Public
- Public
- Network
- Groups
- Featured
- Popular
- People

The experts, the engineers, those in control, do not set speed limits to limit the risk of a road or design the road to limit speed. Instead, the experts design a wide, straight road that encourages speeding and decide the speed limit based on how fast nonexperts drive there. One reason that this problem goes unnoticed is that it is not classiffied as a problem. For example, in 2018, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration attributed the deaths of about 9,000 people in traffic crashes to speeding. More than 36,000 were killed that year, but if any of those were attributable to a speed limit set too high, those deaths would not be attributed to speeding—those drivers, after all, were just following the rules of the road.

Download link

The experts, the engineers, those in control, do not set speed limits to limit the risk of a road or design the road to limit speed. Instead, the experts design a wide, straight road that encourages speeding and decide the speed limit based on how fast nonexperts drive there. One reason that this problem goes unnoticed is that it is not classiffied as a problem. For example, in 2018, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration attributed the deaths of about 9,000 people in traffic crashes to speeding. More than 36,000 were killed that year, but if any of those were attributable to a speed limit set too high, those deaths would not be attributed to speeding—those drivers, after all, were just following the rules of the road.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/110/193/643/272/147/369/original/5133a72736582098.png

Notices where this attachment appears

Embed this notice
Shauna GM (shauna@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 06-Jan-2024 17:58:33 JST Shauna GM
in reply to

How many people does this methodology for setting speed limits kill? We don't know!
In 2018 9,000 people died in crashes attributed to speeding. But more than 36,000 people were killed in traffic accidents. If any of those accidents were caused by a road that was given too high a speed limit, it wouldn't be labeled as caused by speeding.
And if you thought the process for setting speed limits was bonkers and reckless, wait until you hear about crosswalks!

In conversation about a year ago from social.coop permalink