Quote:
Originally Posted by SVOboy
If the point is that people are always going to speed, isn't it then the case that people will just go 90 when the limit is 80 instead of 80 when it is 70?
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Thats exactly my point. If you are going to have speed limits on the highway you need strict enforcement for everyone's safety. Most states are unwilling to unable to afford the technology and manpower. So they set the speed limit too low and hope that even speeders will drive at some kind of reasonable speed for fear of not being pulled over. Its a dangerous enforcement strategy to a victimless crime.
The upside to higher speed limits or even no speed limit at all is the law of diminishing return. Eventually people pick their own reasonable speed limit. If you combine this with better driver's training, education about right of way and slower traffic keep right, you will get safer highways, fewer accident, less traffic jams and (OMG!) better fleet wide fuel economy because we won't be stuck in stop and go traffic all the time. Higher speeds are also a cheap way of increasing the capacity of existing freeways without having to add more lanes of traffic, something nobody wants to talk about.
I encourage anyone to look up the accident and mortality rate on unrestricted stretches of the German autobahn.
Thinks are not always as they seem.