Why U.S. Speed Limits Are Wrong
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
- In 2019, 9,478 Americans lost their lives from speeding, contributing to more than a quarter of all traffic fatalities in the year. Speed limits were created to avoid situations like this. Yet, millions of Americans continue to speed every year. Many experts argue that the current speed limits might be too unrealistic and arbitrary to have any impact on how fast people drive. Watch the video to understand what’s wrong, what’s right and how the U.S. can fix speed limits on the road.
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Why Speed Limits Are Wrong In The U.S.
If you take a view on german highways with no speed limit, there are lesser fatalities and bad accidents than in the US. Therefore, it is not only relateable to speed limits. It has a lot to do with the condition of roads, vehicles and the ability of the driver.
it's mainly due to the driving approach and culture in every country: in the US driving is considered a RIGHT and getting a license it's too easy, in Germany driving is seen as a privilege and getting a license is a longer process and most importantly driving schools actually teach you how to be responsible and safe.
I agree. We hand out licenses like candy and wonder why we have so many terrible drivers. There are going to be terrible drivers at 30mph and 100mph. Speed limits aren't the solution, they're just a distraction from it.
And the way people drive.
The biggest problem on US roads today are too many drivers who believe they own the road; everyone else is in their way and/or needs to avoid them. The driver doing 45 in a 55 in the far left lane (the lane intended for passing others) is just as bad as the person doing 90 weaving in and out of lanes; BOTH are dangers on the road.
America is a third world
Lesser fatalities adjusted for population and time spent driving? Seems to be important factors to be able to compare fairly.
One thing we can all agree upon:
Most people are going to go 75-85 mph on the freeway no matter what the limit states
Let the freeway deticate the speed limit. If the speed limit is 65mph and the average car is going 80mph that one guy that's hitting 95-100mph is the one speeding and driving reckless not the average cars going 15mph over the speed limit.
120 To 140 km/h
@@JcLazy1 In the UK things work differently. Speed limits are designed based on safety of the road. Some motorways are restricted to 40mph or 50mph because the road is too curvy or too bumpy and can cause lethal crashes.
We have actual experts who put the limits in place based on the safety on the road, number of crashes, lethal crashes etc.
The U.S unfortunately puts politics into everything so road safety isn't taken as seriously.
if the least underpowered ecobox can easily reach 80mph, then the overpowered Dodges and SUVs can easily reach90-110mph. I would ticket those people that do the minimum speed limit of 65mph unless they can demonstrate they are in LIMP mode. Cars/trucks are getting so easy to drive, quiet, safer, and smooth so there's no excuse to not drive 85mph on freeway and 65mph offramp and on the access road. /s
This would free up the police patrol as wayyyy less people driving the limit than people going 35-45mph over the limit.
@@csmlouis km/h
Imagine being stupid enough to think lowering the speed limit will reduce crashes
Well reducing speed and designing the road for the speedlimit will reduce crashes and most importantly reduce the chance of fatality when a crash happends
It's really weird to watch this as a German. We have very targeted speed limits (with 1/3 of the highways being unregulated). On the Autobahn most people drive at 75-86 mph. Our fatalities are very low. Last time driving in the US it became quite clear what the root causes actually are:
1. The speed limits on US streets make no sense, so people ignore them completely.
2. Right lane overtaking should be forbidden (as in Europe)
3. Americans drive like crazy, there needs to be much more thorough drivers education (also on the practical side). In Germany we have 12 hours of mandatory practical driving education (while the average people usually take is 30h) with a theoretical and a practical examination.
Bottom line is we have 963 deaths in 2019 due to speeding (with 1/4 the population) so adjusted for population still half of the US, whereas we have much higher speed limits.
Rule 2 won't work unless you also forbid loitering in the left lane. In the US, grandmas going 5 under in the left lane clog up the 2-lane highways (which is like all of our state highways and a lot of the rural sections of our interstates). Right-lane overtaking, or undertaking, is totally normal when people hang out in the left lane and block your path.
@@ImmortanDan gets worse when you have 2 lanes on rural highways, and a semi going 5 under decides he's going to pass the semi in front of him while staying under the limit. By the time he finally passes the one on the right it's backed up traffic heavily in that left lane as everyone behind him is also trying to pass that same semi. There needs to be dedicated semi interstates, strictly for semis and no one else.
Sometimes people from outside of the US forget that we operate on state basis for the majority of things. The age, requirements, and everything else related to driving is regulated per state level. In my home state of MN, it’s 50 mandatory behind the wheel hours, 10 of which must be at night, 6 hours minimum of instructed driving, a driving test once you’ve met all requirements, and of course a test to get your permit in the first place. All based on state
@@jackson5116 that is the absolute dumbest, most expensive solution you could have ever come up with to fix that issue, that is ultimately pretty rare. Might happen a couple times per hour of driving. Instead your solution should focus on alternative forms of fright transfer, such as trains and ships.
And still the driving abilities of Germans dropped to a shockingly low level in the last 20 years. I was amazed to see how bad they drive at the southern autobahns after years of not driving there because I take a northern route since 2012. Especially here around the border with the Netherlands it's shocking how bad Germans drive in urban areas.
This report fails to explore the deficient and mediocre driving courses in the US and how easy it is to give a driver's license to people that have no driving skills. Driving requires a driver with situational and spatial awareness, empathy, organizational skills among other things. Driving courses should last days with different scenarios, safety courses, basic technical knowledge about vehicles, basic road physics and dynamics, speed perception, etc. Instead, is parallel parking which 85% of drivers never master and such mundane skills completely unrelated to actual driving. Several days of training is nothing to a lifetime of driving privileges.
I've had licenses in 4 different states never had to parallel as part of the qualifications
This video was not about traffic fatalities but rather about weather speed limits were set correctly.
@@bolt5564 it failed there too.
It failed to mention that our societial thought that 55 was a universal speed limit had nothing to do with safety. That limit came because governments thought it was the most fuel efficient speed at the time of the oil crisis in the 70s.
@@inorite4553 Actually the first National Speed limit was imposed in 1942 at 35 mph for that was seen as the speed most cars were the most efficient at. 55 mph was adopted after the 1973 Arab Embargo for no one thought the American People would drop to 35 mph in 1974 but 55 mph was believed to be doable, thus 55 was adopted.
@@singledijjiti.q.2294 you also didn’t take 4 driving test either so that doesn’t really mean much. But ion my 10 years of driving I’m only have to parallel park once.
“Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that's what gets you.” ― Jeremy Clarkson
This
Also, no one immediately died because they crossed from 54 to 59mph.
The speed did not cause the collision, the speed was just a contributor to the severity of that collision.
higher speeds increase both the probability and severity of suddenly becoming stationary. clarkson is a POS
@@yanDeriction... You do know it's a bloody joke, right? Jeez, you must be a riot at parties
@@Silverhineko Its is a deeply held belief of car guys which impacts their driving behavior and political involvement. Read the first reply from WestZ, it is not a normal response to something read as a joke.
I’m more annoyed with slow drivers on the far left lanes. They cause congestion and backup; causing other drivers to be frustrated, switch lanes, and drive faster to pass them up. It’s statistically proven that slow drivers on fast lane causes more accidents than speeders.
It's not just the ones in the left lane. It's slow ones overall.
In a lot of places you are legally allowed to drive up to 15 or 20 mph below the speed limit.
Then the majority of people are driving around 5 mph over with some around 10 mph over.
So you now have those driving under the limit at 20-30 mph below the majority of people.
That causes more problems than speeders.
It's a multi fold problem,
First: Better driver training is desperately needed. Not testing. Actual training. Everyone needs to know how control their own vehicle in a skid/slide.
Second: Force everyone to drive the same speed. Make it against the law to go lower if it's against the law to go higher.
Third: Controlled speeds on multi lane highways. More than two lanes needs actual electronic speed control. Each lane gets its own controlled speed. You can only go different when changing lanes or getting on/off the highway. Traffic congestion is caused by all of the different vehicles driving different speeds.
Fourth: Much better and consistent road design. Remove all STROADS! If a road is going through a residential area. All sidewalks and driveways are to be off the main road not directly attached to it. That way if people have to use that road to get from point A to point they won't be in any kind of conflict with any pedestrians or people that live there.
The same can be said for those who drive fast in the right lane.
@@mk3a I drive fast in the left and right lane if those in the left are too slow.
So again don't hold up the left lane just because you are going 5 or less over the speed limit.
@@AdamStansbery That is true. Everything leads back to a left (or centre) lane hog. Forces others like me to pass on the right which I hate.
Maybe it's time to teach people they must keep right unless it's for passing? :)
I‘m from Germany. I can tell you the solution for America really quick. Just have proper driving education. That’s it.
As an American, I couldn’t agree more with this.
If US gets a proper driving education, every existing driver should automatically get their license revoked.
I’m sorry, but the mother who lost her son in a traffic accident should not be a source of information in these type of videos.
Her opinions are to influenced by the personal experience
I agree 100%, she is blinded by the speed as the cause, but without being able to see the collision report none of us watching the video can see what really led to the death of her kid. The only thing that I can gleen from her testimony is that the vehicle that killed her son was going faster than the posted speed limit. But, what of any other factors? Perhaps he entered the road without looking. Perhaps the driver was texting. We will never know, but blame the EVIL SPEED LIMIT because we know for sure that it is WRONG. what a hilarious and uninsightful piece of video
There was an old study on this from 40 to 50 yrs ago in Wyoming or Montana.
They raised the speed limit significantly and found accidents actually decreased. The accidents that did occur had a higher fatality rate.
The authors deduced that the biggest cause of accidnets on the highway were a "disparity" of speed between vehicles not the speed it self.
(someone driving 40mph vs someone driving 80mph).
I had to dig through microfilm at my college library to write my paper on the topic.
interesting stuff.
you know, if everyone drove on a streight line from point a to point b you would be right. But streets intersect a lot because they form a network so you have different speed evrywhere on he road
@@goromir7093 This was for highways only.
@@jasonw8497 nope, they were talking about speed limit in geenral, not only freeway
@@goromir7093 nah it’s the highways, roads r straight out here too so they could easily do it on every road but they don’t, also no one drives fast in the snow
@@speedrat6508 No one? Rally drivers had to learn somewhere?
They missed the mark a bit on this.
Road design has the biggest impact on driver speed than posting a lower limit. Reducing the lane width, adding obstacles to the sides of the street like trees and bushes creates a sense of danger to the driver thus slowing them down. Reducing traffic can also reduce traffic fatalities. How you may ask? Increase other modes of transportation. Dutch cities have a lot of walkability and bike-ability that reduces the number of cars on the roads all together. Saying speeding is what kills and then trying to say that posting a lower limit will fix the issue is not going to fix it the way they want. You have to make a fundamental change to road design, and get more people out of their cars by designing better urban environments for people to live in.
Did you watch this until the end?
Right! No one in the US seems to be able to entertain the idea that less cars on the road and more pedestrian friendly infrastructure would reduce the number of fatalities considerably. In addition, I see alot of folks recommending more driver training, but making it so driving isn't the only way to get around would take so many people off of the road. Not everyone drives because they want to, but if you don't have any other reasonable option to get around, what can you do?
@@Qboi1982 I watched the whole video and while they did address it, it was brief and it was something perceived as a back burner solution in the video based on what the woman who lost her son said. The overall theme of the video screamed "make everyone drive slower by lowering speed limits" not "hey let's redesign roads to prevent deaths and increase accessibility to other modes of transport to get people out of cars as a way to help reduce accidents and deaths related to driving by reducing the number of cars on the road"
@Sam I don't think it would be everywhere, nor would it be all at once. I feel like infrastructure is one of those things that is more like a long term philosophy implemented over time. That "Rome wasn't built in a day" kind of thing. Also, the decisions would be made while lowering the costs associated with roads and excess space usage (think how suburban design requirements end up generating less tax rev e.g. Strong Towns)
@@Trumpianet in bigger cities, definitely. But, it wouldn’t necessarily work in rural areas. Also, some people don’t even know proper etiquette on the road like using the left lane on the highway as a passing lane.
As a mechanic I think most “speed” related deaths have to do with an improperly maintained vehicle and or driver incompetence, I find most of the time people who drive too fast also can’t bother to even change their tires or brakes.
Also they don't understand the limits of their vehicles let alone things like tire rating and pattern.
All drivers are incompetent. You're trusting control of a multi-ton chunk of metal moving at sixty miles an hour to a creature that struggles to get any response time down to under half a second. The huge number of monthly deaths due to road accidents testifies that humans are not adapted to be drivers, it's just the best we have right now.
Exactly what I was thinking, too!
According to AAA statistics, 94% of motor vehicle crashes are the result of driver error, and are therefore not accidents.
@@vylbird8014 We don't have to all drive everywhere. Our cities were designed that way for a multitude of reasons but it's possible to build places that are safe for humans to navigate without the protection of a car.
I think a big contributor to fatalities is how easy it is to obtained a license in the U.S. compared to many European countries.
Yes, it is wat too easy. But the thing is, in mist US cities people's livelihood and therefore the economy depends on having and driving a car. Since public transport and intercity train system is practically nonexistent, the only option left to people is driving. And yes, many of those drivers will be very bad and dangerous.
@Yummy Spaghetti Noodles To be fair there's not many other dangers teenagers are really in so I would argue that point isn't very substantial. They're in the primetime of their life in terms of health and many are under constant surveillance by their parents making it harder for many to put themselves in dangerous situations. I think it is too easy for kids to get licenses though.
lol no...how many people cant get a license because their actually cant? basically 0
I have to agree, I see pedestrians in the city myself included having to dodge inattentive drivers to busy texting or in to big a hurry to get where they are going and not paying attention to whats around them. I nearly got hit by a woman coming out of a parking lot as I walked by on the sidewalk. If I had not seen her glowy face from the phone and stopped she would have hit me. I would say a good 50% of the drivers on the road should not have a license.
But hard to change. Outside of the centers of large cities, the US generally has a non-existent public transport system. In some suburbs there are not even any sidewalks: It isn't even possible to leave your own house without a car, unless you want to walk in the road. If you can't drive then you can't work, you can't shop, you can't do anything. So even the worst, most dangerous drivers have to be allowed to drive.
Because of illogical speed limits in some places, we can lose respect for what is posted. Two major highways that I use when I travel are posted for 55 mph. No one, I mean nobody, goes 55. If you go 55 in the extreme right-hand lane you'll cause an accident. That lane may be 60, the middle lanes 65-70, and the left lane higher. Everyone has learned to ignore the speed limit. The roads should be posted for something logical and then enforced. On the highways I refer to above I never see a police car stopping anyone. Enforcement is key, but only if the limit is reasonable.
yeah, at this point, speed limit signs are just a reminder to slow down, but no one does that, everyone is going 75-80 on the highway
Same problem with stop signs. They're used everywhere, even where it's unnecessary, and so people don't respect them anymore. Probably 75% could be yields or something and not much would change
@@ebnertra0004 Some places use stop signs as a way to slow traffic on residential streets - which is contrary to the accepted standards of sign usage. Yes, many could be replaced by yield signs.
I agree . What's worse is the person who gets in theft hand lane and tries to regulate others speed limit. Forcing you to pass on the right.
@@danielzhang1916 here in chicago 294 is 55 mph and everyone goes 80-90 mph, I even got passed by a semi truck going 75 in the right hand lane
I remember reading somewhere that going 5mph under the limit is far more likely to cause an accident than going 5mph over.
As an international person two things I believe can make the roads much safer here in the US. 1 tailgating: many drivers here drive at very close distances to cars in front of them giving them no time to react in case of an emergency. 2 driving on the left fast lane while going well below normal traffic speed. Those two things can help a lot
Also, many states allow ancient junk heaps to get registration plates. Not all old cars are junk, but many are poorly maintained. Secondly, a huge percentage of DUI arrests in my area are foreign drivers who shouldn't be on the road to begin with. No license, no insurance, plates registered to another person, etc.....
Yup. Tailgating and speeding are pretty common here.
@@Duke_of_Pruneswhat do old junk cars have anything to do with speeding
@@Ammut6 A car that's fling to pieces is dangerous at any speed.
left lane is for passing period
I feel like this video left out a lot of nuance surrounding speed limits in the US. Especially in regard to the different road types (highway vs. residential street) and area (low vs. high density).
Yeah… I mean what do they want… residential streets anywhere near where I live are 20 to 30 max… collectors/business roads are 30 to 45. Roads which only open to other roads or are county roads in the country are 55, and on/off ramp roads with no stops are 55 to 70… seems pretty damn reasonable to me but whatever. I don’t think there is anything better that can be done with speed limits. Maybe license requirements or use of round abouts… but speed limits and road paths are not going ti be changed.
@@TJ-im5kp I agree.
The best way to limit speeds is not to lower speed limits but rather to design the roads such that people want to go slower.
@Moon Shine Agree. Why/how did the kid get killed? Content doesn't say. Nothing about distracted,aggressive,drunken or "under the influence" driving. No distinction between residential roads and limited access highways.
If slower's better,why not go down to 5 mph.?
A movement afoot to lower the 30 to 25,or even to 15, while some vehicles continue to run 40+ without enforcement on a road that used to be 35
Speedbumps in my neighborhood to force traffic to your neighborhood,until everywhere there are speedbumps,the traffic came back and kids are amusing themselves trying to get airborne in their vehicles,meanwhile the speedbumps and "traffic circles" are somewhat of a hazard to pedestrians and cyclists-if you're going to build speedbumps why not just leave the potholes unfilled-about the same thing-more speedbumps and "traffic calming"=more horn blowing
How can 55mph be reasonable its ridiculous people should be destroying speed limit signs
@@TJ-im5kp they need to stick to the 85th percentile rule when setting the posted limits and they need to start citing slow drivers for obstructing traffic if they're going 5 under or slower without a valid reason to slow them down. I'd call the campaign "get up to speed or get out of the way".
“Everybody can be inconvenienced to save a life”
Lady, we are still debating wearing a piece of cloth over our mouths during a pandemic 2+ years into lol.
We humans can be easily deceived.
@@sm3675 correction. Americans can be easily decieved.
@@AbsolutelyRedundant 🤣
@@AbsolutelyRedundant im European and i can confirm that we have anti-vaxxers and covid deniers here as well, not as many as the USA, but they do exist.
Masks haven't saved lives. Vaccines and medicine does.
The truth of the matter is that once it's into a population herd immunity will be the only thing that stops it.
drive anywhere in Europe and you will realize that the speed limit in the US and Canada is waaaay too low for the roads condition. I personally did not have to drive above the speed limit when I was visiting Europe because the limit was good enough not to drive above it.
USA 🇺🇸 Canada 🇨🇦 And Australia 🇦🇺
It's simply that a lot of people are not good drivers and are not safe, it's not the speed limits fault it's the driver's fault.
The problem isn't nessaserily speed but rather driver skill. In places like Germany or Finland you are taught much more about car control and other road disciplines than in say the US. I mean is it any wonder how Germany still sections of derestricted autoban?
the problem is in Germany there is no speed limit only on highways and where there not many intersections like in the US. Speed limits are important in urban areas
Well if you look at states with similar population density to Germany you’ll see that your argument does not hold up. (9-10k US vs 11-12k 🇩🇪 if population is same)
Don’t fool yourself, it is always speed what causes serious incidents
Speed isn't the main problem.
The problem is dumb and distracted drivers.
Governments need to make the driver's exam extremely difficult.
@@paul_london You're the fool. Drunk driving kills more people than speeding.
I’m on the side of speed isn’t the problem as much as distracted driving and road design. Set speed limits according to their environment such as urban, highway, etc..
I mean we here in Germany show that speed isnt the isn't the issue. We have no limit on the Autobahn an way less death
I agree
@@michaelsieber98 so long as die Grünen take over the government. Danke, herr Linder.
@@michaelsieber98 agreed. I don’t know if the US can restructure their highways to that degree but they could start with changing/enforcing the rules of the road and restructuring how they build out suburban roadways for traffic such as minimizing vehicle through traffic in dense areas and increasing pedestrian walkways and bike lanes.
The issue is that people here in the states don’t stay to the right unless passing
This is a hard pass for me. Urban planning should redesign roads, no argument. But rural roads being "long and strait" is the whole point. When driving literally hours, curves are unnecessary. From time, MPG, and weather conditions, leave them alone or make them wider for trucks.
Urban highways too, they are many to handle the bulk. Side streets, boulevards, etc., yeah, make them pedestrian/cycle friendly.
Urban highways should not exist they take up way to much space for a relatively small amount of people, they split neighbourhoods, and they produce high levels of local air pollution in densely inhabited areas. Most people should be taking the train, or at least parking their car outside the city and taking public transport into it. Any US city that doesn't plan to facilitate at least a local modal shift will remain a dystopian mess dominated by tarmac and cars rather than people.
@@mariusdufour9186 can we agree, that besides the urban highway right of existence, that both can agree on "Side streets, boulevards, etc., yeah, make them pedestrian/cycle friendly."
and therefore the want for more "other" modes of transportation is also something that should be nice?
Tackle that first, later the other...
@@pgum123gonowplayread4 I think we can agree that more cyclist and pedestrian spaces as well as more "other" modes of transportation are needed to make US cities more liveable. As space is at a premium, the only way to achieve this without knocking down lots of buildings is to reduce the space that is currently used by cars. If taking down all the urban highways scares you, an approach where you take a lane or two off urban boulevards (3-4 lane roads) to allow for a bus lane/segregated tramway, wider pedestrian area with some greenery, and a comfortable cycle lane would do wonders, as a start.
Apparently you have not noticed that roads often curve to get around some obstacle or other - often a STEEP HILL or some flooded ground etc...............
and in related news - highway 12 east of Toronto is a fairly straight highway running through rural areas with generally light traffic and it has more than the usual number of single car crashes - with police reports indicating that people traveling alone and often at night tend to doze off and end up in a ditch due to the lack of visual stimulus!!!!!!!!!!!
There's also evidence that eliminating speed limit signs is effective; they're totally right toward the end, we subconsciously adjust our speed based on many factors. That mother is so blinded by her pain; she's so focused on speed limit reduction, that she's not looking at all of the data.
Speed isn't the problem, Speed + Lots of Road access is the problem. If speed happens on a forgiving highway, it isn't as dangerous. On a Suburban Road, or Urban Highspeed Road it is very dangerous. Fix with road design, not an arbitrary number
There's too many dumb distracted drivers.
Driver's license exams need to be made extremely difficult to pass.
When you're driving at a higher speed, you're carrying more kinetic energy with you (E = 1/2mv^2). Which leads to higher g-forces at accidents - this is what leads to deaths in accidents.
Sorry to get technical, but lowering speeds would make roads safer (given everything else stays equal). The downside of course is slower commutes and changes in traffic flow but it would be better from a safety perspective.
@@incawarrior5470 another way of thinking is, it's not the speed that kills it's the deceleration .
An anti speeding sign in New Zealand reads, "The higher the speed the bigger the mess"
@@kwitwerikok8o863 Yep, given you have 2 seconds to go from x speed to zero, the higher speed the higher the deceleration.
@@incawarrior5470 That is fine, then do as we do on the interstates, and make the road boundaries wider so that if someone does make a mistake, there is more time to slow the car down. Also Lower Speeds and Lower Speed Limits are not the same thing, as the video mentioned, people drive at the speed the road or street feels to be designed for.
Most deaths happen on Rural Roads, and Stroads where the road design is unforgiving and speeds are high.
Speed limits are too slow, not too fast.
@Moon Shine Agreed. Cars are much more capable and safer than they were. I have a vintage Mustang thats over 50 years old. It's beautiful but very crude compared to modern cars.
Why is it all about speed limits and not about making the driver's test more demanding.
94% of accidents in the U.S. are caused by human error. The issue is not our speed limit signs it's our average driving skill level.
How do you expect bad drivers to get anywhere when there is no alternative to driving? Let's just fail their driving test and limit their options for where they can live, work, buy groceries, see a doctor, and pretty much every aspect of living a life.
I feel like the main problem is setting the speed limit too low and people speed out of frustration of the current conditions. Austin has many roads labeled for 35 but the same roads are set to 40 or 45 in Dallas. If I go the speed limit here in austin, I just get passed up and even cops have sped past me and I am going 10 over. I know this can be touchy but I think raise all the speed limits or like what was suggested, just get rid of it or make them yellow signs for suggested based on conditions of the roads.
What's more dangerous than speed is the disparity in speed. Someone going 20 in the left lane of a 45 limit highway is much more dangerous than someone going 55 in the 45. You can search for the study done in Montana I believe that showed this, when they removed their speed limit at one point.
Be lucky the posted limit is 35. Here in Seattle, it would be 25.
I usually follow the speed of traffic in those cases, if even the cops are passing, then it's okay to go faster, might as well follow everyone
Where I live they raised the speed limit on a stretch of toll road because the limit was 50 but the flow of traffic was 68. This stretch was accident prone and they found raising the speed limit reduced car accidents. This stretch of road was shown in the video. You can't tell me a certain speed limit is ideal when you go to different states and they have different speeds. I can't believe this dude said add curvature to the road like that wouldn't make it more dangerous, curves are more dangerous than speed.
Lol, do you get a panic attack every time you have to go left or right at an intersection, or do you in fact slow down?
Sure, when a driver is not paying attention, a curve can be more dangerous because the chances of getting of the road are bigger. But the whole idea about adding curves is to keep drivers aware. When you know the road you are driving on is straight for the next 10km, you might lose attention. On a curved road you simply cannot allow yourself to be distracted, but you will have to keep looking at upcoming curves, resulting in more focused drivers and less accidents. Also, like Tomteluva says, as a driver you will probably slow down in a curve, resulting in a lower fatality rate when crashes do occur in that turn compared to straight parts.
Actually, adding things to make the road "feel" more dangerous is exactly what the Netherlands do and their traffic accident statistics make America look like a third-world nation.
Just because a driver THINKS something is more dangerous doesn't mean it is. Because, ironically, in a more dangerous feeling situation drivers will slow down and pay more attention which ultimately makes them safer.
How about teaching people how to drive? I mean, the physical dynamics of the vehicle. What to do in an emergency situation. The ACTUAL rules of the road. Perhaps a yearly test should be given. You know there is a difference between a “safe” driver, one is nothing more than an operator, and one who know how to drive. I could go on and on and on and on and on, the best solution is probably automation. Self driving vehicles. I will personally hate her, but it’s probably your best solution. The US a long time ago decided to make vehicles safer because, I think, the cost to teach someone actually how to drive was too high for most people to bear.
The “yearly test” thing is a joke. The government already messes up everything they touch lol. Now they’re gonna test us every year where dmv lines are already long?
@@zacharycass3790 a yearly written test wouldn’t be horrible and would be easy to scale. Then having to do an actual driving test every time you renew your license seems reasonable.
They also need to increase the standards for the written test. In my state you can pass it getting an 80% which is a joke. The 20% of questions people get wrong are the ones that need to be taught and that can cause a serious accident.
A higher cost of teaching someone to drive is well worth it. When I learned to drive in France in 1980, it already cost the equivalent of $2000, with a minimum of 40 hours of classes and 40 hours of driving practice, and failing on the first test was very common. As a result, the European driver is much more knowledgeable than there American counter part.
@@zacharycass3790 Do you know how many people actually don’t know the laws? Quite a few. Georgia puts in traffic circles and people don’t really know how to use them.
@@johnmoore1495 I wasn’t necessarily talking about a driving test. I was talking about the written test. People need to learn about the importance of tires and suspension. People need to be told about lateral G. People just need to learn how to drive. People slow down on exchange ramps for no reason when there’s not even a sign saying that they need even slow down. That’s primarily because people don’t know how to drive.
In my experience people driving slowly in the passing lane seem to be a bigger issue then speeders. Always that person driving slow in the passing lane causing 10+ vehicles behind them to drive bumper to bumper.
Seems you're misunderstanding the issue. The issue here is people speeding on urban streets, not highways. There are no pedestrians on highways. If your statement is about streets in areas where people walk and bike, we shouldn't even have a "fast lane" there.
@@iluvcamping people driving well under the speed limit without a valid reason [aka obstructing traffic] are a contributor to the issue as well, especially given that most people go 5 over the posted limit to start with. It causes road rage which, in turn, causes more reckless driving which reduces safety.
The slow folks need to get up to speed or get out of the bloody way. And if you are going the speed limit and hit the brakes on a curve that does not have a sign posting a reduced speed [meaning it is safe to make that curve going the posted limit], you should straight up just pull over and let everyone behind you go by. unnecessary braking can also contribute to car wrecks
I've watched quite a few road infrastructure videos, and building "speed bumps" everywhere is NOT an answer. They are expensive to maintain/build/remove, slow emergency vehicles response times, damage vehicles, increase air pollution, reduce fuel efficiency. I couldn't believe he suggested using that in the video. A lot of smart cities are moving away from these and getting to the route of the problem by fixing the road design itself (Reducing width, adding curves, adding trees/bushes around it, adding pedestrian walks, etc). Get with the times.
You're right about speed bumps. One place I lived at they installed an alternative to a speed bump - a very narrow area where you had to slow down - but people were complaining that emergency vehicles couldn't get thru, so they did the only sensible reasonable thing they could - installed another one on that very same street. Genuis!
It's such a medieval "solution". And I notice we're a lot quicker to put more speed bumps in than we are to actually maintain roads. Some speed bumps are so severe they should just put up stop signs.
Speed limits are not the problem in the US. It's the number of bad drivers in the US. Most countries around the world require you to be 18 and it's a difficult driving test. Speed limits are not going to slow down a bad driver.
Licensing tests don’t have as much impact as you’d hope. If people are motivated to drive, they will pass it. Then they’ll revert to their bad habits.
You have to remove the motivation of bad drivers to get on the driver’s seat to see a reduction in bad drivers. Give them good, attractive options that don’t involve driving. They’re bad at driving, they probably won’t find driving in itself enjoyable. I’ll leave the means to do so as an exercise to the reader.
A driving test is just one moment. It doesn't mean a whole lot. I have got an EU license as well as a US, both car and motorcycle, I have been through the training. I have driven in both continents and I don't see that much of difference in driving behavior. There are bad drivers in both continents. I do believe that a restricted license at age 16 is a good thing (including a restricted speed limit, no need for a 16 year old to go 80) and I also tend to believe that annual vehicle inspections in EU are of higher standard than what I have seen here in US. Another thing I don't understand is that why 18-wheelers can go so fast in the US. I mean, in a lot of states these big vehicles can go 70 mph, legally. That's insane. If a car loses control at 70, that's an issue but if an 18-wheeler spins out of control at such a speed, can you imagine the devastation? In the EU, those big trucks are governed.
@@hyljethey start you on really good footing , of course there always more someone can learn
The problem is that almost all roads and streets in the US are made to a highway standard, encouraging people to drive fast. A road or street should be designed appropriately for the area. For example, a residential neighborhood should not have a wide six lane road running through it, preventing people from walking and biking where they live. Not to mention the noise and pollution a large volume of cars brings to a neighborhood.
I don’t know if it’s almost all, all the schools in my city do not have this issue. I believe they’re pretty much all 2 lane roads, I can’t think of an example where there is more. I don’t even know any area in the city where there’s a 6 lane road (I know you were just using this as an example, but still). I suppose it depends on population? We have around 80,000 people, which isn’t a lot a lot, buy it’s not small either.
I’m guessing this very much depends on who designed the city. For example, some cities are laid out well in a grid format. Others definitely aren’t.
I guess I’m just trying to say I haven’t witnessed what you’re saying, so I’m not sure it’s as widespread as people make it seem. After all, like I pointed out, different people designed these cities. There wasn’t a unified design. Different cities are going to need to take different approaches I would assume
@@ShadowTheNinjaKitty Hi Jonah, an 80k person town is fairly small, so it is not surprising you don't see any six lane roads in your town. That being said, a major redesign of our cities is needed, moving away from a car centric design to a human scale, prioritizing quality of life. The CZcams channel, NotJustBikes, makes amazing CZcams videos on this topic.
Round Abouts are rare
@@ShadowTheNinjaKitty Grids aren't exactly the ideal candidate for ALL cities but it sure is worth considering. Sure there may not be a unified design, but there should be a unified goal - to get people where they want to go *safely*. As someone who lives in a city with over 10 million residents, I can say that traffic surely is horrendous, but after visiting the US i learnt to be grateful for how walkable (not even as walkable as say a Dutch city) my city was.
Yes!!! They're commonly known as "stroads".
A 7 lane stroad used to run in the middle of town.
Now the stroad is only 4 lane for cars, a light rapid transit route (tram), and bike lanes. There's less traffic and there's more options of transit to chose.
Vote for unlimited speed limit on highways like Germany!!!!!
The requirements to drive are way too low. I remember as a teenager being threatened as an entire class into trying to make driving students drive safer by our local police Lieutenant in Massachusetts (based on bias assumptions). To get my temperorary driving license we needed to study fine costs (not indicating distance, not right of way scenarios, nor what to do if an emergency vehicle is on the otherside of the road with a siren). Our system is wrong, not just the signs and accidents. Plus, local residents have literally zero influence on road speeds. You can start a petition, or bring it up in a town meeting. However, there is nothing you yourself can ever actually do to change a speed limit.
I know it's not the correct thing to say to the woman who lost her son. But, she isn't here. He was a teenage boy who didn't have much driving experience, and likely not the newest, nor safest car. It's a tragic, horrid loss!! However, it is not fair to compare school children to the average US driver, and make changes based on that person who isn't experienced, for the rest of her life. Those lost in car accidents are sorely missed, but we should teach Americans what we need to recognize an imperfect system, and better train American drivers, not simply slow them down.
Typical for Democrats
Some speed limits are so unreasonably slow, it's dangerous. You get two groups of people the ones cruising the "unofficial limit" and the ones cruising 5mph below the posted limit. There's a 15 - 30mph difference between those two speeds. It would be better to have faster freeway limits combined with actual enforcement with speed cams. It's what's done in European countries like Germany and Switzerland and it appears to work well there.
I got a ticket for going 2 kph faster than the limit in Switzerland (literally nothing). Was below the limit the rest of the trip 🤷♂️
@2nd Gen Mexican No.
That a joke 2kmph that is laughable in a court of law because now it factors in your tac if that’s accurate from factory wheel size can make it go off. You have a 5+/- in kph anywhere . Literally my dodge 3500 truck is off by a solid 8kph doing 100 on the highway with the 35” /37 tire. Having speed traps like that is a straight cash grab and actually is being removed in parts of Canada
@@t2iskyler I wish it were a joke. Was driving a BMW rental. Probably factory spec. 2 kph is literally like 1mph over. Obviously that would get thrown out here in the states. I saw the flash of the traffic cam and there was no one else around me and was so surprised . Then the rental car company actually manages to make pay it later on.
Govern the engines to 20 mph. Fast enough. 20 is plenty. It wouldn't add that much time to a commute. Bumper cars.
Speed cameras is such a 1984 type idea
I feel like raising or lowering the speed limit won't do anything. People will still drive the speed they want. Though I'd argue that the interstates should have an uncapped speed limit: they are divided between directions of travel, no traffic lights or stop signs, no people on the road (shouldn't be), and they tend to have long stretches of nothing between exits. They are designed to get to where you are going fast.
Yeah, they need to design the road appropriate to the road's use. Instead of making giant roads within suburbs, make them smaller, slow them down (traffic calming).. Not Just Bikes, City Beautiful make comprehensive videos about this.
Changing the speed limit without changing the road design won't fix anything, since on wide straight streets people drive very fast. Better street design is needed, and we need to end the existence of Stroads.
@@carfreeneoliberalgeorgisty5102 yep
American and Canadian governments over invested in car infrastructure and now wonder why they have an infrastructure, road deaths, and road congestion crisis. You don't need to have a lot of road infrastructure in order to have good road infrastructure but the road infrastructure that you do have needs to be top quality, extremely safe, and rigorously maintained. The suburban experiment was a massive failure.
Nah, some people will go as fast as they think they can go without being pulled over. Many would go upwards of 100mph, while family vans and school buses are going 65 passing another car and get slammed into. Speed limits mostly should stay just the way they are.
So what is CNBC advocating for: 85% rule or what the lady who lost her son was saying? What are the pertinent facts about that unfortunate accident? Was speeding the only contributor? Was the careless driver exceeding the posted limit anyway?
If you don't know what they're advocating for, that's sounds like they have done a good job a journalism.
Present the facts in a unbiased way.
@@Robert-cu9bm Correct.
Case in point: The road from Las Vegas to Phonix Arizona. The speed limit is at 65... everyone is going 75-85 because that's what makes sense.
Driver distraction is a big part of it too. People using phones and also there more and more screens inside new vehicles.
Also dumbasses doing “takeovers”. Some stupid guy blocked off 3 lanes to do donuts as traffic was coming. I wish I was kidding,,,
@@angelgjr1999 npc behaviour
Driving license tests should be made stricter.
those of retirement age should be given an annual road test, going 5 under or slower without a valid reason for a mile should be an automatic failure due to traffic obstruction.
Lowering speed limits will do the absolute opposite of what this video is saying. Engineers will tell you that a road designed for 120MPH when posted speed is 65MPH people will speed. Similarly a road engineered at 80mph posted as 45 people will speed because the road is in good enough condition, and visibility to go faster, as is stated in the engineers reports, but these are ignored by officials who think that speed kills. Then the govt can fine them. Train companies were the ones who lobbied for speed limits on roads, to ensure they wouldn't lose freight business to trucks. Govts just use the low limits to ensure people speed and collect the revenue. If people drove at the correct speed and were well trained drivers, there would be much less accidents because roads would also be less congested.
Once again government overreach has not helped the problem and in fact made it worse.
I have been a speeder all my life. I keep it to +1-5 on surface streets to as fast as traffic density and road conditions allow on major interstates especially outside residential areas. I don't give law enforcement a hard time when they call me on it either. Just keep your personal desire to go fast checked with the environment you are actively driving in. Both sides are correct here with regards to two different driving environments.
If you are traveling couple of miles above the limit, you aren't really a "speeder". You are just traveling like almost everyone else, and that is sensible
Do you mean, you go at least 1-5mph faster than the speed limit, but if road conditions allow outside of residential areas, you will go much faster?
If so, I can follow that thought. If one uses discretion in finding a proper speed, one can still be a very safe driver from my perspective.
If my above assumption is correct, I have a question: If you happen to be pulled over much faster than the speed limit - going as fast as the conditions allow - how are you dealing with the ticket? Isn't there a point system, or increased insurance premiums for speeding? Or do the cops usually leave with a friendly warning, if you clarify that you were not intending to speed, but rather were going as fast as the conditions allowed to go in a safe manner?
I would be surprised, if cops in general would leave you with a friendly warning, because from my experience they are either (or both): Revenue oriented and/or enjoy the power they can enforce over others.
Side note: I appreciate any public servant why understands to be a servant of the people, paid by the people. A police guy/sheriff with the main goal to protect the peace and serve the common man, rather than enforcing policy without any injured/damaged party is getting my upmost respect.
Advanced driver training is what we need. It is entirely too easy to get a license here and people have no spatial awareness or road etiquette. So many ppl drive carelessly in the left lane going slow, drive without headlights on etc. We should also have a re-certification every 5 or 10 years.
@GN every time i see a bus, it's empty. people want their own vehicles, not public transportation.
@GN In California, theres more cars than people. lol
@@Hunter-fv5gl Every time I see a bus it is packed to the gills if heading for the center of town, but if going outbound empty, like a lot of tractor trailers, empty but going to a place to fill up that bus with more riders.
@@paulmentzer7658 not sure where you live, but thats not how it is in California at all. nobody takes the bus
The problem with U.S. speed limits isn't speed. It's distracted driving and driving slow in the wrong lanes. Distracted drivers on their phones texting while driving slowing down traffic is the biggest problem, but it also goes without saying slow drivers in the fast lane with their Priuses or EVs being in the wrong lane like always is just as worse.
That's not to say there aren't any speed demons out there, because there are. Most of them are MOPAR owners, Dodge Charger and Challenger owners. They are notorious for reckless driving.
There are many city streets and expressways across the U.S. where speed limits are just too low. Take a look a Texas on Highway 130 between Dallas and Austin. 85MPH. They probably have less to no accidents on that stretch of highway.
80-85 MPH would be more than enough of speed to cut down on traffic congestion on expressways. The faster traffic is moving, the less accidents on the roads and more focused drivers should be more aware. Slow drivers cause most of the accidents because they're focused on something else and not in the far right lane they're suppose to be in.
Living in Florida, the expressways need to be 80-85MPH, with the exception of road construction, then it goes to 65MPH, but other than that if there is no construction and it's all road ahead, the pace just needs to be picked up.
More focus as the velocity increase due to human vision angle become lesser
Part of I-85 in Metro Atlanta is 65-70MPH and you still get people driving 55MPH or less and not staying in the right lane either. I don't know if folks are just ignorant of the "slow traffic keep right, left to pass" rules or they just don't care.
In Australia they put a speed limit in on unrestricted roads and it caused more deaths.
So they put it back to unrestricted.
Just lowering a speed limit doesn't mean less deaths.
Correct. A speed limit may encourage some drivers to drive faster than they and their car can handle. It creates a false sense of security. The speed limit said 55 so it must be OK to drive 55. Never mind the black ice on the road or the thick fog.
Imagine living in a country with the longest, straightest roads and you just can't go over the speed. No matter if you are in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
How about having no speed limit but install a sensor in every car that indicates as soon as another car/person is in proximity of say 500 meters
Simply paying more attention would probably reduce half of the accidents in the first place.
@2nd Gen Mexican Pretty much.
Correct. How do you make people pay attention? You narrow the streets, you put curves and trees along the road that requires you to pay attention. People will distract themselves on straight, wide streets where attention isn't that important.
Do not make single lanes !!! I swear there are people that like going super slow just for no reason backing the whole road and creating traffic
Residential streets need to be narrow. There is little traffic on side streets.
The real problem is where residential districts have major roads running through them. This is where road design needs to slow traffic down. There is no other option or pedestrians will continue to be killed or maimed.
We keep thinking to put up signs for this. Signs are 'information' and that does not change behaviour. You need to physically change the streets to put more focus on slowing car down. Europeans use a lot of round-abouts, which slow cars down. Even with an accident it's a fender bender usually at worst. The obstructions also make high speed chases very difficult. Another change should be narrow lanes and avoiding too many long strait-away roads. That's where people build up their speed.
Blaming it on speed alone is just silly
Better city plans and better designed road structure makes a huge difference. Round abouts are a good way of slowing down cars look at European countries.
Round abouts will also reduce the amount of traffic because it increases the flow of traffic.
@@dutyrover946 in Florida where I live there's tons of roundabouts it reduces traffic because people stop using the road. They are definitely safer for pedestrians.
Highways in LA area has bumps and it's Wavy???? (up and down, not sideways)Americans really don't know how to pave the road. I can't imagine they enforce the speeding law harsh when they can't even provide good road to begin with.
Roundabouts also save gas and lower pollution.
Roundabouts are horrible for truck drivers. Cars don't respect a truck in a roundabout most of the time. They get very close to getting clipped by the trailer.
The reason isn't speeding. It's the fact that our cities are so car dependent, which puts people in dangerous situations.
America is unique in size and population.
@@4realjacob637 It's really not. Brazil isn't far off - two-thirds the population, and only a slightly smaller area for a similar population density.
@@vylbird8014 yeah, but GDP per Capita in Brazil is $8k and $69k in US. America has so many cars due to being rich when the car first became available. Most other countries weren't rich when cars first came out and didn't have massive domestic automotive industries.
@@vylbird8014 Brazils actual livable land is much less than that of the US since more than half the country is covered in rainforests. So the actual population density in population centers are much higher than that of true US.
@@seanthe100 why isn't Netherlands so car-dependent then? You can live in a rich country, but not be so car-dependent. It all comes down to urban planning and government (lobby). America has so many cars because there is no other alternative unless you live in a few lucky cities with older urban areas or around college campuses.
I'm pretty sure 1993-2017 also coincidences with the rise of cellphones and distracted driving but the most significant disruption to the driver in 50+ years isn't mentioned once?
The major problem with road - pedestrian collisions is the design of the road and urban area being badly designed for the area. Another issue is the number of other things on the road taking the driver from paying proper attention to their driving.
When I started driving there was NO state speed limit for the highways and non-urban roads and the drivers had to adjust as was suitable for their experience, the road conditions, traffic levels, and the weather limits. We were trained to recognise and adjust to the conditions. However, several years later the state brought in a speed limit for all roads that had previously been open roads. Once they stuck a speed limit on the roads, whatever it was and however they worked it out, the rate of collisions and crashes went up. This was due to two major factors: (1) a lot of time is spent checking the speedometer to check the speed instead of the checking the road, and (2) new drivers are trained to drive AT the posted speed limit and NOT to the road, traffic, and weather conditions, thus they were not taught to adjust their speed nor how to assess what it should be.
Another issue is to set the speed limits in the urban areas as appropriate for each urban area. The speed limit should be lower for an urban area where the distance front the front door of one house to the front door of the house opposite is under 40 feet than where the distance is over 100 feet. yet most urban planners and official regard them all as the same.
Also, urban areas should be designed so that a car is NOT needed to get to anywhere you want to go for any reason. I grew up in a street in a major city where one end of the street opened onto a major urban highway with 3 lanes of traffic going each way and was always very busy, and the other end connected to another residential street like ours which was wide enough to have a car parked on each side and two cars pass each other while going in opposite direction in the street. Yet, it was very rare to see two cars moving in the street at any one time, and we often played games in the street in complete safety. A large part of this was due to all of the residents being able to walk down the street and buy most of what they want in the way of daily needs and be back home within five to fifteen minutes, depending on what they were getting. After I left home and rented a house in a new urban development I had a five to ten minute drive to go and buy bread or milk or anything, instead of a five or ten minute walk because there were NO local shops - urban planners didn't allow for any shops in the residential areas as they all had to be in the commercial area with over 85% of the houses fiver to twenty minutes drive from the commercial area. This urban planning means a lot more cars on the road driving around the urban areas.
Was just about to make a similar comment but you hit this right on the nail. Coming from a city planner. The way we planned and still plan our cities today in the U.S is basically addiction to cars. Pretty sad honestly, most people here are so blind to real solutions.
I feel sorry for the lady who lost her son, but what's to say the driver was speeding in that case? I've had kids jump in front of the street even when I was going at or below speed limit. A 12-year-old should know to look at both sides of the street before crossing. Instead of just championing for lower speed limits, she would be better served trying to install a crosswalk or stop sign or something in that location.
Agreed. I can't imagine the pain of losing a child but I'm not sure she actually brings anything to the discussion other than an anecdote.
@@agisler87 yea I'm not trying to take away from her loss, but it seems like she's making suggestions based out of emotion rather than facts. There was absolutely nothing to suggest the driver in that case was speeding.
American roads are ugly. They prioritize the car and it becomes difficult to bike or take transit. Some towns don't even have sidewalks!
Pedestrian infrastructure should be advocated for but is often thought not of, the inclusion of it could've prevented the child's passing in its entirety, since pedestrian infrastructure is relatively expensive, designing roads near schools to ensure they aren't going excess of 30m/ph is a better alternative as it saves money too.
Probably true. Idk about 12 year olds but cars at my university not only speed on small roads but the people who are walking jump out in front of these speeding cars all the time for no reason, I'm surprised we don't have more accidents
Lower speed limits will lead to even more traffic congestion on the roads which will then result in even more accidents and road rage.
that's not true. in 2020 accidents increased despite a reduction of traffic. That's becuase traffic slow down cars and the lower speed results in lower fatality rate
Historically, the opposite has almost always proven true in every developed part of the world. There is exactly one and only one way to reduce traffic congestion, and that is to make alternatives to driving more feasible. If you make driving more attractive, traffic congestion always goes up. The reason why European cities have lower traffice congestion is because alternatives like cycling, walking, and mass transit are all widely available, affordable, and usable.
@@goromir7093 accidents didn't increase, traffic tickets increased!!
Facts
@@parasharkchari the reason why Europe has those options because it's population hasn't grown much in centuries. Most of its cities were already built before the industrial revolution and Henry Ford making the model T. In 110 years Germanys population has only increased 28% meanwhile US has increased 360% in that same time period. in a place like Florida where I live the population has increased 2500% and we're the third largest State literally no where in Europe has had that type of growth. Also the US was already rich 110 years ago with 40% of the worlds economy this is what sets Europe and US apart.
Even the highway patrol doesn't follow the speed limit for most of the time. How do they expect us to follow it...
Speed kills? How about stupidity, inattention, and entitlement kills? In the past 3 years I have seen such an exponential increase in bonehead moves on the road. Speeding is far from the worst infraction. People run red lights in front of me EVERY SINGLE DAY MULTIPLE TIMES. Drivers seem to believe that tailgating the car in front of them as they make a left entitles them to run the light and make the cross traffic wait for them or perhaps risk hitting them. They see the light is red as they enter the intersection and they do it anyway. They camp in the left lane under the speed limit, they merge without looking, they wander out of their lane, they aggressively tailgate, cut across multiple lanes at once, and on and on. Those are what kills. Drivers also do not understand how their vehicle works and what its capabilities are (and more importantly are NOT) and they go beyond its mechanical limits. People who speed and people who drive recklessly are worlds apart, and in my opinion drivers should be able to qualify themselves and their vehicle to exist in that former world at whatever speed they want.
You could change driving laws. Like in Germany the duty to drive on the right lane or no overtaking on right lanes. Another approach is dynamic speed limits. Monitor the traffic and based on that you can decide the speed limit at any time. All you need is electronic signs and cameras
Better street design does it all.
Changing speed limits are commonplace and a lot more urban areas now.
I think Chicago and Florida has started to implement them. Especially on their expressways.
US has way more cars than Germany! 25% more cars per person than germany.
Just to be clear: on the US Interstates you have to keep right. Keep you lane does NOT apply on interstates. And if you deliberately overtake from the right lane, it's a ticket. Only on turnpikes/ringroads you may overtake from the right as a lot of exists are also on the left. But on turnpikes, speed limits aren't that high anyway. I agree with the variable speed limit part
@@mathisnotforthefaintofheart if someone in the left lane is going under the limit, you have to overtake on the right. and tbh if the folks in the lane to the right of you are passing you, you're in the wrong lane and thus need to get up to speed or get out of the way.
I feel distracted by trying to keep an eye on my speedometer trying to stay within the speed limit or not far above it. Not sure if this would contribute to accidents with cars or people but wildlife coming out of nowhere sure can catch you off guard in those split seconds your eyes glance down to your speedometer.
You shouldn't be trying to stay within the speed limit or not far above it. You should be trying to stay UNDER the speed limit or not too close to it. Still, the speed limit is only a legal maximum and sometimes it is set too high. So use your own judgment as well. If on some road or street you feel you can't safely look at the speedometer for just a fraction of a second then you are already driving too fast for the circumstances, never mind what the limit is.
That’s why I like cars with heads up displays.
It helps to have cruise control.
@@HMMELD I ain’t gonna lie I hate using cruise control. I don’t like the idea of not having full control of the gas pedal or break pedal but this I guess is my own my fault. Even on long trips I rarely and I mean rarely use cruise control.
@@WJGSix if you refuse to use cruise control it is your own fault really. Cruise control reduces driver workload and allows paying more attention to the surroundings, increasing safety.
Not Just Bikes has been covering these issues for a few years. He talks frequently about North American road construction, traffic calming, and ways to create safer streets. I highly recommend his YT channel.
Speed limits are too low if you ask me.
We need faster speed limits.
The BIGGEST problem on the road that I see EVERY SINGLE DAY is people looking at their phones while driving, instead of looking at the road. That is the most dangerous problem that needs to be addressed. That's how pedestrians get killed.
Yes. Literally almost all crashes are caused by this these days. Having a system that disables your phone while out of park would make sense… but it’s also impossible to implement everywhere in all cars.
Yup especially here in texas, they dont even use their bluetooth that has installed in their cars anymore they literally hold their phones or text while driving
Or the push towards touch screens for every function of a car's interior controls. Instead of being able to feel for a button to change the climate controls of a car, now you gotta look down and fiddle through menus on a touchscreen which gives you no feedback whatsoever.
@2nd Gen Mexican the ones looking at their cellphones actually go too slow and block traffic. The ones who go slightly above the speed limit are the ones who are paying the most attention while driving.
Speeding has nothing to do with car accidents, people just drive too close, I see it all the time, %90 of accidents can be prevented if you just keep your distance
Add to it lane changes.
@@HMMELD your %100 correct, me and a friend from work drove to hang out in a bar, i stayed in one lane the whole time, he switched I think like 20 lanes, he got to the place 10 seconds early, remember telling him, is 10 seconds worth multiplying your chance for an accident by 1000? They just don't get it
@@miltonfriedman3593 I have what I call the 10 second rule which could go as long as 45 seconds - wait 10 seconds and you'll be totally in the clear rather than taking a chance. 20 lane changes. Really? BTW weren't you a famous economist once upon a time.
Situation awareness,look ahead farther than your braking+reaction distance,stay far enough behind the vehicle in front of you so that it doesn't block your view of what's up ahead,avoid riding besides another vehicle in adjacent lane if you can do so ,don't ride in large vehicle's blindspots (if you can't see the driver in his mirror(s) he can't see you)
don't aim to change lane into a lane that another vehicle is likely to change lane into (a lot of highway accidents seem to involve two vehicles changing into the same space at the same time from two lanes one empty lane apart)
be paranoid about parallel turn lanes and try to use the one that allows you to see the other one in your left hand mirror
@@miltonfriedman3593 Every time you change lanes you must do extra work,accept a bit more risk
"lane swapping" to cut through traffic--a good cop's eye is drawn to that and attracts his interest for any possible violation that might justify a stop -those drivers cause more accidents I believe than simple speeders
Fun fact. In 2019 Germany (83 million citizens) had only 917 speed related fatalities. Meanwhile the USA (320 million citizens) had 9478 speed related fatalities. Thats more than 10 times more fatalities with only 3.5 times more citizens. And insane part is that Germany has overall higher speed limits than the US. So clearly the issue the US has is not speed related. Its car culture related. U have to drive everywhere while using an awful car infrastructure and really bad roads.
So their solution is to make the roads more dangerous (decreasing lane size, adding trees etc) to make us slow down 😂😂 what a joke
Adapting lane width to the design speed of roads has been proven to work. Narrower lanes and trees alongside a road are only more dangerous if you're distracted while driving or going very fast. Look at larger residential streets in the Netherlands for example, they have narrow lanes for cars, often with trees and cycle lanes as well. The smaller residential streets are often shared spaces where cyclists and pedestrians have absolute priority. Have you seen the number of car accidents that happen in the Netherlands?
That said reducing speed limits on long straight interstate highways seems silly and is unlikely to reduce the number of accidents. Instead of only using signs to make people slow down through built up areas, you use road design, so a four lane road that goes through a suburb would have narrower lanes than a four lane road in the middle of nowhere etc.
Lol, they have this so wrong. It is not the speed but the drivers. I've seen too many accidents where the drivers aren't paying attention or not using common sense.
One kid dies and this lady makes it her mission to inconvenience everyone in the country...?
Perhaps a better solution would be talking to kids about traffic safety and not wandering out in the street where cars are driving?
This story is tragic, and I hope she finds her peace, but I'm never a fan of people who expect the whole world to adjust to fit their circumstance.
Bro. "One kid"? That was her kid. You're blaming a child for not doing everything perfectly and getting killed. People like you deserve to be "inconvenienced" if it means a 12 year old gets to see their mother at the end of the day.
@@RandomPerson123321 Have you ever heard the story about what happened at Tastee'z?
@@RandomPerson123321 are you seriously suggesting there’s never been a kid who was at fault for getting killed by a car?!! If you are, that’s absurd. If not, you need a new argument.
If the goal of speed limits is to reduce traffic fatalities then the government should add a pedestrian survival metric to their crash certifications.
Lower Speed limits + more traffic cops = $$$. This has nothing at all to do with safety.
I feel bad for the woman who lost her son, but there is a reason we do not make policy based on a grieving mother.
How about a policy based thousands of grieving mothers, fathers, grandparents, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, grandchildren, colleagues, friends and soulmates?
Easy for you to say that now though
They should teach drivers at slow speed to move to the right of the road. Basic principle almost no one on the road knows.
there are signs along the interstate near me "slower traffic keep right" no one obeys them.
It would be good journalism and proper editorial practice to add context to the heartbreaking story that opens this vedio: "Sammy Cohen-Eckstein, 12, was playing near his home on Prospect Park West when his ball rolled into the street around 5:15 p.m., police said.
Running into the street to retrieve the ball, Cohen-Eckstein was struck by a white van. He was taken to Methodist Hospital but could not be saved.
The van’s driver remained at the scene, but no arrests were made and no summons were issued."
Its funny how when they lower the the speed the speed to make a road safer the differential between the drivers driving the arbitrarily low speed limit and the drivers driving the roads natural speed actually makes the road un-neccessarily dangerous. Public thouroughfaires should encourage speed and driver efficiency while neighborhoods / urban areas should be single lane narrower roads.
The driving test is a joke. Most drivers have no idea what to do behind the wheel. That's the problem, not speed
I’m amazed no one addressed the need for better driver training, or more of it. Maybe a USDOT minimal driver standard for licensing? Perhaps we need to raise that bar. I’m not averse to a road test every ten years for my license, for example. Speed traps by themselves are not going to make our roads safer. In fact they’re chiefly a method for cash-strapped localities who want to misuse their police to tax citizens.
Speed traps are incredibly efficient if they’re uniformly enforce.
No matter what, if you pass through here at X speed you get a ticket and give people a heads up. Instead of well, we feel like enforcing today.
That’s how it’s done in Europe.
Problem we need to address however is that many places in America require a car just to be able to do the basics. Public transport is severely lacking, especially in Rural areas. The easy driving tests are (regrettably) more of a necessity now due to the above.
If we can address people being able to get around without a car, and with reasonable accessibility, then absolutely raise the bar for getting a license.
The federal government doesn’t license drivers, states do. DOT only regulates commercial vehicles because they’re conducting interstate commerce.
speed humps put up big ones in towns and around any areas you want traffic to slow , works a yreat
I feel bad for this lady but I believe her perceptions are wrong. Was speed a factor in her sons death? I'm sure it was, but it wasn't the only factor and I'm sure the child has some culpability as well.
Drivers education would go along way in preventing accidents but in urban environments there must also be pedestrian and BICYCLE education on our streets.
With no speed, the car is parked.
So speed is a factor.
Speeding is what you're thinking.
Modern vehicles have more safety features and way better brakes and tires than anything the 90's had to offer; yet in my region speed limits have remained the same for decades. Today, most people do 60 in a 45. 10 years ago it was 50 mph. People feel more confident in their vehicles today because they are smoother and safer. I think the true killer is that we are more distracted.
If we want to eliminate car crashes altogether, let's go back to the horse and carriage days.
It’s not speed that kills it’s reckless driving
Yes sir and The Damn Signal Lights as well.
Agreed. Speed amplifies the severity of a crash, but it rarely ever causes the crash to happen in the first place. Most crashes happen because of a traffic conflict where somebody had the right-of-way, and somebody else didn't.
Speed and fatal crashs are correlated, so actualy it's speed
Exactly what I've been saying too.
“People drive the way the roads are built and if you doing something else your wasting your time” 😂😂😂
Because their time is far more important than their lives
All those “solutions” that guy presented at the end sounded like complete nonsense
1) building more curvature into roads just makes them more difficult to build and probably more costly
2) narrowing lanes sounds extremely dangerous to put drivers in a situation where they are constantly worrying about whether they might get sideswiped by a semi truck driving next to them because the lanes are tight
3) traffic is already terrible, so putting less lanes in will just cause people to waste time and even money if you are a business. Also, it will contribute to more fuel being burned while idling in traffic which is bad for the environment and people’s wallets
The problem is that you're treating all roads the same. There's really two kinds of driveable surfaces: streets and roads.
Roads are for getting vehicles from one place to another quickly. Streets are for living and doing business on. Those goals are mutually incompatible. Getting vehicles around quickly needs high speeds. Living and doing business needs low speeds to accommodate pedestrians. To get both done you have a network of roads with streets infrequently connecting to it at specific intersections. All the pedestrian crossings, footpaths and driveways go on the streets.
A lot of places think making a road more dangerous will slow people down and that will make it less dangerous. They don't live in the real world.
@@TommyJonesProductions It's a psychological thing. You can have roads that _look_ safe, but are actually dangerous because drivers are lured into a false sense of security by the design and consequently aren't as careful as they should be. In those cases, you need to revise the design so drivers perceive it as being as dangerous as it really is.
If you think you're likely to hit something on a particular stretch of road if you go at 60, but think you'll be fine at 40, then you'll go at 40, and you might push 50 if you're in a hurry and are willing to take a gamble.
@@Roxor128 or we could simply stop letting slow people drive
@@TommyJonesProductions There aren't "slow people". People drive as fast as they feel comfortable driving in a given environment, and part of that environment is the other drivers. If everyone else is going 80, then you probably will too.
If you want people to go fast, you make the roads wide and straight, with plenty of room between cars. Drivers will feel safe going fast in such an environment and you can bet they'll be going fast, probably without even noticing until they get pulled over for doing 20 over the limit.
Speeds on highways should be increased to 150km on average
Speed literally has no effect on its own. How the road is designed and the differential of speed between slow drivers and fast drivers screw up the whole road.
Lady, I'm sorry you lost your son, but blaming the institute of driving is insane.
In Australia, compared to the US, urban roads feel 20% narrower. Result is that I'm hyper-aware of remaining in my lane so as not to hit cars on either side of me. Secondary result is that *often* the urban speed limit feels uncomfortably fast; not ever a feeling I get in the US.
The dingo took my baby !!!!
This isn’t entirely accurate. There are several studies that show that higher speeds aren’t necessarily the cause of road fatalities. This video didn’t explore on the fact that there are many other reasons that cause fatalities that are even the root cause of people driving fast to begin with. Trucks and slow traffic should be banned from the passing lanes, highways should have lanes that accommodate incoming/merging traffic so that it doesn’t end up in stand still and more exits to make through traffic take other routes
Although there’s increased road rage when you lower the speed limits which encourages folks to speed more
1. How does autobahn research fit in to this?
2. If you decrease lanes you will slow down drivers certainly but you will also have more aggressive drivers.
3. The suggested design changes MAY decrease the number of crashes but I wonder, will they would increase the severity of the crashes which do occur?
I do not think these suggestions are well thought out. It feels one sided. Better solutions seem to be
1. Lean into a self driving car future
2. Increase safety standards on vehicles
3. Revised approach to traffic stops
4. Increase use of cameras to lower the amount of paid police presence needed
3. If streets are narrower and everthing is more packed, it will make you feel uncomfortable driving fast. One adapts their driving to the conditions and design of the road, change these conditions and the behaviour will change too.
Yea, definitely don’t reduce lanes. That would be maddening, and I would assume would increase crashes as people weave in and out of traffic.
I think they leaned on the mother too much a little bit. Her anecdote is valuable, but her input on “rewarding” people who speed was definitely jaded and biased (for good reasons). If “rewarding” is what works then do it, and rewarding is obviously the wrong word here but I see why she used it
hey John, this is a better video on the subject: czcams.com/video/bglWCuCMSWc/video.html&ab_channel=NotJustBikes
maybe this helps
Lowering the speed limit just takes more money out of our wallets
Lower the speed limit to 5mph, and then the NHTSA will be able to state that 100% of traffic fatalities is caused by speeding.
TRAIN DRIVERS BETTER!
And punish the bad ones harshly
Condolences to the mom, also to a local girl age 12 who died because of a BMW doing 50 at 30mph zone.
But lowering speed everywhere, and lowering the speed limit in city streets are two very different things. Does she want to lower the speed limit of the freeways from 60 to 30 for the reason of "protecting pedestrians?" That'll be nuts and got herself into more grieves when lots of people oppose her righteous cause. While for the ones calling for a higher speed limit or no speed limit change, I doubt they want their own children to walk the street where cars speeding at 40+
We should specify "We want to lower the speed limits on CITY/SUBURB streets." I also want to advocate a MINIMUM speed for passing lanes on freeways. For that left-lane hogs are not just a risk to people driving at the speed limit in the fast lane, but also risking their own lives for being inconsiderate. Here in the northwest, it rains and gets foggy all the time in the winter and obviously, people slow down if they felt their skills are not up to the task. Why not move to the slow lane then?! Just because they are bad drivers or didn't change to winter tires, does not mean others couldn't maintain 60.
I hate those bmw’s
So true. Honestly I think a great solution is more speed cameras setup along interstates. Going too slow under the limit? Ticket. Passing someone on the right? Ticket. Staying in the left lane for more than a certain distance? Ticket. Going more than 5mph over the limit? Ticket. Proper enforcement of written traffic laws would force people into becoming better drivers. But also, we need better standards for passing and taking driving tests. Each state shouldn’t have different requirements to get a license (at least in the contiguous 48, Alaska and Hawaii are their own things), they should be standard across the US, as traffic laws should be.
There is a road here that was once two lanes in either direction with a center turn lane. It was converted into a one way with 5 lanes of travel. The city kept the original speed limit of 35, but it's now basically a highway with traffic lights. Not quite as bad as some of those feeder roads that parallel the interstate in TX. Those can be pretty tough, 2 lanes of travel, you can come around a corner doing 60 with traffic stopped for a red light. Especially tough when driving a truck.
I drive 80k pound trucks everyday it's not tough. I guess that's why I'm a professional driver. I can stop an 80k pound truck in enough time for a traffic light if it's around a corner i'll be going the appropriate speed to stop it. Damn I guess I'm a professional driver.
As a 57 year old lifelong Texan, it always messes with my mind when someone points out the oddity and difficulty of our service roads (or feeder roads if you prefer). It’s so normal to me and I was fairly along in years before I even learned that every state doesn’t have service roads. I wonder why Texas has them, if it’s not the norm. Gotta look that up. Drive safe now.
Lowering speed limits also creates more driver distraction and pedestrians take more risks due to the lower precised danger.
Another thing is if the speed limits on city bypasses/loop roads are set too low or tolled at high rates drivers don't use them and drive in suburban streets increasing the risks of crashes
Speed limits in America do not exist for safety; they exist to tax and collect. It’s a prime reason why police cars will hide behind trees just after a sign tells you to drop your speed by 20 mph, the police departments find any way to collect funds that they can.
In my state it's a $25 fine for doing 1-9mph over, it's a $75 fine for doing 10-14 over. As far as I'm concerned you add 9 to the posted limit and that's the real limit.
Many states are like that. In my state it’s 7 mph before cops can legally pull you over. Although speed limits here are terrible. 6 lane wide roads with plenty of visibility and it’s only 45 mph limit. It’s all a scam for cops to meet quotas.
@@angelgjr1999 I don't know about cops meeting quotas, but its definitely nonsense - 4-lane divided with 45 limit yet 2-lane with 55 limit.
I agree with the mom when it comes to residential speed limits. There’s no good reasons to speed on city and neighborhood roads. However, we have highways that are designed for 70+ mph with speed limits of 55 or 60. As a result, most people drive 5-10mph over since it’s clearly safe to drive faster than 60 on a wide, straight highway.
The mother and yourself missed an important point in the video. The number on a sign has little to effect on the speed people actually drive. You can reduce the speed limit to 5 miles per hour and fatal accidents involving cars travelling at 40 mph will still occur at the same rate.
The problem isn't the speed limit, the problem is the speed cars travel.
Design roads to make people travel more slowly. A wide street feels safe so we drive more quickly on it. A narrow street feels less safe so we slow down.
America is famous for its wide "safe" streets. They are less safe because of their apparent safety
It is too easy to get a driving license in the US. Make the tests harder and the education more comprehensive instead of handing licenses out to anyone like candy. Then increase speed limits. Follow Germany’s lead and make getting a license a three month + journey.
Also, stop giving tickets to safe drivers who only drive fast but follow all other driving laws.