Damn, that's pretty slow. An ebike can easily match that speed.
That would certainly make it so everyone can share the road comfortably, and encourage more non-car traffic.
this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
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All school zones and most residential neighborhoods in sweden have a 30 kmh speed limit.
30 kmh is a huge tipping point when it comes to pedestrian fatalities. below 30 kmh, a majority of pedestrians hit by a car will survive, above 30 kmh, a majority of pedestrians by a car will die.
Frankly I feel uneasy when I'm driving around at 50km/h on residential streets. It's just too fast to be able to react to a kid or an animal jumping out from behind a parked car. So not only is 50 more lethal, it also reduces reaction time and increases braking distance. It's crazy that anybody ever thought this was a good idea to begin with.
I got docked points on my test for going 30 in a residential zone. I didn't fail and I know the tester is just doing their job but daaamn. Encouraging a 17 year old kid to go 50 down side streets with only enough space for a single car, interesting strategy.
17 is way too young to be driving in the first place, but that's another conversation.
I experienced something similar while getting my license, luckily the tester acknowledged that it had been the right thing to do as we later on drove past a kid playing on the street. Imo driving a bit slower in residential areas shouldn't be a problem for anyone.
Hmm, some quick googling says 30 km/h is equal to about 18 mph which feels a little slow. For reference the typical residential speed limit in the US is 25 mph which is about 40 km/h. The lowest speed limit I've ever seen is 15 mph or 24 km/h, but even then nearly everyone ignored that and did 20 to 25 mph. School zones are typically 20 mph or 32 km/h.
In germany there are pedestrian/residental areas with a speed limit of 4-7km/h (2-4mp/h for the American folk here). Basically 1st gear idle speed. Also you can't "jaywalk" in these areas since it's specifically desjnged as a mixed space, nobody has a right of way.
May as well go in your horse drawn carriage at that point
Lowering the speed limit saves lives, whether or not it feels slow should be irrelevant.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/edmonton-driving-speed-limit-city-study
I'm proud to not be American
Just seems too slow to be practical, it will take hours to drive anywhere. I drive just under 100 km every day and that already takes me an hour and a half. If the max speed limit was 30 km/h that would be at least 3 hours if not worse because I'm sure traffic would be significantly worse.
At those speeds you might as well not even bother with a car. Hell there's people around here that regularly exceed 30 km/h on bicycles.
You drive 100km down residential streets every day? Main roads will not have this speed limit.
At those speeds you might as well not even bother with a car.
That's kind of the point. Cars are horribly inefficient at moving people, terrible for the environment, and turn cities into dangerous and awful places to be.
The article seemed to imply that there would only be 2 speed limits, 80% of roads would be 30 km/h while the remaining roads would be 50 km/h. If this only applies to residential roads and not major ones then that's fine. Still seems slightly on the slow side but not horrendous.
About 5 miles of my daily commute are on residential roads most of which are 25 to 30 mph speed limits. 20 miles are on roads with a 70 mph speed limit, and the remainder the speed limit is 45 mph. Most days it takes about 50 minutes one way for a total round trip time of about an hour and 40 minutes.
A lot of french cities are limited to 30km/h. It reduces the number of fatal accident, promote alternative mobilities and some studies showed that it actually increase the average car speed.
Lowering the maximum speed reduces the amount of traffic so in fine even if the maximum speed is reduced the travel time by car is reduced too.
The following chart should basically be the end of any argument on setting speed limits to 30 km/h:
Cool chart! Why does this end arguments about setting the speed limit though? Is 10% fatalities an acceptable level for pedestrian/cyclist collisions? Sorry if I'm not interpreting it right.
To clarify, I meant that it ends any arguments for having speed limits higher than this in urban areas.
Lower speed limits can certainly be argued for, but the chart does show that there are some amount of diminishing returns past 30 km/h.
Oh! In that case I totally agree. The "I wanna go faster" crowd never seems to recognise that they're also in the "I think it's ok for more people to die" camp.
Cool chart, where'd you get it?
Some rough conversions:
30 km/h = 18 miles/h
50 = 30
70 = 45
96 = 60
I found it here, but it refers back to another source material: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Wramborgs-model-for-fatality-probability-vs-vehicle-collision-speeds-Source-based-on_fig1_304529995
I don't disagree with you, however even this chart is probably biased because everyone drives at or above posted limits. Once you lower all the limits this chart will shift left, however, the slower you are moving the more reaction time you have and accidents that do occur are less fatal or destructive, so maybe in the end it will reduce accidents. I will be curious to see after a few months or a year of data.
While I haven't read the original source material, the labels for the chart are for collision speeds, not posted speed limits for collisions.
It's true that there's a large problem in many places with speed limit compliance, but this is primarily a problem of design - the streets encourage driving at speeds that are higher than the posted limit - and secondarily about enforcement, or lack thereof.
I agree that there are likely fewer accidents occurring at lower speeds as well, given that they are easier to avoid at those speeds. This is also a good argument for 30 km/h max speeds in urban areas.
I'm guessing they piloted this first, but the difference in speed limits between transit and adjacent regular vehicles seems dangerous to me.
In general, I find that speed limits are more effective when they are accompanied with the actual infrastructure... If you have a big wide avenue with few obstacles and smooth asphalt, people will tend to drive faster. Squeeze the lanes down, add planters along the side, a rough surface (e.g. cobblestone or brick), etc., and people will naturally allow down.
The Netherlands already have good infrastructure design
In general, I find that speed limits are more effective when they are accompanied with the actual infrastructure
This is a known phenomenon. The solutions you mention are part of whats called traffic calming and they are very effective.
It's funny to see this reach "world news". I'm quite looking forward to my street being a bit quieter.
My vehicle almost idles at that speed! Hope it works out for them. You could probably go faster on a bike. You know what I'm going to do? Read the article. I'll be back with an edit if needed.
Edit: 80% of Amsterdam will have a speed limit of 30km/hr to increase safety and reduce noise.
You could probably go faster on a bike
Yeah, that's kinda the point. I'm a gear head through and through, and I support fewer cars in the city, it is not where they belong. I just spend 15 minutes driving around looking for a parking spot tonight. I wished I'd just been able to hop off a train.
You could probably go faster on a bike.
Amsterdam is well known for making trips by bike and foot the fastest and best way to get around. I am very jealous.
That is just shy of 20 miles an hour for the guys that need freedom units
Which is pretty close to the speed limit of almost all the roads in Manhattan. Not sure why this is "world news" lol
I don't know about there in the US, but in the Netherlands, we follow the speed limits. I hear crazy stuff about speeding in the US.
Driving in the US is done on feeling alone. It doesn't matter what the limit is, it matters what speed you think feels best. Everyone's always doing that and if you're only going the speed limit you're probably obstructing the flow of traffic.
It's absolutely as bad as it sounds
Here we modify the road so it feels unsafe to go over the limit. This can be the type of road, speedbumps, etc.
We do that too, sometimes. Mostly we just make them wider and more hostile to pedestrians
I'd rather have more play roads as they are called here in Germany, in all the areas people live and the roads are tight, with a walking speed limit.
Amsterdam seems like a nice place to visit.
Sensible. That should be the maximum for all civilian cars and trucks. If you need to go faster take a train. Save a ton of lives and fuel.
"Sensible." If that were the speed limit in the US, we'd probably need to triple the amount of asphalt on the ground to handle the gridlock of people being limited to 18MPH.
If cars were that useless we'd build a proper train network. I'm sure Texas would try to build a highway to accommodate it though.
Man wouldn't it suck if America was covered in asphalt and gridlock?
If you think it's bad now imagine how bad it would be if every trip took 2-5 times as long meaning you'd have 2-5 times the amount of cars on the road at any given time.