Not in the way you think. If you're going 55 because it's the speed limit, but everyone else is going 70, you're the most likely driver to cause a collision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve
Let's assume people are going at a speed that the road is designed to handle, since that's usually the case. In that situation, the behavior you're calling out as unsafe is simply "going faster". Now, in a technical sense that's true, but it's always true. Going faster reduces safety when you're above the speed limit. Going faster reduces safety when you're at the speed limit. Going faster reduces safety when you're below the speed limit.
If you reduce safety to black and white, then you should always go slower, until you're barely moving. If the speed limit is 40, that doesn't magically make it safe to go 40.
Black and white thinking leads to a bad conclusion, so let's add nuance back in. Speed is dangerous but roads are designed to let you go a certain speed while minimizing the danger. You're not being dangerous until you go over that speed. And that speed is almost always higher than the speed limit, especially in good weather.
Going over the speed limit is not itself a problem. It's going over the design speed of the road that's a problem.
Let's not, because most of the speeding I see is from people who very mistakenly think they know what speed the road's designed to handle, because they don't give a crap about pedestrians, bicyclists, visibility, other vehicles, or really, anything but getting to the next red light faster.
Perhaps you drive in a utopia that's solely populated by traffic architects, but here in the real world, it's populated by normal people, many of whom are bad drivers, and bad judges of road safety, but are really good at hitting the gas.
Our high death rates reflect this.
I drive in an area that has a lot of overbuilt roads, and I don't think that's a very uncommon situation.
> they don't give a crap about pedestrians, bicyclists, visibility, other vehicles, or really, anything but getting to the next red light faster
That's very dangerous even if you strictly follow the speed limit. It's a separate problem.
A sign doesn’t really change behaviour but narrowing roads , separated bike lanes, pedestrian controlled crossings, roundabouts, and generally making the road “feel slower” does
My point is that until the road is narrowed, the safe speed on it may be lower than the average backseat traffic architect might think.
Want to know what any arbitrary driver on a road has as a reference for “the design speed of the road”? The posted speed limit.
I’m not saying their argument is right or wrong, but just that this post isn’t nuanced or convincing.
There is a link there, that refers to lots of scientific research. From almost a century ago to almost today, and in a huge amount of agreement.
Do you have more nuance than that?
A few mph over the speed limit in dry weather is rarely outside the design.
And I think I have a reasonable amount of nuance. If you don't have nuance you get "the sign can't be wrong" or "always go slower". The former is objectively not true, and I've never seen anyone seriously advocate for the latter.
Laws were put in place because people are not in fact qualified to make these assessments.
The only nuance here is that you are not required to go the speed limit at all, you can and should go only as fast as the conditions allow.
who gives a shit who is at fault when they're in an accident?
the goal is to avoid the event all together, not to have a scapegoat.
If everyone gets over at the first opportunity, then things go fine. The empty lane isn't wasted, it absorbs brief bursts in traffic that need more time to get over. But even if it was wasted, that wouldn't be a big deal. A 5-mile long section with fewer lanes and a 5.5-mile long section with fewer lanes will have almost the same throughput.
Everyone staying split across two lanes until the end and aligning themselves to do a clean zipper merge also goes fine.
What makes everything go wrong is when people drive down the nice empty lane that's ending and intend to do a normal merge at the end, but they don't start it early enough. Then everything slows down as they squeeze over.
You mean the people who must get past every single car and merge at the last possible second?
What I often see if a lane that intended to go through and a turning lane that is backed up; people pretend to be on through lane, then stop to merge at last minute into long turning lane and void the line.
Not sure why did you link it.
All that said. If you cannot maneuver safely around drivers going the speed limit then they are not the problem.