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Blanket speed limits that are too low are a bad idea. They don't work and lead to mass civil disobedience like we had with the national 55 mph limit. And a 25mph limit will not prevent collisions caused by distracted drivers on their smartphones.
Edit: another point is that most gasoline-powered cars reach peak efficiency at 40mph. The slower you go below 40 causes gas mileage to go down. Forcing everyone to go 25 mph wastes fuel and increases CO2 emissions.
Here in SD they do the studies of average traffic speed and if most people are going over the limit the cops are forbidden to use speed traps. So, lowering speed limits is exactly the opposite of what we want. There is a happy medium where the cops can still use radar and ticket the biggest offenders.
What are some examples of arterial roads that aren't highways?
And examples of highways that aren't arterial roads?
And where to freeways fit in to all this?
And interstate freeways?
Arterial roads aren't highways, correct. You really think arterial roads are freeways or highways?
An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road. The primary function of an arterial road is to deliver traffic from collector roads to freeways or expressways, and between urban centres at the highest level of service possible.
Finally, some good news out of Seattle. Mayor Jenny Durkan, the first openly lesbian mayor, has announced that speed limits, including on arterials, will be lowered to 25 mph. Fatalities this year are at 25, nearly double from last year's 13 total. Seattle Dept. of Transportation in 2015 committed to a goal of zero fatalities by 2030 with its Vision Zero project. Obviously the project has not yet worked, but is making progress with the 25 mph rule.
Britain has long had its "Twenty's Plenty" initiative, which limits speeds to 20 mph in residential areas. It's about time this kind of common sense came to the USA.
I visited in Seattle several times in past years and the traffic grid was the most uncoordinated and the drivers the wildest and worst I've ever seen. But to arbitrarily lower speed limits to the snail's pace of 25 mph, will be unproductive. They paved the street in front of my house and extended it through, to be a connector route. The 25 mph signs are a joke. The typical speeds are around 45 mph and it's common to see 60 mph and higher. The police rarely issue tickets to anyone. Maybe Seattle can double its police force and give commissions to officers for the citations they issue for speeding. That's the only way this new speed limit could be enforced. Imagine how well the police would be liked by the public, if that was enacted.
Does that include the interstate? If it does, completely ignorant.
I already addressed this in an earlier post. How could they change the speed limit on an interstate? They can't do anything with an interstate (Federal).
I visited in Seattle several times in past years and the traffic grid was the most uncoordinated and the drivers the wildest and worst I've ever seen. But to arbitrarily lower speed limits to the snail's pace of 25 mph, will be unproductive. They paved the street in front of my house and extended it through, to be a connector route. The 25 mph signs are a joke. The typical speeds are around 45 mph and it's common to see 60 mph and higher. The police rarely issue tickets to anyone. Maybe Seattle can double its police force and give commissions to officers for the citations they issue for speeding. That's the only way this new speed limit could be enforced. Imagine how well the police would be liked by the public, if that was enacted.
This probably wouldn't work out well without some traffic calming measures put in place. As I posted earlier this would apply to most arterials, but not all of them in the city. I'm not too familiar with Seattle, I have only been there once, but I can say with some assurance that traffic calming measure would need to be applied to the targeted roads. If the roads aren't designed for 25, then people won't go 25.
You can change the year and look at other years, I used 2017 for more data since 2018 was abnormally low.
I was frankly *shocked* because buried wayyyyyy back on page 51 only 15 total fatalities or serious injuries were noted as speed related. Out of roughly 340, that's only 5%.
Over 100 (30% of total) were related to bad driving like illegal turns and distraction.
Seems like the city is picking one of the least noted causes of serious incidents and deciding to hang their hat on it instead of looking at other things.
Anyone that works with data professionally knows that means the selection of what to target is more political than results oriented.
So, tell us more about the great improvement that this will make in Seattle traffic fatalities? I'm not seeing it.
Hopefully motorcycles will be allowed to run our natural speed of 80+..........
Hey, somebody has to donate the organs.
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