Comment 98510

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted March 17, 2014 at 11:35:34 in reply to Comment 98506

It is an excellent point that the police and driver convention accept driving at 120km/h on freeways with a posted speed limit of 100km/h and this encourages people to think that speed limits are just a suggestion, and that it is perfectly okay to drive 10 or 20 km/h over the limit.

The 100km/h limit is clearly too low for a divided limited access freeway, and everyone (even the police) agree tacitly that the real limit is 120 km/h, and you are unlikely to get ticketed in good conditions if you stay below 125km/h. Many drivers go 130 km/h or faster and this wide range of speed is very dangerous.

The speed limits on the freeways should be raised to the "actual" limit of 120km/h (with a limit of 100km/h in bad weather conditions) and strictly enforced. (The speed limit on Autoroutes in France is 130, or 110 in rain or snow.) The speed limit in urban areas should be lowered to 40km/h (like it is in Ancaster) or even lower, to 30km/h in areas with a lot of pedestrians. In western Canada the school zone speed limit is 30km/h. Again, these limits should be strictly enforced, so people don't get the idea that 50 really means 60, as they do now.

And the roads should be re-designed to make driving faster than the legal speed feel uncomfortable in urban areas (narrow lanes, lots of crosswalks, chicanes, bollards etc.).

Remember that there are good engineering safety reasons for lower the urban speed limit to 30km/h and designing roads for this speed: at 30km/h or below a pedestrian who is hit is likely to survive, and the risk of an accident goes down because drivers and pedestrians have much longer times to react.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2014-03-17 11:36:12

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