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Originally Posted by euromodder
The end result of that line of reasoning can only be Vmax = 0 .
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Not really, it would just have to be a speed at which there were no significant injury accidents, which, as you pointed out, could be as high as 40mph. Incidentally, also around the number which the studies I posted earlier found to be the rate above which the effect of additional speed is exponential on injury and fatality rate.
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The flaw in this reasoning is that it only works when only the speed-factor is changed.
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People will pull out closer in front of slow-moving vehicles - negating the effect of reduced speed.
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Yes, but again, the effect is exponential. If someone pulls out twice as close on a vehicle going 1/2 the speed, they have a better chance of stopping in time to avoid a collision.
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If reduced speed would really help, surely we'd see less accidents.
Fact is, we don't .
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You mean "we didn't", don't you? The national speed limit has been removed.
I admit that the rate of accidents didn't decrease
as significantly as expected when there was one. The reason for this is because it wasn't enforced, and so it was largely ignored by the public. Speeds did not change appreciably because of the national 55 limit. Countries which have lowered
and enforced lower limits have in fact had dramatic decreases in auto fatalities, and have seen corresponding increases when repealing those limits (, presumably for proper A-B-A testing):
Speed limit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Despite all driving aids like ABS, EBD, ESP, and what not,
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- yup. Risk compensation. People who have these features drive faster.
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combined with lower allowed speeds
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huh? where? when?
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the number of accidents goes up year after year.
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Total accidents, or per mile accidents? More people drive more year after year, so you would expect the over all total number of accidents to increase. Besides, I'm only interested in injury or fatality accidents. I think it is more than worthwhile to increase the number of fender benders if that is a side-effect of decreasing fatalities (for example, when a lower speed causes a greater lane-differential, it increases risk of a non-injury crash while decreasing the overall risk of fatality)
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Originally Posted by euromodder
US 4-way stops are amongst the most foolish thing I've ever come across on any road.
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It's downright silly to stop ALL traffic when you could make more than half of it carry on without any problem, while the rest can slow down, but roll through when traffic allows.
The US could save millions of gallons of gas and reduce pollution, by replacing them with priority (on the most travelled road) and yield (on the less used road) signs.
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100% agree!!!!! Endlessly aggravating, both in the car and on the bicycle. In Berkeley they actually started putting in traffic circles with 4-way stops.
WTF!?!?!
The whole point of a traffic circle is it allows all 4 lanes to keep moving while cars merge with side traffic instead of crossing them.