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Comment by lupusreal | Hacker News Reader

This is correct. Laws should reflect the values of the democratic consensus, speed limits included. If almost everybody is traveling at a speed other than the posted speed limit, whether that's faster or slower, that is a strong signal that the speed limit needs to be adjusted. Speed limits should be set such that most people naturally think the limit is a sensible speed to drive anyway.

As it is, speed limits are rarely set to the individual roads specific circumstance according to some sort of scientific or engineering method, instead most speed limits are set to a default speed used for that class of road across the state. As such, it is silly to act like extant speed limits are all correct even when nearly everybody is ignoring the limit on a specific road, evaluating that road's condition for themselves and choosing to drive at another speed.

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> Laws should reflect the values of the democratic consensus, speed limits included. If almost everybody is traveling at a speed other than the posted speed limit, whether that's faster or slower, that is a strong signal that the speed limit needs to be adjusted.

Is democracy only for drivers?

Aren't interstates?

I don't see anything about interstates in your comment. But even roads reserved for motor vehicles have noise and pollution effects on people who don't use them. Plus, passengers exist.

So if most people keep speeding past the elementary school and kindergarten, we should raise the speed limit on that street?

These are objectively endangered places. A highway in the middle of nowhere, with reasonably well maintained roads and even terrain however?

Sure, but the parent comment didn't leave any room for nuance or considerations, instead broadly stating:

> Laws should reflect the values of the democratic consensus, speed limits included.

Maybe they considered the nuance to be something obvious, but their statement is still flawed. The funny thing about nuance is that most nuance isn't visible to the naked eye and requires some degree of familiarity or expertise to observe. And that degree is why we shouldn't be assigning speed limits based on what the average driver thinks is appropriate for a given road, as more likely than not (much more likely than not) they don't have the necessary context to make an appropriate judgement.

Most people don't drive past schools at excessive speeds. The speed limit should be set such that most people are naturally inclined to drive at that speed anyway, given the context of that stretch of road, not set to the fastest speed which outlier maniacs drive at.

The speed limit should be set given the context of what should be safe for the area with the road, and the road design should encourage drivers to drive at that speed.

If its a stretch of road where we don't want cars going more than 30mph, we should set the speed limit at 30mph and design the road, so people tend to go about that speed. Not have a stretch of road where we want people to go 30, build a road people feel comfortable driving 55 in, and then decide "welp, nothing we can do, just change the speed limit I guess."

If almost everyone is going a speed other than the speed limit I'd agree something should be done. But it's quite a leap to suggest the thing that should always be done is to change the speed limit. Maybe the roads should be restructured and add traffic calming. Maybe through traffic should be encouraged to use an alternate route. It's not like speed limits are the only lever one can use.

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