Speed limits: Is faster safer?

[ZX600]

That would require actual boots on the ground though, and as someone in the commercial industry who spends more time going in reverse every year than some people drive forwards, trust me, that's lacking.

I run the stretch of Hwy 7 between Peterborough and Ottawa 5 times a week. It's a total free for all. I set my truck at 90 (after receiving a ticket for 102 in an 80 a few years ago) and people loose their mind driving behind me. I've seen people risk (and almost get involved in) head on collisions to pass me and then roar off into the distance at what is very clearly 110, 120+...in an 80 zone.

Perhaps once a month I see police enforcement in the form of clear speed trap setups. I pass cruisers a few times a week and have witnessed people blowing past them (and sometimes mashing on the brakes at the last second) at well over the limits and nothing happens.

Ditto much of the 401.

and the fact that people are losing their minds driving at a speed they perceive to be well below their safe treshold gives you no indication that the speed limit in that stretch is way too low?

And the fact that people are making unsafe paces in order to pass you also does not give you a clear indication that if they raised the speed limit in that spot and you were able to drive your truck faster without been penalized it would make it a lot SAFER for everyone and would eliminate most of those unsafe passes?

... just saying!

 

[ZX600]

So the truck that drove beside me while I was going 125 must be a ghost truck? There are regulations and then there are going around them.

There are no heavy commercial trucks without the limiter. Even out of province / country trucks must adhere before crossing into Ontario.

Again, this is a waste of my time to argue, let's believe the government and their argument for keeping the current speed limits, after all, when have the lied to us?

 

[Brian P]

Germany (and the rest of Europe) limits commercial trucks and buses, and vehicles towing trailers, to 100 km/h and generally in the right lane only on motorways. It doesn't seem to be much of a traffic problem for these vehicles to be going slower than the lighter vehicles. It's not like you can't see them well before you come up behind them.

Plenty of US states have different speed limits for heavy trucks.

Rural roads are usually 55 mph (90 km/h) in the USA and either 90 or 100 km/h in Europe. The aforementioned highway 7 ought to be 100 km/h ...

 

[Shaman]

So the truck that drove beside me while I was going 125 must be a ghost truck? There are regulations and then there are going around them.

Again, this is a waste of my time to argue, let's believe the government and their argument for keeping the current speed limits, after all, when have the lied to us?

The very IDEA! Must be a terrorist. Won't someone think of the children?

 

[PrivatePilot]

and the fact that people are losing their minds driving at a speed they perceive to be well below their safe treshold gives you no indication that the speed limit in that stretch is way too low?

When it comes to being behind a truck some people loose their minds no matter what speed you're going. I could be doing 100 (and have in that stretch, before I got the ticket) and people would still lose it behind me...just because they're of the mentality that they can't be behind someone. You have no idea how often people freak out to pass us guys, get in front, and then slow down.

If the speed limit was 120 in this same stretch and I was doing 130, people would loose their **** behind me and want to do 140. It never ends.

Honestly, until you spend a day or two in our jobs...you really have NO idea. I've been at it for 20 years come next March.

So the truck that drove beside me while I was going 125 must be a ghost truck? There are regulations and then there are going around them.

Going downhill? Momentum? Lots of things to remember when you weigh 80,000# or more.

If he was doing 125 on the flats, with all due respect, call the OPP and report it. They WILL come and pull the truck over and fine the company and driver for not adhering to the law, and as a driver myself, I have no issue with that - we are all have to play by the rules and I have no tolerance for those who don't feel they don't apply to them. Then again, there's lots of those sorts of people here on this forum....so I suspect this will incite yet another disagreement.

 

[GunZ McGraw]

.....

 

[dricked]

So we bump the speed limit up to 130km/h, people will do 140-150km/h. With the speed limit at 100km/h people can barely get up to speed on the on ramps now so what happens when we're traveling another 30-50km/h in the right lane? And getting off the highway people can't judge a corner properly so increase the speeds and watch everyone blow the off ramps.

The average person can barely operate a vehicle at the current limit.

 

[ZX600]

So we bump the speed limit up to 130km/h, people will do 140-150km/h. With the speed limit at 100km/h people can barely get up to speed on the on ramps now so what happens when we're traveling another 30-50km/h in the right lane? And getting off the highway people can't judge a corner properly so increase the speeds and watch everyone blow the off ramps.

The average person can barely operate a vehicle at the current limit.

It has been factually demonstrated that when speed limits are increased by let's say 20% does not equal people starting to drive 20% faster.

You are not increasing the speed people drive at, you are making legal the speed 80% of people already drive at.

The study conducted on the link said that the average speed on the 401 is already over 120km/hr.

People drive at what they perceive is safe and not at what the speed limit is.

Majority of drivers speed

To find out how effective current speed limits are, Marketplace tracked drivers on North America's busiest highway, the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway, better known as the 401. Speed data was collected near Oshawa and Bowmanville, just east of Toronto, over a three-day period.
The test was modelled on Ontario Ministry of Transportation methods and analyzed by a highway traffic engineer.
The test revealed that, under normal conditions, more than 75 per cent of drivers travel above the 100 km/hr limit, with many drivers going 120 km/h.
Marketplace also analyzed the traffic data for the 85 percentile, a measure used by engineers and provincial authorities to assess speed patterns, and one of the tools used to establish safe speed limits.
The number represents the speed that 85 per cent of drivers travel at or below.

“We don’t want to be increasing people’s speeds. We simply want to legalize current speeds and current driving practices,” says Chris Klimek, founder of Stop 100, an organization that advocates for higher speed limits in Ontario.

Stone says if most drivers are speeding, then the speed limit is not effective and should change.
"There's no point in having a sign on the side of the road with a posted speed that drivers are not actually obeying," says Stone from the B.C. transportation ministry. "You want to make sure that your speed limits are in alignment with what 85 per cent of the traffic is doing."
According to the Marketplace test, the 85 percentile on the 401 was between 113 and 126 km/h under normal driving conditions, which means that 85 per cent of drivers were travelling at that speed or below.
Chris Klimek, founder of Stop 100, an organization that advocates for higher speed limits in Ontario, wants the province to recognize the speed at which people are actually driving, and raise the speed limit on major highways to between 120 km/h and 130 km/h.
"We don't want to be increasing people's speeds. We simply want to legalize current speeds and current driving practices," says Klimek.
"We have one of the best highway systems," Klimek says. "It's a shame that we are posting such a low speed limit and criminalize safe driving."

According to the B.C. provincial government, a year after the province implemented higher speed limits, most people aren't driving faster. The 85 percentile remained unchanged on roads affected by the new speeds.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/t...d-limit-on-canada-s-busiest-highway-1.3280254

 

[nakkers]

Speed kills. We should lower the speed limit to 30 km per hr on the highways.

What is safer? How about speed limits that adjust for road conditions? Weather, traffic, etc.






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Baggsy]

This would be true if people were mostly hitting trees or static objects, but accidents occur mostly between 2 moving vehicles where if one is doing 80 and the other 120 there will be more damage than if both vehicles that crashed traveled at 120 km/hr.

Let's all be real, our current speed limit is not for safety, is for revenue collection.

But we are Canadian, so we are just going to take it and think what the Ontario Minister is saying is actually true and completely ignore the studies other provinces have done before they increased their limits.

Isn't it lucky then that most people ARE hitting trees and static objects.
Check out table 3.4 on page 3 of the Ontario Road Safety Annual Report here:
http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/publications/pdfs/preliminary-2013-orsar-selected-statistics.pdf

 

[conundrum]

I run the stretch of Hwy 7 between Peterborough and Ottawa 5 times a week. It's a total free for all. I set my truck at 90 (after receiving a ticket for 102 in an 80 a few years ago) and people loose their mind driving behind me. I've seen people risk (and almost get involved in) head on collisions to pass me and then roar off into the distance at what is very clearly 110, 120+...in an 80 zone.

I rode that same stretch this summer to visit friends in Ottawa, and noticed the same thing. Since I didn't want to deal with any potential radar traps, I tried to keep close to the limit, to slightly over. What happened was many times, I was overtaken by cars doing what must have been 130, 140, or 150+ on that same section of road. I hate the 35 for the same reason, as I got a ticket a number of years back for speeding on a small section of that road. I won't lie...it irks me when I have to ride or drive at least 90km/h (which is 10 over) to not cause a backlog from behind...yet if I speed up to what I feel is safe (and the other drives behind me do), then I'm food for any traps ahead. All I could do is shake my head at how 'important' getting to their destination quickly must be...as well as how stupid it is for that section of road to be 80km/h.

Also reminds me of a ride I was on a few weeks back where one guy at the back got tagged for 20 over...middle of nowhere road with zero traffic, but apparently it was a 60...

Essentially, lots of speed laws in Ontario do not make sense. Like the Marketplace article above, if most drivers are going above the speed limit, then there is something wrong with the limit in that area. The only place that should not hold true is residential and school zones, since there is always the risk of a kid, or some other pedestrian on the road. I highly doubt we'll see people running out in front of vehicles on the 400 series, or on barren roads up north. I also challenge anyone who commutes on the 401 daily to say they always drive or ride 100km/h or slower...it's not the reality of the road, yet if a cop wants to they can pull you over for 25 over at 125....even if you are only doing 5km/h more than every other car around you.

 

[Brian P]

Isn't it lucky then that most people ARE hitting trees and static objects.
Check out table 3.4 on page 3 of the Ontario Road Safety Annual Report here:
http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/publications/pdfs/preliminary-2013-orsar-selected-statistics.pdf

But arbitrarily low speed limits don't fix this and can make it worse ... by lengthening trip times while causing people to get bored out of their minds. And that's IF the arbitrarily low speed limit actually slowed people down. The evidence has been that in general people go the speed they are comfortable going, almost without regards to the actual speed limit. And the other phenomenon is that if LOTS of speed limits are perceived as being too low, it essentially causes general disrespect of speed limits - people more or less stop paying attention to them. I would suggest that this is the situation in Ontario already. Slightly higher speed limits, but which make sense for the road conditions without exception, may actually encourage people to follow them.

Speed kills. We should lower the speed limit to 30 km per hr on the highways.

What is safer? How about speed limits that adjust for road conditions? Weather, traffic, etc.

The speed limit is meant to be an UPPER limit. You don't HAVE TO drive at the speed limit (or faster). You are perfectly free to use your own judgement to drive SLOWER than the speed limit if due to weather or traffic or the vehicle you are driving.

Germany has many sections of autobahn with variable speed limits (displayed on an overhead LED display board - and we already have those in much of the GTA that could be used for doing that if we wanted to). I saw the variable limit as low as 80 km/h ... and that was in torrential rain, and it really did make sense for those conditions; I sure didn't feel like doing much more than that. The variable limit has to make sense for conditions for people to follow it - and my observation over there is that generally it does. Open free flowing conditions and not approaching a junction - No speed limit. Approaching a junction - 120. Other side of the junction - Cancellation (i.e. no speed limit). Bad weather - 120, or 100, or 80, depending on visibility. Approaching a traffic jam / collision / construction (the whole thing is monitored by cameras, so they know!) - the speed limit steps down as you approach the slowdown so that one isn't caught by surprise.

 

[conundrum]

The one thing I don't understand about the autobahn is the left to pass thing...in theory it makes sense, but you need to stay left if you are going much faster than everyone else...say they are doing 120km/h and you want to do 200km/h. But say you do that, and someone comes up from behind at 280km/h...couldn't they just slam into you if they aren't paying attention? Reaction time is only so good once you get to stupid speeds above 200...

 

[PrivatePilot]

It has been factually demonstrated that when speed limits are increased by let's say 20% does not equal people starting to drive 20% faster.

You are not increasing the speed people drive at, you are making legal the speed 80% of people already drive at.

'

By that logic we need not waste any money changing all the signs on the 401 then...because everyone is already basically driving 20% over (120) and when was the last time you ever saw someone get pulled over for driving 120 on the 401?

Yeah, never. Hell, the cops PASS you if you're driving 115-120. Get in the middle or right lane and mind your business, and as long as you weren't driving like an arse to begin so as to have attracted attention they'll not even bat an eye at you.

But I guarantee you if you increased it to 120 a large percentage of the population will interpret that as an invitation to push that to 140. If the logic is that the "hard enforcement" line will move to 120 if the limit is increased to 120 (and the 20 over buffer will no longer be tolerated as it so clearly is now), then again, this all seems like a lesson in wasting a few million dollars changing all the signs on the 401 for absolutely nothing.

I rode that same stretch this summer to visit friends in Ottawa, and noticed the same thing. Since I didn't want to deal with any potential radar traps, I tried to keep close to the limit, to slightly over. What happened was many times, I was overtaken by cars doing what must have been 130, 140, or 150+

...

if most drivers are going above the speed limit, then there is something wrong with the limit in that area.

I think you backed yourself into a corner there though. A lot of vehicles drive ridiculous speeds (yes, as you've mentioned, I've seen 130+ on sections of Highway 7 on occasion), but I don't buy the logic that just because some arsebags think that it's safe that it's suggestive of the fact that the speed limit isn't realistic.

As someone else mentioned in this thread, a lot of people can't drive safely or effectively at the speed limits we have...courtesy of our piss-poor licensing system in this province, so saying "Because some choose to drive 130 in what's currently an 80 zone, perhaps it should be a 120 zone instead" doesn't work - only a percentage of those blowing the speed limit like that actually have the skills to be operating their vehicles at that speed. I've seen plenty of accidents in that stretch too, almost all of which were clearly speed related.

FWIW, I do think the speed limit could be increased to 90 or even 100 on certain sections of Highway 7 that is very clearly improved to the point it would handle it, but two problems - many sections are not improved, and on those that are...the safety equipment (guardrails and such mainly) that are required for higher speed highways don't exist.

 

[Brian P]

The one thing I don't understand about the autobahn is the left to pass thing...in theory it makes sense, but you need to stay left if you are going much faster than everyone else...say they are doing 120km/h and you want to do 200km/h. But say you do that, and someone comes up from behind at 280km/h...couldn't they just slam into you if they aren't paying attention? Reaction time is only so good once you get to stupid speeds above 200...

Easy, "pay attention". Goes for everyone involved.

Keep right except to pass -> means you go to the right lane whenever possible, even if you are going 200. If there is slower traffic visible up ahead AND there is no one even faster coming up behind, by all means signal left and go left and overtake the slower traffic. If there is slower traffic up ahead AND there is someone even faster coming up in the left lane, you slow down for the slower traffic and let the faster one by and THEN signal left and overtake the slower traffic. If someone going even faster comes up behind you while you are already in the left lane then they have to slow down but YOU have to signal right and move right and get out of their way at the next possible opportunity. It is really not that hard. "Pay attention" - Situational awareness - is fundamental to the process. If you can't handle it then stay in the right lane ...

FWIW there are not really all that many really fast movers on the autobahn. There is the occasional Porsche or high end Mercedes or BMW or some bikes, that is really moving. For every one of those there is at least 10 of: VW Golf non-turbo diesel, Opel Corsa 1.0, Ford Mondeo towing a trailer that is bigger than the car (100 km/h max when towing and right lane only), Sprinter van 4-cyl diesel, Renault Twingo, Fiat Panda 1.2, etc. Of course all those are pedal to the metal whenever possible but that's not saying much. The general flow of normal traffic on the autobahn is 120 - 140 km/h and the recommended speed (even in unrestricted sections) is 130 km/h, i.e. not really all THAT much different from here, despite our 100 km/h limit that is lower than anywhere on comparable roads in europe ...

The funniest thing I saw on the autobahn, and it was during the aforementioned torrential rain storm, was a Citroen 2CV towing a trailer ... Definitely far right lane material!

 

[Brian P]

But I guarantee you if you increased it to 120 a large percentage of the population will interpret that as an invitation to push that to 140. If the logic is that the "hard enforcement" line will move to 120 if the limit is increased to 120 (and the 20 over buffer will no longer be tolerated as it so clearly is now), then again, this all seems like a lesson in wasting a few million dollars changing all the signs on the 401 for absolutely nothing.

Actual experience in other jurisdictions does not bear this out. The actual speed that people drive, changes little.

Autobahn ... unrestricted ... 120 - 140 km/h general traffic flow.

 

[PrivatePilot]

Autobahn ... unrestricted ... 120 - 140 km/h general traffic flow.

And far better and vastly more educated drivers, based on everything I've ever read. Europeans laugh at our licencing system.

Better more educated drivers can safely drive faster, and as mentioned, are typically more aware of what's going on around them.

On the 401 we get the hopelessly clueless. How many times have we all come across these types of drivers?

- The fast lane hog oblivious of the fact that there's a 1K lineup of traffic going mad behind them.

- The guy in the middle lane who's had his signal lights on for 20K, his rear wiper on (on a sunny hot day with not a cloud in the sky) for the last hour, and is oblivious to the fact people are passing him on both sides because he's only doing 95 and he really should be in the right lane.

- The "deathgrip on the steering wheel mortified to be on the 401 and scared to move a muscle" driver.

- The onramp panic stopper. Wow, traffic sure is going fast, I'd better stop and wait for a huge break and only them will I putter down and merge at 40KPH! Why is everyone behind me blowing their horn at me?

- The offramp "I'll start decelerating in the right hand lane 2 kilometers before the actual offramp" guy.

- The "I can't maintain a speed guy". I see this guy daily on highway 7 - 90K for a few kilometers, then 70...then 80...then 65...then 90. Oh, try to pass him? 120!

This is daily crap on the 401 and many other roads. A huge majority of our drivers are **** in this province, and honestly, much of north america is the same. Speed limits and enforcement is the only thing keeping a huge percentage of our population from meeting Darwin sooner than they otherwise might.

 

[Baggsy]

Does somebody want to go through the actual math?

If I'm doing 100 kph or less like 25% of people, and can stop with my car or bike a millimetre away from taking off my head going under the jackknifed tractor trailer, that was brake checked, and the guy beside me was passing me at 120 kph, at what speed will he get his head taken off?

My guess is somewhere around 70 kph.

Anyone else want to guess?

Any math or physics wizards around to give us the correct answer?

 

[Brian P]

The correct answer is that you should have seen that tractor-trailer in the process of jackknifing and slowed down, and the guy in the next lane should have done so, as well, so NEITHER of you hit it.

The laws of coefficient of friction etc don't get suspended just because the truck went sideways. Your car/bike with its wheels in line and the brakes active can stop faster than the tractor-trailer in the process of jackknifing can. You still have functional steering when the wheels are still in line with your direction of travel, too.

If there's traffic up ahead and there's brake lights up there ... slow down in preparation for whatever it is!

 

[Brian P]

Do you think the drivers in Utah are any better than those in Ontario? (I think not.)

Average traffic speed on certain roads in Utah did not significantly change when they raised the speed limit to 80 mph.

Do you think the drivers in British Columbia are any better than those in Ontario? (I think not.)

Average traffic speed on certain roads in BC did not significantly change when they raised the speed limit to 120 km/h.

All the stupid behaviors described above aren't affected ... except now, with most drivers actually compliant with the new (raised) speed limits, the cops can set about enforcing right-of-way, and not yapping on the phone, and all manner of other nonsense.

The people who camp in the left lane "I'm going the speed limit, no one has any right to go any faster" can no longer use that excuse ... and the cops can now properly enforce "Keep right except when passing".

On the autobahn, in unrestricted speed zones, the "polizei" are still there ... but they're not enforcing speed; they're enforcing "keep right except to pass" ... and using signals prior to changing lanes (without exception!!).