Especially in accident prone areas obviously there are stupid drivers too
PlasticInflation602@reddit
And somehow the idiots weaving are never the ones who get in the crashes or get pulled over. So they just continue to get away with it.
Reddittoxin@reddit
Yeah I do night shifts and at my old job I'd get let out at 2am. There was this long, straight shot I took to go home that I would zone out on bc it was completely empty at 2am and the lights all stayed green.
If I wasn't careful, I'd glance down and see that I was doing 10-15 over without even realizing it, didn't feel out of control or anything. Everything just felt normal. If I saw any headlights I'd instinctively slow down without even thinking about it.
Cops loved to hide out in black unmarked cars with their lights off on that road though so I started putting my cruise control on. I think the roads are designed with money in mind more than safety. Whatever they can do to get the most ticket or tax revenue.
Same reason why they issue permits to build 10,000 homes and 50 story high rise apartments right up against a little 2 lane road. Bc hey, surely that 2 lane road will accommodate all that new traffic. We won't have to spend money to widen the road or nothing. We just want the money from the builders first, figure out the traffic later (or never).
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I'm glad you understand how forgiving design works! It's super easy to speed without realizing it on most roads. About it being more about money, I think it's more that cities aren't even realizing that their road designers/engineers are what's killing people. For so many decades we've been blaming drivers for not following laws, when they are literally incentivizing us to speed through their designs. In my mind, the engineers are to blame.
And building homes... well that's another story. The US is short millions of homes. It doesn't help that most of our cities are car-dependent so many of them have "minimum off street parking requirements" that force developers to build huge parking lots. And yes many times it's up against a roadway that will see increased traffic. But the root cause is car-dependency and zoning. It should not be the norm that we drive for every little thing. I don't want to get in my car and drive because I forgot to buy eggs at the grocery store. But we've basically bulldozed our cities that used to be walkable to build highways, parking lots, and strip malls. Not to mention the suburbs, which is most the this country now.
ChunkThundersteel@reddit
The most annoying version of this is when the city adds little plastic posts on the road to make it feel smaller and encourage people to slow down. If the road was safe enough for us to go faster then why not just raise the limit?
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Mostly because Americans are killing themselves and others. In the US about 115 people die every day on their way some where. It's insane to think about - today, October 17, 115 people will die going to get groceries or on their way to work. Those plastic poles might be annoying, but crashing your car at a slower speed could save someone's life.
InternetExploder87@reddit
The issue is really people hanging out in the left lanes doing 10 below. Look at the autobahn, no speed limit, you can legally do 200, but people stay out of the left lane and let faster cars pass. The issue in the US is people like to be dicks and move over to block people. I've seen 3 crashes this year happen from just that
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I get what you're saying, but only about 13% of crashes in the US happen on highways. 87% of crashes happen on arterials, collectors, and residential roads. The biggest contributor is usually the "stroad". Apparently here we forgot to differentiate between streets and roads, hence so many crashes.
alwyn@reddit
BS. Roads will narrow, lower speed limits will be posted AND people ignore it.
Also I'm an immigrant and has driven all over the world. It's not your roads that are 'special'.
nmmOliviaR@reddit
I have a personal road that narrows which people not only blatantly ignore, but for some reason do the REVERSE of the speed limits posted.
They come in to this road when it has a speed limit of 45, and they do about 35, rather slow and everyone's all bunched up and annoyed. But, and this is the part that gets me, they get to the part where the limit gets reduced to 35, and all of a sudden they decide to go 45 and above.
I often drive on that road every day since the other ones have annoying traffic lights so clearly these people are annoyed by them too but they do this reverse uno thing with how the limits are and it boggles my mind.
Intrepid-Love3829@reddit
Like its one thing to always go below the speed limit. Which is dangerous and pisses me off. But when they are inconstant like that?? Idek whats going on in someones mind. It makes no sense.
spinnyride@reddit
I’ve seen this on roads outside of cities and towns, limit will be 55 and I’ll be stuck behind someone doing 45. Speed limit drops to 35 or 30 entering town and they continue going 45 or I’ve even seen someone speed up to 50 after the limit dropped by 20 mph. Makes no sense
No-Eagle-8@reddit
I saw this today actually. Someone pulled out infront of me on a country road so I had to lower my cruise control to 45. They had us going that speed all the way to town, where they suddenly pulled away from me and continued to pull further as the speed limit signs said to go slower. And since I use cruise control I knew for sure my speed was relatively consistent until I decreased to 35 and then 25.
But that formerly slow car? Way long gone ahead of me. What in the world.
ProtectionUnusual@reddit
For someone who has driven all over the world it’s crazy you didn’t notice something so glaringly obvious
666-3629@reddit
true, I love driving fast on narrow roads, it’s a lot of fun. Anyone can drive on a wide open road, the accelerator does all the work.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Well I imagine that forgiving design is something that many road designers worldwide use, I just have the most context here in the states. Part of forgiving design is not just lane width, it also includes the way turns are designed to be sweeping, and limiting visual and physical barriers and interruptions.
RadishAcceptable5505@reddit
Yup, Murkia has a "Whatever! I do what I want!" mindset that's baked into the culture and it's absolutely stupid.
"But... doing that can get you killed. It's not safe."
"Whatever! I do what I want!"
NASAfan89@reddit
The government should just put hidden speed cameras all over the place. The reason people speed is because there is not enough enforcement of traffic laws, and even when cops actually pull speeders over... too many cops are lenient and give warnings instead of tickets. As a result, drivers think tickets are unlikely and worth the risk of speeding to get places a little faster.
Privacy is a legit concern people have, but we can address that with strong oversight, transparency, and laws that require data from speeding cameras is only used to ticket speeders and is not shared with anyone... only looked at by machines that automatically give out tickets based on the license plate detected by the camera..
Therapeutic_Darkness@reddit
Yum yum yum, I love the taste of boot polish in the morning
NASAfan89@reddit
Lol wanting people to drive the speed limit so we have safer roads makes me a bootlicker?
If you don't like my suggestion, maybe stop speeding? A lot of times people's own bad behavior creates the incentive for other people to vote in bad governments.
Wolf0933@reddit
People usually speed because they're idiots and they have convinced themselves that getting to their destination 1 or 2 minutes early is worth putting their lives and other's lives at risk.
Individuals can be smart, but people as a group are fucking stupid as shit.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Yeah I agree that group mentality can be dangerous, but this is more reason for engineers/designers to take more responsibility. If we know that people are going to make dumb mistakes, why enable easy driving through wide lanes, and sweeping turns with minimal visual/physical barriers.
Wolf0933@reddit
Oh yes, definitely. Engineers have a responsibility to the public to design safe infrastructure, but people have a responsibility to their fellow human beings to be respectful for themselves and others. People should have to take the computer road test every 4 to 6 years after receiving their licenses. I bet 70% of the population would fail, and that would be wonderful. Take away more licenses.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
If only something like that could get passed, many people would lose their licenses. I think government has just made it too damn easy to drive to where normal people on their way to work/school are dying because it's easy to pick up a phone while going 50mph+. You would think that they would enact some kind of "let's stop killing each other" law that changes engineering standards to force slower speeds, and more attention.
robomassacre@reddit
Agreed about the phones, i feel like either the auto manufacturers, or the phone manufacturers should possibly make it so the phone is inoperable while the car is moving or something like that?
FatDabRigHit@reddit
Essentially removing blue tooth, maps, and emergency phone calls for people in their car. If people can go around an accident they will probably just call 911 and go on with their day. People won't be happy that their blue tooth all of a sudden doesn't work and they have to listen to the shitty radio. I definitely won't be happy trying to find my way around with out maps which is on my phone because I drive a 2011. I don't think speeding is the root of the issue, it's unpredictable drivers that merge without looking, break check, DUI, and text removing their awareness around them. In combination when people speed it makes it worse no doubt about that.
robomassacre@reddit
I understand all of that but people did go without all of that forever and still were able to get from A to B. Or maybe just disable texting but keep other features? The sad part is that even though people know the risks and know it's illegal, the only way they will stop is to just make it unavailable.
FatDabRigHit@reddit
I don't think going retroactive is the approach. I think tighter restrictions on licenses would be better and increased punishments for for texting and driving and I don't mean financial. Take their license from them for intermittent periods of time. First offence, a ticket, second 1 month suspension, and third 3 months to make people understand that it's unacceptable to be on your phone while driving and not just when they kill someone. Increase importance of being aware of your surroundings while driving. Personally, I don't speed if others are around me but that's just a personal anecdote that doesn't ring true for a lot of others.
robomassacre@reddit
To be honest, i'm up for trying anything that works.
Aendn@reddit
Acting like going the speed limit vs going slightly over is not risky vs super risky is a ridiculous view.
Acting like going 70 in a 55 for a few hours will only save you 1-2 minutes is also a ridiculous view.
Naikrobak@reddit
You’re right. The speed limits are set way too low.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Ironically, yes. Speed limits should be the same as design speed. But design speed in the US (and probably many other countries) is way too high and the root cause of why there are so many crashes/deaths.
Naikrobak@reddit
So you’re saying we should make roads less safe in order to improve safety? Laughable….
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Could you explain how reducing speeds through slower design speeds is laughable?
Naikrobak@reddit
Lowering design criteria will inherently create additional risk. It’s a really crappy way to reduce speeds.
Let’s try this, give me an example of what you would do on in interstate in terms of design to reduce maximum designed speed?
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I would do nothing because forgiving design works well in the interstate highway system. The local roads where forgiving design elements were implemented is what has caused so many crashes. They applied wide lanes, buffers, shoulders, clear zones with pedestrians, bicyclists, entrances to commercial and residential. It's actually really interesting how deadly it became. There's even a term for these types of things: Stroads.
Gallop67@reddit
Not where I live…. At least not unless they were recently re-done. So many bumps, cracks, and uneven surfaces that going about 85-90 feels like a death wish
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Wow, sounds like your terrible road conditions are acting as traffic calming measures.
Gallop67@reddit
Yup, definitely wasn’t the case back in Phoenix. Man those roads were a blast to drive on
PandaMime_421@reddit
It makes sense, though, to design roads for worst case need, such as emergency vehicles, even if not intended to be used that way by every day traffic. I'd much rather a road be designed to handle much higher speeds so emergency vehicles can safely traverse them more quickly when necessary than hold emergency vehicles back by design intended to force slow-down.
It isn't the road design that's at fault, it's drivers who ignore posted speed limits.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I agree that drivers are ignoring speed limits, but doesn't it feel a little crappy that road designers/engineers can put all the blame on drivers instead of designing something to account for human error? Reminds me of this meme. About emergency vehicles, those people are not trained to drive in the same way we are, they will go into oncoming traffic if they have to. Ironically a huge number of emergency calls are due to vehicle collisions, ones that could have been avoided if design speeds were slower. So by designing roadways for high speeds we are literally causing more crashes.
PandaMime_421@reddit
I totally get what you're saying. But at the same time, it would be pretty frustrating and tiring to have to cater your design to people who misuse your product (or in this case roads) rather than to people who use it as intended.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Oh yeah I get what you mean, imagine if people actually followed laws?? But in the case of roads, prioritizing speed over safety has cost tens of thousands of lives. It's clear that we can't continue trusting people to not kill themselves and others. In my county here in Florida 5 people die every single week, many of them of course were not even in cars, and many were children.
Kathw13@reddit
I live in a suburb next to a large city. We maintain our roads better than the large city. It does enhance our revenue when drivers are caught speeding.
ExpensiveEmergency92@reddit
No I speed because I enjoy it. Idc about getting to my destination faster because that usually saves 1 or 2 minutes. But I only speed at night omw to work because the roads are empty.
Aggravating_Kale8248@reddit
Seems like speed limits in the US are artificially slow to take advantage of ticketing drivers for speeding. Plenty of wide straight rural roads with 25 mph as the speed limit near me.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
It does seem disingenuous, but it's probably more "putting responsibility on drivers" But obviously when you do that you get the US's 40,000 road deaths every year.
DudeThatAbides@reddit
We got shit to do. If I can save a few minutes by speeding, I absolutely will. But the roads gotta be generally low/no traffic.
spicer_olive@reddit
Ahh so this is why I feel comfortable driving at speeds that just happen to be above the speed limit.
krismitka@reddit
US speed limits are dynamically set by Spotify.
JackHarvey_05@reddit
wrong
krismitka@reddit
Found the classical music listener
JackHarvey_05@reddit
correct
sungor@reddit
While this is usually true, it's not always the case. Where I live part of route 20 has lanes the right width for 45mph. the speed limit is 45mph. It's one of the most deadly parts of 20. why? Because people regularly go 60+ on it. Even though it's designed properly for the speed limit. The problem is that it is the "main route" for people commuting to and from the large city. The freeway just ends and dumps all the traffic onto this part of 20 and people want to continue driving at freeway speeds.
anevenmorerandomass@reddit
I don’t know about that, but I’m usually in a big rig and the roads sure aren’t made for that. Maybe it’s a compromise.
AddLightness1@reddit
We could un-pave all of the roads. It is much more difficult to go fast on dirt. The economy might break down, though, and school buses could have issues.
Maybe go back to horses and wagons?
Actually, we could just go back to having 50 horsepower engines in all of our cars. The fuel economy would be great.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I prefer the dutch solution of getting most trips done by bike. Lose weight while you commute.
AddLightness1@reddit
I rode my bike to work during the summer. I have a pretty physical job and it was sometimes difficult to make it home. My route is 9 miles each way, but it's generally downhill to work and uphill to home. Started using an ebike for the assist back home and that was a lot better.
Right now, though, it's already in the low 40's when I go to work. In two weeks time it will be in the 30's and we will start to have freezing rain. 6-8 weeks and we will have snow and ice everywhere. Not great bike weather, I've tried it.
Every once in while I make a trip to the nearby city with family for shopping or visiting a restaurant. That's 50 miles. Haven't convinced anyone to ride a bike with me for that trip. I've done it before, but it was about 23 years ago and it certainly made for a long day.
_Nocturnalis@reddit
Are you saying you rode a century to go shopping and to a restaurant?
AddLightness1@reddit
Bravo! How did you discover the name of my bike??
_Nocturnalis@reddit
Well, Century is a common road biker term for riding 100 miles in a day. That isn't really my thing, but I know people who ride on the road(crazy people).
I prefer riding on dirt and up and down mountains personally. Well mountain like things near me.
AddLightness1@reddit
Ah, I've learned a new thing. Thanks.
When I rode that trip, many years ago, it was more a matter of survival. I was unemployed, living in a car, and the alternator went out. There was a day labor place in the city that paid cash for odd jobs. It was a rough January, but I persevered.
I like going up and down mountains, too, seeking out unique views that you can't just drive a car up to. I have a preference for water features, be it waterfalls or lakes. I've hiked the trails and pushed the ebike up a small mountain, but I also enjoy taking a dual sport motorcycle like my KLR 650 on such adventures. Any one of them is a workout with a great reward, sometimes with a nice campfire at the end
_Nocturnalis@reddit
In JANUARY? That had to be rough. I mean Damn. I am sorry.
I'm with you on wandering to find beautiful places. I can't really explain why water makes things so beautiful, but it does. Getting a motorcycle would get me in a bit of trouble, but I often think of having one. How is the ebike? I'm seriously thinking about getting one.
Campfires are the best end to a day. Sitting around a fire with friends is a special time. There is a purity to it bonus points if you have a pup with you.
AddLightness1@reddit
The ebike was surprisingly capable...as long as you stand up. It's a cheaper one from Amazon, about $799, and it doesn't have much suspension or ruggedness. I was kinda seeing if it would break when I took it camping. Folding extra long frame and fat tires, it ended up being pleasant and climbed that hill in pedal-assist mode pretty well.
The off road bikes that I have ridden are slow by bike standard and generally go a max of 65 mph. You should give one a shot.
KJWeb8@reddit
I ride my bike every day, weather permitting, to work. I usually ride when it's above 30°, 30 round trip. I'm 62 years old, been doing this for 10 years with no noticable difference in my weight or health. Maybe because my bike is a Goldwing.
AddLightness1@reddit
Very nice. I have an old Bridgestone bicycle, an ebike, a KLR 650, and a Concours. I've always loved bikes
LocalDFWRando@reddit
That only works if the weather is decent. You can't in hot climates like most of TX/AZ.
zakku_88@reddit
I'd love if more places here in the US (smaller/more rural areas) had more reliable public transportation. I live in an area where if you don't have your own vehicle to drive, you're pretty much SOL. I know there are a ton of factors that make reliable public transportation a logistical nightmare for certain areas, but one can dream lol!
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
You described an area that could be 90% of the US. Public transit here is an afterthought and not well funded. Plus car dependency has bulldozed many of our big cities in favor of highways and parking lots.
Gallileo1322@reddit
More places in the us have 55mph not for safety but for efficiency. Most cars get there best gas mileage around 55-60.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I agree, but in cities this is deadly. Engineers obviously want to move traffic faster, but this means that safety is compromised.
FreshSlide4494@reddit
Speeders speed because they want to. They think that only their NPC time and life is worth it and everyone else is irrelevant. There's literally no other reason to speed. And yes, I understand what emergencies are. Most people speeding everyday for their whole lives are not attending to emergencies.
HorseWithNoUsername1@reddit
Yup. Go out west and the interstates are 70, 75 and even 80 MPH. In the 80 MPH zones, I still drive 79-80 as I would back home where most interstates are limited to 65.
The 55 MPH speed limit was driven primarily by the oil crisis of the 1970's. Not safety (although that was the 2nd reason to justify the first) or road design. These days cars are ridiculously safer than they were in the 1970's, as are highways.
Yeah - you can still get killed driving 100 MPH into a tree even with a car that has a 5 star crash rating - but those types of accidents are exceedingly rare... and in cars with crash avoidance systems and lane departure management - it's getting harder to play kamikaze with the more advanced recent model year cars.
Sensitive-Cherry-398@reddit
My thoughts is it's just a case of over engineering. I've never considered it for roads but it's pretty usual throughout any manufacturing process.
mopeyy@reddit
My city has started putting a new kind of "speed bump" in residential areas.
It's literally just 3 skinny plastic pylons that force traffic through the gap between the pylons.
Works better than anything I've seen for safely slowing people down.
Temporary-District96@reddit
i explained to my ex comparing it to the fineprint or disclaimers of manufacturers and large corporations. they will give a disclaimer that the product is used explicitly under certain restrictive conditions and thus anything past that is user liability and they can wash their hands of 'product defect' or warranty claims.
also, i explained the speed limit is posted for the lowest common denominator OR the largest vehicle to use the road...which are mostly 18 wheelers. so for example, an interchange exit posted for 50kmh is so 18 wheelers do not exceed that and risk tipping over. conversely, a commuter car can easily go almost double that without skidding.
Medical-Effective-30@reddit
/u/JoeCensored
You are camping. If you're not passing, GTFO the passing lanes. Passing lanes are for executing a pass. That's it. You could be going 100 over. Speed over posted maximum is irrelevant. You are still a left lane camper.
Glassfern@reddit
Nevermind how many cities are dropping limits down to 25mph when the roads were previously 45mph and no design changes have been made except the roll away speed cameras and flashers.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Yeah that’s not great, road design speed should match the posted. I think they’re trying to put more responsibility on drivers, but it’s a backwards way to do it.
purplishfluffyclouds@reddit
All it serves is for people to get more tickets. More tickets - more money to the city.
Proper traffic calming measures are expensive. No one gets it, that that's the only real way to slow down traffic, and everyone drives a car and doesn't want it. So we're left with "let's just post a bunch of signs on this stroad and expect people to slow down." It doesn't work that way.
They design roads the same way they design freeways and expect people not to drive like they're on the freeway. It's stupid.
rrognlie@reddit
We lived in Germany for 3 years. I miss the autobahn. It was so much fun! (unless you encountered a Stau [a traffic jam])
envoy_ace@reddit
How about the 55 mph speed limit was due to an oil embargo as a means of reducing consumption.
Melvin0827@reddit
The roads aren't "deadly".
Speed limits are artificially reduced due to the gas shortage in the '70's.
They never changed it back (in most states) to allow for advances in fuel efficiency and safety.
IcyAdvantage2530@reddit
True.. just see this driving video: https://youtu.be/b4jXnznXvvo?si=mxy0DPb5jmaTlzLY
1cilldude@reddit
It’s bad driving that makes US roads deadly, not speeding. Autobahn with unlimited speed limits doesn’t have the carnage we do. Because they stay to the right, except to pass.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
The autobahn isn't a great excuse because it's a highway. Most crashes in the US happen on local roads with design speeds that are higher than posted speeds.
1cilldude@reddit
Have you ever been on it? Much of it is 2 lanes in either direction through the country.
Conscious-Bet2933@reddit
No. People are fucking shit drivers. Yoy don't go past a speed yoy can't stop In an emergency. People will be going 20 over on roads and act like you're the problem then run over a fucking child than ran in the road. This is such a fucking stupid argument. People tailgate. People speed through neighborhoods while fucking seeing people walking on the side of the road. People have honked at me because I refuse to run over pedestrians in the sidewalk. They got the finger from me and the pedestrian walking and the idiot still kept honking. Wished the cunt had gotten out of his car so we could have beat the fuck out of him honestly. Then he swerved around and nearly fucking hit someone anyways. Cops didn't give a shit in that city.(dc)
Ok_Fisherman8727@reddit
The limitation back then was the technology of the car itself. Cars in the 90s would rattle when you hit 60 mph and shake like crazy beyond that. Cars now you can go double that and feel like you're moving slow on the highway.
13Vex@reddit
What the f are you talking about. Maybe in like, 1940 cars did that… but the 90s?
LocalDFWRando@reddit
Yea this is ridiculous. I had a '93 Camry V6 and it was smooth as butter.
RadishAcceptable5505@reddit
Unfortunately, neither the reduction in response time, nor the increase in impact force, has decreased since the 90s. Physics is still doing its thing.
ClickKlockTickTock@reddit
Except we're better at reducing impact force gradually instead of instantly, and there are a lot of new-ish cars that do indeed help response time with automatic braking, or just straight up driver assists that monitor your surroundings.
justkozlow@reddit
And every vehicle now is a moving giant computer with a turbo charged engine. So not only can these idiots not drive in general, they are constantly distracted and have too much power under foot.
DishRelative5853@reddit
How old were you in the 90s?
ClickKlockTickTock@reddit
Probably a jeep from the sounds of it lol
They're still making death boxes that feel like you're going 2x the speed limit at 65.
Zerolinar@reddit
Oh god, this is a rabbit hole.
The first thing that always springs to mind is how we design city roads very... well, racially. Go to Beverly Hills and you'll find angled roads, gentle curves, a subdivisions that reduce or slow traffic. Then go to Watts-Compton and every residential street is a long, uninterrupted shortcut. I was training a paratransit crew for the city and we blew right through a practically invisible stop sign on a 40 mph street lined with houses. It was insane.
It's no wonder we set up traffic cameras with a for-profit company and then shut them off immediately because if you want to make money, you thus have to set up speed traps in predominantly black neighborhoods (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-automated-speed-cameras-disproportionately-affect-black-and-brown-drivers)
Second, it's fun when you find out how we develop speed limits using, among other things, the 85th percentile rule. (https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/7/24/understanding-the-85th-percentile-speed)
Key point is up top: "The assumption underlying the 85th percentile speed is that most drivers will operate their vehicle at speeds they perceive to be safe. Speed limits set above or below the 85th percentile speed will create unsafe conditions due to speed differential as some driver adhere strictly to the law while others drive the naturally-induced speed."
It's another case of stupidly tailoring the culture around behavior rather than attempting to engender a safer culture around driving in the first place.
Impossible-Wear5482@reddit
I don't think that's true at all.
People usually speed because they're idiots.
oldoinyolengai@reddit
I frequently end up behind someone going the actual speed limit on a 2-way, 2-lane country road. This is because of where I live, and the fact other people exist besides me (just imagine). Beautiful scenery, speeding doesn't save anyone any time. We get there when we get there. I'm okay with this, but want to know who is never okay with this? The person behind me. Never. So now I'm being tailgated and there's nothing I can do about it. Yay.
ClickKlockTickTock@reddit
Lol speeding has turned a 20 minute drive into an 8 minute drive for me before.
It 110% saves time. Ive cut off almost an hour off an 8 hour road trip by speeding.
mathbud@reddit
To turn a 20 minute drive into an 8 minute drive you would have to go more than twice as fast. Are you really saying you more than doubled the speed limit?
Are you insane?
oldoinyolengai@reddit
That's awesome. But I don't think it would be possible here? Nowhere to pass. Windy roads, lots of hills.
user08182019@reddit
I know it sounds stupid but I got a “Please do not tailgate” bumper sticker and it actually does significantly reduce the number of people who do that.
zacmobile@reddit
Same, where I live I'll often get behind someone going 10 under but I couldn't care less, I just keep a 5 second space and enjoy the ride. It really doesn't make a significant difference to travel time when you're only going 30 minutes away.
morallycorruptgirl@reddit
That makes sense. There is a route of back roads I take every once in awhile where there is a big wide 55mph road with banked curves, & I drive ~70 through that road. Then it turns on to a much skinnier, less forgiving curvier road that is more residential so I drive 50 in a 45.
H0SS_AGAINST@reddit
They literally monitor traffic speeds then set the limit so that a certain percentage are breaking the (civil) law.
Scummy and unnecessary. Speed limits should only be implemented where necessary so that they will be adhered to. Modern cars with modern tires have better braking and handling characteristics than ever before. They also have lower NVH and more power. If speed is reckless enforce it as such. Going 65-70 on an empty 2 lane road with nothing but space around you is not a crime against society thus should not be a civil infraction.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I kind of agree that we shouldn't set speed limits. If you design a road/street for 25mph, it should feel ok to go 25mph. Drivers shouldn't have to be constantly worried about breaking the law.
BuzzyShizzle@reddit
No I would wager a lot has to do with all the upgrades in vehicles.
Going 70 in older cars really feels like you are pushing the machine to the limits.
Most cars had one overdrive gear. Now most cars have 8+ gears actually (also CVT's).
I "accidentally" hit 112 while passing in one of my cars and not a single passenger even noticed. Because it's a silky smooth ride with effortless power. Had I done that in another older car passengers would have been freaking out for sure. The aerodynamics alone let you know you are going too fast.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Yeah that probably doesn't help at all.
EveningPresence@reddit
People speed because of arrogance. They thing they are good drivers and can handle it. Same for texting and driving.
ClickKlockTickTock@reddit
The speed limit is not what the average person can handle, it is what politicians deemed as the right limit. There is no engineer at role there. Being a good driver has nothing to do with it
Adamburkeattorney@reddit
Understanding that many American roads are designed for higher speeds highlights the dangers of speeding, especially on non-highway roads. Be mindful and drive safely!
GEEK-IP@reddit
The speed limits are also made to be safe for most vehicles. So, if max safe speed for a large pickup is 60, it's set at 60, even though a Miata could safely navigate that stretch of road faster.
Smooth-Apartment-856@reddit
Large pickup? More like safe for an 18-wheeler. The speed limits for most of those long, curving interchanges between freeways are set ridiculously low for this reason. A Miata would feel like it’s plodding along at speeds that would cause a semi truck to roll over.
silverfang789@reddit
I tend to drive faster on wide roads and more slowly on narrow ones. 🚗
koosley@reddit
I drive whatever speed I feel safe driving. Around me the highway goes from 75 to 60 to 55 within a span of a feel miles for no reason. When it's 75, most people keep to 75-80, when it's 55, people are going 55 to 80 which I'd argue is even more unsafe due to massive speed difference in the flow.
My inner city neighborhood road with cars on both sides and the tree cover canopy with enough room for less than 2 cars, I'm going 20. Your highway like blvds in the burbs with 35 mph speed limits, more people go 50
Malashock@reddit
Insurance companies pay insane amounts of money to lobby to keep speed limits artificially low on this country. You mean another thing where profits come before logic and common sense? America baby! Land of the free corporation.
jabber1990@reddit
No people speed because they have poor Self-discipline and think rules don't apply to them
Girl_Gamer_BathWater@reddit
Total lurker here and don't drive. America has "traffic engineers." We don't fix traffic by discouraging or even offering another option. To fix traffic we allow the car to move fast and freely so less backup like making a water pipe bigger. What we need and are getting are urban planners.
As much as I hate cars and the system in place to enable them, this community at least is willing to improve or at least take pride in driving. To most there's just no other options. So thank you /r/driving, I appreciate you.
Infinite-Fig4959@reddit
It’s pretty easy to keep tabs on the number on the dash and the numbers on the signs in my experience.
Festering-Boyle@reddit
honestly i usually speed because of Rage Against the Machine
misterphuzz@reddit
I'll considering how much traffic there is on American roads, and how relatively few deaths/serious injuries there are, I wouldn't consider American roads "deadly." Zillions of cars all over the place, and only a few bad things happen. Not exactly deserving of the "deadly" title.
HunterBravo1@reddit
If speed alone was what makes roads deadly, people would complain about Germany, not the US.
UT_Miles@reddit
Does this shit really need to be debated to death on a weekly basis.
Low key, flow of traffic, go with it. This shit is pretty simple. If you don’t want to go with the flow of traffic, you know 90% of the people around you, which I’m not sure why you wouldn’t but okay, then get to the right lane.
I see more people going slower than everyone else than I do people who are trying to “weave” through traffic. That’s typically I’m driving 6-7 am and 4-5, so a little before peak rush hour but there’s still not a whole lot of room to maneuver. But people in the left lane will get a train going 5 MPH over most of the time.
But honestly, it’s really not that difficult. Is the person in front of you, and the ones in front of them going 80, well there you go. If you’re nervous/scared, okay sure (although why are you in the left lane that’s not adding up for me personally) you can literally get in 2 to 3 other lanes to the right that are going 3-5 mph slower. This isn’t rocket science.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I wanted to bring up a deeper reason as to why drivers speed in general, and why we have so many road deaths in the US. It's not really a debate, road designers made it easy to go past the speed limit, people go past the speed limit.
Not-Insane-Yet@reddit
No, it's greedy cities lowering speed limits for no other reason than to increase revenue from fines. If the road is designed for 55mph then lowering the limit to 35mph is bullshit.
saxmanB737@reddit
Stroads*
Imaginary_You2814@reddit
I also find it’s the way stop lights are programmed. If you go the limit, you catch every red. If you go 10-15 over, you get through them
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
That sounds... correct... if you fly down a road a 15 mph higher than the limit you're bound to catch more greens... and maybe a felony.
International-Ad3447@reddit
Yep designed for higher speeds for older cars
LucidThot@reddit
People entering the highway at 35 makes the roads deadly.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Sorry, I meant on non-highway roads.
LucidThot@reddit
Yeah, couple reasons non highway at least what I've encountered.
US still allows all old cars to be on the road so we have reduced speed limits to "try" to accommodate for them. Some states don't even need inspections.
The US is HUGE so where there arent highways, there are very long windy roads through hills and again you have to travel a long distance, there are more strict speed limits for trucks on some of the single lane roads and passing sections.
If you're not in the city alot of wildlife causes bad accidents. Wel have alot of large animals here. Alot of roads don't have bike lanes as well so you'll have a cyclist on a 55mph single lane road.
Bad city design causes congestion. Alot of these cities have been just built on smaller streets and expanded very rapidly after many permanent structures were built. So there's not very much you can do to add lanes or roads to help congestion.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
Whoa, you think the US speed limits on normal roads are reduced? I've seen the opposite, 45mph seems to be the average limit in my area, but road designs are for 50mph+ This is in suburban/urban areas with low to medium density.
LucidThot@reddit
Yeah, MANY rural roads will have 2 speed limit signs usually 55mph and 45mph for trucks.
As for more suburban areas the "speeding kills" narrative at least around me gave the counties and districts more pull on local speed limits, I've seen at least 60 roads the past 4 years near me get reduced by 5-10mph usually 45s to 40s 40s to 35s and lower.
There's also extra laws about speed limits that have schools on it. Not school zones but the road itself. This combined with rural towns and suburban areas being close you can get a 55/45 that turns into a 35/25 over a bridge to a 25 school zone to a 45 to a 55 back to a 25 in the span of like a mile.
Also it really depends on the contractors who build the road and the cities/counties that maintain them. So sometimes you'll get really crappy pothole roads forever with constant roadwork. And other times you'll get like airplane tarmac.
RadishAcceptable5505@reddit
Apologies ahead of time, friend. Just FYI, "a lot" means many where "alot" isn't a word, and "allot" means to divide something up into portions.
You're absolutely spot on, though this little thing made my brain pause and dump the information as I was trying to figure out what you were saying each time "alot" came up and I had to reread each part that had it to figure it out via context.
TheDutchTexan@reddit
No. American roads are so deadly because of the lack of proper driver education. Speed is no problem without proper drivers ed. Source? Germany.
-Wobblier@reddit (OP)
I agree, we really need an overhaul of the American driver education system. Though Germany has lower fatalities/crashes because they implement more traffic calming measures. Combine that with good education and of course things will be safer. Interestingly Germany comes in at around number 7.
dcgregoryaphone@reddit
The limit has to account for large tractor trailers transporting a full load and tiny hatchbacks. How would it even be possible to have the speed not be fairly low for many cars?
rangeo@reddit
Hey r/Mississauga I immediately thought of The Central Parkway exit off the 403 Eastbound
nmmOliviaR@reddit
In the cities where I live, it's more than just road design, it's traffic light timing.
The city's workers have taken steps to TRY (emphasis there) to improve the designs and the traffic flow, and in doing so change some traffic patterns. One of the reasons was to combat speeders but it ended up doing the exact opposite of intended. I have seen in the past two years drivers become more aggressive, and I can think that they are speeding not cause they actually wanted to, but because they want to not hit red light after red light. They bob and weave past the rest of us normal drivers to "beat the light". And when it gets blatant, you guessed it, there's a runner. Every time, even on the most regulated intersections. They don't even care if a camera flashes them anymore.
(of course the way the lights are done in our city annoys the hell out of EVERYONE)
do_you_like_waffles@reddit
People speed cuz they are in a hurry or they just like going fast. It doesn't matter how the road is designed or what the posted speed limit is, there's always that guy whose tryna qualify for nascar.
FungalBrew@reddit
If your doing 70 and the speed limit is 70, expect everybody to come zooming around you at 75-80. Generally cops don't ticket you until you exceed 10mph over the posted speed limit so the effective speed limit is 10mph over what's posted, particularly on highways. Its different in residential areas, you obey the posted speed limit when driving in places people live, local cops take that shit more seriously.
ohmyback1@reddit
Waaaay back before these cheap built cars. When cars were made of steel. Speed limits were 75mph all over the land. Sometimes higher (I think). Plus most cars if not all had no seat belts. Yeah we lived life on the edge. Hahahahaga
Whitehoneybun@reddit
The speed limits need to be raised no reason a freeway should be 6mph especially here in Cali 80+ since we all go 80 anyways
Emotional-Chipmunk70@reddit
People sped because they don’t want to obey the speed limit. There’s no other explanation. Hard stop, end of story.
moistdragons@reddit
Exactly! Like I’ve never been on a road and said “you know I CAN go faster than the speed limit so ai MUST go faster”. I’m just like “the speed limit is 45 so I can comfortably go 50 and not have to worry about being pulled over, cool.”
Ok_Supermarket9053@reddit
100%
So many people don't pay attention to road signs and just drive based on their intuition for speed.
Plus the larger roads allow for larger vehicles to feel normal. A tahoe/expedition are fairly common and are just slightly shorter than a short bus.
Immediate-Shape-2957@reddit
Where did you learn this from?
Accomplished-Act8616@reddit
Semi’s getting on fast lane makes things deadly!