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askchapoThe evidence suggests that lowering speed limits to 30 km/h (13.2674 candela per British thermal unit foot-pound for the seppos) massively increases survivability and decreases permanent injury rates in collisions with pedestrians: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002243752400152X
Realistically for most commutes this equates to a couple of minutes extra driving. Most delays are at lights/intersections not low speed limits.
Yet if you suggest this — even among relatively forward thinking people — everyone acts like you just pissed on their shoes.
Why the hell does this happen? Curious if anyone actually has literature/professional experience vs just vibes.
other discussions cause one paper is just an example: https://acrs.org.au/evidence-supports-30km-h-speed-limits-in-school-zones/
Because we are not compensated for our work commutes; a couple extra minutes driving is effectively a couple extra minutes of unpaid overtime.
well youll also be glad to know that slower speeds reduce rubberbanding and paradoxically decrease the time of travel through a dense area especially when combined with green waves. i personally dont really support just lowering speeds, i also support the narrowing of roads to force people to actually be slower rather than vibes-based speed signs. then the rest of the road should be dedicated to more efficient means of transport like bicycles and pedestrian paths so that locals aren't contributing to a long distance traffic problem.
Derranged take. Do you not tie your shoelaces because nobody is paying you? Shower and apply perfume/deodorant?
Those are things I do for myself, which I would do anyway even if I was unemployed.
Commuting is something I do for the boss, and in the US people are dedicating an hour or more every day for this shit. It's a huge unpaid time sink that we dedicate to our jobs, effectively making it unpaid overtime. It's why people love working from home, they are actually paid for every hour they work instead of being forced to dedicate time to drudgery "before" and "after" work.
Driving is literally millions of peoples' actual jobs, that they do full time. It's stressful, dangerous, and boring - sounds like work.
I don't know why you're talking to me like I'm some alien who's never driven.
Life is full or stressful and boring things we do to make the world safer and nicer for other people. From picking up dog shit to not littering, queuing, not shitting in public even when there's a risk of not making it to a toilet, learning how to present nicely socially, being kind to extremely annoying people, swallowing your own negative emotions and not lashing out at unrelated people, and so many more things.
We live in a society. Taking care while operating heavy machinery at the cost of a very slight delay (which btw reduces the stress and danger to yourself vs the normal mode) for everyone's safety is smol beans lmao.
Do you not tie your shoelaces because nobody is paying you
they make laceless shoes, it's not the 1940s
I've worked jobs where the commute was paid when I was working somewhere besides my primary work location. There's nothing says it can't, or shouldn't be. It would be paid if I drove, it would be paid if I took mass transit. And it should be.
The kind perspective is that drivers don't really have a vision for how much calmer and nicer things would be on their neighborhood streets if everyone drove 30km/h (20mp/h). They also don't really have a good perspective on how little the lower speed limit would affect their commute, and the safety upsides. And so without some more effective communication, they're going to perceive this as a straightforward degradation of their own quality of like (which is tied to their daily driving experience).
My unkind perspective is that drivers are maniacs who have lost the ability to cooperate and compromise with other people in a civilized setting. You can see this if you ever go to a town planning meeting about any road renovations that would add any amenities for non-drivers. It will be filled with surly car drivers who will at minimum disrupt the business of the meeting with angry outbursts, and at worse be on the edge of actual physical violence. The town meeting where we discussed adding a bike lane on the bridge that goes over the train tracks (to the literal "other side of the train tracks") was a very enlightening moment for me, as I had never seen my fellow citizens so political activated by something that I thought was obviously good. They were basically saying the quiet part out loud: that the type of people that would use a bike to cross that bridge are not the kind of people that they want coming over to their side of the community.
I've brought up the idea of a city-wide 20mph limit when talking to town officials after one of these meetings, and their response was basically "yes, that's a good idea, but it's completely politically infeasible because of the backlash we would get, so we choose to not even bring it up as an idea in these meetings so that they don't get too sidetracked".
My unkind perspective is that drivers are maniacs who have lost the ability to cooperate and compromise with other people in a civilized setting. You can see this if you ever go to a town planning meeting about any road renovations that would add any amenities for non-drivers.
As a driver and former non-driver, I completely agree. Cars have become people’s extension of themselves and thus have been weaponized and become the avatar for their vile, ugly thoughts. I wouldn’t necessarily say urban planning is causal to Americans being psychopaths (they are just like that) though. Although I certainly think it can mitigate their violence.
I wouldn’t necessarily say urban planning is causal to Americans being psychopaths (they are just like that) though.
A lot of people only ever seeing strangers through car windows cannot be good.
I wouldn’t necessarily say urban planning is causal to Americans being psychopaths
I would've absolutely say it. It's a top 3 component of the superstructure that makes things the way they are
My unkind perspective is that drivers are maniacs who have lost the ability to cooperate and compromise with other people in a civilized setting.
This is painfully aligned with my perspective as well. I unfortunately have to drive over an hour each way to work, most of that time on country back roads, but as soon as I hit the major highway I can immediately feel the borderline homicidal energy that other drivers give off.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that +- 5 minutes on any commute should be expected and can be accounted for. There is no need to be aggro and endanger people around you just so you can save face and not admit you planned poorly. It’s really unsettling to the point where my partner and I only venture out to those areas when absolutely necessary because the immediate stress we feel is palpable.
That said, it’s also extremely unsurprising to hear that those people hold onto that homidical energy and bring it to a townhall meeting. Absolutely unhinged shit that I can only imagine will keep getting worse…
My theory is car brain. Take a level headed person and put them in a car and you get but if you put the same person on a train you get but if you put them on an underground train you get
My scientific observation is that cars and the London Underground are equally psychologically bad and the conclusion is to explode Britain from orbit. Thank you for listening to my study.
There have been studies showing that people are more prone to antisocial behavior in areas that are perceived as run-down and ugly, so since we're doing rigorous science I'm going to deduce, scientifically, that people would behave better if all subways were as nice as the ones in Moscow.
You see the people on the moscow subway are
and the people in the london subway are then the people on the NYC subway are this means that people are happier when the train is sexy.
Real talk though the London Underground and london in general makes people feral mostly because its congested as shit cos we decided everything must happen in one city and everyone must go to one city while the rest of the country falls apart. If it wasn’t so packed it would actually be quite pleasant since most of the lines are pretty well made if some are a tad older. When I’ve travelled through empty tube lines the worst feeling i get is extreme vertigo from the escalators
Realistically for most commutes this equates to a couple of minutes extra driving. Most delays are at lights/intersections not low speed limits.
Which makes the Amerikkkan mentality of “lowering the speed limit is Stalin 1984 vuvuzela!” but also “replacing traffic lights/intersections with roundabouts is gommunism” extra ridiculous.
Where I live the city streets speed limit is a relatively low 25 mph/40 kmh. Even then, I don’t like going faster than 20 mph, right around that 30 kmh mark. I tell you, it’s not just some arbitrary number, you really feel safer, more control, better perception, and significantly less braking distance when driving that speed. Yet, I still get honked at semi-regularly by people pissed off that I’m not going fast enough for their liking (often accompanied by them then making a illegal driving maneuver to speed around past me). And it’s not like 20 mph is drastically slower from a “getting to point a to point b” perspective than 25 mph.
So it’s not just a resistance to a regulatory lowering of the speed limit, they are hostile to other drivers that are interfering with their desire to speed on local roads.
Most drivers view speed limits as a minimum, not a maximum. I guarantee the person honking and crossing the double solid yellow line would try to argue that you're unsafe for "making" them do that.
Driving too slowly on a freeway where the average speed is 90km/h is a hazard but in a town center it's obviously safer to go slowly
I honestly do not know how we are going to get safer transport without some mass vandalism campaign. The only other option is waiting for the inevitable of cars becoming to expensive for the new generation (you can already see this happening if you know where to look)
Where I live the towns are so small and congested that nobody even drives at 30 km/h, a bunch of side streets are only one lane and 2 way so you literally have to take turns.
Nonetheless when formalising how everyone drives anyway was raised the discussion was extremely unproductive.
I just don't get it.
Haven't seen mentioned yet - car gearing is not at all conducive to driving at 30km/h. In a manual, you're probably in 2nd and have to be careful with feathering the throttle and balancing the momentum of the car as it shifts with micro inputs on the gas pedal. In an automatic, the car wants to accelerate right past 30. A "slow mode" setting would be nice
I live in Liberal City and we have a few 20mph zones specifically designed to slow drivers because there are a lot of elderly residents in the area. I'll go between 20-25mph in those and have long lines of drivers making unsafe passes around me. After COVID, we're never having another national conversation on "making personal changes to better society for others"
3rd is comfy for 30 in any car ive ever driven
I mean I drive a car and that's not my experience at all. Maybe some manuals, given cars don't have wet clutches, but unless you've got a lead foot it's really not difficult to drive with perfect speed accuracy above like 10 km/h in every car I've been in.
I've mostly driven Japanese and Australian cars, maybe cars you've driven have different mappings in the ecu in general?
Doesn't match my experience at all so I gotta say, your mileage may vary on this one.
Most people i interact with IRL do not care about studies or data when it comes to the perception that something would make their already miserable commute/workday even slightly longer.
Most people ~~i interact with IRL~~ do not care about studies or data when it comes to the perception that something
perception that something would make their already miserable commute/workday even slightly longer.
Literally the worst part of the day for a lot of people.
Sure, but we already do traffic calming measures like roundabouts and school zones here. People are pretty used to the idea that slowing near kids at least is a good thing to do and most people are compliant.
I wonder if that's it actually, the slower limit is only experienced during the intense congestion of pickup/dropoff so people assume it'll be that 24/7 rather than that being a complete fucking failure of transport + parents freaking out about their kid walking in a town of 3k people where everyone knows each other lol.
Unfortunately the best piece of life advice I've ever gotten is "you can't assume people will act logically or rationally"
I'm stuck at the "just vibes" level but as I've watched new roads being built in the area, there's gotta be something about "nobody fucking planning anything" and just sticking shit wherever they can legally do it.
So people needing to get around a town are driving on the same roads and routs as people who are trying to commute to work 40 minutes away and semi-trucks pulling a 60 foot trailer and somebody driving a tractor with a brush hog to a neighboring field.
When you've gotta travel farther you start to get anxiety that you're going to be late for work or appointments. Leaving earlier doesn't help as everybody else starts leaving earlier and increases stress as that means you're doing everything earlier (waking up, getting kids outta bed and taken care of, eating breakfast, getting yourself ready to leave, etc).
So even though a reduction in the speed limit makes perfect sense and would absolutely not slow down anybody to the point of being late for anything, as has been mentioned several times in the comments, we're so car brained in the west that anything that would "slow us down" amps up the anxiety that we're not going to get to where we're going in time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motonormativity
Not really an answer, because most drivers wouldn't be in favour of e.g. raising speed limits in town centers to 400 km/h
It's obviously not a desire to drive as fast as possible, yet it is seen that driving below certain speeds is completely unacceptable.
There is some consideration for shared spaces and externalities, but there are really weird lines.
i think it explains it pretty well. any imposition on the current rights of motorists is seen as an affront to freedom and politically objectionable. it's not about driving as fast as possible necessarily
Its the ability to drive as fast as possible and be seen as "reasonable". The currently high speed limits legitamize higher speeds. Lower would be lower.
Dont over complicate what drives people.
Lowering speed limits is also just kinda annoying as a driver because they tend to lower them for a stretch of road that looks exactly like the stretches of road on either side with a higher speed limit.
I'm not advocating for keeping speed limits higher, I'm advocating for redesigning the roads in the residential/town center to not be for 45mph speeds.
My town just widened the sidewalks, put in a ton of raised planters that reduce visibility, and made all crosswalks pedestrian priority with signs. It's actually worked really well because they also diverted through traffic onto one ways on either side of Main Street
100% agree. Wiggly roads are another great way to slow people down. My city values throughput on our main streets so i doubt we'll ever get a safer city.
wiggly roads also slap and are awesome fun to drive vs struggling to concentrate on straight roads.
I heard somewhere that brick roads make people drive slower because of how they're less smooth. Also they last longer.
They're common in residential streets in the Netherlands, but they're much noisier so if a road is still a major thoroughfare it's usually avoided.
"We've always done it that way.
And during my childhood, we rode rusty bicycles between brakeless pre-war lorrys filled with loose rubble and still survived!"
Lobby by car companies. More killings and acidents on neoliberalism bill.
Imagine trying selling 200km/h cars when 95% of your time you can only reach 50 km/h without receiving speed tickets.
But escooters need a hardwired speed limit
Driving rewires everyones brains into frothing treatlerites and you have to make a conscious effort to resist it.
I honestly already drive this slowly at max through the main roads in my suburb that are unmarked (everything but the main arteries). Lots of kids and lots of cars in the summer, and lots of ice and snow in the winter. It’s honestly just the safe thing to do. Usually have people riding my ass when I drive like this, but they’ll live. So will all the kids that play outside around here.
My wife gets cross at me driving slow dropping her at work but there are dogs wandering, chickens out, kid sized bushes everywhere. I'd prefer not to deal with being a killer because we didn't leave 2 minutes earlier.
I'm unfortunately a bit of a car person (in that I enjoy cars quite a bit), but I really don't understand this impulse with people. Like, it's a crowded space (with pedestrians and other cars), slow the fuck down. It's really that simple!
On top of that, whenever there's a lot of traffic on a highway people need to slow the fuck down. There's times where it's enjoyable to drive fast, but not when there's a lot of other people around you.
Because these areas have been designed and used as major thoroughfares so absent significant planning, drivers are now forced though an even tighter choke point in their commutes. And with people already working insane hours and having to live further and further from their jobs due to lack of affordable housing options and absolutely no public transportation - an extra 10-15 minutes puts people closer to their breaking point.
These "solutions" seem to be ignoring the larger more systemic problems, making daily life worse for the majority of people, and then strutting around like it's a success
Before my spine gave up I loved motorcycling. It never seemed difficult to ride carefully around people and like a a maniac on a racetrack or empty road free of wildlife (e.g. salt flats).
really no point in driving slower if the city itself is one giant parking lot with no bake lines and no rail
Gommunism is when you have to stand in the bake line.
stacking thousands of dead yankee pedestrians in front of the yankee:
"is this yet a heap???"
Any road that isn't a highway should be capped at 25km/h (school zone speed in burgerland), and highways should be capped at 65km/h.
Or go full German and make residential areas a traffic-calmed zone, where pedestrians can walk in the middle of the street and get priority over cars, who in turn have to drive at walking pace
I think if we tried to convince the sort of people currently protesting windfarms here because they're bad for nature (coal mines???? tracking??? she'll be right mate) that town streets aren't for cars only some cooker would raise the eureka flag and build a stockade lol.
