I'm all for other people driving at the speed limit.
Have your say before it's too late (speed limit)
- Thread starter mxs
- Start date
A large portion of the fatal collisions happen on main arterial roads, not on the dense urban residential roads. A large portion happen mid-block, which means people are short-cutting instead of walking to the next crosswalk (usually at the next intersection).
Reducing the speed limit is not a good solution here. The better solution appears to involve some combination of providing additional, signalized, mid-block crosswalks so that people are less tempted to cross where they shouldn't, and providing engineering solutions to discourage people from crossing where they shouldn't. This could be a fence, but a decorative and continuous line of shrubbery alongside the road can be a more attractive fix.
Plenty of arterial roads already have fence all the way along them, because private driveways aren't entering onto that road. There's less temptation for people to cut across mid-block because they're already going to be walking the full length of that block anyhow because there aren't any driveways.
Good:
https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&l...oid=FCDMb4FcgFKxXtKf2ZNbtQ&cbp=12,211.34,,0,0
Bad:
https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&l...oid=znZdNheH07qwsOfk26AAjg&cbp=12,217.07,,0,0
This view is (as close as I can make it) what a driver sees when exiting a driveway from a plaza (spin your view around and you can see the driveway in question). Directly across ... is a set of steps from that recreation center to the sidewalk. Kids always go down those steps and run across the road to get to the plaza - you can see the worn grass where they do it. If you start a left turn out of that driveway, you are busy looking for traffic in both directions and then the kids step off the curb at the same moment ... it is a recipe for someone to get hit. Only a matter of time. I've had to slam on the brakes mid-left-turn a few times because of pedestrians there.
Bad design of the roadway. A line of shrubbery or trees next to the road on the other side, just far enough to encourage people to cross someplace other than directly across from that driveway, would help a lot.
Reducing the speed limit is not a good solution here. The better solution appears to involve some combination of providing additional, signalized, mid-block crosswalks so that people are less tempted to cross where they shouldn't, and providing engineering solutions to discourage people from crossing where they shouldn't. This could be a fence, but a decorative and continuous line of shrubbery alongside the road can be a more attractive fix.
Plenty of arterial roads already have fence all the way along them, because private driveways aren't entering onto that road. There's less temptation for people to cut across mid-block because they're already going to be walking the full length of that block anyhow because there aren't any driveways.
Good:
https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&l...oid=FCDMb4FcgFKxXtKf2ZNbtQ&cbp=12,211.34,,0,0
Bad:
https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&l...oid=znZdNheH07qwsOfk26AAjg&cbp=12,217.07,,0,0
This view is (as close as I can make it) what a driver sees when exiting a driveway from a plaza (spin your view around and you can see the driveway in question). Directly across ... is a set of steps from that recreation center to the sidewalk. Kids always go down those steps and run across the road to get to the plaza - you can see the worn grass where they do it. If you start a left turn out of that driveway, you are busy looking for traffic in both directions and then the kids step off the curb at the same moment ... it is a recipe for someone to get hit. Only a matter of time. I've had to slam on the brakes mid-left-turn a few times because of pedestrians there.
Bad design of the roadway. A line of shrubbery or trees next to the road on the other side, just far enough to encourage people to cross someplace other than directly across from that driveway, would help a lot.
The universe is not "Old Toronto" where more and more of the roads have that speed limit; most residential roads in the rest of Ontario still are 40 km/hr.
You are unbelievable. It is your attitude and the attitude of others like you that has caused and will continue to cause the reduction of speed limits in Ontario. Roads are not going to be any safer regardless of what the posted speed limits are until you change your attitude and drive to the conditions not "your perceived" abilities.
I can't imagine how much you must freak out when you see the other riders I see every day in the summer that are going 3x as fast as I am, riding on the wrong side of the road, and cutting through traffic with no signals like they're on a race track. I am a fast driver but I am not a crazy driver. I always signal, scan my mirrors constantly, only lane change if I can do so without cutting someone off, etc.
There are much larger problems on our roads than speeding. The problem is speeding gets a bad rep because when something bad does happen higher speeds make them worse. IMO few accidents are actually caused by speeding. It's just harder to avoid them when you're going faster and the damage is worse. Teach people to stop doing things like changing lanes without checking their mirrors or signalling, running red lights and stop signs, turning left from the right lane and right from the left lane, running into traffic, etc and we will have less accidents than we will have from lower speed limits.
How does it take any kind of driving ability to drive 80 kph down a straight road with some houses on the side? The houses don't make your car magically fly off the road. I grew up right beside an 80 kph road and it was fine.
As I have already said lowering of speed limits on our roads has been a misguided attempt to make them safer. It simply has been a reaction by the government to rampant speeding in residential neighbourhoods.
Keep speeding thru residential neighbourhoods and then complain about the speed limits being reduced; the two are related. If you speed where there isn't anyone to see you.....no-one to complain.
If you don't have enough sense to understand that you should be driving/riding to the situation (road, traffic, weather), then there isn't any point that I can make that will change your attitude or anyone else's.
Keep speeding thru residential neighbourhoods and then complain about the speed limits being reduced; the two are related. If you speed where there isn't anyone to see you.....no-one to complain.
If you don't have enough sense to understand that you should be driving/riding to the situation (road, traffic, weather), then there isn't any point that I can make that will change your attitude or anyone else's.
conundrum
Well-known member
Personally I'd even accept a compromise -- Set the limit in actual subdivisions to 40km/h, but raise the limit to 60-70km/h once you exit those subdivisions and are in an area filled with either small businesses or condos. Arguably this would more or less match how people really do drive most of the time.
[rant]This might be a very good thing for anyplace within 100 km of the GTA and expanding,
until all you people learn to drive and use snow tires in winter![/rant]
i just spent a half hour driving behind Torontoians at 30 kmh in a 60 zone; passing lane of course, with three lanes each way. Passing time doesn't count.
it sounds like they're just trying to match the limits with your driving ability.
until all you people learn to drive and use snow tires in winter![/rant]
i just spent a half hour driving behind Torontoians at 30 kmh in a 60 zone; passing lane of course, with three lanes each way. Passing time doesn't count.
it sounds like they're just trying to match the limits with your driving ability.
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